Fidel accuses US of annexing Colombia

Fidel accuses US of annexing Colombia
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Tue 10 Nov. 2009, 04:01 CAT

FIDEL Castro has accused the United States of annexing Colombia.

Commenting on the Complementation Agreement for Defence and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States, signed on October 30 that facilitates opening of 7-US military bases in Colombia, Fidel warned on Friday that peoples of Latin America would never cave in to such ignominy, and so they would oppose it.

“Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defence and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States’ signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States,” Fidel said.

He said the agreement put theoreticians and politicians in a predicament.

“It would not be honest to keep silence now and speak later on sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire as easy as lizards catch flies,” Fidel said.
He said the hefty 48-page document with 21 lines each contained no digestible justification for the US to turn Colombia into an overseas territory.

Fidel said today the world faced serious and pressing problems.
He said the entire humanity was threatened by climate change.

Fidel said European leaders were almost begging on their knees for some kind of agreement in Copenhagen that would prevent the catastrophe.

He said the Third World countries were rightly claiming from the richest and most developed nations hundreds of billion dollars a year to pay for the climate battle.

“Does it make sense for the United States government to invest time and money in building military bases in Colombia to impose on our peoples their hateful tyranny?” Fidel asked.

“Along that path if a disaster is already threatening the world, a greater and faster disaster is threatening the empire and it would all be the consequence of the same exploiting and plundering system of the planet.”

Fidel said it was really cynical to claim that the infamous agreement was necessary to fight drug trafficking and international terrorism.

He said Cuba had shown that there was no need of foreign troops to prevent the cultivation and trafficking of drugs and to preserve domestic order even though the United States “the mightiest power on earth has promoted, financed and armed the terrorists who for decades have attacked the Cuban Revolution”.

Fidel said the preservation of domestic peace was a basic prerogative of every government and the presence of American troops in any Latin American country to do it on their behalf constituted a blatant foreign interference in their internal affairs that would inevitably elicit the peoples’ rejection.

“A simple reading of the document shows that not only the Colombian airbases will be in the Yankees’ hands but also the civilian airports and ultimately any facility that may be useful to their armed forces,” he said.

Fidel said radio space was also available to the US and that the US Armed Forces would have exceptional prerogatives including not being accountable to Colombian law.

He said the agreement to remain in force for successive 10-year periods could not be modified until the end of every period with a one-year prior notice.

“What will the United States do if an administration as that of Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, George Bush Sr. or Bush Jr., and others like them, is asked to leave Colombia?” Fidel asked.

“The Yankees US have ousted scores of governments in our hemisphere. How long would a government last in Colombia if it announced such intentions?”

He said the politicians in Latin America were faced with a sensitive issue, which is the fundamental duty of explaining their viewpoints on the annexation document.

“I am aware that what is happening in Honduras at this decisive moment draws the attention of the media and the foreign ministers of this hemisphere but the Latin American governments cannot overlook the extremely serious and transcendental events taking place in Colombia,” said Fidel.

“I have no doubts about the reaction of the peoples. They will be sensitive to the dagger being shoved deep inside them especially in Colombia. They will oppose.”