Maravi

Obama has an impressive working capacity – Castro

Obama has an impressive working capacity – Castro
Written by Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Friday, June 12, 2009 9:06:35 PM

FORMER Cuban president Fidel Castro has said US President Barack Obama has an impressive working capacity.

But Fidel on Tuesday dissected President Obama's Cairo speech of last week Friday on America's reconciliation with Muslims by observing that the American leader was trying to resolve complex global problems created by his predecessors by thinking they were simpler.

"One cannot blame the new President of the United States for the situation created in the Middle East," Fidel said.

He said it was obvious that President Obama wanted to find an exit from the colossal mess created there by his predecessors and by the very development of events over the last 100 years.

"Not even Obama could imagine when he was working in the black communities of Chicago that the terrible effects of a financial crisis would combine with the factors that made his election as President in a strongly racist society possible," Fidel stressed.

"He takes office at an exceptionally complex time for his country and the world. He is trying to resolve problems that he perhaps considers to be simpler than they really are. Centuries of colonial and capitalist exploitation have given way to a world where a handful of overdeveloped rich countries coexist with another handful of immensely poor countries that provide raw materials and labour force. If you add China and India, two truly emerging nations, the struggle for natural resources and markets make up an entirely new situation on the planet where human survival itself has yet to be solved."

He noted that President Obama's African roots, his humble background and his amazing ascent had awaken hope in many who like shipwreck victims tried to hold on to a piece of wood in the middle of the storm.

Fidel said President Obama's statement in Cairo, Egypt that "any world order that elevates one nation or group of people over another will inevitably fail" was correct. He said President Obama clearly perceived the need for all countries with no exceptions to give up nuclear weapons.

However, Fidel said it was still early to pass judgement on President Obama's degree of commitment to the ideas he presented and up to which point he stood firm in sustaining, for instance, the proposal of looking for a peace agreement built on fair bases with guarantees for all the states in the Middle East.

"The current President's main difficulty lies in the fact that the principles he is advocating contradict the policy the superpower has pursued for almost seven decades, from the end of the last battles of World War II in August of 1945," he argued.

Fidel said each one of the norms advocated by President Obama in Cairo contradicted the interventions and the wars promoted by the United States.

"The first of them was the famous Cold War which he mentions in his speech, unleashed by the government of his country," he observed.

"Ideological differences with the USSR do not justify the hostility towards that state which contributed more than 25 million lives in the war against Nazism. Obama would not be remembering in these days the 65th anniversary of the Normandy landings and the liberation of Europe if it were not for the blood of the Soviet troops. Those who freed the survivors of the famous Osviecim concentration camp were Soviet army soldiers. The world was unaware of what was happening there even though quite a few among Western official circles knew the facts. How millions of Jewish children, women and old people were atrociously murdered, and millions of Russian children, women and old people lost their lives as a result of the brutal Nazi invasion in a quest for living space. The West granted concessions to Hitler and conspired to launch him and they finally pushed him to occupy and colonise Slavic lands. During World War II, the Soviets were US allies, not enemies. They dropped and tested the effects of two nuclear bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two defenseless cities."

Fidel said those who perished there were mainly Japanese children, women and old people.

He said if one were to analyse the wars promoted, supported or waged by the United States in China, Korea, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, among the millions of people who died, many were children, women and old people.

He said the colonial wars of France and Portugal after the Second World War had the support of the United States.

Fidel said the coups and interventions in Central America, Panama, Santo Domingo, Grenada, Chile, Paraguay, Uruguay, Peru and Argentina were all promoted and supported by the United States.

He said Israel was not a nuclear power but the US made it one.

Fidel said the USSR as well as other countries in the world supported in good faith the creation of an Israeli state in territory from which the Jews were driven into an exodus by the Roman Empire 2,000 years ago.

He said at the triumph of the Cuban Revolution the island had relations with Israel for more than a decade until its wars of conquest over the Palestinians and other Arab peoples led Cuba to severe them.

Fidel said the US never opposed Israeli conquest of Arab territories nor did it protest the terrorist methods used against the Palestinians.

"On the contrary, it created a nuclear power there, one of the most advanced in the world, in the heart of Arab and Muslim territory, creating in the Middle East one of the planet's most dangerous places," he charged. "The superpower also used Israel to supply nuclear weapons to the armies of apartheid in South Africa, to be used against Cuban troops which alongside Angolan and Namibian forces were defending the Peoples' Republic of Angola. These are fairly recent events which the current US President surely knows about. Thus we are not foreign to the aggression and the danger the Israeli nuclear potential represents for peace."

Fidel also noted that President Obama philosophized and lectured on US foreign policy touching on democracy.

President Obama said no "system of government can or should be imposed by one nation on any other. America does not presume to know what is best for everyone, just as we would not presume to pick the outcome of a peaceful election. But I do have an unyielding belief that all people yearn for certain things, the ability to speak your mind and have a say in how you are governed; confidence in the rule of law and the equal administration of justice...These are not just American ideas. They are human rights. And that is why we will support them everywhere."

He also talked about religious freedom also noting that it was easier to start wars than to end them.

But Fidel said President Obama stumbled into a contradiction on the issue of democracy.

He said the maxim he begun with of "no system of government should be imposed on any nation" was a principle in the Charter of the United Nations as a fundamental element of international law.

"He immediately contradicts himself with a declaration of faith that turns the United States into the supreme judge over democratic values and human rights," said Fidel.

"...It would really appear to be a public relations campaign carried out by the United States with the Muslim countries. In any case, this is better than threatening to destroy them with bombs. He is a very good communicator...He has an impressive working capacity. Some time will go by before we see anything like it again."

Labels: BARACK OBAMA, FIDEL CASTRO

posted by MrK @ 8:09 PM