FIDEL: Once Again, the Rotten OAS

[magbana]

Reflections by Comrade Fidel

ONCE AGAIN, THE ROTTEN OAS

Yesterday the German cable service DPA revealed that the ICHR of the
OAS approved a report pointing out that Cuba "continued to
transgress" on fundamental rights by keeping "restrictions" on the
population's political and civil rights, while at the same time
continuing to be the "only" country in the region where there is
absolutely no freedom of expression.

Is there really an ICHR within that rotten institution? Yes, there
is, I answer myself. And just what is its mission? To judge the human
rights situation in the OAS member countries. Is the U.S. a member of
that institution? Yes, it is one of the most honorable members. Has
it ever condemned the government of the United States? No, not ever.
Not even the crimes of genocide that Bush committed, exacting the
lives of millions of people? No! Never! How could it commit that
injustice? Not even the tortures at the Guantanamo Base? As far as we
know, not one single word.

On the Internet we obtained a copy of the agreement against Cuba.
It’s pure rubbish. It is dedicated to counterrevolutionary gossiping.
It is long, in the style of those State Department documents, the
political paradigm and head of the OAS. How right Roa was when he
called it the Yankee Ministry of Colonies!

We could ask that shameless institution: if we were expelled from the
OAS for proclaiming our convictions and we are not members of that
institution, what right do they have to pass judgment on us? Would
the OAS do likewise with the Peoples' Republic of China, Vietnam or
other countries who, like Cuba, have proclaimed their allegiance to
Marxist-Leninist principles?

The OAS should know that for a while now we are not part of that
church, nor do we share in its teachings. We start from different
positions. If we speak of freedom of expression, we must remind it
that in our country we do not recognize private ownership of the
media. It was always the owners of these media who decided what was
to be written and who would be doing the writing, what would be
broadcast or not, what would be shown and what would not. Illiterate
and semi-literate people cannot do it, and for hundreds of years,
while colonialism reigned and the capitalist system was developing
since the invention of the printing press, four-fifths of the
population could neither read nor write and there was no free and
public education system.

The modern media have changed all that. Today, through huge
investments alone one can have centers which broadcast the news
throughout the planet and only those who direct them decide what is
broadcast and how it is broadcast, what is printed and how it is
printed.

The efforts made by the Pentagon to monopolize information and the
Internet networks are obvious. Our own country is blocked from access
to those sources. It would be better that the ICHR accounts to the
world the resources that its bureaucracy is spending on stupidities,
instead of analyzing these realities and informing Latin American
countries about the very serious dangers threatening the freedom of
expression of all the peoples of the world.

To question Cuba's role in this area, it would have to start with the
outright recognition that this has been the nation which has done the
most for education, science and culture among all the peoples of the
planet, and that its example is followed today by other revolutionary
and progressive governments. If they have any doubt whatsoever, let
them ask the United Nations.

In this hemisphere, the poor never had freedom of expression because
they never received quality education and knowledge was reserved
solely for the privileged and bourgeois elite. Don't blame Venezuela
now, which has done so much for education since the Bolivarian
revolution, or the Republic of Haiti, crushed by poverty, diseases
and natural catastrophes, as if any of these were ideal conditions
for the freedom of expression proclaimed by the OAS. Do what Cuba is
doing: first help to massively train quality healthcare personnel and
send revolutionary doctors to the most remote corners of the country
so that they may contribute to the saving of lives, and transmit to
them educational programs and experiences; insist that the financial
institutions of the developed and rich world send resources to build
schools, train teachers, produce medicines, develop their agriculture
and industries, and then talk about the rights of Man.

Fidel Castro Ruz
May 8, 2009
12:14 p.m.

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WALTER LIPPMANN
Los Angeles, California
Editor-in-Chief, CubaNews
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraíso bajo el bloqueo"
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