The Will of Steel (Part Two)

When in 1976 the most serious acts of terrorism against Cuba took place, especially the destruction of a Cuban airliner in mid-flight that had taken off from Barbados with 73 persons onboard – including pilots, flight attendants and auxiliary personnel who were providing their noble services on that airline, the complete youth team that had obtained all the gold medals that were being contested at the Central American and Caribbean Fencing Championship, passengers from Cuba and other countries who were travelling full of confidence in that plane – the facts caused such great indignation that during the wake held at Revolution Square the most extraordinary and overflowing crowd ever seen came together and we have photographic records of this. Perhaps the United States leaders and many in the world had no possibility of seeing them.  It would be illustrative that those scenes were to be broadcast by the mass media in order to understand full well the motivations driving our heroic anti-terrorist combatants.

Bush Sr. was already an important official in the US intelligence services when they received the mission of organizing the counter-revolution in Cuba. In Florida the CIA created the largest base of operations in the western hemisphere.  It became responsible for all the subversive actions carried out in Cuba, including the assassination attempts on leaders of the Revolution and it became responsible for plans and calculations that, had they been successful, would have meant an enormous number of casualties on both sides given the decision of our people, as demonstrated at Girón, of fighting to the last drop of blood.  Bush never understood that Cuba`s victory saved many lives, both Cuban and American.

The monstrous Barbados crime was produced when he was already head of the CIA, with almost as much authority as President Ford. 

In June of that year he called a meeting at Bonao in the Dominican Republic in order to create the Coordination of United Revolutionary Organizations with the personal supervision of Vernon Walters, then deputy director of the CIA.  Take note: “United Revolutionary Organizations”.

Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles, active agents in that organization, were appointed leaders of that organization. Thus begins a new phase of terrorist activities against Cuba.  On October 6^th of 1976, Orlando Bosch and Posada Carriles personally direct the sabotage for the blowing up of the Cuban airliner in mid-flight.

The authorities arrested the men involved and sent them to Venezuela.

The scandal was so big that the government of that country, then a US ally and accomplice to crimes inside and outside of Venezuela, had no other alternative than to place them at the disposal of the Venezuelan courts. 

The Sandinista Revolution triumphed in July of 1979. The bloody dirty war promoted by the United States broke out in that country.  Reagan was by then the President of the United States.

When Gerald Ford replaced Nixon, such was the scandal caused by the assassination attempts on foreign leaders that he prohibited the participation of US officials in such actions.  Congress denied funding for the dirty war in Nicaragua. They needed Posada Carriles. The CIA, through the so-called Cuban-American National Foundation, bribed the jailers involved with copious sums and the terrorist got out of jail as just another visitor.  Urgently moved to Llopango in El Salvador, not only did he direct arms supplies that caused thousands of dead and wounded among the Nicaraguan patriots, but also, with CIA cooperation, he acquired drugs in Central America, brought them into the United States and bought American weapons for the Nicaraguan counter-revolutionaries.

In the interest of brevity, I am omitting numerous facts in the brutal story.

It is not possible to understand why the illustrious Nobel Prize laureate who presides over the government of the United States is pleased to reiterate the stupid idea that Cuba is a terrorist country, keeping four Cuban anti-terrorists isolated in prisons and in inhumane conditions, a punishment that nowadays is not applied to any US enemy country, much less if no US military force admits to having being put at risk by them and prohibits René from returning to his homeland and to the heart of his family.

 The same Sunday October 9th that René sent his valiant message to the people of Cuba, he taped another fraternal “Message to Fidel and Raúl”. Under advice of Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly, neither of the two messages was made public until the Probation Official of the Federal Court of Florida should formally communicate the conditions being imposed on him for the three years of “supervised liberty”.

Now that this requisite has been fulfilled, I am pleased to inform our people about the textual content of that message that so much honours our heroes and expresses their exemplary conduct and will of steel:

Dear Commander:

First of all, an embrace, my thanks, the feeling of appreciation not only for the support with which you have showered us, for the way in which you have mobilized an entire people and mobilized international solidarity in favour of our cause but, in the first place, for having served as our inspiration, for having been the example we have followed during these 13 years and for having been for us a flag behind which we were never going to stop marching.

For us this mission has been nothing other than the continuation of everything you have done, what your generation did for the Cuban people and for the rest of humankind.

For me it is an enormous pleasure to send this message to you, to send you a temporary embrace, that goes to you by this channel because I know that we shall embrace at the end; no matter how much our adversaries try to prevent it, I know that we are going to be able to have that embrace. I know that we, the Five, shall return because you promised and because you have mobilized the energy, the best of humankind, the will of the entire world so that it may happen.

For us it is an honour to serve the cause that you have inspired in the people of Cuba, to be your followers, followers on the road that you and Raúl opened up, and we shall never stop being worthy of that trust you have deposited in us. 

To the two of you, to you Fidel, to Raúl who is now guiding us in this new difficult stage, a complicated but glorious stage in which we are embroiled to break the economic dependency that ties us down still and which prevents us from building the society we want, I send you an embrace on behalf of the Five, I tell you that we always had trust in you.  When we were alone in The Hole, when we were put in solitary confinement, when we weren`t getting any news, when my four brothers knew nothing about their families because they couldn`t be told, we always trusted you, we always knew that you would not abandon your sons because we always knew that the Revolution never abandons those who defend it. That is why it deserves to be defended and that is why we are always going to do that.

And even though I am not sure we deserve all the honours we have been receiving, I can say that the rest of our lives shall be dedicated to deserving it, because you two inspire us, because you are the flag that taught us how to conduct ourselves and until the end of our days we shall try to deserve the trust you have deposited in us.

For me now this is a trench in which I shall continue in the same battle for which you have called me and I shall be there until the end, until justice is done, following your orders, doing whatever needs to be done.

And I say to Fidel and to Raúl: Commanders, both of you, at your orders!

Fidel Castro Ruz

        October 17, 2011