Important meetings take place at such a frantic pace and
Bush flies around and speaks at such speed that it is almost
impossible to keep track. En route to Sydney, he stopped
over for a few hours in Iraq, no less. I can’t say whether
this happened two or three days ago, because when it's
Thursday in Sydney and the sun is almost at high noon over
the land, it’s still Wednesday in Havana with its fresh
night air. The globalized planet Earth changes and
transforms our concepts. Only one reality remains
unchanged: the Empire’s network of air, sea, land and space
military bases, increasingly more powerful and at the same
time more vulnerable.
We don’t need to go into any special efforts of
persuasion. Let us allow the U.S. news agency to speak for
itlself.
“SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - President Bush urged Pacific
Rim nations Wednesday to band together on tackling global
warming, saying (China and) all major polluters must be part
of any solution…
“Bush backed an Australian proposal that Asia-Pacific
countries [APEC] endorse a new […] approach to the […]
challenge of climate change – one that unlike the current
Kyoto Protocol (which both the US and Australia refused to
sign) would require firmer action by China and other
developing countries."
“For there to be an effective climate change policy,
China needs to be at the table,” Bush said at a news
conference with Australian Prime Minister John Howard. Bush
and Howard issued a joint statement that supported nuclear
energy, new technologies and lots of dialogue to find a way
forward on global warming.”
“About 300 protesters, many of them high school students
on a walkout to protest against Bush, the Iraq war and
Howard’s support for both, staged a […] demonstration…”
“According to reports, the draft of the final
declaration to be released by the Summit next weekend makes
brief mention of the climate change problem. AP obtained a
copy of the draft on Wednesday.”
The paragraphs in quotation marks have been taken
literally from the press dispatch. Other traditional
international agencies affirm this in more or less detail.
However, this is not the only news coming from the
unstoppable deluge of Bush’s words.
For example, the DPA Agency informs that Bush sketched
out some guidelines in Sydney about what must be done in
Myanmar, the former British colony of Burma, having 678,500
square kilometers and a population of 42,909,464.
“Sydney, 5 Sept/07 (DPA) – President Bush of the United
States today harshly criticized the military junta of
Myanmar (former Burma) and called on the leaders
participating this weekend at the APEC Summit in the
Australian city of Sydney to do the same.
“It's inexcusable that we have this kind of tyrannical
behavior in Asia. It's inexcusable that people who have
marched for freedom are then mistreated by a repressive
state,” he stated today
in his first public declarations following his arrival in
Sydney before taking part in the APEC Summit.
“The US President was referring to the violent
repression of protests which took place in Myanmar at the
end of August. ‘And those of us
who live in the comfort of a free society need to speak out
about these kinds of human rights abuses,' Bush
emphasized.”
It is well-known that in Iraq around a million people
have died and two million have been forced to emigrate since
the country was invaded by the troops of the United States
and its allies, the Australians among them. Neither of
these two countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, with the
permanent representatives of their governments becoming
rarae avis at the United Nations, where the rejection is
practically unanimous. Likewise, we know that Blair’s
replacement has planned the withdrawal of British troops
from Iraq. In those three countries, naturally including
the United States and Australia, there is a growing
resistance to the Iraq adventure, to which today we can add
the Afghanistan adventure. In this country, the fields have
been planted with poppies which will enable them to produce
ninety percent of all of the world’s opium.
In Afghanistan, a country with a tradition of
independence and rebellion, such a phenomenon had never
occurred. It is coming up now under foreign occupation. Most
of its inhabitants, 84 percent, are Sunni Muslim. The
soldiers and weapons of the United States and its NATO
allies kill women and children there every day. As if that
were not enough, Bush has threatened to return Pakistan to
the Stone Age. He has labeled the Guardians of the
Revolution terrorists; this is a contingent of millions of
men closely associated with the Iranian army. At the same
time, he is strongly pressuring the Prime Minister of Iraq,
who has been kept in power up until the present by the
invading forces, using the same excuse of fighting against
terrorism.
Let us allow everyone to meditate on the atrocious
actions of the repressive governments which the United
States trained for Latin America during decades in the US
academies of torturers, and the role of drugs supported by
the markets of the empire’s consumer society. That is the
kind of democracy W preaches to APEC. All bearing the US
brand name and patent.
They would like to punish Myanmar the same way they
have been punishing Cuba. Why don’t they create for them an
Adjustment Act so that their emigrants who are qualified
nurses, doctors, engineers and persons capable of producing
capital gains for the multinationals will have the right to
reside in the United States?
This reflection is getting very long and I have to
conclude.
Since in our country every institution or important
event is celebrating yet another year of life, five, ten and
even fifty or more, I take advantage of this opportunity to
share the glory of the people of Cienfuegos, who two days
ago celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the marines’
revolt at the Cayo Loco Naval District Headquarters, lead by
the July 26 Movement, and that of the creation of the
Computer Youth Clubs, whose 20th anniversary will
be celebrated tomorrow, on Saturday. I send to all my
warmest congratulations.
Fidel Castro Ruz
September 7, 2007
6:14 p.m.
