Articles of Reflections by Fidel

It is not too difficult. After taking office, Barack Obama said that the decision to return the territory occupied by the Guantánamo Naval Base to its legitimate owner requires weighing up the extent to which the defensive capacity of the United States would be or not in the least affected.

This past Tuesday January 20, 2009, Barack Obama took on the leadership of the empire as the 11th President of the United States since the victory of the Cuban Revolution on January 1959.

We talked for 40 minutes. It was an intense and interesting dialogue; just as I expected. She is a person of deep convictions. There was no debate. When she spoke at the Auditorium of the University of Havana, she was quick to answer the students’ questions showing her talent and her capacity.

Can the capitalist society avoid it? News about this issue are far from encouraging. The project to be submitted for approva December next year in Copenhagen, where the new Convention that will replace Kyoto’s will be discussed and approved, is being currently analyzed at Poznan.

The Order of the Caribbean Community is an immense and undeserved honour, which I deeply appreciate.

Following Obama’s speech, on May 23 this year, to the Cuban American National Foundation established by Ronald Reagan, I wrote a reflection entitled “The Empire’s Hypocritical Policy”. It was dated on the 25th of the same month.

Although it may sound simple, it is a very difficult subject to explain. The U.S. Federal Reserve system, resulting from a fully developing capitalism, was established in 1913. Salvador Allende, a man we remember as someone of our times, was already 15 years old.

The last few months have seen amazing changes and new situations. The Yankees have launched their illegal actions on South Osetia and Abkhazia, two countries that have nothing to do with Georgia, which has been armed to the teeth by the United States. This was the country that encouraged and trained the men, and supplied the weapons, to attack the Russian forces legally there to prevent the ongoing bloodshed, an event recognized by the international community and waiting to be resolved. Meanwhile, two thousand Georgian mercenaries who had been taking part in the infamous Yankee war of conquest for oil were moved form Iraq to reinforce the attacking force.

Who can doubt it? Observers from all parts and varying shades have attended the elections in Venezuela on November 23, 2007. They have reported with absolute freedom. The oligarchy cried out like mad to the world the coarse slander that the extension of the voting hours at the polling stations, giving the citizens the possibility to cast their vote, was intended to commit fraud, even though the National Election Council had previously decided to do so and had announced it.

As if there were not enough reasons to go mad, the proliferation of acronyms related to the crisis is such that one can hardly understand them. The first was the G20, a selected group meeting in Washington that pretended to represent all. The second was the also selective APEC group which met in Lima. There was the richest country, the United States; this is number one, with a per capita GDP of 45 thousand dollars a year. But there was also the number 100 country, the People’s Republic of China, with a per capita GDP of 2,483 dollars; this is also the number one investor in US Treasure bonds.