Fidel Castro: I Feel very Happy Today

Havana, Aug 13 (Prensa Latina) Cuban President Fidel Castro Sunday stated he feels very happy on his birthday and promised he would fight for that health sparking the concern of many people worldwide.

In a message sent to his people and the rest of Cuba's friends, the statesman said his objective stability has considerably improved after the intestinal surgery he underwent.

Assuring that the recovery will not take long and that there are no more risks would be absolutely wrong, he pointed out and exhorted his people and friends to be optimist but prepared for any adverse notice.

To the Cuban people, he asserted, my immense gratitude for their warm support. The country goes and will keep on all right, said Fidel Castro in his message released by the Juventud Rebelde newspaper, which shows his very first photos after the operation, on Sunday.

"Today, August 13, I feel very happy. I promise to all those begging for my health that I will fight for it," he concluded.

Revolution Fulfilling History

By Armando Perez Fernandez

Havana (Prensa Latina) The social and economic progress experienced by Cuba after the Revolution in 1959 could be considered the result of an ideological strategy conceived by Fidel Castro since the historic days of Moncada.

In his self-defense for the Moncada barracks attempt on September 21, 1953, Fidel Castro pronounced his shattering indictment "History will Absolve Me," which later became a political program of the revolution.

Historical but socially transformative, the program was specifically directed towards land, industrialization, housing, unemployment, education and public health. Civil liberties, political democracy and anti-corruption measures were also taken, but the first was the agricultural reform.

This vindicated 85 percent of the threatened small tenant farmers, who now produce 95 percent of the tobacco, 75 percent of the corn and major quantities of beans, pork, coffee, cocoa and vegetables.

The literacy campaign kicked off in 1961 and that same year the country was declared free of illiteracy. But education was generalized and reached even the most remote areas, changing a practical absence of schools to what today is one teacher for every 15 to 20 students.

Audiovisual techniques, higher education and university extensions have resulted in Cuba graduating more than 750 thousand university students, 17 thousand here from developing countries and another 20 thousand pre-med students today.

Good health is no longer for the elite, and life expectancy is at 77 years with infant mortality less than six per thousand live births.

From neighborhood family doctor-assisted primary care to the highest health technologies, Cuban medicine has become one of the fairest and effective in the world.

Economic dependency, low industrialization and unemployment are like dinosaurs on the island's socio-economic panorama.

History will Absolve Me, as ideology and practice, has organized the efforts of an entire people into a true social revolution, now free of the evils criticized by Fidel Castro in his earlier days.

Stable with absolute majority support, even after the fall of the socialist bloc and strengthened US blockade, socialism is the alternative chosen by the Cuban people.

Fidel Castro and the Struggle for Integration

By Javier Rodriguez

Havana (Prensa Latina) The history of Cuban President Fidel Castro shows that the unity of Latin America and the Caribbean has been one of his main worries and endeavors.

The genesis of his struggle can be found initially in the influence of Jose Marti s thinking on the revolutionary movement built upon the guidance of the current Cuban head of State, even long before his triumph.

Jose Marti, a hero of the Cuban struggle for independence, repeatedly criticized the expansionist nature of the then emerging US imperialism, and his work clearly called for the integration of nations, to inhibit regional countries politically and economically surrendering to the powerful neighbor.

The Cuban revolutionary battle against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista (1952-1959) aroused interest in Latin America and the Caribbean, given the impact of the attack on the Moncada Barracks, the landing of the Granma yacht, and the combat in the Sierra Maestra.

Crowning this process with the triumph in January 1959, the integration and solidarity character of this revolution was publicly ratified from the very first statements of the leadership of the country.

My dream is to see Latin America fully united, to be one single force, Fidel Castro told foreign reporters that month, recalling those were the dreams of liberators such as Simon Bolivar.

Later, in Montevideo, Uruguay, he said Americas has its won destiny, its own role, but warned that nations divided will never be able to achieve anything and only through unity will it become a continent sown with riches for the people.

As early as 1963, he had already assured that in the not so distant future Cuba would see its economy united with that of the other Latin American countries, when historic conditions and the process of evolution of the peoples would allow it.

In a comprehensive analysis of the situation, Fidel Castro denounced that the policy of the powerful countries was to appropriate cheap raw material belonging to the regional nations and transform it into manufactured products to sell later at a high price.

Besides, they keep the peoples divided so they will always be weak and never be able to occupy an honorable place in the international arena, he noted.

The struggle against that situation became a cornerstone of the government policy and strategies abroad, both in its activity at international forums and in solidarity programs carried forward with other states.

Irrespective of the fierce US economic and commercial blockade, Cuba was able to develop education, health and other fields, and committed to progress in integration agreements to bring these advances at the service of other peoples.

Cuban experts and technicians joined with nations of the region to jointly work on projects targeting the quality of life of the most underprivileged of Latin America.

Strategies to eliminate illiteracy through Cuba’s Yo si puedo (I Can Do It) system were successful in Venezuela and are being implemented in Bolivia and other countries.

Medical assistance to the poorest populations in Latin America is complemented with the training of thousands of doctors whose main task is to help their compatriots and renounce private payment for their services.

Tens of thousands of patients with eye afflictions or vision problems have been operated on free of charge by Cuban doctors, who are currently working with Venezuelan and Bolivian colleagues in a campaign of huge humanitarian scope.

Cooperation between Cuba and Venezuela led to the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas, for a without-border integration of the entire continent, counterpoint to the US-pushed annexationist Free Trade Area of the Americas.

Addressing the recent Southern Common Market Summit (MERCOSUR), Fidel Castro pointed to the responsibility of the more powerful economic nations in this region of the continent to help the rest achieve a true integration..

Much is able to be done with the appropriate utilization of resources, people and solidarity, he told the MERCOSUR heads State and Government.

Truly, Fidel Castro has been loyal to his thinking, and his perennial action augured the new path lying open to Latin America and the Caribbean.

Fidel Castro, Economic Wisdom Allied with the Poor

By Luis Melian

Havana (Prensa Latina) The foreign debt crisis, unequal trade, growing poverty, all the great problems tackled by President Fidel Castro are an expression of economic inspiration committed to the hopes of the neediest of the world.

His frequent analyses of these themes, sending messages of warning at times, as well reveal a visionary power in the leader whose reflections turn on these and many other questions.

Of these, it is worth mentioning financial speculation, the deterioration of the environment, and consumerism, most of which remain unbridled although dating back decades.

One example of this is the foreign debt crisis which, although there is less talk of this today, remains a worrying issue, especially for the underdeveloped world.

In the 80s the phrase ¢ the foreign debt is unpayable ¢ gained force as never before due to the situation confronting the largest economies of Latin America, among others, extensively analyzed in meetings in Havana.

Today this warning is as valid as it was then.

The initiatives presently announced as the great solution to alleviate the burden of the poor debtor nations only confirms the conclusion reached 20 years ago.

The reduction and selective forgiveness of debts, always conditioned on regulations set by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, among other great creditors, reaffirms the unpayable nature of these debts, which despite all continue growing.

It is sufficient to recall that, according to the World Bank, in 1980 the debt of the underdeveloped countries totaled 580 billion dollars and, 20 years later, is around 2.4 trillion dollars.

Unequal trade figures as one of the great obstacles for the hopes for a better future for poor nations.

The unjust commercial ends that prejudice the small economies so much have been amply boarded by President Fidel Castro in practically every international forum.

At the 50th anniversary of the founding of the World Trade Organization, the Cuban leader’s message was very precise. His is vision then about the international socio-economic reality also continues on target:

Third World countries have been losing everything: tariffs that protected their newborn industries and generated investments, agreements on basic products, associations of producers, price indexing, preferential treatments, any instrument that could protect the value of their exports and contribute to their development.

The recent Doha Round fiasco that logically weakens the future of word trade, explains it all.

These negotiations were launched initially as a development round, but the results still to be reached- demonstrate the opposite.

The positions of the United States and the European Union’s over all on the agricultural subsidy theme as an expression of protectionism- ruined the forces and hopes of many. Final balance: everything stayed the same or worse for the undeveloped world.

These two problems alone the growing foreign debt and unequal trade- feed one of the principal scourges afflicting humanity today: poverty.

In this age of Space and Internet, more than 20 percent of the world’s population live on less than a dollar a day. This reality and others associated with it have been denounced repeatedly by President Fidel Castro.

His analyses and discussions of such are normally accompanied by abundant statistics and reflections on other themes, such as weapons build up, criticized as a waste of resources that could have been better used to combat the aforementioned scourge.

The proposals of the Cuban head of State to confront this situation are well known and little by little have acquired space in the international arena.

Cuba continues loyal to its position that the Third World foreign debt is unpayable and insists on fulfillment of rich countries official aid to development, but the sum is a great deal less than the promised 0.7 percent of the GDP.

It likewise defends a fair trade as a necessary condition for development, pleads for reduction of money spent on the arms race and promotes the fight against the deterioration of the environment, among other initiatives..

But concrete actions taken for the most essential transcend the pronouncements.

In spite of its economic limitations, the Island has boosted South-South cooperation with programs like the literacy campaigns in Latin American and Caribbean countries and the Operation Miracle initiative to better the vision of the most ignored.

These are only examples of a great humanism. And this is, above all, the economic thought of Fidel Castro.

Good News: Fidel Castro Recovers

Havana, Aug 12 (Prensa Latina) Cubans and the world received a good piece of news on Saturday: President Fidel Castro recovers like the emblematic "caguairan" tree.

A friend told Granma newspaper that he had visited the revolutionary leader a few hours ago to briefly discuss some affairs, and enthusiastically summarized his visit in one phrase: "The 'caguairan' got up".

The visitor saw that the Cuban leader, after receiving physiotherapy, walked in the room and then, sitting in a rocking chair, talked animatedly.

Our friend saw the president, animated and on his feet, as someone who anticipates new victories, as strong as the "caguairan" tree, Granma says.

President Fidel Castro delegated temporarily his responsibilities as head of the State, the Government, the Communist Party and the Revolutionary Armed Forces to Raul Castro, after undergoing surgery due to intestinal bleeding.

Messages from all over the world, from heads of State and Government, from organizations, personalities and the Cuban people, have wished Fidel Castro to get well soon.

Fidel Castro: Science and Independence

By Manuel Vazquez

Havana, Aug 12 (Prensa Latina) Accustomed to overcome the impossible in the construction of their future, almost nothing amazed Cubans in the 1960s.

However, when just a year after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution, President Fidel Castro referred to the Island’s future as a nation of intellectuals, many were impressed by his endless optimism.

"The future of our homeland," he said at the time, "has to be necessarily a future of men of science, it has to be a future of men of thought, because that is precisely what we are planting; what we are mostly planting are opportunities for intelligence."

The amazing thing about this statement was the context: a country that at the time was running out of doctors and other professionals because of the brain drain orchestrated from Washington, and whose people still suffered from the scourge of illiteracy.

From that time it was clear to the Cuban leader how, according to what he said 40 years later, "one of the factors that make the great difference between the developed world and the developing world, a determining element of that huge difference, is science".

Based on that vision of the world, and under his leadership, the Revolution has embarked, since the beginning, in a carefully-structured program to instruct and develop intelligence, a process that began with a mass and unprecedented literacy campaign.

At the time, one of the biggest steps taken in the formation of a scientific foundation in the country was the creation, by virtue of a Presidential Resolution signed by Fidel Castro on July 1, 1965, of the National Center for Scientific Research (CNIC).

In 39 years, that institution has graduated more than 20,000 specialists in a wide range of scientific fields.

Since then, other large research centers have been created, including those for Agricultural Health, Immunoassay and Pharmaceutical Chemistry, all of which have earned great international prestige.

Years later, when the world began talking about the biotechnology revolution, Fidel Castro himself fostered the creation of a biological front to achieve excellence in the most advanced fields of biomedicine.

Little by little, the Center of Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology, the Finlay Institute (vaccines) and the Molecular Immunology Institute, among others, were built in western Havana.

Those centers have created unique products in the world, like the meningococcal vaccine (VA-MENGOC-BC), which has saved thousands of children in Asia, Africa and Latin America who, otherwise, would have been affected by meningococcal meningitis (type B).

Other fronts, such as the informatics, studied by thousands of university students, are proof of the country s achievements in creating men of science as predicted by the Cuban leader in January 1960.

But the Cuban president, who will be 80 years old on August 13, has never slept on laurels.

So, in the 1990s, he explained how the strategy at the time was to "spread research throughout the country, to set everyone to research, to experiment, to reason, to innovate".

"It is a true revolution within the concepts of scientific research," he explained, "and hundreds of thousands of people are participating in this, hundreds of thousands!"

For example, he said on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Academy of Sciences of Cuba, in the sphere of health, "we have many good hospitals, excellent medical teams, with their laboratories, their equipment, and what we are promoting is research in all hospitals."

Nearly half a century after Fidel Castro, with a visionary attitude, discerned that Cuba’s future was indissolubly linked to intellect, scientific development is no less important.

Now (.), he said at the worst moment of the economic crisis the country faced in the late 20th century, "the preservation of this country’s independence depends today, mainly, on science and technology".

(Prensa Latina)

Standing Tall as a Caguairán

After visiting President Fidel Castro a few hours ago in order to quickly discuss some matters with him, a friend shared with Granma the good news that he had witnessed, and which he summed up with one phrase: "The Caguairán stood up."

In the eastern region of Cuba, where Fidel was born, Caguairán is the name given to a tree that has the hardest, most resistant wood. In the western part of the island, the tree is known as "quiebra hacha", or ax breaker, due its resistance.

The friend said he saw how after receiving physiotherapy the head of the Cuban Revolution walked around the room, and later, sitting in a rocking chair, conversed in a lively manner.

Like the emblematic Cuban tree, towering, tough, resistant, meant for long lasting endeavors, our friend saw the Commander, cheerful and upright, as if anticipating new victories, standing firm like the Caguairán.

(Granma) 12-08-2006

Unforgettable Afternoon among Brothers.