Read Fidel Castro's full article below:
NATO's Genocidal Role
NATO took on that global repressive role as soon as the USSR, which had served the United States as an excuse for its creation, ceased to exist. Its criminal purpose became obvious in Serbia, a Slavic country, whose people had so heroically fought against Nazi troops in WW II.
When in March of 1999 the countries of this ill-fated organization, in its efforts to disintegrate Yugoslavia after the death of Josip Broz Tito, sent their troops in support of the Kosovar secessionists, they ran into strong resistance from that nation whose experienced forces were still intact.
The Yankee administration, advised by the Spanish right-wing government of José María Aznar, attacked the Serbian TV stations, the bridges over the Danube River and Belgrade, that country’s capital. The embassy of the People’s Republic of China was destroyed by Yankee bombs, several of the officials died and there could not have been any error as the authors alleged. Many Serbian patriots lost their lives.
President Slobodan Miloševiс, overwhelmed by the power of the aggressors and the disappearance of the USSR, ceded to NATO demands and admitted to the presence of that alliance’s troops in Kosovo under the UN mandate; this finally led to his political downfall and subsequent trial by The Hague courts which were less than impartial. He died a strange death in prison.
Had the Serbian leader resisted a few more days, NATO would have entered into a serious crisis which was on the point of exploding. The empire thus had much more time to impose its hegemony among the every more subordinated members of that organization.
Between February 21st and April 27th of this year, I published nine Reflections on the subject on the CubaDebate website; in them I amply dealt with NATO’s role in Libya and what, in my opinion, was going to happen.
Therefore I find myself obliged to synthesize the essential ideas that I put forth, and the events that have been happening as foreseen, just that now the central figure in that story, Muammar Al-Gaddafi, was seriously wounded by the most modern NATO fighter-bombers which intercepted and incapacitated his vehicle, he was captured while still alive and murdered by men that organization had armed.
His body has been kidnapped and exhibited as a trophy of war, conduct that violates the most basic principles of the norms of Muslim and other religious beliefs in the world. It is being announced that very soon Libya shall be declared a “democratic state and defender of human rights.”
I find myself obliged to dedicate several Reflections to these important and significant events.
I shall continue tomorrow, on Monday.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 23, 2011
6:10 p.m.
Part II
A little over eight months ago, on February 21st of this year, I stated with complete conviction: “The NATO plan is to occupy Libya”. With that title I dealt with the subject for the first time in a Reflection whose content seemed to be the product of a fantasy.
I include in these lines the elements for the opinion that led me to that conclusion.
“Oil has become the principal wealth in the hands of the great Yankee transnationals; through this energy source they had an instrument that considerably expanded their political power in the world.”
“Upon this energy source today’s civilization was developed. Venezuela was the nation in this hemisphere that paid the highest price. The United States became the lord and master of the huge oil fields that Mother Nature had bestowed upon that sister country.”
“At the end of the last World War, it started to extract greater amounts of oil from the oil fields of Iran, as well as those in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and the Arab countries located around them. These became the main suppliers. World consumption progressively increased to the fabulous figure of approximately 80 million barrels a day, including those being extracted on United States territory, to which later gas, hydro and nuclear energies were added.”
“The squandering of oil and gas is associated with one of the greatest tragedies, not in the least resolved, which is suffered by humankind: climate change.”
“In December of 1951, Libya becomes the first African country to attain its independence after WW II, during which its territory was the stage for important battles between the troops of Germany and the United Kingdom…”
“Ninety-five percent of its territory is completely made up of desert. Technology permitted the discovery of vital oilfields of excellent quality light oil that today reach one million 800 thousand barrels a day along with abundant deposits of natural gas. […] Its harsh desert is located over an enormous lake of fossil waters, equivalent to more than three times the land area of Cuba; this has made it possible to construct a broad network of pipelines of fresh water that stretch from one end of the country to the other.”
“The Libyan Revolution took place in the month of September of the year 1969. Its main leader was Muammar al-Gaddafi, a soldier of Bedouin origin who, in his early years, was inspired by the ideas of the Egyptian leader Gamal Abdel Nasser. Without any doubt, many of his decisions are associated with the changes that were produced when, as in Egypt, a weak and corrupt monarchy was overthrown in Libya.”
“One can agree with Gaddafi or not. The world has been invaded with all kinds of news, especially using the mass media. One has to wait the necessary length of time in order to learn precisely what is the truth and what are lies, or a mixture of events of every kind that, in the midst of chaos, were produced in Libya. For me, what is absolutely clear is that the government of the United States is not in the least worried about peace in Libya and it will not hesitate in giving NATO the order to invade that rich country, perhaps in a matter of hours or a few short days.”
“Those who with perfidious intentions invented the lie that Gaddafi was headed for Venezuela, just as they did yesterday afternoon on Sunday the 20th of February, today received an fitting response from Foreign Affairs Minister Nicolás Maduro...”
“As for me, I cannot imagine that the Libyan leader would abandon his country; escaping the responsibilities he is charged with, whether or not they are partially or totally false.”
“An honest person shall always be against any injustice being committed against any people in the world, and the worst of all, at this moment, would be to remain silent in the face of the crime that NATO is getting ready to commit against the Libyan people.”
“The leadership of that war-mongering organization has to do it. We must condemn it!”
At that early date I had realized something that was absolutely obvious.
Tomorrow, on Tuesday October 25th, our chancellor Bruno Rodríguez will speak at UN Headquarters to denounce the criminal blockade of the United States against Cuba. We shall be closely following that battle which will once again make clear the necessity of putting an end to, not just the blockade, but the system that spawns injustice on our planet, squanders its natural resources and puts human survival at risk. We shall be paying particular attention to Cuba’s declaration.
I shall continue on Wednesday the 26th.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 24, 2011.
5:19 p.m.
Part III
On February 23rd, under the title of “The Cynical Danse Macabre”, I set out:
“The policy of plundering imposed by the United States and their NATO allies in the Middle East has gone into a crisis.”
“Thanks to the treason committed by Sadat at Camp David, the Palestinian State has not been able to exist, despite the UN treaties of November 1947, and Israel became a strong nuclear power, an ally of the United States and NATO.
The US Military Industrial Complex supplied Israel with tens of billions of dollars every year as well as to the very Arab States that were submitted and being humiliated by Israel.
The genie has escaped from the bottle and NATO doesn’t know how to control it.
They are going to attempt to wrest the most benefits from the regrettable events in Libya. Nobody can know at this moment what is happening over there. All the figures and versions, even the most implausible ones, have been spread by the empire via the mass media, sowing chaos and disinformation.
It is obvious that inside Libya a civil war is brewing. Why and how did this happen? Who will pay the consequences? Reuters Agency, echoing the opinion of the well-known Nomura Bank of Japan, stated that oil prices could go beyond any limits:”
“…What would be the consequences in the midst of the food crisis?
“The main NATO leaders are all worked up. British Prime Minister David Cameron, ANSA informed, ‘…admitted in a speech in Kuwait that the western nations made a mistake in backing non-democratic governments in the Arab world.’.”
“His French colleague Nicolas Sarkozy stated: ‘The extended brutal and bloody repression of the Libyan civilian population is disgusting.”
“Italian Chancellor Franco Frattini stated as ‘believable’ the figure of one thousand dead in Tripoli […] ‘the tragic numbers shall be a bloodbath’.”
Hillary Clinton stated: “…the ‘bloodbath’ is ‘completely unacceptable’ and ‘it has to stop’…”
“Ban Ki-moon spoke: “‘The use of violence in the country is absolutely unacceptable’.”
“…‘the Security Council will act according to whatever the international community decides’.”
“‘We are considering a series of options’.”
What Ban Ki-moon is really hoping is that Obama pronounces the last word.
The president of the United States spoke this Wednesday afternoon and stated that the Secretary of State would be leaving for Europe in order to agree with their NATO allies on the measures to be taken. On his face once could note the opportunity to spar with John McCain, the far-right-wing Republican senator, pro-Israel Senator Joseph Lieberman from Connecticut and the leaders of the Tea Party, in order to ensure the Democratic Party demands.
The empire’s mass media has prepared the terrain for action. There would be nothing strange about a military intervention in Libya; besides, with that, Europe would be guaranteed almost two million barrels of light oil per day, unless before that events would put an end to the leadership or the life of Gaddafi.
“Anyway, Obama’s role is rather complicated. What will the reaction of the Arab and Muslim world be if blood should flow in abundance in that country as a result of that exploit? Would NATO intervention in Libya stem the revolutionary tidal wave surging in Egypt?
In Iraq, the innocent blood of more than a million Arab citizens was spilt when the country was invaded under false pretexts. ”
“Nobody in the world would ever agree with the deaths of defenceless civilians in Libya or anywhere else. And I wonder: will the US and NATO apply that principle on the defenceless civilians that the unmanned Yankee planes and the soldiers of that organization kill every day in Afghanistan and Pakistan?
It is a cynical danse macabre.”
While I was meditating upon these events, the debate scheduled for yesterday, Tuesday, October 25th, began at the United Nations, on the “Necessity of ending the economic, commercial and financial embargo imposed by the United States of America against Cuba”, something that has been addressed by the immense majority of the member countries of that institution over the course of 20 years.
This time, the numerous basic and just reasons – that for US administrations were nothing more than rhetorical exercises – made clear as never before the political and moral weakness of the most powerful empire that has existed, to whose oligarchic interests and insatiable lust for power and wealth all the inhabitants of the planet have been submitted, including the people of that very country.
The United States tyrannizes and pillages the globalized world with its political, economic, technological and military might.
That truth becomes ever more obvious after the honest and valiant debates that have been taking place in the last 20 years at the UN, with the support of the states that one presumes express the will of the immense majority of the planet’s inhabitants.
Before Bruno’s address, many countries’ organizations expressed their points of view via one of their members. The first of these was Argentina on behalf of the Group of 77 and China; Egypt followed on behalf of the Non-Aligned Nations; Kenya on behalf of the African Union; Belize on behalf of CARICOM; Kazakhstan on behalf of the Islamic Cooperation Organization; and Uruguay on behalf of MERCOSUR.
Besides these group-based expressions, China, a country with growing political and economic clout in the world, India and Indonesia firmly supported the Resolution through their ambassadors; among the three of them they represent 2.700 million inhabitants. The ambassadors of the Russian Federation, Belorussia, South Africa, Algeria, Venezuela and Mexico also spoke. Among the poorest countries of the Caribbean and Latin America, there were vibrating words of solidarity, such as the ones by the ambassador of Belize, who spoke on behalf of the Caribbean community, also the ambassador of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, who spoke on behalf of his country and the one from Bolivia, whose arguments related to solidarity with our people, despite a blockade that is now lasting 50 years, will be an undying stimulus for our physicians, educators and scientists.
Nicaragua spoke prior to the vote, to courageously explain why it would be voting against that treacherous measure.
Also speaking earlier was the United States representative, to explain the unexplainable. I was sorry for him. It was the role they had given him.
When the time for the vote arrived, two countries were absent: Libya and Sweden; three abstained: the Marshall Islands, Micronesia and Palau; two voted nay: the US and Israel. Adding up those who voted nay, abstained or were absent: the United States with 313 million inhabitants; Israel with 7.4 million; Sweden with 9.5 million; Libya with 6.5 million; Marshall Islands with 67.100; Micronesia, 106.800; Palau with 20.900, the total comes to 336 million 948 thousand, equivalent to 4.8% of the world’s population which this month is at 7 billion.
Following voting, to explain their vote, Poland spoke on behalf of the European Union which, in spite of its close alliance with the United States and its forced participation in the blockade, is against that criminal measure.
Afterwards, 17 countries spoke, to resolutely and decisively explain why they voted for the Resolution against the embargo.
To be continued on Friday the 28th.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 26, 2011
9:45 p.m.
PART IV
On March 2nd, under the title of “NATO’s Inevitable War” I wrote:
“In contrast with what is happening in Egypt and Tunisia, Libya occupies the first spot on the Human Development Index for Africa and it has the highest life expectancy on the continent. Education and health receive special attention from the State. The cultural level of its population is without a doubt the highest. Its problems are of a different sort. […] The country needed an abundant foreign labour force to carry out ambitious plans for production and social development.”
“It had enormous incomes and reserves in convertible currencies deposited in the banks of the wealthy countries from which they acquired consumer goods and even sophisticated weapons that were supplied exactly by the same countries that today want to invade it in the name of human rights.
“The colossal campaign of lies, unleashed by the mass media, resulted in great confusion in world public opinion. Some time will go by before we can reconstruct what has really happened in Libya, and we can separate the true facts from the false ones that have been spread.”
“The empire and its main allies used the most sophisticated media to divulge information about the events, among which one had to deduce the shreds of the truth.”
“Imperialism and NATO – seriously concerned by the revolutionary wave unleashed in the Arab world, where a large part of the oil is generated that sustains the consumer economy of the developed and rich countries – could not help but take advantage of the internal conflict arising in Libya so that they could promote military intervention.”
“In spite of the flood of lies and the confusion that was created, the US could not drag China and the Russian Federation to the approval by the Security Council for a military intervention in Libya, even though it managed to obtain however, in the Human Rights Council, approval of the objectives it was seeking at that moment.”
“The real fact is that Libya is now wrapped up in a civil war, as we had foreseen, and the United Nations could do nothing to avoid it, other than its own Secretary General sprinkling the fire with a goodly dose of fuel.
“The problem that perhaps the actors were not imagining is that the very leaders of the rebellion were bursting into the complicated matter declaring that they were rejecting all foreign military intervention.”
One of the rebellion’s ringleaders, Abdelhafiz Ghoga, declared on February 28th, in an encounter with journalists: “What we want is intelligence information, but in no case that our sovereignty is affected in the air, on land or on the seas.”
“The intransigence of the people responsible for the opposition on national sovereignty was reflecting the opinion being spontaneously manifested by many Libyan citizens to the international press in Benghazi”, informed a dispatch of the AFP agency this past Monday.
“That same day, a political sciences professor at the University of Benghazi, Abeir Imneina, adversary of Gaddafi stated:
“There is very strong national feeling in Libya.”
“‘Furthermore, the example of Iraq strikes fear in the Arab world as a whole’, she underlined, in reference to the American invasion of 2003 that was supposed to bring democracy to that country and then, by contagion, to the region as a whole, a hypothesis totally belied by the facts.”
“‘We know what happened in Iraq, it’s that it is fully unstable and we really don’t want to follow the same path. We don’t want the Americans to come to have to go crying to Gaddafi’, this expert continued.”
“A few hours after this dispatch was printed, two of the main press bodies of the United States, The New York Times and The Washington Post, hastened to offer new versions on the subject; the DPA agency informs on this on the following day, March the first: “The Libyan opposition could request that the West bomb from the air strategic positions of the forces loyal to President Muamar al Gaddafi, the US press informed today’.”
“The subject is being discussed inside the Libyan Revolutionary Council, ‘The New York Times’ and ‘The Washington Post’ specified in their online versions.”
“'In the event that air actions are carried out within the United Nations framework, these would not imply international intervention, explained the council’s spokesperson, quoted by The New York Times'”.
“‘The Washington Post’ quoted rebels acknowledging that, without Western backing, combat with the forces loyal to Gaddafi could last a long time and cost many human lives.”
In that Reflection, I immediately wondered:
“Why the effort to present the rebels as prominent members of society demanding bombing by the US and NATO in order to kill Libyans?”
“Some day we shall know the truth, through persons such as the political sciences professor from the University of Benghazi who, with such eloquence, tells of the terrible experience that killed, destroyed homes, left millions of persons in Iraq without jobs or forced them to emigrate.”
“Today on Wednesday, the second of March, the EFE Agency presents the well-known rebel spokesperson making statements that, in my opinion, affirm and at the same time contradict those made on Monday: “Benghazi (Libya), March 2. The rebel Libyan leadership today asked the UN Security Council to launch an air attack ‘against the mercenaries’ of the Muamar el Gaddafi regime.’”
“Which one of the many imperialist wars would this look like?
“The one in Spain in 1936? Mussolini’s against Ethiopia in 1935? George W. Bush’s against Iraq in the year 2003 or any other of the dozens of wars promoted by the United States against the peoples of the Americas, from the invasion of Mexico in 1846 to the invasion of the Falkland Islands in 1982?
“Without excluding, of course, the mercenary invasion of the Bay of Pigs, the dirty war and the blockade of our Homeland throughout 50 years, that will have another anniversary next April 16th.
“In all those wars, like that of Vietnam which cost millions of lives, the most cynical justifications and measures prevailed.
“For anyone harbouring any doubts, about the inevitable military intervention that shall occur in Libya, the AP news agency, which I consider to be well-informed, headlined a cable printed today which stated: “The NATO countries are drawing up a contingency plan taking as its model the flight exclusion zones established over the Balkans in the 1990s, in the event that the international community decides to impose an air embargo over Libya, diplomats said’.”
Any honest person capable of objectively observing the events can appreciate the danger lying in the ensemble of cynical and brutal events that characterize United States policy and explain the embarrassing solitude of that country in the UN debate on “The need to put an end to the economic, commercial and financial embargo on Cuba”.
Fidel Castro Ruz
October 28, 2011
7:14 p.m.
