The two leaders reaffirmed the positive bilateral relations shared by their countries and discussed prospects for expanding cooperation. They additionally addressed issues of mutual interest on the international and regional agenda, in particular progress in efforts to promote the integration of Latin America and the Caribbean

(Granma)

The leader held a private meeting with Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, who arrived in the country accompanied by various family members, after a visit to Nicaragua where they attended events commemorating the 36th anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution.

”You are messengers of hope and the dignity of the peoples of Latin America. We have a lot to learn from you. Know that your story will continue inspiring our people to keep the ideas of justice and freedom alive,” stated Sánchez Cerén on receiving the Five.

According to the President, the experience of these men “symbolizes the victory of life over terrorism and death, they are an example of dignity and love for the homeland which fills all Latin Americans with pride.”

Sánchez Cerén also welcomed the new chapter being opened in relations between Cuba and the United States which represents “a sign of understanding and respect for the sovereign equality of states and the people’s right to self-determination.”

Gerardo Her nán dez, speaking on behalf of his compañeros, stated that being able to share with the Salvadoran people “is a triumph of solidarity and unity,” rooted in the fundamental message that “when one perseveres and remains true to their principles, although the victory might be slow in coming, it always arrives and just ideals and loyalty triumph.”
”We, the Five, are of course inspired by the example of resistance and struggle of our people, our Revolution, but we also draw inspiration from the example of struggle, sacrifice and resistance of the Salvadoran people,” he stated.

Participating in the private encounter were First Lady of El Salvador, Margarita Villalta; Minister of Foreign Relations, Hugo Martínez; Presidential secretary for technical issues, Roberto Lorenzana; and Minister of Governance, Franzi Hato Hasbún.

Before the meeting, held at the Presidential Palace, the Five – as they are known – thanked the Salvadoran people for their solidarity and support.
The Five were arrested in 1998 in Miami, where they had been monitoring anti-Cuban terrorist groups, which have killed and injured thousands of people, and caused substantial material damage in Cuba.

In 2001, after a biased trial, full of irregularities, denounced by personalities such as former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, the Five were sentenced to long prison terms.
The struggle for their release sparked a global movement which received support from solidarity organizations including groups from the U.S., governments, personalities such as Nobel Prize winners and international associations, in addition to important sectors of the Salvadoran population.

Of the Five, René González and Fernando González returned to Cuba in 2011 and 2013, respectively, after completing their sentences in full.

The three remaining anti-terrorists were released and returned to Cuba on December 17, 2014, within the context of the initiation of the process toward the re-establishment of diplomatic relations announced by Presidents of Cuba, Raúl Castro, and the United States, Barack Obama, that day.

(Granma)

In interview to Prensa Latina he assured that the beatification is part of a framework of motivations, historical relations, elements of what the Salvadorian government tries to do and of great connotation for the country, Latin America and the world.

From this ceremony-he said- many interpretations con be made because first is the figure of Monsignor Romero, a paradigm in the struggle for peace and the defense of the poor, with very human ideas he defended from an altruistic position and therefore left a legacy. That legacy matches with that of other heroes for the independence, emphasized the Cuban vice president.

‘I think that justice is done when the moment for the beatification of Monsignor Romero comes, he remarked.

He considered that if this event is brought to the level of Cuba and El Salvador relations stands that there are two brother countries who forged a brotherhood and precisely a friendship to share the same struggle for independence.

The beatification has a great significance at this moment, mainly because El Salvador and Cuba face the same historical challenges with the conviction that a better world can be possible, he added.

‘Besides participating in this event carrying a pleasant and warm greeting of Commander in Chief, Fidel Castro, of our president, Army general, Raul Castro and from the Cuban people to the Salvadorian people and government, we, I also feel honored to be representing our country and the Cuban revolution, added ‘Diaz-Canel.

He stressed that this whole context has much to do with the meetings held yesterday with the president, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, and Vice President, Oscar Ortiz, who received him at the Presidential House.

On the other hand, being part of it, there are the possibilities and capabilities of Cuba to cooperate and provide the experience gained in these years of revolution, he explained.

For that reason, he added we came to confirm that they can count on the unconditional support of Cuba in programs, agreements and actions that have worked very intensively with many exchanges at the political level, which now also takes a path to a commercial, economically relationship more stronger and more open.

He stressed that the relationship will be in its peak with the visit of President Sanchez Ceren to Cuba soon, where, he said, he will be welcome in an affectionately and with the love that has always been professed by the Cuban government and people.

Besides being very motivating visit for seeing the affection with which the Cubans are taken into account, also is to live a historic moment in the life of the country and provide a grain cooperation between Cuba and El Salvador, he assured.

Diaz-Canel arrived in El Salvador on Friday afternoon, accompanied by the head of the Office of Attention to Religious Affairs of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, Caridad Diego, and Deputy Foreign Minister, Rogelio Sierra.

(Prensa Latina)

In a brief report, closed at 06:00 local time, the ministry states that only 10 of these phenomena have been felt by the population.

The report notes that the strongest aftershock occurred on Monday with a magnitude of 5.4 degrees on the Richter scale, with no other details.

Experts from the ministry visited the island Mendez, off the coast of Usulutan, where the strong waves that followed the quake caused damage to a turtle hatchery and wounded four people.

According to locals, the force of the water destroyed at least 5200 eggs of a turtle variety known as Pacific ridley, which were planted in two pens on the beach.

The quake struck at 22:37 local time, when about 100 people were involved in the collection and care of the crops of turtle eggs.

p>Latin Americans are not born-criminals nor did they invent drugs.

The Aztecs, Maya and other pre-Columbian human groups in Mexico and Central America, for example, were excellent farmers and didn’t even know about growing coca.

The Quechua and Aymara were capable of producing nutritious foods on perfect terraces that followed the mountain level curves. On the high plateaux that often exceeded three or four thousand metres in altitude, they grew quinua, a cereal rich in protein, and potatoes.

They knew about and also grew the coca plant whose leaves they chewed from time immemorial in order to lessen the ravages of high altitudes. This is an ancient custom that the peoples practiced along with products such as coffee, tobacco, liquor and others.

Coca originated on the steep slopes of the Amazonian Andes. The settlers there knew about it from times that pre-dated the Inca Empire whose territory, at the height of its splendour, stretched over the area covered today by southern Colombia, all of Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, eastern Chile and north-eastern Argentina; it totalled about two million square kilometres.

Consumption of coca leaves became a privilege of the Inca emperors and the nobility at the religious ceremonies.

When the Empire disappeared after the Spanish invasion, their new masters encouraged the traditional habit of chewing leaves in order to prolong the natives’ working hours, a right that lasted until the United Nations Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs prohibited the use of coca leaves other than for medical or scientific purposes.

Almost every country signed it. They hardly discussed any topic regarding health. Cocaine trafficking then was not as huge as it is today. In the years that ensued extremely serious problems have been created that require profound analysis.

On the thorny issue of the relationship between drugs and organized crime, the UN itself delicately states that “Latin America is inefficient in combating the crime.”

Information printed by different institutions varies due to the fact that the matter is a sensitive one. Data at times are so complicated and varied that they might lead to confusion. What we can be absolutely sure of is that the problem is rapidly getting worse.

Almost one and a half months ago, on February 11, 2011, a report published in Mexico City by the Citizen Council for Public Security and Justice of that country, provided interesting data on the 50 most violent cities in the world in terms of the number of murders that occurred in the year 2010. The report states that Mexico has 25% of the cities. For the third year in a row, the number one spot belongs to Ciudad Juárez on the United States border.

It goes on to explain “…that year the Juárez murder rate was 35% higher than that of Qandahar, Afghanistan, number two on the list, and 941 % higher than in Baghdad…”, in other words, almost ten times greater than the capital of Iraq, the city occupying the number 50 spot on the list.

Almost immediately it adds that the city of San Pedro Sula, in Honduras, occupies third spot with 125 murders per 100,000 inhabitants; it is exceeded only by Ciudad Juárez in México, with 229; and Qandahar, Afghanistan,, with 169.

Tegucigalpa, Honduras, occupies the sixth spot with 109 murders per every 100,000 inhabitants.

Thus one can see that Honduras, where the Yankee air base of Palmerola is located, where a coup d’état was produced already during the presidency of Obama, has two of the cities among the six where the most murders are committed in the world. Guatemala City has 106.

According to that report, the Colombian city of Medellín, with 87.42, also rates among the most violent cities in the Americas and the world.

The speech of American President Barack Obama in El Salvador, and his subsequent press conference, led me to the duty of printing these lines on the subject.

In my Reflection of March 21st, I criticized his lack of ethics in not mentioning even the name of Salvador Allende in Chile, a symbol of dignity and courage for the world, a man who died as the result of the coup d’état promoted by a president of the United States.

Since I was aware that on the following day he would be visiting El Salvador, a Central American country that is the symbol of the struggles of the peoples of Our America that has suffered the most as a consequence of US policy in our hemisphere, I said: “There he is going to have to be quite inventive because, in that sister nation in Central America, the weapons and training received from the governments of his country spilt much blood.”

I wished him a good trip and “a bit more good sense.” I have to admit that in his long trek, he was a little more careful in the home stretch.

Monsignor Oscar Arnulfo Romero was a man admired by all Latin Americans, whether they are religious or not, just as the Jesuit priests who were cowardly murdered by the henchmen trained, supported and armed to the teeth by the United States. In El Salvador, the FMLN, a militant leftist organization, fought one of the most heroic struggles on our continent.

The Salvadoran people granted victory to the Party that emerged from the heart of those glorious combatants; it is not yet time to construct their profound story.

What is urgently needed is to face up to the dramatic dilemma El Salvador is living, just as Mexico and the rest of Central and South America.

Obama himself stated that around 2 million Salvadorans are living in the United States; this is equivalent to 30% of that country’s population. The brutal repression unleashed against the patriots, and the systematic pillage of El Salvador imposed by the United States, forced hundreds of thousands of Salvadorans to immigrate to that country.

What is new is that added to the desperate situation of Central Americans is the fabulous power of the terrorist gangs, the sophisticated weapons and the demand for drugs, originating in the US market.

In his brief speech that preceded that of his visitor, the president of El Salvador stated, verbatim: “I insisted to you that the subject of organized crime, narco-activity, citizen insecurity, should not be a subject that only concerns El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras or Nicaragua, and not even Mexico or Colombia; it is a subject that concerns us as a region, and that is why we are working on building a regional strategy, through the CARFI Initiative.”

“…I insisted to you that this is a matter that should not only be dealt with from the viewpoint of persecuting a crime, through the strengthening of our policies and our armies, but also by emphasizing our policies of crime prevention and thus the best weapon to fight crime per se in the region is by investing in social policies.”

In his reply, the American president said: “President Funes is committed to creating more economic opportunities here in El Salvador so that people don’t feel like they have to head north to provide for their families.”

“I know this is especially important to the some 2 million Salvadoran people who are living and working in the United States.”

“…I updated the President on the new consumer protections that I signed into law, which give people more information and make sure their remittances actually reach their loved ones back home.”

“Today, we’re also launching a new effort to confront the narco-traffickers and gangs that have caused so much violence in all of our countries, and especially here in Central America.”

“…, we’ll focus $200 million to support efforts here in the region, including addressing, […] the social and economic forces that drive young people towards criminality. We’ll help strengthen courts, civil society groups and institutions that uphold the rule of law.”

I don’t need one single word more to express the essence of a painfully sad situation.

The reality is that many young people in Central America have been led by imperialism to cross a rigid and ever-more insurmountable border, or to work for the million-dollar gangs of drug traffickers.

Wouldn’t it be fairer – I wonder – to have an Adjustment Act for all Latin Americans? Just like the one they invented to punish Cuba almost half a century ago. Will the number of persons that die crossing the US border keep on growing infinitely along with the tens of thousands already dying each year in the countries where you are offering your Partnership of Equals?

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 25, 2011
8:46 p.m.

Nobody knew when he would arrive to Santiago de Chile and what a president of the United States would do there when one of his predecessors had committed the painful crime of promoting the overthrow and physical death of their heroic president, horrible tortures and the murders of thousands of Chileans.

I for one was trying to follow the news that was coming in about the tragedy in Japan and the brutal war unleashed against Libya while the illustrious visitor was proclaiming the “Partnership of Equals” in the region of the world where wealth is distributed in the worst way.

Among so many things, I lost track a bit and saw nothing of the lavish banquet for hundreds of people being served the delicacies nature offered from the sea. The banquet had been served in a Tokyo restaurant , the city where one can pay up to 300,000 dollars for a fresh blue-fin tuna, they had collected up to 10 million dollars.

That was too much work for a young man of my age.  I wrote a brief Reflection and then went to bed for a long sleep.

This morning I was refreshed. My friend wouldn’t be arriving to El Salvador until after mid-day. I requested the cable dispatches, Internet articles and other recently arrived material.

I saw in the first place that, because of my reflections, the cables had given importance to what I had said about my position as First Party Secretary and I shall explain as briefly as possible. Concentrating on Barack Obama’s “Partnership of Equals” , a matter of so much historical importance – I say that seriously – I didn’t even remember that next month the Party Congress would be taking place.

My position on the subject was basically logical. Once I understood the seriousness of my state of health, I did what I thought, in my opinion, wasn’t necessary when I had that painful accident in Santa Clara; after the fall, treatment was tough, but my life was not in danger.

On the other hand, when I wrote the Proclamation on the 31^st of July it was clear to me that the state of my health was extremely critical.

I immediately set aside all my public duties, adding to the proclamation some instructions to provide security and tranquility for the population.

It wasn’t necessary to specifically step down from each one of my duties.

For me, my most important duty was that of First Party Secretary. Because of ideology and on principle, in a revolutionary stage, that political position carries the highest authority. The other position I held was that of President of the Council of State and Government, elected by the National Assembly. Both posts had replacements, and not by virtue of some family connection, something I have never considered to be the source of right, but due to experience and merit.

The rank of Commander in Chief had been granted me by the struggle itself, a matter of chance more than because of any personal merit. The Revolution itself, in a subsequent stage, correctly designated headship of all armed institutions to the president, a function that in my opinion, ought to fall to the First Party Secretary. I consider that that’s how a country such as Cuba should be, having had to face an obstacle as considerable as the empire created by the United States.

Almost 14 years went by since the previous Party Congress; it coincided with the disappearance of the USSR, the socialist bloc, the Special Period and my own illness.

When gradually and partially my health was recovered, the idea didn’t even cross my mind about the need to proceed formally in order to expressly resign from any position. At that time, I accepted the honour of being elected as Deputy to the National Assembly, something that did not demand my physical presence and with which I might share my ideas.

Since I have more time than ever now to observe, to inform myself and to lay out certain points of view, I shall modestly fulfil my duty to fight for the ideas I have defended throughout my modest life.

I beg readers to forgive the time I have spent in this explanation that above-mentioned circumstances have forced me to undertake.

The most important matter, which I cannot forget, is that rare partnership between millionaires and starving people as proposed by the illustrious President of the United States.

Those who are well-informed, those who know for example, the history of this hemisphere, its battles, or even the history of the Cuban people defending their Revolution against the empire that, as Obama himself acknowledges, “now lasted for longer than I’ve been alive”, will surely be amazed by his proposal.

It is well-known that the current president is a good wordsmith, circumstances that, together with the economical crisis, growing unemployment, losses of homes, and deaths of American soldiers in the stupid wars of Bush, helped him to obtain his victory.

After observing him well, I wouldn’t be surprised that he was the author of the ridiculous name with which the massacre in Libya was baptized – “Odyssey Dawn” – that unsettled the dust of the mortal remains of Homer and those who contributed to the forging of the legend in the famous Greek poems, even though I admit, perhaps, the name was created by the military chiefs who are managing the thousands of nuclear weapons with which a mere command from the Nobel Peace Prize laureate can determine the end of our species.

His speech to whites, blacks, native peoples, mestizos and non-mestizos, religious or non-religious peoples of the Americas delivered in the Palacio de la Moneda Cultural Centre was distributed in a true copy by United States embassies everywhere, and it was translated and spread by Chile TV, CNN, and other broadcasting stations in other languages as I would imagine.

It was in the style of the speech he gave in the first year of his term in Cairo, the capital of his friend and ally Hosni Mubarak, whose tens of billions of dollars taken from the people were supposedly known to a president of the United States.

“…Chile shows that we need not be divided by race […] or ethnic conflict”, he assures us, and thus the American problem was erased from the map.

He obsessively insists almost immediately that “…our marvelous surroundings today, just steps from where Chile lost its democracy decades ago, …” Everything other than saying coup d’état, the murder of the honourable General Schneider, or the glorious name of  Salvador Allende, as if the government of the United States had absolutely nothing to do with it.

The great poet Pablo Neruda, whose death was prompted by the treacherous coup, was quoted more than once, in this case to affirm our beautifully poetic “guiding stars” which are “struggle” and “hope”. Has Obama forgotten that Neruda was a Communist, a friend of the Cuban Revolution, a great admirer of Simon Bolivar who is reborn every hundred years, and inspiration for the Heroic Guerrilla  Ernesto Guevara?

I was admiring Barack Obama’s profound knowledge of history almost from the very beginning of his message.  Some irresponsible advisor forgot to explain to him that Neruda was a member of the Chilean Communist Party.  After a few other insignificant paragraphs, he recognizes that “Now, I know I’m not the first president from the United States to pledge a new spirit of partnership with our Latin American neighbors. Words are easy, and I know that there have been times where perhaps the United States took this region for granted.”

“…Latin America is not the old stereotype of a region – in perpetual conflict or trapped in endless cycles of poverty.”

“In Colombia, great sacrifices by citizens and security forces have restored a level of security not seen in decades.” Over there, there was never any drug trafficking, paramilitary or secret cemeteries.

In his speech, the working class does not exist, nor do landless peasants, or the illiterate, or infant and maternal mortality, people becoming blind, or victims of parasites such as Chaga or bacterial diseases such as cholera.

“From Guadalajara to Santiago to Sao Paolo, a new MIDDLE CLASS is demanding more of themselves and more of their governments”, he states.

“When a coup in Honduras threatened democratic progress, the nations of the hemisphere unanimously invoked the Inter-American Democratic Charter, helping to lay the foundation for the return to the rule of law.”

The real reason for Obama’s marvellous speech is explained in inarguable fashion in the middle of his message and in his own words: “Latin America is only going to become more important to the United States, especially to our economy […] We buy more of your products, more of your goods than any other country, and we invest more in this region than any other country. […] we export more than three times as much to Latin America as we do to China. Our exports to this region — which are growing faster than our exports to the rest of the world — …”. One can perhaps assume from this that “when Latin America is more prosperous, the United States is more prosperous.”

Further on, he dedicates insipid words to real facts:

“But if we’re honest, we’ll also admit that […] progress in the Americas has not come fast enough. Not for the millions who endure the injustice of extreme poverty. Not for the children in shantytowns and the favelas who just want the same chance as everybody else.”

“…political and economic power that is too often concentrated in the hands of the few, instead of serving the many”, he said verbatim.

“…we are not the first generation to face these challenges. Fifty years ago this month, President John F. Kennedy proposed an ambitious Alliance for Progress.”

“President Kennedy’s challenge endures – ‘to build a hemisphere where all people can hope for a sustainable, suitable standard of living, and all can live out their lives in dignity and in freedom.”

It is incredible that he now comes up with such an awkward story, an insult to human intelligence.

He has nothing left other than to mention, among the great calamities, a problem that originates in the colossal US market of lethal weapons: “Criminal gangs and narco-traffickers are not only a threat to the security of our citizens. They’re a threat to development, because they scare away investment that economies need to prosper.  And they are a direct threat to democracy, because they fuel the corruption that rots institutions from within.”

Further on he reluctantly adds: “But we’ll never break the grip of the cartels and the gangs unless we also address the social and economic forces that fuel criminality. We need to reach at-risk youth before they turn to drugs and crime.”

“…as President I’ve made it clear that the United States shares and accepts our share of responsibility for drug violence. After all, the demand for drugs, including in the United States, drives this crisis. And that’s why we’ve developed a new drug control strategy that focused on reducing the demand for drugs through education and prevention and treatment.”

What he doesn’t say is that in Honduras 76 per every 100,000 inhabitants are dying as a result of violence, 19 times higher than in Cuba where practically, despite proximity to the United States, that problem hardly exists.

After a bunch of similar bits of foolishness, about weapons headed for Mexico that are being seized, a Trans-Pacific Partnership, the Inter-American Development bank, with which he says they are increasing the Microfinance Growth Fund for the Americas and promises to create new “Pathways to Prosperity” and other highfalutin terms that he pronounces in English and Spanish, he returns to his outlandish promises of hemispheric unity and he tries to impress his audience with the dangers of climatic changes.

Obama adds: “And if anybody doubts the urgency of climate change, they look — they should look no further than the Americas — from the stronger storms in the Caribbean, to glacier melt in the Andes, to the loss of forests and farmland across the region.” Without the guts to acknowledge that his country is the one most responsible for that tragedy.

He explains that he is proud to announce that “…the United States will work with partners in this region, including the private sector, to increase the number of U.S. students studying in Latin America to 100,000, and the number of Latin America students studying in the United States to 100,000.” We already know how much it costs to study medicine or any other profession in that country, and the shameless brain drain being practiced in the United States.

All his empty words ends with praise for the OAS that Roa described as the Ministry of Yankee Colonies when our Homeland unforgettably made an accusation in the United Nations, informing that the government of the United States had attacked our territory on April 15^th of 1961 with B-26s painted with Cuban flags; a shameless event that in 23 days will be 50 years old.

Thus he believed that everything was completely ready to proclaim the right to subvert law and order in our country.

He openly confesses that they are “allowing Americans to send remittances that bring some economic hope for people across Cuba, as well as more independence from Cuban authorities.”

“…we’ll continue to seek ways to increase the independence of the Cuban people, who I believe are entitled to the same freedom and liberty as everyone else in this hemisphere.”

Later he recognizes that the blockade is damaging Cuba, depriving the economy of resources. Why does he not recognize the intentions of Eisenhower, and the declared United States aim when he applied it was bringing the Cuban people to their knees by hunger?

Why is it still in place? How many billions of dollars does the compensation the US must pay our country come to? Why are they keeping the 5 Cuban anti-terrorist heroes imprisoned? Why aren’t they applying the Adjustment Law to all Latin Americans instead of allowing thousands of them to die or get injured on the border imposed on that country after having stolen more than half of its territory?

I ask the President of the United States to pardon my frankness.

I harbour no hard feelings against him or his people.

I fulfill the duty of laying out all that I think about his “Partnership of Equals”.

The United States will get nothing from creating and stimulating the mercenary profession. I can assure him that the best and most well-educated young people in our country, graduates from the University of Informatics Sciences, know much more about the Internet and computer science than the Nobel laureate and President of the United States.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 22, 2011

9:17 p.m.

Some of his audience was taken aback in that Cultural Centre in Santiago de Chile.

When the president looked anxiously over his audience after mentioning perfidious Cuba, expecting an explosion of applause, there was icy silence.  Behind him, oh, yes! felicitous coincidence! among all the other Latin American flags, there precisely was Cuba’s.

If he were to turn for a second, over his right shoulder he would have seen, like a shadow, the symbol of the Revolution on the rebel Island that his mighty country wanted to destroy, but could not.

Anybody would be, without a doubt, extraordinarily optimistic if they were expecting the peoples of Our America to applaud the 50th anniversary of the mercenary Bay of Pigs invasion, 50 years of cruel economic blockade of a sister country, 50 years of threats and terrorist attacks that cost thousands of lives, 50 years of plans to assassinate the leaders of the historic process.

I heard myself being mentioned in his words.

In truth, I gave my services to the Revolution for a long time, but I never eluded risks nor violated constitutional, ideological or ethical principles; I regret not having better health so that I could carry on serving the Revolution.

I resigned, without hesitation, all my state and political positions, including that of First Secretary of the Party, when I became ill and I never tried to exercise them after the Proclamation of July 31, 2006, even when I partially recovered my health more than a year later, although everyone continued to affectionately address me in that manner.

But I am and shall continue to be as I promised: a soldier of ideas, as long as I can think or breathe.

When they asked Obama about the coup against heroic President Salvador Allende, promoted as many others by the United States, and about the mysterious death of Eduardo Frei Montalva, murdered by agents of DINA, a creation of the American government, he lost his composure and began to stammer.

The commentary on Chilean television at the end of his speech was, without a doubt, accurate when it stated that Obama had nothing to offer the Hemisphere.

As for me, I don’t want to give the impression that I felt any hatred for his person, much less for the people of the United States; I acknowledge the contributions many of its sons and daughters have made to culture and science.

Obama now has before him a trip to El Salvador tomorrow, on Tuesday. There he is going to have to be quite inventive because, in that sister nation in Central America, the weapons and training received from the governments of his country spilt much blood.

I wish him bon voyage and a bit more good sense.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 21, 2011

9:32 p.m.