|
F.M.- How does the Cuban
State plan to contribute to this demand?
F.C.- I have partly answered
that question already. As to the concrete steps we have been taking, I
would like to address the matter in greater depth some other time.
F.M.- For several years now,
we have seen an embryo of opposition being born on the island; that is,
dissident groups are beginning to organize. This being the case, is it
not perhaps time for the regime to open up to political pluralism?
F.C.- The true opposition
emerged when the most profound social revolution was made in the
continent amidst the Cold War and only 90 miles from the United States,
which has organized and directed it for over 40 years.
The Revolution did away with
centuries of privilege and affected the interests of the wealthiest and
most influential sectors of Cuban society; it also affected the large
agricultural, mining, industrial, commercial and service companies that
the United States had established in Cuba. Our country has been the
target of dirty warfare, mercenary invasions and threats of direct
military attacks. We were also on the brink of a nuclear war.
The leader of that enormous
counterrevolutionary activity and the economic, political and
ideological war that followed was and continues to be the government of
the United States of America. The rest is pure fiction, artificially
created and always well financed by that superpower, its allies and its
lackeys. It is all wrapped up in lies and slander, which constitute the
backbone of a system devoid of ideas and ethics in confronting a
Revolution that has already faced, endured and passed the hardest tests,
and a united, combative and politically stronger people.
There will be no such
opening. We do not see why we should cooperate with the American
strategy.
F.M.- The majority of your
ministers had not been born when the armed Revolution triumphed.
F.C.- That shows that they
are young and that the Revolution will be around for a while.
F.M.- What are the dreams of
the Cuban people today?
F.C.- I think there are 11
million dreams.
F.M.- In what way are they
different from the dreams of the previous generation?
F.C.- Before, they each
dreamed of their own happiness, and today, they all dream of happiness
for everyone.
F.M.- Would you not like to
link the people more closely to the political decision-making process?
F.C.- Do you really think
that Cuba and the Revolution would exist without a maximum degree of
participation by the people?
F.M.- Since the triumph of
the Revolution, a tenth of the Cuban population has left the island. How
do you explain this exodus?
F.C.- You mentioned figures.
I am trying to recall the various migrations and it seems to me that the
figures are lower, except if they include those who were born abroad.
But that is not so important.
Before the Revolution, the
number of visas granted to Cubans was insignificant. When the Revolution
triumphed, the doors were opened wide. Of the 6000 doctors we had, they
took away half, along with a number of university professors and
teachers. It was a major extraction of human resources. But, we firmly
withstood the blow. No one was prevented from emigrating. It was not we,
but rather they who closed the doors on more than one occasion and
established quotas for legal emigration.
Their worst crime has been
to encourage illegal emigration with the monstrous and murderous Cuban
Adjustment Act, by virtue of which any person, regardless of his/her
legal background or conduct, who illegally leaves Cuba by any means and
arrives in U.S. territory, is given the right to residency in that
country. In this way, they have received many criminals, although not
all those who do this are criminals, and many people have lost their
lives. It was this stupid law, the only one of its kind in the world,
created solely for Cubans, that led to the case of the kidnapped boy Elián
González, who was not even six years old at the time of the
misadventure in which 11 Cubans lost their lives, his mother included.
If the same privileges had
been extended to Mexico and the rest of Latin America and the Caribbean
throughout almost 35 years, more than half of the people in the United
States would be Latin American and Caribbean. Mexico and the United
States would not be separated today by a wall much higher than that in
Berlin where more would-be emigrants perish every year than those who
died in all the years that the other wall existed. Let that privilege be
offered in Europe to the people living North and South of the Sahara,
and let’s see how many emigrate.
It should be said that we
have never prohibited emigration from Cuba to the United States, and
that 90% of those who have emigrated have done so for economic reasons.
F.M.- The case of little Elián
has inflamed the passions of the Cuban exile community in Miami. What is
your opinion of Cuban dissidents, both within the island and in Florida?
F.C.- I do not see the
difference between what you call external and internal dissidents. They
are exactly the same thing. They both have the same origin and the same
leadership. Both are instruments of the U.S. policy against Cuba, both
are pro-imperialist, anti-socialist and in favor of annexation. Those
who were promoted as leaders of the so-called Cuban-American National
Foundation – an abomination that emerged from the so-called Santa Fe
Document, the Republican Party’s 1980 political platform with regard
to Cuba – were almost without exception former CIA members or the
children of well-known war criminals who had escaped to the United
States when the Revolution triumphed.
The list of crimes and
misdeeds they committed against Cuba is endless, first as individuals
recruited during at the time of the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion, and
later as members of the aforementioned Cuban-American mob. One of the
goals of Reagan and his team was to have a political surrogate that,
supposedly in the name of Cuban representatives, would put forward
pieces of legislation or measures related to the blockade and the
economic warfare against our homeland. They were granted contracts and
privileged economic concessions. They trafficked in everything,
including drugs, and amassed huge fortunes. But, one of their most
important missions was the inception of a lobby to promote and sponsor
allies from the extreme right and the most reactionary people from
either of the two parties in Congress in the aggressive policy towards
Cuba.
Their arsenal of actions
against Cuba included supporting apparently independent terrorist groups
to carry out various acts of sabotage against the economy, political
crimes, the introduction of pests and biological warfare. They ended up
organizing their own military apparatus and concocting countless plots
to assassinate me whenever I traveled abroad. It was a genuine human
hunt, with the full knowledge and tolerance of the U.S. authorities.
With the abundant resources available to them, they handed out campaign
funds to dozens of lawmakers from both parties, both over and under the
table. They managed to put up legislators from their own group and
helped to elect others. Official support was unqualified.
It is repugnant to think of
everything they have done against our homeland. Their most recent crime
was the kidnapping of a child who had not even turned six yet, whom they
stole from his legitimate family. As the owners of Florida, they felt
they had the right to defy the laws and orders of the federal government
itself. They ended up trampling and burning U.S. flags. The enormously
stupid misdeed committed in the case of this Cuban boy has been their
political Waterloo. It will be very difficult for them to pick up the
scattered pieces of the considerable power and political influence they
had achieved and to put together something new that will serve them in
any way.
The other arm of the
American counterrevolutionary strategy is as morally and politically
destroyed as they are, that is, the small groupings they have been
promoting over the years to create an internal front against the solid
and unshakable unity and strength of the Revolution. They spur these
groups on with funds that arrive by a wide range of means, and support
them with all the media within their reach. These groups promote their
counterrevolutionary and slanderous campaigns through the subversive
radio stations broadcasting out of the United States and the
Foundation-controlled press. They work in close alliance with the
Cuban-American mob and are directly coordinated by the staff of the U.S.
Interests Section in Havana, by Czech and Polish diplomats and by other
officials from the embassies of several countries allied with or
subordinated to the United States.
Their essential mission is
to obstruct Cuba’s diplomatic and economic relations, and to use their
provocation to supply publicity material for propaganda and slanderous
campaigns aimed at isolating Cuba. In these glorious and heroic years of
double blockade and special period, when the survival of our homeland
was at stake, the feats achieved by our people will sink them deep down
into the swamp of their infamy, and into what is absolutely the most
certain and worthy fate for their shameful role: oblivion.
VI PART
|
