Gerardo Peñalver Portal was received at the Nội Bài international airport by Le Cộng Tien, deputy director general for the Americas of the Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and Cuban ambassador Orlando Hernández Guillén.

The delegation headed by Peñalver Portal will hold interviews with high-ranking Vietnamese officials, will share with members of the friendship association, with Cubans residing in the Indochinese country, and will visit centers of historical-cultural interest in the cities of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh.

The First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Cuba makes his first tour of the Indochina region, after being appointed in December 2021. The tour, which also includes the countries of Cambodia and Laos, will take place from August 28 to September 7.

Vietnam is the first stop on this work trip, where, according to the Cuban diplomat, they will ratify the exemplary ties of brotherhood, comprehensive cooperation and political trust between both countries, forged by the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, and the legendary Vietnamese revolutionary Ho Chi Minh.

The extensive work program will allow exchanges, after two years of the covid-19 pandemic, with “three friendly countries” on the bilateral agenda and international issues of common interest, said the Cuban diplomat.

(Con información de Embacuba Vietnam/Cubaminrex)

They say that they were obliged to have all their children procreated, because between the precepts of religions and the cost of an interruption of pregnancy, not even thinking about an abortion.

They say that in a family when deciding the children who would go to school, the boys were chosen, because the females were needed in the house.

They say that working women represented 17 percent of the active labor population and received a significantly lower salary than men for a similar job.

They say that there was no woman in Parliament, and -among many other truths- that prostitution was a consequence of the economic and social environment of the so-called “weaker sex”.

After 1959, when the triumphant Revolution began to make decisions, the lives of Cuban women took a 180-degree turn, and for some 360.

Just one year after the revolutionary victory, on August 23, 1960, the Federation of Cuban Women, FMC, was created, led by a young woman who had broken with almost all the molds in which they tried to put women.

It was Vilma Espín Guillois, an educated woman, a university student, a warrior against the government dictatorship on the plains and in the mountains. That lady dressed as a soldier to defend all Cubans, and especially women, one of the most oppressed sectors of society.

Since its inception, the women’s organization had the unconditional support of the highest levels of government, where surely not a few, with important responsibilities, doubted the ability of women to assume the roles performed by men.

They were also limited to the role of “housewife” and according to research at the time, women were the majority among the more than 800,000 illiterate people at that time.

Then job offers began to open up for women, courses in home economics, cutting and sewing, the opportunity to become literate, to become a university student, appeared, all without paying a penny.

Currently, according to the 2020 Yearbook, 2021 edition, of the National Statistics and Information Office (ONEI), women represent 39.3 percent of the country’s economically active population, of which the majority work in Public Health and Social Assistance and Education, with 357 thousand and 325 thousand workers, respectively.

Today, Cuba is the second of the five countries in the world that reach the gender parity classification in Parliament.

According to a report recently released by the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU), the five nations that achieve gender parity or a higher proportion of women in their lower or single chamber in 2022 are: Rwanda (61.3%), Cuba (53 .4%) and Nicaragua (51.7%) that occupy the first three positions, respectively; while Mexico (50%) and the United Arab Emirates (50%) share the fourth seat, at the end of June this year.

Since 1960, the year in which the organization known as FMC emerged, it was affirmed that for women in Cuba, a Revolution was taking place within the Revolution, and so it was, it was clearly seen how, step by step, the female sector was advancing, without displacing the men, but shoulder to shoulder with them.

As we have already said, there was the hand of Vilma Espín presiding over the FMC, a hand shaken and supported by the leader Fidel Castro, who in his efforts to remove the yoke from the enslaved, distinguished and defended women.

Fidel was not unaware of the smallest detail of women’s domestic life, in one of his speeches in 1960 he stated: “We must also study all the problems of Cuban women, we must study the problems of women who have to work and have nowhere to leave their children. Until now the creches are insufficient”

And the Children’s Circles, the semi-boarding schools, the internal scholarships, and other modalities arose to facilitate the education and feeding of the children, while their mothers worked.

In short, the opportunity of the right to life, to health, to education, to employment, to technical and cultural improvement, to access to management positions, to vote, to elect and be elected, was opened to women. to protect their reproductive and sexual rights, and family planning, among others.

It is not idle to remember that in 1961 the first Night Schools for Improvement for Domestics were created (fundamentally referring to the so-called “maids” who worked in domestic service), in which women received classes from literacy to sixth grade, with classrooms for cutting and sewing, shorthand and typing.

A motoring course began with 1,440 female students, contributed to Popular Transport with more than 1,000 drivers; and the special course for office work, which began with 1,100 students, employed 1,078 girls in bank agencies, ministries and state-owned companies.

That is why the first years of changes, prostitution was eradicated. The census that was being carried out in the Literacy Campaign was used to census women and other people in prostitution centers. Many stated their desire to learn a trade to work and get out of that “life”, others were offered schools to train them; all received a medical check-up with free treatment.

“Before the revolutionary triumph, tens of thousands of women were in this terrible situation, prostituted because of the economic situation. We thought that eradicating prostitution was going to be a long and difficult task. So it was a surprise for everyone that it disappeared as a social evil in less than two years,” Fidel said in a speech.

62 years have passed, and the world is no longer the same, nor are Cuban women, even today severe limitations are detected due to the reproduction of traditional models of behavior in all sectors, which are transmitted through formal and informal education, which is valid to measure attitudes in the modification of codes, relations between genders, and their social projection. This shows that, despite the structural and subjective barriers in gender relations being broken down, other subjective obstacles still remain that hinder integration.

But if we women see what we were, what we meant then and we look at ourselves today, the difference is enormous.

For those who are unaware of the trajectory of Cuban women, who did not take advantage of their history classes, did not have good teachers, or did not receive true women’s traditions from their families, it is impossible to assess what the Revolution has meant for Cuban women.

Sometimes we hear young people and not so young people say that in this country they don’t have opportunities, etc. etc. etc., and we think they are unfair, but they are not. They are ignorant of the history of their country, or have lost their memory among so many ups and downs experienced by this people where the woman -despite EVERYTHING- continues to carry the load and the reins of the home, she continues to be the rudder, the trunk, the family guide.

If we put any woman of our ancestry on one side and place ourselves on the other, we would have to say without fear of being wrong: Thank you Fidel, Thank you Vilma, for having made us people capable of deciding our destinies, for or against. , but whatever decision we make, we owe it to you.

(By Susana Tesoro/Cubadebate)

Por: Yurina Piñeiro Jiménez, Ismael Francisco

Ayer algunos decidieron homenajear al Comandante abrazando la ciudad de Matanzas. Kcho con su arte, Gerardo con su tropa en el barrio, Popi con sus valientes de escafandra en el lugar del siniestro…

“El mejor lugar para estar un 13 de agosto, -por la demostración de unidad, solidaridad y otros principios que nos enseñó Fidel- precisamente era Matanzas y por eso estamos aquí”, dijo ayer Kcho en el Taller de Lolo donde junto a obras de artistas contemporáneos dedicadas al Comandante estaban unos dibujos que realizaron los niños para honrar a los bomberos que participaron en la extinción del incendio en la Base de Supertanqueros.

Un día después de extinguido el fuego, en la Atenas de Cuba la tranquilidad de saber que ya no peligran vidas humanas unido al calor hogareño, les alivia un poco las quemaduras a muchos de los héroes de casco rojo o amarillo y les permite traer a la luz a otros titanes anónimos.

Ayer cuando Dilan escuchaba el reconocimiento del miembro del Consejo de Estado y coordinador de los Comités de Defensa de la Revolución, Gerardo Hernández Nordelo, hacia él y los otros rescatistas vecinos del consejo popular Peñas Altas, el joven aclaró quién era el verdadero superhéroe de su grupo.

“Yo quisiera que también se homenajeara a un hombre que no es rescatista ni bombero, pero de no ser por él que nos esperó a todos y se mantuvo allí a pesar del peligro cuando aquel tanque explotó, hoy ninguno de nosotros estaríamos aquí. Es él, el chofer de la guagua”.

No solo se compartió la gloria, sino también el sentir por los compañeros ausentes, aquellos que perecieron en el intento de apagar el volcán de llamas en los almacenes de combustible o los que no pudieron sobrevivir a las marcas del fuego en sus cuerpos.

Un minuto de silencio, unos rostros contrictos, las palabras de una mujer entrecortadas por la emoción; esa fue la manera de acompañar a los familiares allí presentes de algunos de los desaparecidos.

Y vaya si les ganó de nuevo. Apenas una semana antes de cumplir los 96 años de nacido, y cuando ya lleva más de un lustro ausente, su nombre volvió a levantarse como el monumento que expresamente prohibió que se le hiciera.

Cubanos de todas las edades que salieron a batirse con una catástrofe accidental sin pensar en los riesgos, llevaban su nombre en los labios y lo citaban como si estuviera de cuerpo presente.

Se le ha querido culpar de todo lo que nos falta (tecnología, insumos, mercadería, lujo…), es decir, cosas, muchas, infinitas cosas, que de tanto faltarnos casi nos matan. Pero su nombre no suena entonces sino cuando se habla de todo lo que nos lega (salud, educación, cultura, ciencia, conciencia, coraje, unidad), que es casi todo lo que nos salva.

Atrapados en la enfermiza obsesión de matar y vencer a un enemigo con el que no pueden ni después de muerto –y muerto cuando él quiso y no cuando ellos quisieron–, los creadores de aquel lapidario designio para una era, sin ellos saberlo, también levantan monumentos a la memoria de Fidel, constantemente.

Lo hacen cada vez que hablan del régimen Castro-Canel, como si no pudieran decir Cuba sin zafarse del apellido de los dos hermanos que derrotaron la leyenda bíblica de Abel y Caín, hasta convertirse en símbolo de su reverso.

O como si reconocieran el espíritu de los Castro en todo lo que el nuevo liderazgo del país hace con más pasión que recursos, casi milagrosamente.

Ay, nuestros adversarios de afuera, ignorantes y prepotentes, fatal mezcla que no los deja ver. Ay, nuestros adversarios de adentro, ignorantes y sometidos, ridícula mezcla que no los deja ser.

Lo mejor de la era pos-Castro es que lleva muchos apellidos y una diversidad tremenda de genes. Blancos, mulatos y negros, mujeres y hombres, jóvenes y viejos. Profesionales, obreros, intelectuales, artistas, deportistas, campesinos, empresarios, cuentapropistas, inversionistas extranjeros y hasta ¡emigrados! de todas las épocas.

Fidel solía decir también que la política era un juego de ajedrez de 500 piezas. No tengo la menor duda de que su jugada más brillante fue plantar la unidad como destino ineluctable en “la era pos-Castro”. Jaque Mate.

She wears the same eyes and sometimes the smile gives her away more than the surnames, although Guevara is Guevara and comes from the very southern cone, from the roots of a continent.

At sixty years of age, Aleida – Che’s doctor, pediatrician and daughter – says that she inherited a love for photography from the guerrilla commander and clarifies, raising her index finger, that her brother Camilo is a better photographer than she. As her father called her, Aliucha is proud of her insularity, of a country that Ernesto Guevara loved like her own, where she made a Revolution and a family. From here the commander would have to leave, leaving her loved ones, because “other lands of the world demanded the assistance of her modest efforts.”

- This October 3 marks the 55th anniversary of Che’s farewell letter . How did you feel the first time you read it, especially when he says “I don’t leave my children and my wife anything material and it doesn’t make me sad: I’m glad it is so”?

The first time I heard it, it was very small and it struck me because I also saw my mother on television with my uncle Fidel who was reading that letter. I didn’t quite understand what it was about, but my mom was crying. She always educated us in the idea that we could be children of a very special man, but for that reason we should not receive anything special. The Revolution would give us what we need to develop as human beings, period. They have asked me in Argentina and various places “what my dad left me” and they give me fits of laughter because he had nothing material to leave behind, only his example.

- At one point in the farewell letter to Fidel, Che states: “I am also proud to have followed you without hesitation, identified with your way of thinking and seeing and appreciating the dangers and principles. How similar and, at the same time, different, were Ernesto Guevara and the Commander in Chief?

From a human point of view they are very similar. Che learns to respect Fidel as a true military leader, especially during his time in prison in Mexico. They all got freedom except for my father and another colleague because they are branded as communists and pro-Soviet. Fidel told me that anecdote years later: “I went to discuss with your father in jail because I had warned them not to say their political condition, but there I realized that Che did not know how to lie, not even if his life depended on him. that”. The Commander could have left on the Granma yacht without him, and he didn’t. He managed to get Daddy released and they left together for Cuba.

Che and Fidel, together with little Aleida. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee.

–The letter is written as if Che knew that it was probable that he would never return …

All the guerrillas have to prepare this terrain and create awareness that it can happen. The bullets have no name. He says it in the letter: that the truth hit them all because in a true Revolution, either you win or you die. There is no other. His dream was a free, independent, united America, as one nation.

- When Che left Cuba, you were barely 4 and a half years old. What image with your father do you remember, do you have intact in your memory?

Two images. One is in my mom’s room. She has my brother Ernesto, a newborn, leaning on her shoulder and my dad is behind him, dressed in military clothing, with a very large hand touching the baby’s head. She is doing it with such tenderness that that moment is forever engraved on me. At that moment he had to have thought many things: “Will this little boy recognize me one day? Will he understand why I will not be by his side when he grows up? …” Perhaps in those thoughts lies the greatness of my father. Not all human beings have that strength and it must always be respected.

“And the other image is when he transforms into Ramón and welcomes us. My mother takes us to see a friend of my father, “old Ramón”, in a safe house in Pinar del Río. When we go to dinner he serves red wine on its own, but Daddy usually drank it with water. There I jumped like a spring and said: ‘you are not my father’s friend’ and I explained that Daddy drank red wine with water. I went to the end of the table where he was sitting and poured the water into his glass because ‘that’s how he was rich.’ Mommy says the man was excited about it.

“Afterwards, the four brothers continued playing and I slipped and hit my head on a marble table. Then ‘old Ramón’ took me in his arms, he felt me ​​immediately, and I felt something that was not normal for me: a strange man, who would protect me like this? Then I spoke to my mother because I had to tell her a secret and I told her in full voice: ‘Mom, I think this man is in love with me.

“A long time later my mother told me that this man was my father, but it still had to be kept a secret. I grew up with the feeling that my dad loved me, they weren’t just papers, letters, they were gestures, feelings, because a child doesn’t lie. When a child feels these things it is for real ”.

–You tell in the documentary Absence Present that Che kissed her very hard …

Daddy squeezed me while he kissed me and that made me wake up. I got a little scared of the dark because I was looking at a guy I hardly saw, at night and giving me those squeezes … On one of her trips, Mommy tells her that in a book there is a story about a little lion that accompanies a child with fear until the little one gains strength and the lion leaves because the child loses his fear. She explains to him that I have received that reading very well. So one of my dad’s few expenses is buying me a stuffed lion.

-He was an austere man …

My father? Tremendously. And with good reason. He was leaving in the name of a people that did not have, as we say, where to tie the goat. How was he going to spend money on us? That was not logical, but also, he did not have time either. He traveled with the minutes counted and participated in one activity after another. Going to a store to buy something from us was impossible. However, Daddy buys me the little lion and it was extraordinary for me because my stuffed animal always accompanied me and I gradually lost my fear of the dark. And already in her last trips she brings me a doll.

–In his farewell letter to his children, Che tells them: “Always be capable of feeling deeply any injustice committed against anyone in any part of the world. It is the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary ”. Has Aleida Guevara taken it with her?

Most of us Cubans have taken it with one. At this point it pains me a little that our doctors do not talk about him because generations of Cuban doctors have been educated with the example of Che. He is the first revolutionary doctor. When I was studying the last year of Medicine, Fidel brought us together and suggested that Nicaragua needed doctors, the Sandinista Revolution had just triumphed, and he asked us how many of us wanted to do the internationalist internship. A lot of boys between 22 and 23 years old went there.

“Then the threat against that country begins and Fidel decides to get all the women out of there. We discussed that at one point because I felt I was failing my teammates. We were all together. Why are we leaving? It didn’t seem fair to me. I remember saying, ‘Man, don’t hurt me. I consider myself your daughter, and when the generals send their troops the first must be their children. ‘ Then, in the few things that Fidel wrote to me, he said: ‘I can never hurt you. Do not think that. It’s just to protect them. ‘ Then I go to Moa, in Holguín ”.

-From Managua to Moa …

Tremendous change. At that time, Moa was one of the richest cities in Cuba from an industrial point of view, but poorer in terms of social structure. This looked like an American West. I had several confrontations in Moa because, unfortunately, we as human beings tend to settle, sometimes in a certain position, to only receive the benefits, but not to give the sacrifices that a public position in this country entails. And I lived those things there, and they cost me my tears. But it is my country, and I am not silent about anything.

“After a year I return to Havana and the request for missions arrives again. I went to the Ministry of Public Health, I introduced myself as a doctor at the ‘Pedro Borrás’ hospital and they told me that Angola was where I should go. There I said: ‘No, I just left Nicaragua at war and Angola is my turn, at war!’ But I accepted. I remember I was leaving on October 6th, hear this: October 6th! When I got home my mom almost had seizures that day. She shut herself up to cry. But she had taught me to be socially useful.
Angola: “The two hardest years of my life”

“I have been working with children with tuberculosis. I remember Celson. I will never forget. He was waiting for me at the door of the tuberculosis ward and I tied the cloth around my back and gave him a walk around the perimeter of the hospital. Celson was happy with that. I remember that the director of the center, a Portuguese pichon, told me insulted that I was making fun. I replied: ‘You are wrong. Look at that kid’s face. Don’t you see her happy? For me that is the most important thing and what I need to face one day in this hospital: Celson’s smile. You can’t take it from me. ‘

“I remember another boy who slept in a naked doorway under some newspapers with which he covered himself. That day I was the guard in the building, and our boss kicked a bundle of papers and from there the boy came out. He got up, folded the newspapers, and tucked them under his arm. Look, boy, I still can’t talk about it. It was such a pain that I went upstairs and took off the olive green sweater I was wearing and it was hot. I went downstairs, called him and put it on him. That little boy looked at me and said ‘dad’.

“I tried to help him, I took him to the shelters, but he ran away again. Until he didn’t come back anymore. That is why I think that it is not possible that some people do not feel the enormous privilege we have of being Cubans and maintaining a society where the life of the human being is more important than any money in the world. That is the most beautiful thing that men like Che have left us ”.

- What would Che love today? What would make you angry?

I would be very proud of the Cuban doctors. Despite all the economic problems we have had, we have not lost the most beautiful quality of a revolutionary as he said in the letter: “to feel the injustice committed against anyone in any part of the world.” Our doctors do it every day with the Henry Reeve brigade , for example, or with the Latin American School of Medicine ( ELAM ).

“On the other hand, Che was always a very critical man, therefore, he would make us many remarks about today’s Cuba, especially regarding the self-employed. He would never understand. No way. That, in the long run, is a small cancer in our society, because people start to think only in their pockets. But sometimes you have to make decisions that, although they are not always the right ones, are the ones that are within our reach. And you have to learn to walk with them ”.

- And to you, does it not bother you that sometimes Che’s ideas are used opportunistically?

- That they put them as a slogan and don’t feel them, and don’t live them, of course it bothers me. The good thing is that at least they say them.

-But sometimes they say them without consciousness…

But he who has it listens to it. Perhaps whoever uses it did it to finish a beautiful speech, but the one who does have a conscience hears it and knows that it is not being practiced as it should be. Opportunists we can have everywhere and we must rescue many values ​​that have been lost in the special periods lived.

- At what times have you said to yourself “if my father were here”?

A lot of times! When I brought my oldest daughter into the world and she was opening her eyes after the anesthesia for the cesarean section, I saw two men next to me: they were Ramiro Valdés and Oscar Fernández Mel. “What are you doing here?” I say to them, and they reply: “Since your father is not here, we are here.” Only! And of course I miss it. I wish I could have seen Daddy with his grandchildren on his knees, talking to them and teaching them much more than I can teach my daughters. Those things happen to you like a flash to your head.

Moments of the birth of Aleida Guevara’s eldest daughter. Photo: Courtesy of the interviewee.

- In one of his speeches, Che states that the goal of the new generations is that they forget him and the Commander in Chief. But perhaps in that he was wrong. What do you think?

That was in one of the last speeches he made to the young people of the Ministry of Industries, in which he told them that their goal one day is to forget Fidel, him … At first when I read it I said “but is my dad crazy? ” But he said it in the sense that, when we surpassed everything that they preached to us with their example, then it would not be necessary to have them so present. And that’s what he’s telling us: the goal is to overcome them and be better human beings than they are. But we have not yet been able.

- What has been the greatest affront that you have experienced from the people towards Che?

When you see people who are not able to move for a child who is dying, for example. My dad said that the life of a single child was worth more than all the gold on earth. And it is what I also feel as a doctor and a human being. To see someone who does not show indignation at seeing a child die hits me a lot.

- And the greatest gratitude?

I work with the Landless Movement in Brazil. And they practice Che every day. When you see men and women, sometimes with a cultural level that is not high, but capable of feeling that man and putting it into practice, then you say “he is multiplying”. Che returns again, with the shield over his arm. What to tell you about the Cuban doctors who went to fight Ebola without really knowing what they were going to face, risking their lives… Che is there. As a daughter, I really appreciate it. It’s seeing your dad again. In combat.

(By: Andy Jorge Blanco/Cubadebate)

During the fraternal encounter the visitor expressed his gratitude for Cuba’s solidary and unforgettable contribution to the independence struggles of the people of Africa, especially that of his country; as well as the role played by compañero Fidel in that regard.

The leader of the Cuban Revolution and President of Guinea Bissau discussed the island’s support to the African country, in addition to the importance of increasing global food production. Meanwhile, Fidel reiterated Cuba’s fundamental task of promoting cooperation between the peoples.

As an expression of the links which unite the two countries, the two leaders ended the memorable meeting with an embrace.

(Granma)

He also recalled Fidel’s visit to Japan and its significance in strengthening the ties of friendship between the people of Japan and Cuba.

In a frank discussion, both leaders commented on the historic relations which unite the two nations and continue to be developed; with the Japanese Prime Minister’s visit contributing to this process.

They also addressed the complexities and dangers associated with the current global situation and the need to strengthen efforts geared toward eliminating nuclear weapons and preserving peace.

Both dignitaries expressed their mutual desire and assurance that Shinzo Abe’s visit would contribute to strengthening ties of friendship and cooperation in the struggle for the health and wellbeing of the peoples of countries with fewer resources.

(Granma)

The raising of the flags at the embassies on the 20th of July is much anticipated. But what does this all really mean? After more than 56 years of trying to destroy the Cuban Revolution through US sponsored terrorism, an invasion organized and launched by the CIA, biological warfare, an economic and commercial blockade, clandestine infiltrations and a permanent propaganda campaign against Cuba, what would constitute “normal” relations between Washington and La Habana?

The word normal derives from the Latin normalis. In the context of US-Cuba relations it refers to civilized diplomatic behavior, according to historically established philosophical precepts: norms or rules of peaceful conduct between nations.

What rules of peaceful conduct by the United States towards Cuba may we expect from now on? Which normative rules could be considered normal and which abnormal?

It’s normal for two neighboring countries, separated by a mere 90 miles of water, to have diplomatic relations. It’s not normal for the United States to impose an economic, financial and commercial blockade against Cuba.

It’s normal for the US to have an embassy in Havana and for Cuba an embassy in Washington. It’s not normal for the US embassy in Cuba to function without an ambassador, simply because some in the Senate oppose it.

It’s normal for US citizens to travel to Cuba, but it´s not normal to prohibit tourists from the US to travel to the island.

It’s normal for US citizens to travel to Cuba and engage in “people to people” contact, but it’s not normal that the Office of Finance and Assets Control (OFAC) limit it to only group-travel through licensed organizations, thus making travel to Cuba prohibitively expensive and inconvenient for many Americans.

It’s normal for Washington to permit businesses in the US to engage in commerce with private individuals in Cuba, but it’s not normal to make it illegal to do business with state enterprises on the island.

It’s normal for the United States to want a second consulate in Cuba to better serve the public, but it’s not normal that it uses its diplomats to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs.

It’s normal for the United States to support a process of legal and orderly immigration from Cuba, but it’s not normal for Washington to maintain a Cuban Adjustment Act as a tool to stimulate an illegal, dangerous and disorderly immigration of Cubans to the United States.

It’s normal for the United States Embassy in Havana to provide an open-door policy for Cubans. It’s not normal for its diplomats to organize, direct and employ as salaried dissidents a few Cubans of their choosing.

It’s normal for Washington to contribute to the entertainment of the Cuban people with radio and television programs. It’s not normal for it to maintain a multi-million dollar budget to fund Radio and TV Marti as propaganda instruments.

It’s normal for Washington to want a reputation as a great defender of human rights. It’s not normal for the United States to imprison without due process or civil rights dozens of persons in Guantánamo, as well as torturing them in Cuba.

It’s normal for the United States to have an embassy in Cuba, even a large one, located in prime real estate on the famous Malecón overlooking the bay in Havana. It’s not normal for the United States to occupy, against the wishes of the Cuban people, a large swath of Cuban territory in the province of Guantánamo.

It’s normal for the Pentagon not to invade or send military drones to Cuba. It’s not normal that Washington earmarks a $30 million budget for fiscal year 2016 for a project whose declared purpose is to remove the government of Cuba from power.

It’s normal for Mississippi to be one of the 50 states of the US. It’s not normal for Washington to assume that it has jurisdiction in Cuba as well.

It’s normal for the US to do business with Cuba, but it’s not normal for the US to intervene in her internal affairs.

It’s normal for Washington to condemn terrorism. It’s not normal that it protect in Miami dozens of terrorists, including Luis Posada Carriles, who have committed heinous crimes against civilians in Cuba.

The US blockade against Cuba is a relic of the Cold War whose days are numbered. President Obama’s new Cuba policy, announced on the 17th of December, is a chronicle of the blockade’s death foretold. And it unleashed a torrent of enthusiasm from American businessmen who want to make money by investing there. Businessmen will pressure the Congress to lift the Helms-Burton law that codified parts of the blockade.

But let’s not be naïve. In order to truly say that relations between the US and Cuba are normal, Washington must understand that Cuba does not belong to it, that it is a violation of international law for the US to try and foment regime change in a foreign country and that Cuba must and ought be respected for what it is: a sovereign nation.

President Obama’s Cuba policy is a seismic shift in strategy for the United States. “The old policy did not work. It is long past its expiration date”, said Obama, in his most recent State of the Union speech before Congress. “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for fifty years, it’s time to try something new.”

What is the end game for the United States regarding Cuba? What it is it that US Presidents wished had worked? Clearly, the major premise of Washington’s Cuba policy was always regime change. It failed, and the Cuban Revolution remains strong. That is why President Obama said, that Washington should “try something new”.

Perhaps business can do what isolation could not. Engagement is the new strategy to try and topple the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba is ready for Washington’s policy of engagement. Just as she learned to build trenches to defend the island from invasion, terrorism, biological warfare and a brutal blockade, Cuba will now help the bridges that American businesses will cross to invest there. But Cuba will also be wary. To be sure, Cuba knows that Washington’s end game remains regime change. Cuban laws have always regulated foreign business ventures, and American investment in Cuba will be no different.

Cuba welcomes better relations with the United States and hopes to advance toward normalization. But unless and until the government of the United States has a political metanoia and cancels its desire to dominate Cuba, as it she were its vassal state, normal relations in the true sense of the word will not come to pass.

Article printed from www.counterpunch.org: http://www.counterpunch.org

My main concern was the time required to exchange ideas and revolutionary experiences, which is the essence of our lives.

Other issues delayed to a certain extent our meeting.  The three comrades who were still in prison arrived to our Homeland on December 17.   

On January 11, Maradona spoke about the letter I had sent him and showed the document that had aroused curiosity but he didn’t mention the details.  Last week-end he again mentioned the letter in Telesur.  To set things clear, I include the full texts of my exchange with Maradona.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 2, 2015

9:53 p.m.

Dear Maradona:

I was very happy to learn that you would be in Cuba during the first weeks of January 2015 with the brilliant comrade that has shared with you the adventure of a fascinating sport.

I have at hand a list of oil producing and exporting countries according to their production capacity and their export policy, at a time when the latter seriously threatens the future of Mankind.  Others do it for different reasons. 

Saudi Arabia 11,730,000 barrels per day

United States  11,110.000

Russia 10,440,000

China 4,155,000

Canada 3,856,000

Iran 3,594,000

United Arab Emirates 3,213,000

The rest –up to number 20 in the list, the UK—extract over one million barrels per day in their respective territories.

These are the leading countries in terms of production and not in terms of their proven reserves.  

I was very happy to learn about your visit to Cuba.  Thanks to my conversations with you during the most brilliant years of our unforgettable friend Hugo Chavez, I gathered that the meeting in Mar del Plata could not be forgotten.  Hugo reminded the United States that there was another America. 

As to me, I was just watching for the second time the interview with Gerardo, Antonio, and Ramon.  You know, I haven’t yet had the chance of greeting them, though I did send flowers to little Gema.  What a beautiful name!

I heard you would be in the plane at 5:30 p.m. Is that certain?

At the recent Central American and Caribbean Championship, a judge imposed us an arbitrary penalty in such an important sport as football.  It wasn’t fair.  Money for the rich, penalties for the poor.  

As you can see, I want to be impartial, but I can assure you I find it quite difficult. 

Best wishes Maestro!

Fidel Castro Ruz

January 11, 2015

7:25 p.m.   

 …………………………..

Dubai, January 16, 2015 

Dear Fidel,

Last January 11, I left Havana with the happiness of knowing that you were well and the pride of being, once again, the bearer of your message, your eternal friendship and your concern for the problems of the world.

It was the happiness I needed to begin the second season of De Zurda, broadcasted by the Telesur, which had its special first program in Havana setting off for the America Cup to be held in Chile. 

As I am an exceptional witness to your efforts for Venezuela to carry on the victorious path outlined by that other giant and mutual friend, the unforgettable Commander Hugo Chavez, I inform you that next February 28 and March 1, the “De Zurda Viajero” will be broadcasted from Caracas, Venezuela.  Most certainly, these will be two very touching programs in which football will not be the only topic.  

Fidel, if I learned something throughout all these years of sincere and beautiful friendship with you, it was that there is no price for loyalty, that a friend is more valuable than all the world’s gold and that ideas are not negotiable. That is why De Zurda pays homage to our friendship. 

Used to your “historical” goals, I want to thank you for your letter that made me the bearer of your happy existence.  Over a month has elapsed and many persons wish to know the content of that letter.  With your usual kindness you assured me that it would only be made public if I decided so.  I not only want to make its content known, but also want to share with everybody my reply. 

With my best wishes my Commander friend,

Diego Armando Maradona

Since the year 2006, for health reasons that were incompatible with the time and the efforts required to fulfill my duties –which I imposed upon myself when I entered this University on September 4, 1945, seventy years ago-, I renounced all my positions.

I was not the son of a worker, nor did I lack the material or social resources required for a relatively comfortable existence.  I can say that I miraculously escaped wealth.  Many years later, the wealthiest American, who was no doubt a very capable man, with almost 100 billion dollars, stated –as was published by a news agency last Thursday, January 22-, that the system of production and distribution of wealth that favored the privileged will make poor people rich from one generation to the next.

From the times of ancient Greece, during almost three thousand   years, the Greeks, without going much farther, excelled in almost all areas of human knowledge: Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Architecture, Arts, Science, Politics, Astronomy and others. However, Greece was a country of slaves who did the hardest works both in the countryside and in the cities, while the oligarchy   devoted itself to writing and philosophizing. The first utopia was written precisely by them.

Have a close look at the realities of this well-known, globalized and very unfairly distributed planet Earth, where, as is known,  every single vital resource is deposited by virtue of historical factors:  some have much less resources than they need; others have so many that they do not know what to do with them.  Now, in the face of serious war threats and risks, chaos reigns in the distribution of financial resources and social production.  The world’s population has grown, between 1800 and 2015, from one billion to seven billion inhabitants. ¿Would this be the right way to cope with the population growth during the next 100 years as well as with the food, health, water and housing needs that the world’s population will face, regardless of whatever scientific advances are made?

All right, but setting aside these enigmatic problems, it is astonishing to think that the University of Havana, at the time when I entered that beloved and prestigious institution, almost three quarters of a century ago, was the only one that existed in Cuba.

By the way, comrade students and professors, we should remember that today we not only have one, but more than fifty higher education centers scattered throughout the entire country.

When you invited me to participate in the launching of the campaign to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of my entering the University, a news that caught me by surprise, during very hectic days for me, for I was dealing with several issues in which I can perhaps still be relatively useful, I decided to have some rest and devote myself for some hours to remember those years.

I feel overwhelmed when I realize that seventy years have passed already. In fact, comrades, if I were to register again at the University at that age, as some have asked me, I would respond, without hesitating, that I would have pursued a scientific career.  And after graduating, I would have said just like Guayasamín: Leave a little light on for me.

In those years, I was already influenced by Marx and I managed to have a broader and better understanding of the strange and complex world in we all have had to live in.  I was able to dispense with the bourgeois illusions whose tentacles succeeded in confusing many students when they were least experienced and most passionate.  This would be a subject for a long and endless discussion.

Lenin, the founder of the Communist Party, was another genius of revolutionary action.  That is why I did not hesitate for a single second when, at the trial after the attack on the Moncada, which I was allowed to attend just one time, I stated before the judges and dozens of high-ranking officers of the Batista regime that we were readers of Lenin’s works.

We did not talk about Mao Zedong because the Socialist Revolution in China, inspired by identical purposes, had not yet concluded.

But I should note, however, that revolutionary ideas are to be always on the alert as humanity is able to multiply its knowledge.

Nature has taught us that tens of billions of light-years may have passed by, but life, in any of its forms, will always be subject to the most incredible combinations of matter and radiations.

The personal greeting between the Presidents of Cuba and the United States took place at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, a notable and exemplary fighter against Apartheid, who was a friend of Obama’s.

Suffice it to say that, already by that moment, several years had elapsed since the Cuban troops had dealt a devastating defeat to the racist army of South Africa, led by a rich bourgeoisie that was the owner of huge economic resources.  That is the history of a struggle that is still to be written.  South Africa, the government with the most financial resources in that continent, had nuclear weapons that had been supplied by the racist State of Israel, by virtue of an agreement between the latter and President Ronald Reagan, who authorized it to deliver the devices required for the use of such weapons with which South Africa could attack the Cuban and Angolan forces that were defending the People’s Republic of Angola against the occupation of that country by the racist, thus excluding every possibility of negotiating peace, while Angola was being attacked by the Apartheid forces, with the best trained and equipped army in the African continent.

Under such circumstances, there was no possibility whatsoever for a peaceful solution.  The ceaseless efforts made to crush and systematically bleed out the People’s Republic of Angola with the power of that well trained and equipped army, was the determining factor behind Cuba’s decision to deal an overwhelming blow against the racists in Cuito Cuanavale, a former NATO base, which South Africa was attempting to occupy at all costs.

That arrogant country was forced to negotiate a peace agreement which put an end to the military occupation of Angola and to the Apartheid regime in Africa.

The African continent was then free from nuclear weapons. Cuba had to face, for the second time, the risk of a nuclear attack.

The Cuban internationalist troops withdrew from Africa with honor.  And then came the Special Period in times of peace, which has already lasted for more than 20 years, without hoisting the white flag, something we never did nor we will ever do.

Many friends of Cuba have known the exemplary behavior of our people, and it is to them that I will explain, in a few words, my essential position.

I do not trust the US policy, nor have I ever exchanged a single word with them, something that in no way means a rejection to a peaceful settlement of conflicts or war dangers. Defending peace is a duty of all.  Any peaceful and negotiated solution to the problems between the United States and peoples, or any people of Latin America, which does not involve force or the use of force, should be addressed according to international standards and principles.  We will always advocate cooperation and friendship with all peoples of the world, among them, the peoples of our political adversaries.  That is what we are demanding for all.

The President of Cuba has taken relevant steps in accordance with his prerogatives and the faculties vested upon him by the National Assembly and the Communist Party of Cuba.

The grave dangers that threaten humanity today will have to give way to the norms that are compatible with human dignity.  No country can be denied those rights.

It is in that spirit that I have struggled and I will continue to struggle to my last breath.

Fidel Castro Ruz

January 26, 2015

12:35 pm