Fidel Castro and the Power of Faith

by RICARDO ALARCÓN 

JULY 31, 2013

The July 26th Movement

On March 10, 1952, former dictator Fulgencio Batista seized power in Cuba again. This happened eighty days before the elections in which he would have received the least votes.

With one blow, he overthrew the president, abolished the constitution, disolved parliament, crushed unions, student and guild organizations, took control of the media, unleashed a brutal repression and set up a regime of corruption and plunder which C. Wright Mills characterized as “capitalism run by gangsters and the mafia”. Washington gave Batista quick recognition and always supported him, until the tyrant and his henchmen escaped on January 1st, 1959.

The 1952 coup d’état greatly shocked Cuban society. Beyond its political consequences, it cut deep into the national conscience. The overthrown president sought refuge in the Mexican Embassy, the political forces supporting him were paralyzed; the forces in the opposition, including those of Marxist inspiration, were not able to defend legality nor organize resistance; they became entangled in endless debates on strategy and tactics with only one thing in common: inaction.

Frustration and disbelief grew among the population. Their democratic aspirations were defeated once again.  All the political parties had lost credibility and public trust. Only among the young people and students was there still a spirit of rebellion, seeking their own path outside the failed structures. To steer that rebelliousness they needed and exceptional leader. They found it in Fidel Castro.

Fidel chose a group of young people who looked to him as an example and prepared them for armed struggle. It was a group without a name or political affiliation. The action on July 26, 1953 was, in military terms, a double failure: the attempts to take by assault two main army garrisons in Eastern Cuba: Moncada in Santiago de Cuba and Carlos Manuel de Cespedes in Bayamo. In both, the assailants were defeated and most of them murdered after the battle.

The Movimiento 26 de Julio was born losing its first battles and under the almost unanimous attack of the political forces, the media and other institutions of Cuban society. But that day was, in true fact, a rebirth. It began a process of moral rescue which allowed the people to recover strength and start the long and difficult march to victory. The starting point was the recovery of trust. That day reached many, and gave impulse to the creation of a movement that would keep growing provided it could preserve faith.

Compelled by popular pressure, Batista was forced, in 1955, to give amnesty to Fidel and his comrades in prison. Fidel travelled to Mexico and promised to return before the following year was over to conduct the final battle. Once again he was betting on popular trust.

Meanwhile, the dictatorship launched a campaign to create distrust. This was supported by many sectors in the opposition which were against armed struggle. The pro-Batista media made fun of Fidel’s promise and kept publishing the countdown on their front pages. The arrival of the rebels took place on December 2, and it was another military catastrophe. The failure of the expedition made big headlines in the Cuban press and far beyond.

The 82 men who arrived in the Granma yacht faced a far superior military force equipped, armed and trained by The United States. The twelve survivors scattered in the forest with no weapons or resources, managed to regroup in the Sierra Maestra. Months of disinformation and anguish followed. In the remote mountains, backed by their followers in the city, the guerrilla contingent was formed step-by-step. In the cities, the clandestine fighters who supplied the guerrillas and resisted brutal repression also had to fight the permanent “peacekeeping” maneuvers of the political opposition.

Two years later, the movement had spread to the entire country and the dictatorship was defeated. This was five years, five months and five days after the foundational action.

Those were hard and difficult years. But they brought freedom and happiness to a people emancipated forever. As expressed in the lyrics of a song that we have all been singing for many years now: “The 26 is the happiest day in history”.  

Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada has served as Cuba’s UN ambassador, Foreign Minister and president of the National Assembly.

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.

Fidel Castro and the Power of Faith » CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

Key address by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, CARICOM Summit, Barbados on December 13, 2005

By: WWW.TRABAJADORES.CO.CU

December 13 2005

Political Affairs Magazine-29-Jul-2013

http://www.politicalaffairs.net/key-address-by-dr-fidel-castro-ruz-caricom-summit-barbados/

Honourable Owen Arthur, Prime Minister of Barbados, playing host to this meeting: 

Honourable Kenny Anthony, Prime Minister of Saint Lucia, and President of CARICOM: 

Honourable Prime Ministers of other member countries of CARICOM: 

Honourable Edwin Carrington, Secretary General of CARICOM: 

Distinguished heads of delegations, ministers and special guests:

It is for me a source of special satisfaction that we can meet again, this time in the land of Errol Barrow, who was a very dear friend of Cuba. Three years have passed since we commemorated in Havana the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the four Caribbean countries that were then independent, a significant and seminal event Cubans will never forget.

Throughout these years, the enormous challenges our countries have faced, while trying to ensure the survival of our peoples, have become more dramatic. The unilateral and selfish actions undertaken by some of the most important trade partners of the Caribbean countries have combined with the unprecedented incidence and magnitude of the devastating hurricanes that have ravaged our region.

I think that there is today a clear understanding that neo-liberal globalisation threatens the very existence of our countries as independent nations.

The gap between the ever richer North and the increasingly poor South widens at an accelerated pace, thus posing a permanent threat to international stability.

What lays at the basis of most conflicts in our times are the illegal wars of conquest and pillage, the destruction of the environment and the depletion of natural resources, terrorism and local conflicts and the illegal migration and drug trafficking, among others. Actually, there is a veritable connection between the pervasive poverty and marginalisation prevailing in the South countries and the policies of the wealthiest and most developed nations on Earth that, with increasing selfishness and arrogance, constantly make their riches grow while impoverishing the Third World.

The access of many countries to international markets is almost impossible. We are the victims of an international trade system filled with tariff and non-tariff barriers, quotas, subsidies and burdensome conditions. At the same time, we are forced to endure a hypocritical discourse in favour of “free trade” by those who keep their markets closed for us.

Our brothers in the CARICOM suffer in their own flesh from the self-centred decisions of the European Union and the United States, which impact adversely on their banana and sugar exports forcing them to confront the arbitrary measures imposed by transnational companies in the areas of tourism, aviation and others.

The rich industrial nations refuse to provide a specialised and differential treatment to countries that, like the members of CARICOM, not only require it but deserve it in their own right. They are oblivious of their historical debt with our development and fail to deliver on their promises; then, while demagogically talking of free markets, they plunder our human resources and make us pay, once and again, an immoral debt which has been paid several times over.

The European Union, forgetting its debt as a former colonial power and the commitments entered through bilateral accords, has unilaterally fostered a deep reform in the sugar and banana sectors that afflicts the Caribbean countries. Cuba states its strongest solidarity with the Caribbean countries and urges the Europeans to rectify a decision that will force poverty and exclusion on tens of thousand of Caribbean families.

Excellencies:

Latin America and the Caribbean endure the greatest disparity in income distribution on the planet. The HIV-AIDS pandemic, that affects 2.4 million people, has become a serious problem for some countries in our region.

On the other hand, threats grow and so does the use of force. Unilateral coercive measures are constantly imposed on the governments and peoples of the Third World while the principles enshrined in International Law become dead letter.

Presently, the feverish consumerism of the rich countries is leading to the alarming shortage of a vital source of non-renewable energy in the world, that is, hydrocarbons, whose proven and unproved reserves are depleted and whose market price, only within reach of the wealthy societies, is inaccessible to the overwhelming majority of peoples in the Third World.

The colossal wastage by consumerist societies not only affects the world economy but it also poses a serious threat to the environment.

How will our countries face the damages of the next hurricane season, and those of the next ten years, and who will help us pay for them?

How can we tackle the danger of extinction resulting from global warming and the rising level of sea waters?

The unbridled race to waste the natural resources of the planet will bring life to an end on Earth, but our small island states will be the first to perish.

Cuba blames the rich developed countries, the sumptuous consumerist economies and waste, for the aggravation of natural disasters and their rate of recurrence in the Caribbean.

How shall we face these challenges, and the need to survive and progress, in the midst of a deep economic, social, political and environmental crisis afflicting our hemisphere and the world?

We should respond to the selfish neo-liberal globalisation and the international anti-democratic political and economic order with unity and with the globalisation of solidarity, the promotion of dialogue, of integration and genuine cooperation.

Despite the blockade and its limited resources, Cuba has followed this path to the extent possible, thanks especially to the valuable human capital accumulated in these 45 years.

Today, 1,142 Cuban collaborators, almost one thousand of them in the healthcare sector, are working in CARICOM countries. Meanwhile, 1,957 youths, coming from 14 Caribbean countries, have graduated from Cuban schools and at the moment, 3,118 others are training in 33 different university and technical specialties.

Presently, 11 Caribbean countries are participating in Operation Miracle and until yesterday, December 7, 10,502 of its citizens had had surgery in Cuba, only in 4 months and 14 days, that is, at a pace of 30 thousand patients a year.

We support the efforts of our Caribbean brothers to consolidate their regional integration and, as always, Cuba is willing to offer its modest contribution in those areas where that may be possible. The peoples of the Caribbean community can always count on Cuba’s respect and friendship.

Today, December 8, on the 33rd anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations with Cuba by Jamaica, Guyana, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago, we reiterate our appreciation for the unflinching solidarity of the Caribbean countries with Cuba, most recently expressed through the unanimous Caribbean vote at the United Nations in favour of lifting the 45-year-long blockade on our people, and we pay homage to the memory of Eric Williams, Erroll Barrow, Forbes Burnham and Michael Manley.

Thank you very much.