[NYTr] Fidel Castro: W and APEC

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

Agencia Cubana de Noticias (ACN) - Sep 10, 2007
http://ainch.ain.cu/mailman/listinfo/ingles


Reflections by the Commander in Chief

W AND APEC

by Fidel Castro Ruz

Important meetings take place at such a frantic pace and Bush  flies
around and speaks at such speed that it is almost impossible to keep
track.  En route to Sydney, he stopped over for a few hours in Iraq, no
less.  I can't say whether this happened two or three days ago, because
when it's Thursday in Sydney and the sun is almost at high noon over
the land, it's still Wednesday in Havana with its fresh night air.  The
globalized planet Earth changes and transforms our concepts. Only one
reality remains unchanged: the Empire's network of air, sea, land and
space military bases, increasingly more powerful and at the same time
more vulnerable.

We don't need to go into any special efforts of persuasion.  Let us
allow the U.S. news agency to speak for itlself:

"SYDNEY, Australia (AP) - President Bush urged Pacific Rim nations 
Wednesday to band together on tackling global warming, saying (China 
and) all major polluters must be part of any solution...

"Bush backed an Australian proposal that Asia-Pacific countries [APEC]
endorse a new [...] approach to the [...] challenge of climate change -
one that unlike the current Kyoto Protocol (which both the US and
Australia refused to sign) would require firmer action by China and
other developing countries."

"For there to be an effective climate change policy, China needs to be
at the table," Bush said at a news conference with Australian Prime
Minister John Howard.  Bush and Howard issued a joint statement that
supported nuclear energy, new technologies and lots of dialogue to find
a way forward on global warming."

"About 300 protesters, many of them high school students on a walkout
to protest against Bush, the Iraq war and Howard's support for both,
staged a [...] demonstration..."

"According to reports, the draft of the final declaration to be
released by the Summit next weekend makes brief mention of the climate
change problem.  AP obtained a copy of the draft on Wednesday."

The paragraphs in quotation marks have been taken literally from the
press dispatch.  Other traditional international agencies affirm this
in more or less detail.

However, this is not the only news coming from the unstoppable 
deluge of Bush's words.

For example, the DPA Agency informs that Bush sketched out some 
guidelines in Sydney about what must be done in Myanmar, the former 
British colony of Burma, having 678,500 square kilometers and a 
population of 42,909,464.

"Sydney, 5 Sept/07 (DPA) - President Bush of the United States today
harshly criticized the military junta of Myanmar (former Burma) and
called on the leaders participating this weekend at the APEC Summit in
the Australian city of Sydney to do the same.

"It's inexcusable that we have this kind of tyrannical behavior in
Asia. It's inexcusable that people who have marched for freedom are
then mistreated by a repressive state," he stated today in his first
public declarations following his arrival in Sydney before taking part
in the APEC Summit.

"The US President was referring to the violent repression of protests
which took place in Myanmar at the end of August.  'And those of us who
live in the comfort of a free society need to speak out about these
kinds of human rights abuses,' Bush emphasized."

It is well known that in Iraq around a million people have died and two
million have been forced to emigrate since the country was invaded by
the troops of the United States and its allies, the Australians among
them.  Neither of these two countries signed the Kyoto Protocol, with
the permanent representatives of their governments becoming rarae avis
at the United Nations, where the rejection is practically unanimous.
Likewise, we know that Blair's replacement has planned the withdrawal
of British troops from Iraq.  In those three countries, naturally
including the United States and Australia, there is a growing
resistance to the Iraq adventure, to which today we can add the
Afghanistan adventure. In this country, the fields have been planted
with poppies which will enable them to produce ninety percent of all of
the world's opium.

In Afghanistan, a country with a tradition of independence and
rebellion, such a phenomenon had never occurred. It is coming up now
under foreign occupation. Most of its inhabitants, 84 percent, are
Sunni Muslim.  The soldiers and weapons of the United States and its
NATO allies kill women and children there every day.  As if that were
not enough, Bush has threatened to return Pakistan to the Stone Age. He
has labeled the Guardians of the Revolution terrorists; this is a
contingent of millions of men closely associated with the Iranian army.
At the same time, he is strongly pressuring the Prime Minister of Iraq,
who has been kept in power up until the present by the invading forces,
using the same excuse of fighting against terrorism.

Let us allow everyone to meditate on the atrocious actions of the
repressive governments which the United States trained for Latin
America during decades in the US academies of torturers, and the role
of drugs supported by the markets of the empire's consumer society.
That is the kind of democracy W preaches to APEC.  All bearing the US
brand name and patent.

They would like to punish Myanmar the same way they have been punishing
Cuba.  Why don't they create for them an Adjustment Act so that their
emigrants who are qualified nurses, doctors, engineers and persons
capable of producing capital gains for the multinationals will have the
right to reside in the United States?

This reflection is getting very long and I have to conclude.

Since in our country every institution or important event is
celebrating yet another year of life, five, ten and even fifty or more,
I take advantage of this opportunity to share the glory of the people
of Cienfuegos, who two days ago celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of
the marines' revolt at the Cayo Loco Naval District Headquarters, lead
by the July 26 Movement, and that of the creation of the Computer Youth
Clubs, whose 20th anniversary will be celebrated tomorrow, on Saturday. 

I send to all my warmest congratulations.

Havana, September 7, 2007, 6:14 p.m