For the past months and ending yesterday on March 5th, La Hojilla, a Venezolana de Televisión programme, took on the task of selecting facts and sentences that exactly reveal the imperialist scheme of doing to Chavez what was done to Milosevič after the genocidal Kosovo Conflict: to have him tried by the International Criminal Tribunal.

Last night after midnight Cuban time, in other words, just today, when I heard official press releases given by a group of officials who are dealing with the pertinent legal procedures in Colombia, I had absolutely no doubts. This is no secret. It is a battle of pre-packaged opinions. I very much had in mind La Hojilla’s excellent summary as I write these lines.

What has been said about Chavez recently? He was elected by a popular majority vote. Immediately there is an addition: just like Hitler. Of course this doesn’t explain what we know all too well: that Hitler was the genuine product of the capitalist system, that this was expressed through the Treaty of Versailles and the sanctions it imposed –I have already mentioned this before in a reflection- , and these magnified the nationalist sentiments in the fledgling German Republic. Fascism murdered countless numbers of people. Chavez never killed anyone, he has been elected several times, and the most incredible insults to him are published and distributed daily in all the media. They will never make the President of Venezuela accept this.

Once the U.S. government was certain they could destroy missiles in mid-air from California by using space satellites, they were unashamedly speaking about atomic war and not covering up their intent to rule the world with blood and fire. They spend trillions of dollars on weapons that contribute nothing to satisfy the necessities and the well-being of humankind; quite the opposite, they maintain a constant state of tension in the world economy; like the bandits in the American Wild West, they force countries to hand over their money or their lives.

Listening for hours to the economists assembled in Havana to discuss globalization and the problems of development in a civilized manner, one can appreciate the tremendous clash of ideas and the contradictions surging with increasing vigour and complexity in today’s world. I keep a good number of facts in my mind which, quite certainly, were dealt with at that meeting.

The solidarity with the people of Ecuador which was expressed at that conference is, by itself, extremely valuable.

The President of that nation, Rafael Correa, stated today that if the Organization of American States “does not condemn the aggression on his country, we will have to throw it into the garbage heap of history”. “We must make decisions tomorrow in Santo Domingo in order to clearly condemn the aggression against Ecuador”, he added. I heard these two declarations not just in the televised interview with Correa. They also appear in several of the news cable agencies.

The seriousness of the problem created by the U.S. government cannot be under-estimated.

Yesterday, Bush gave his support to the Republican candidate McCain who is committed to the Iraq War and enjoys dropping bombs on the civilian population, is opposed to any kind of negotiation and swears he will uphold the economic blockade against the Cuban nation. Two days ago, the cables informed us about some of Bush’s new measures to further expand the blockade against Cuba on the Internet.

What can the peoples of Latin America, who would like their sovereignty to be safeguarded, hope for from the Empire?

Can such a tyranny which is so damaging to the peoples of the planet be sustainable or not?

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 6, 2008
6:32 p.m.