BY LAZARO BARREDO MEDINA

• IT is not surprising that W. Bush has returned to his recurring discourse on Cuba and the transition. "I believe that the change from Fidel Castro ought to give rise to a period of democratic transition," he said two days ago during a press conference in Rwanda, as part of his tour of five African nations.

For the Cuban people, this is a worn-out discourse. The United States has concentrated its attacks on Cuba with the personalization of the revolutionary process and thus conceals in a sibylline manner the real objective that inspires it: destroying the Cuban revolution.

Under Bush, there has been great enthusiasm for the idea. They began to describe his "transition" proposal as "peaceful", and shortly afterwards removed the adjective to the discourse and began affirming the need to accelerate the process.

Some of the principle representatives of the U.S. administration have been very direct in their meetings with the Miami mafia, by defining the process as "swift political transition".

Roger Noriega, Dan Fisk, Otto Reich and certain others have publicly confessed, with no shame whatsoever, the interventionist proposals that inspire the Bush Plan through the supposition of the "transition".

"We need to do everything we can to guarantee that it will be "a successful democratic transition, or rather a succession" within the dictatorship. This is the objective of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba."

"We must be prepared to be active and decisive when this day finally comes in order to bring to an end, once and for all, to all the vestiges of Castro’s corrupt regime".

"In order to initiate the transition, the principal obstacle must be removed (the figure of Fidel Castro) and we believe that the transition could happen at any time and we have to be prepared to act swiftly and guarantee that (…) the cronies of the regime do not take control…"

Another of these people’s projections has been the so-called public diplomacy and working for the internationalization of aggression through an increase in direct efforts with governments of third countries who are willing to apply a firm and dynamic policy to support a "transition" in Cuba.

What structural changes or transition did Cuba have to make after January 1, 1959?

Who can forget that the most radical revolutionary laws and measures that completely modified the foundations of our state were adopted with the approval of the vast majority of the population?

There is probably no other case in history in which a revolution and its leadership have counted on such mass support, in an age characterized by profound, radical, and accelerated changes, and at the same time confronting themselves with the colossal force of U.S. aggression for half a century.

The revolutionary state rescued the national wealth for the whole nation, from the hands of imperialists and exploiters of all kinds; eliminated unemployment and opened up sources of work for all; brought an end to illiteracy and placed free education within reach of everyone, with full social equity; guaranteed for the first time medical attention and hospital care free-of-charge for the whole population; popularized and increased cultural channels; developed sport and something else that was the most significant: organized the people, gave them weapons, and taught them how to use those weapons to defend themselves.

The Revolution has assumed authentic motivations, ethical and moral values and principles to move the majority of Cubans towards a sovereign participation by its citizens in the most important issues in society.

That is not to say that we are satisfied, not at all, and that even in the democratic order we have to work to reach a higher stage, but no one can deny that for the first time in our national history, the social majorities were able to express themselves as political majorities.

If we made that transition 50 years ago, what are they then proposing today that would not be a return to the past, to another half a century of neo-colonialism with irreversible damage: losing our identity?

We cannot ignore that the Helms-Burton Act and the Bush Plan deliberately determine faculties so that the president of the United States has the power to "certify" the government that our country should have.

This is the high price that we pay for defiance; this is the merit that they can never remove from Fidel, the one who re-founded a free and sovereign nation and sowed in the minds of various generations a love of liberty and justice; and who never accepted that anyone could attempt to break our pride and national identity and come here with impositions of how we should be and what we have to do so that the United States satisfies its obsession.

Granma 21-02-2008