(SUNDAY MAIL ZW) ‘President Mugabe is a wise leader’
Sunday, 01 December 2013 00:00
President Mugabe is a wise leader who can play a crucial role in the democratisation of the United Nations, visiting Cuban Foreign Affairs Minister Cde Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla has said. He also condemned the illegal economic sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe by the West, saying they must be scrapped expeditiously.
In an interview soon after meeting his Zimbabwean counterpart Cde Simbarashe Mumbengegwi in Harare yesterday, Cde Parrilla said he was highly honoured to have met President Mugabe last Friday.
He said his meeting with the President centred on strategies for greater co-operation between the two countries. “It was a great honour for me to meet a freedom fighter. He is a wise man. I was impressed by his creative approach on how the world body can be more democratic and more inclusive,” he said.
“We had a very fruitful and frank discussion with His Excellency on the UN reforms and the power of the General Assembly. I think you know that we share the same world view.” Also speaking to journalists after yesterday’s meeting, Cde Mumbengegwi said Cde Parrilla’s visit demonstrated “the strong bonds of friendship and brotherly solidarity that exists between the two countries”.
He said Cuba contributed immensely to Zimbabwe’s independence from British colonial rule by providing military training to liberation fighters, among other forms of assistance. He said more than 3 100 Zimbabwean students, specialising in mathematics and science, have graduated from Cuban tertiary education institutions since 1985. The meeting focused on bilateral areas of co-operation.
“The bonds can be traced back to the period of Zimbabwe’s struggle for independence from colonialism and its vestiges,” said Minister Mumbengegwi. “We are mindful that Cuba played a very crucial role in spite of the fact that it was facing its own challenges caused by the cruel and unwarranted embargo imposed by the United States. Cuba was among the first countries to establish diplomatic relationships with Harare. As you all know, Cuba is strong in tourism and services and we are going to make a follow up on how we are going to benefit.”
Minister Mumbengegwi said Zimbabwe was committed to the principles and values of the Non-Aligned Movement, which include sovereign equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of member states, among others. Cde Parrilla arrived in the country on Friday and is expected to leave today.
Labels: CUBA, ROBERT MUGABE, RODRIGUEZ PARRILLA, UN
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Remove that irrational blockade against Cuba
By Editor
Fri 15 Nov. 2013, 14:00 CAT
FOR twenty-two consecutive years, the United Nations General Assembly has overwhelmingly voted against the United States' blockade of Cuba. This year, the vote saw only one country, Israel, joining the United States in supporting the blockade. A total of 188 United Nations member states called for an end to the United States' blockade of Cuba while three others - Micronesia, the Marshal Islands and Palau - abstained from the vote as was the case last year. This vote of the United Nations General Assembly underscores the irrationality of the United States' continuation of a five-decade-old blockade.
While the blockade has been through several legal iterations in the intervening years, the general tenor of the United States position toward Cuba is a hard-line not-in-my-backyard approach to communism a la the Monroe Doctrine. This position is not only outdated but hypocritical and counter-productive.
The United States spends massive amounts of money trying to keep Cuban goods out of the United States. At least ten different agencies are said to be responsible for enforcing different provisions of the blockade, and according to the Government Accountability Office, the United States government devotes hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of man-hours to administer this blockade each year.
At Miami International Airport, visitors arriving from a Cuban airport are said to be seven times more likely to be stopped and subjected to further customs inspections than are visitors from other countries. It is said that more than 70 per cent of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control inspections each year are centered on rooting out Cuban goods even though the agency administers more than twenty other trade bans. United States' government resources could be better spent on the enforcement of other sanctions, such as illicit drug trade from Colombia, rather than the search of contraband cigars and rum from Cuba.
At present, the United States is largely alone in restricting access to Cuba. The blockade has long been a point of friction between the United States and its allies in Europe, South America and Canada. Every year since 1992, the United States has been publicly condemned in the United Nations for maintaining counter-productive and worn-out trade and migration restrictions against Cuba despite the fact that nearly all the 5,911 United States companies nationalised during the Revolution have dropped their claims.
Moreover, since Europeans, Japanese and Canadians can travel and conduct business in Cuba unimpeded, the sanctions are rather toothless. The State Department has argued that the cost of conducting business in Cuba is only negligibly higher because of the blockade.
For United States transnational corporations wishing to undertake commerce in Cuba, foreign branches find it easy to conduct exchanges.
Yet, estimates of the sanctions' annual cost to the United States economy range from US $1.2 billion to US$3.6 billion, according to the United States Chamber of Commerce. Restrictions of trade disproportionately affect United States small businesses who lack the transportation and financial infrastructure to skate the blockade. These restrictions translate into real reductions in income and employment for Americans in states like Florida.
Removing the blockade would fit into an American precedent of lifting trade and travel restrictions to countries, who according to their criteria, demonstrate progress towards democratic ideals. Romania, Czechoslovakia and Hungary were all offered normal trade relations in the 1970s after preliminary reforms, even though they were still in clear violation of several United States resolutions condemning their human rights practices. China, a communist country and one consistently accused of human rights abuses, is the United States' second largest trading partner. And last year, trade restrictions against Myanmar were lessened, notwithstanding a 50-year history of genocide and human trafficking propagated by its military government. Cuba, although a communist country, cannot be accused of any of such things. Cuba's human rights record, when it comes to things that constitute true humanitarianism, the policy of promoting the dignity of human beings and their wellbeing, stands out.
Which, of course, begs the question: when will the United States see it fit to lift the blockade against Cuba? If Cuba is trending towards free markets, what litmus test must be passed for the embargo to be rolled back? Of course, all these economic reforms Cuba is undertaking, none of them can be said to be in pursuit of getting the blockade removed. They are being undertaken simply because Cuba, for one reason or another, needs them to improve its economy and the welfare of its people.
The cost of the blockade to the United States is high in both dollar and moral terms, but it is higher for the Cuban people, who are cut off from the supposed champion of liberty in their hemisphere because of an antiquated Cold War dispute. The progress being made in Cuba could be accelerated with the removal of the blockade.
A perpetual blockade of a developing nation that is doing the best for its people and that is assisting so many other poor countries makes little sense, especially when the United States allies are openly hostile to the blockade. It really makes no economic sense and it's time for this blockade to go.
And Cuba deserves respect and support for standing up for more than five decades, for over half a century to this blockade, to the United States' hostilities and blackmail. They are struggling and sacrificing for all of us and we should learn from them what it means to defend one's country's sovereignty, independence, dignity. So many lies have been told about Cuba and its Revolution. We have a duty to repeal the lies that are written or said about this generous and noble land. We know that there is a Spartan people in Cuba that can stand a blockade for more than half a century without capitulating, giving up their principles, dignity and revolution.
Of the Cubans can be said what the gravestone said in the Pass of Thermopylae: "Go tell the world that here there lie 300 Spartans, who preferred to die rather than surrender." They have confronted every difficulty, pressure and economic, political and other kinds of attack. But they have kept moving ahead. We have no doubt that blockade or no blockade, the Cuban Revolution will go winning new laurels and scoring new victories. And nothing and nobody can ever stop them. That irrational, outdated, hypocritical blockade is useless, counter-productive and should be removed.
Labels: CUBA, SANCTIONS
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Fidel, Cuba deserve respect, honour
By Editor
Tue 11 June 2013, 14:00 CAT
Cuba deserves the respect and support of all progressive, fair and just-minded people regardless of their ideological or political outlooks.
And as for us in Africa, especially in southern Africa, we have a special debt that we owe Cuba. And as Dr Kenneth Kaunda correctly observes, Cuba paid a very high price for the liberation of our region from colonialism and apartheid. Thousands of Cubans lost their lives in our service. How much more can one ask from another human being? How far can one go in demonstrating one's love for another than to lay down his life for them?
Cuba is not a country with gigantic natural resources, a lot of money, but it has been able to share whatever little they had, they have with others. Whatever Cuba has, we got a share of it.
In terms of solidarity with other peoples, which country in this world can match the internationalist spirit and actions of Cuba? In terms of sharing with others, which country in this world can match Cuba? We can as well ask: in terms of the Christian spirit and practice, which country in this world is more Christian in its deeds than Cuba?
Well, Dr Kaunda has poured praises on Fidel Castro, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, and all of it is justified and well earned praise. In the Christian sense, in deeds, Fidel is a saint. If Nobel Prizes were given in terms of one's sense of humanity, one's true contributions to humanity, Fidel would be a Nobel Prize winner. But there are other criteria that seem to be ideological more than anything else that may explain why Fidel is not a Nobel Prize winner. We say this because there is no match in the world political leadership for Fidel in many areas of human endeavour, including in the issues of human rights.
Looking at things fairly, without prejudice and objectively, we are thoroughly convinced that no politician in the world, that no country in the world has done more than Fidel and Cuba have to protect human rights.
No children in Cuba have to beg or are homeless in the way we see in other countries; no children have to scrounge for a living in the streets in the way we see in other countries. In the rest of the world - including the developed countries, but mainly in the other Third World countries - millions of homeless children who have no parents or support of any kind are begging in the streets, doing all sorts of things to make a living. In view of this, we ask: is there any politician or country that has done more than Fidel and Cuba have to protect human rights?
Look at the number of sick children who don't receive any medical attention and the numbers of children who are illiterate, even in the developed countries. In Cuba, everyone knows how to read and write. Hundreds of millions of children in the world don't have access to medical treatment, but in Cuba every child has a school to go to and medical care. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba has done? And mind you, this is not a rich country in terms of money!
In other parts of the world, children are bought and sold and even exported to other countries. In some cases, quite frequently, children are even sold so that their vital organs can be used for transplants. That has never happened in Cuba. With regard to this aspect, has any country in this world done more than Cuba to protect human rights?
Think of child prostitution, which is quite generalised in the rest of the Third World. There isn't that type of child prostitution in Cuba. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba has done?
Many countries have infant mortality rates of more than 100 for every thousand live births. This means that hundreds of thousands of children die each year. However, Cuba - a Third World, under-developed country that has been under a blockade for more than five decades, for more than half a century - has brought down its mortality rates for children under a year old to less than 10 and the figure for one to five-year-olds to practically zero. Since the triumph of the Revolution led by Fidel, the lives of thousands of children have been saved in Cuba. As regards this aspect, has any country done more than Cuba to protect human rights?
In Cuba, every human being has a truly equal opportunity to develop physically and intellectually, without any discrimination based on sex or race. This holds true for everyone, without any differences between rich and poor. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba has done?
All this is the result of the Cuban Revolution's humanitarian work of giving everybody opportunities, creating conditions for eliminating injustices, inequalities and providing a healthy environment. In this regard, has any country done more than Cuba to protect human rights?
Life expectancy has increased considerably - to almost 80 - since the triumph of the Revolution. Every citizen has been given dozens of additional years and the possibility of having a healthier, safer life. In other countries of this world, life expectancy is 40, 45, 50, 55 or 60. As regards this aspect, has any country done more than Cuba for human rights?
Discrimination against women - which is so strongly entrenched in all other parts of the world, including the other Third World countries - has disappeared in Cuba. In fact, women constitute nearly 60 per cent of the country's technical workforce and are paid the same wages as men, with no wage discrimination - a form of discrimination that is an everyday phenomenon in the rest of the world. It doesn't exist in Cuba, where women have been liberated and have job opportunities, protection education, health care and nursery schools for their children. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba?
Take racial discrimination. The Revolution wiped it out in Cuba. Now, all citizens have full equality, including equal opportunities without racial discrimination - a fact that nobody can dispute in Cuba. Few other countries in the world can say the same. Has any country really done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba?
Look at the effect that equality - equal opportunities and equal treatment - has on human beings and their happiness. People need more than food: they need honour, dignity, respect and to be treated like human beings. In this regard, has any country done more than Cuba to protect human rights?
All over the world, some citizens have been alienated and considered worthless. They are taken to vote for somebody every four, five or six years without even knowing who they are voting for or why - because, often, their low political cultural level and low cultural level in general don't give them a chance to decide freely. They are influenced by all the mechanisms for exerting mental and psychological influence in decision making - and then nobody cares about them anymore. There isn't any sense of identification between such people and the state, the government and the society in which they live. They are condemned to a desperate struggle for survival without any social worth, respect or consideration. In Cuba, the situation is entirely different, with total identification and full participation by citizens in all activities - political activities, activities in defence of their country, cultural activities and activities for developing the country. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba?
With the Revolution, Cuba has created a sense of solidarity and fraternity. In this regard, has any country done more for human rights than Cuba?
They have experiences and live in an atmosphere unlike those in many of our countries in the world. There, they share what they have. They don't have any gross inequality, with some having much more than they need and dying of heart attacks and cholesterol, while others starve to death. There, they share everything - their country belongs to all of them, and its riches belong to all of them, too. Has any country done more for its people than Cuba?
There, citizens feel they count; they are a part of society; they feel they have a national dignity and a homeland - something that is very rare and inaccessible to the vast majority of the people in today's world. Has any country done more for human rights in this regard than Cuba?
The list goes on and on. We are talking about things which, in our opinion, constitute true humanitarianism, the policy of promoting the dignity of human beings and their wellbeing. Inequality causes terrible suffering, which is unknown to the Cuban people.
Cuba has been grossly slandered. Its enemies have even spoken of physical violence against people, torture and such things. They have written and multiplied all that calumny against Cuba. But the Cuban Revolution has a characteristic that very few revolutions have had in all of history: the Cuban people have been taught to hate crime, to hate torture, to hate the use of physical violence against individuals, to hate abuses of power. This is what inspires them in their struggle, what mobilises them and unites them: their frontal attack on all those forms of injustice. They have employed this approach consistently throughout their revolutionary history. They have had a humanitarian policy. This is extremely outstanding for a country that has been under attack since the triumph of the Revolution. We say this because there is always a justification for doing cruel things in times of danger in a country that is continually under attack. Since the triumph of the Revolution, nobody has been assassinated, no prisoners have been tortured and no physical violence has been used against prisoners. How many other countries, revolutions, states that have had civil wars or states that have participated in foreign wars can say the same? But Cuba has every right to.
Surely, a country and a political leadership of this kind deserves admiration, respect and honour. And for these reasons, Fidel and Cuba deserve respect, admiration and honour.
Labels: CUBA, FIDEL CASTRO, KENNETH KAUNDA, SIBANZE SIMUCHOBA
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Cuba has selflessly shared its little resources - Simuchoba
By Moses Kuwema
Tue 11 June 2013, 14:00 CAT
ZAMBIA-Cuba Friendship Association president Sibanze Simuchoba says Cuba has selflessly shared the little resources it has with other needy areas in Africa.
Commenting on the message first Republican president Dr Kenneth Kaunda delivered to revolution leader Fidel Castro on behalf of President Michael Sata in which he recognised and appreciated Cuba's aid to Zambia since independence, Simuchoba said Cuba had invested very wisely in all key areas of which assists human society to advance.
He said Cuba had zeroed in on the wholeness of social well-being.
"They invested in improving knowledge and you find that the beginning is to promote literacy so that people can read and communicate. Their investment in health education has come in to make a difference not only for Cuba but the third world where Cuba has selflessly shared the bit it has with other needy areas in Angola, South Africa," he said.
Simuchoba said Cuba also understood imperialism very well.
"It knows that imperialism is vicious but it has not developed cold feet despite the closeness of the centre of imperialism, the United States. Even with the embargo, they have done better than the third world countries. In terms of Southern Africa, the one big help or contribution Cuba did was their military campaign in Angola," said Simuchoba.
He said although Cuba was not militaristic, it had a strong military because of its cadre of soldiers.
"It has a cadre of soldiers who know what they are in the military for and if they have to go to war, they know what they are fighting for," he said.
While in Cuba last week, Dr Kaunda delivered, through President Raul Castro, President Sata's message to Fidel Castro in which State House recognised and appreciated Cuba's aid to Zambia.
President Sata sought more cooperation with Cuba.
Labels: CUBA, FIDEL CASTRO, KENNETH KAUNDA, SIBANZE SIMUCHOBA
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Fidel is a great man, says KK
By Larry Moonze in Havana, Cuba
Fri 07 June 2013, 14:01 CAT
DR Kenneth Kaunda has said Fidel Castro is a great man and a very great friend of his. And Dr Kaunda says Zambia would have plunged into ethnic and religious conflicts after independence like other African nations had he not united the 73 ethnic groups under One Zambia One Nation.
Addressing Zambian students and others when he visited Latin American School of Medicine (ELAM) in Havana on Wednesday, Dr Kaunda told the students that as they become doctors of science and conscious, they must uphold the principles of togetherness and seek to work for the common humanity and not one race or group of society.
"We can't forget to say to Fidel Castro… I am very proud of that man for the wonderful work he has done to humankind. I'm very proud and that is why we are very great friends to him," he said. "Fidel Castro is a great name all over the world in many ways."
Dr Kaunda told the students that Cuba under the leadership of Fidel helped Africa not only in education, health, engineering and agriculture, but also in the fight against colonialism.
"Fidel Castro sent troops not just anywhere but where they were required because those nations had been invaded by colonialists," he said.
He cited Algeria, Namibia and Angola as such areas where Cuban military assistance was provided to reverse and defeat colonial invaders.
"Young people, I'm proud to meet with you here. It is wonderful to hear young Zambians speak so well in Spanish language. They are learning to become useful citizens of Zambia and the continent of Africa as a whole," he said.
"Let's move together…In Zambia we had 73 ethnic groups, then came the English tribe, Scottish, Pakistani, Indians, Greeks, and others such that we have more than 80 tribes. If we didn't come together, we would be like other parts of the continent where they fought or are fighting according to ethnic, religious, and other such groupings. In Zambia as leaders we thought to move together as One Zambia One Nation regardless tribe, colour, faith or anything like that, with one heart and soul."
He said the 10 Zambian students at ELAM and those in other Cuban universities were learning so that they return home to help their fellow citizens.
"What you are learning here is for your own good to equip you for the future, but more importantly is to serve the people of Zambia. Learn quickly and come back home. They need you, we need you back home," Dr Kaunda said. "When I came to power we provided free education from grade one to university and colleges. We are building, many universities are coming up again to strengthen Zambian education facilities."
He said with education and unity, Zambian youths would be armed to fight poverty, ignorance, disease, corruption, misery, violence and exploitation of man by man.
"When I was fighting for independence, my wife and I stood together. My wife died last year. She was 84 and I'm 89 years," Dr Kaunda said in an emotional tone. "She did wonderful work with me. She did a lot of work. I used to sing for her during our courtship. I still sing the same song today and I will sing it to you now. That is how much I loved her. I still love her today."
Kaoma Musonda, a student, said Zambian students were honoured to receive Dr Kaunda, who formed part of African history for his ideals and principles including his social projects in the health sector.
"As young people studying at ELAM, we want to thank the Cuban government and Cuban people for the opportunity to study medicine on scholarship so that we can become doctors of science and conscience," said Musonda. "We also promise that once we graduate we will return to our country to promote health in the communities that need it and fight to eradicate diseases that affect our country and our continent."
ELAM rector Dr Rafael Gonzalez Ponce de Leon said the university was opened in 1999 following the two hurricanes that ravaged the Caribbean and Central America. He said since Cuban medical personnel was sent to those affected countries, Fidel decided to open a university that could train Latin American and Caribbean youths who would eventually replace those Cuban experts after the recovery process.
ELAM is actually located on what used to be the Cuban Navy Academy, west of the city of Havana.
Dr Gonzalez said ELAM had so far graduated 17,272 medical doctors from 88 countries from Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and the Oceania.
He said the training programme was tailored to ensure graduates are ready to work in any community and not just main cities.
"We inculcate a great sense of humanism," Dr Gonzalez said.
He said currently ELAM had 13,282 students from 122 countries across the five continents of the global.
On his part, Dr Kaunda said it was amazing how "fellow human beings could work and execute huge projects to save humanity".
He said Cuba did notconsider one's colour but looked at everyone as a human being.
"We in Zambia and many parts of Africa express our gratitude for the wonderful work you do at this centre of learning," Dr Kaunda said. "Cuba provides for itself as well as all of humanity medical doctors, engineers agriculturalists, mining experts and others. We are grateful to you all and please continue this wonderful work for humankind."
Labels: CUBA, FIDEL CASTRO, KENNETH KAUNDA
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KK urges Cubans to stand by their new leaders
By Larry Moonze and Kondwani Munyeka in Cuba
Thu 06 June 2013, 14:01 CAT
DR Kenneth Kaunda has urged Cubans to stand by their new leaders as they did with revolutionary Fidel Castro.
Upon receiving the Order of Solidarity medal conferred on him by the Council of State of Cuba through the Cuban Institute for Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) at Havana's Jose Marti Memorial on Tuesday, Dr Kaunda said Cuba should continue the path carved by Fidel.
He said under the leadership of Fidel, Cuba assisted Africa to end colonialism and in the struggle against poverty and its offshoots of hunger, corruption, ignorance, violence and exploitation of man by man.
"We cannot forget to mention that great son of Cuba, a great son of Africa as well, Fidel Castro. He guided Cuba well towards assisting Africa in a big way. And we thank you the Cuban people for supporting him," Dr Kaunda said.
"For us through One Zambia, One Nation we were bringing Zambians together. Now I say One Cuba, One Nation… Continue to stand together as Comrade Fidel Castro started it, taught us. He has given us a good example of working together, in full solidarity for the good of humanity. Stand by your new leaders, support them and fight on. Cuba has done wonderful things. I can only pray to God to continue guiding you."
Dr Kaunda punctuated his brief off-the-cuff speech with songs, much to the delight of the audience that included African diplomats accredited to Havana, FRELIMO founder and freedom fighter Marcelino Dos Santos, several Communist Party of Cuba members among them politburo member and Speaker Esteban Lazo, Central Committee's head of International Relations Jose Ramon Balaguer and another politburo member Jorge Risquet.
Immediately Lazo presented him the medal, Dr Kaunda invited his delegation led by Zambia's envoy to Cuba Bobby Samakai to sing his famous "We Shall Fight And Conquer AIDS". Midway into the song, diplomats and Cuban leaders could not resist but sing along.
"Comrades, Speaker and all Comrades, I prefer the so many things Cuba has done for Zambia and Africa at large. The latest it has been doing, has been the fight against HIV/AIDS," he said.
Dr Kaunda said Zambia and Cuba had a longstanding friendship.
He said Cuba sent troops to defend the African liberation cause and today was helping Africa confront HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases.
Dr Kaunda urged Cuba not to tire in helping Africa train its human resources.
"We must continue fighting poverty and its offshoots of hunger and exploitation," he said.
Dr Kaunda said he felt honoured to have met Marcelino in Havana.
He said the duo fought together in the liberation of Mozambique, Angola, Zimbabwe, Namibia and South Africa.
"I am very happy he is here when you are honouring me this way," said Dr Kaunda.
Leading the act, ICAP president Kenia Serrano said her institute was honoured to receive a long-time friend of the Cuban Revolution. Serrano said Dr Kaunda was also a firm supporter of Latin America who expressed his sorrow following the death of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez.
She said Dr Kaunda was being honoured with the Order of Solidarity in line with Agreement Number 5062 of the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba.
Serrano said Dr Kaunda was one of Africa's most prestigious leaders.
"This former school teacher won the respect and admiration of his compatriots and the entire Africa because of his immense humanity and being an inexorable fighter for peace, development and unity of the African continent together with other leaders like Julius Nyerere (Tanzania), Oliver Tambo (South Africa) among others," she said.
Serrano said Cuba and Zambia had developed a good and exemplary relationship based on mutual respect.
She said during Dr Kaunda's reign, those links reached a greater period of dynamism leading to the establishment of medical cooperation and granting of scholarships to young Zambians to study in Cuba.
"From Zambia we have received permanent solidarity in our fight against the US blockade and the release of the Cuban Five anti-terror agents incarcerated in the US," said Serrano.
"The imposition of this honourable Order is being carried out at a very special moment when the African continent is celebrating its 50th anniversary of the formation of the African Union. For your own merits as a tireless fighter for the just causes of Africa and the world and your unwavering friendship towards the Cuban Revolution and its historic leader Fidel Castro Ruz, the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba granted you in 1975 the Order Jose Marti and now it awards you again with the Order of Solidarity. Receive, Dr Kenneth Kaunda, this medal on behalf of the Cuban Revolution, its people and its leaders as a demonstration of our eternal friendship and fraternity."
Earlier, Dr Kaunda visited the Pedro Kouri Institute of Tropical Medicine (IPK).
IPK director general Professor Jorge Perez said the institute was ready to cooperate with Zambia.
Prof. Perez recalled that when Dr Kaunda visited in 1985, Cuba had not yet recorded an HIV/AIDS case.
He said even then Fidel had asked the IPK to prepare and ensure that HIV/AIDS was not introduced on Cuban soil.
Prof Perez said Fidel had forewarned that HIV/AIDS would be a disease of the century and that the world was not prepared to combat it.
He said the first HIV/AIDS case was recorded in 1986 and by 2012 the pandemic had claimed 2,733 lives.
Prof Perez said between 1986 and 2012, Cuba had 17,623 HIV positive cases of which 80 per cent were male and 19.2 per cent female.
He said 8,000 people were on antiretroviral drugs. Prof Perez said Cuba produced ARVs.
He said IPK's mandate was among others to protect the Cuban population against infectious diseases and to avoid introduction of exotic ones, contribute to development of biomedical sciences, to be national reference centre for clinical treatment of HIV/AIDS and to collaborate with other countries especially the developing world.
IPK does research on STIs/HIV, respiratory illnesses, transplants and vaccines for various diseases. It has five departments: microbiology, parasitology, medical care, epidemiology, and teaching.
Prof Perez said IPK had between 1979 and 2012 trained some 51,389 personnel 4,380 of them foreigners from 89 countries in various courses such as parasitology, virology, bacterial diseases, fungal diseases and others.
At the end of his presentation, Prof Perez presented Dr Kaunda with a framed photograph of his 1985 visit to IPK along with Fidel.
For his part, Dr Kaunda said IPK was an extremely important centre.
"East-west, north-south, all of the world is grateful to the existence of this centre. For ages, you and your colleagues and indeed your dear comrades have been making wonderful contributions in the extremely important field of medical-human-existence. How can we who have these benefits come to us in many different ways thank you and all at this centre?" Dr Kaunda posed.
"Please continue to serve the whole of the common human race in this wonderful world. May God our creator who gave us Fidel Castro in this world continue to help and guide you in all ways. We are extremely grateful for all you continue to do for the entire human race. Ambassador Samakai coordinate what it is we can do together with IPK."
Labels: CUBA, KENIA SERRANO, KENNETH KAUNDA
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Cuba exalts KK
By Larry Moonze and Kondwani Munyeka in Havana, Cuba
Wed 05 June 2013, 14:01 CAT
CUBA receives you with great admiration and respect, Cuban National Assembly Speaker Esteban Lazo has told Dr Kenneth Kaunda. And Dr Kaunda has said Cuba's aid to Zambia and Africa is priceless.
Receiving Zambia's first Republican president Dr Kaunda, at his office on Monday, Speaker Lazo said when one had talked to Dr Kaunda, they came into contact with history and reality.
He said Dr Kaunda was a symbol of African struggle for independence and an embodiment of the bonds between Cuba and Zambia.
Dr Kaunda listened attentively as Lazo explained that he found it difficult to express in words just how joyful Cuba was to finally receive him to the island after many years.
"A brotherly greeting, an embrace from the bottom of our hearts for a colleague in the struggle for justice, a symbol of the African struggle for independence, you are a symbol for all of Africa, a living symbol for all those African heroes who fought like you and you are also the symbol of the bond between Cuba and Africa and Zambia in particular," Lazo said.
"I have had a chance of meeting you on many occasions and I have always admired you greatly, with a lot of respect and I'm also very fond of you. I know you have been to Cuba many times because you came to see your brother Fidel over the greatest strategy to fight for the poor which is the reason as to why we always welcome you to Cuba with great admiration and respect. We are not just welcoming a leader but the hero representing the Africancontinent. In the recent past, we have been receiving a lot of visitors and we recently met with your foreign affairs minister Effron Lungu and we discussed a number of important issues pertaining to the two countries with the need to strengthen the relations, not just political links but this time economic and other spheres. Having a chance of talking to you gives us the reason of maintaining the history arrived at together with your late wife Betty and many other African leaders like Patrice Lumumba, Laurent Kabila among others."
He said the West underestimated Africa's match towards unity and development.
Lazo said one of the things that the enemies of Africa tried to do was to silence the African struggle by killing its leaders "but here you are as the living example. "
He said he was very pleased that during the 50th anniversary of the OAU and the African Union leaders talked about Pan Africanism (unity) and renaissance to ensure continental development.
Lazo said Cuba was happy that Dr Kaunda denounced economic colonialism.
He said the West had always wanted to be the owners of all the resources that Africa possessed.
"But They cannot do it again because we already have achieved our freedom with arms, with our leaders, our culture and courage," Lazo said.
"But today they are trying to find new ways to dominate us, and they underestimate us and that is why in my Speech to the AU I said the West cannot continue saying Africa cannot develop because what Africa needs is human capital. But instead of helping us what they do is taking away that human capital. Africa needs technology as well and instead of offering that technology they refuse us. They should offer it to Africa… give us all that we need. I saw clear objectives among the agreements that were finalised about the future of Africa which is closely linked to the Diaspora.
And everyone there was saying Cuba has helped Africa as thousands of Cubans fought in Africa and more 350,000 Cubans were in Africa at different moments and currently a lot more are still there offering services in different fields as your friend and brother Fidel Castro said: the only thing that we are doing is settling the debt that we have with humanity.
And most of those Cubans that served and still serve in Africa are the descendants of thousands of slaves that were brought here to Cuba so all in all we can say that we are the same. That's why we can say the formation of Cuban identity is as a result of the African wisdom, culture and courage."
Lazo said while in Addis Ababa, he met and discussed with President Michael Sata.
He said over 100 Zambians had graduated in Cuba in various fields while today some 36 students were studying on Cuban scholarship.
Lazo said over the years a lot of Cubans served in Zambia with the majority of those experts having done so during Dr Kaunda's era.
He said Cuba had very good relations with all African countries and had about 27 embassies on the continent.
"In Cuba there are a lot of African missions as well but we are missing one very important one which is the Zambian embassy, " Lazo said.
"In order to multiply our relations we need you here so that we can have day-to-day talks over how to improve technology, malaria control among others. But now we are proud that the good news has finally come to us which is about opening the embassy. As you might be aware I have spent all my time in the party however on the 24th of February I was elected Speaker of the National Assembly. I'm very new in this office but already having great achievements with your visit being the greatest for me."
Dr Kaunda, who departs Havana on Friday, is accompanied by Zambian envoy to Cuba Bobby Samakai, Cheswa Kaunda Silwizya (First President Office protocol official), his administrative assistant Florence Mukutu, Boniface Mavuto Nkhoma (aide and personal assistant) and grandsons Malume Azim Kaunda and Masuzgo Gwebe Malume.
In his remarks, Dr Kaunda said Lazo was full of wisdom.
"Young man how old are you," he asked his host. Lazo responded 68. Then Dr Kaunda goes on : "Full of wisdom, full experience, full commitment following Fidel Castro's programmes and activities."
He said Cuba and Zambia had come together a long way.
Dr Kaunda said when the West called "Fidel Castro and all of you ugly names we stood by you because we know where we come from and all we have in common. "He said Zambia was very grateful for what Cuban had done for Africa and in particular Zambia.
"What Cuba has done to assist us fight against colonialism, imperialism is something we value most. You are 68, still a very young man and I am just 89, an old young man! We stand together and are still ready to continue to fight and we are proud of you.
What you have done for our education, health services, agriculture, and engineering is priceless and all these among others are very important aspects in the growth of our economy."
Dr Kaunda recognised Cuba's role in the independence struggle for Angola, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa.
"Where would we be by now if Cuba did not give a hand to these African countries in the fight for their freedom?" he asked. "How can we thank you sufficiently except to come here and tell your people to continue the fight."
Meanwhile, Dr Kaunda who arrived on Sunday in Havana from Canada praised Ottawa and African diplomats for the invitation and good reception.
Dr Kaunda also thanked President Michael Sata for allowing him to visit Canada and deliver the President's goodwill message to Canadian Prime Minister which he did through foreign minister John Baird.
He thanked Baird, Veterans Affairs minister Steven Blaney, parliamentarians, Senator Mobina Jaffer for organising his visit to the Canadian Senate where the Senate session was temporally suspended to pay tribute to him for his role in ending apartheid and colonialism in Africa. It was the first time the Senate of Canada temporarily suspended deliberations for a visiting African leader.
Dr Kaunda said the visit to the Senate cheered him greatly and he appreciated the statement read in the Senate recognising his role in the fight against colonialism and other injustices in Africa. On Saturday, Dr Kaunda met the Zambian community in Canada and mission staff at the Official residence of the Zambian High Commission.
Labels: COLONIALISM, CUBA, KENNETH KAUNDA
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Cuba reaffirms bond with Africa in fight for decolonisation
By Ernest Chanda
Sat 25 May 2013, 14:00 CAT
The Cuban government has reaffirmed its bond with Africa in the fight for decolonisation.
Congratulating the African continent on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Organisation of African Unity, now African Union, Cuban Ambassador to Zambia Caridad Pérez González said Africa had achieved a lot during this period.
"This is also an occasion to reaffirm the historical and unwavering bonds of solidarity and friendship that exist between the Cuban and African peoples cemented in the joint fight for decolonization, for independence and against apartheid," said Ambassador Gonzalez in a statement yesterday.
"The Embassy of the Republic of Cuba has the honour to express its most heart-felt congratulatory message to the Zambian and African peoples on the occasion of the 50th Anniversary of the Establishment of the Organisation of African Unity/African Union, on 25 May 2013, which makes Africa Day this year a historical celebration. The Embassy takes accordingly the opportunity to wish a very successful African Union May Summit under the theme Pan-Africanism and Renaissance in the 21st century, which becomes a Special Summit because of the 50th Anniversary celebrations and the outstanding goals achieved during this period."
Cuba has been a friend of many African countries for over six decades.
The African Union celebrates its golden jubile today in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia where first Republican president Dr Kenneth Kaunda and other liberators will be honoured.
Labels: CUBA, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Lazo calls on Africa, Latin America to unite against neo-colonialism
By Larry Moonze and Kondwani Munyeka in Havana, Cuba
Wed 15 May 2013, 14:01 CAT
CUBAN National Assembly Speaker Estaban Lazo says Africa and Latin America must unite to fight the new form of colonialism. And the Zambian government has asked Cuba to help set up a sugar plantation and refinery in Luapula Province.
Lazo, who is also politburo member of the Communist Party of Cuba and former Vice-President of the Council of State, told Zambian foreign affairs minister Effron Lungu, who paid a courtesy call on him in Havana on Monday, that through unity, Africa and Latin America could defeat the bully in the neighbourhood.
"United we are bigger than the giant," Lazo said.
He said Zambia was a brotherly country, adding that it was very important that Lusaka had a diplomatic presence in Havana.
"We want to resume full bilateral relations with Zambia. We are waiting on that pending issue of opening the Zambian embassy in Cuba. I'm sure you will discuss this with our foreign minister Bruno Rodriguez. The embassy is very important. Diplomats stationed here will know every day what is there and what is not… We are fighting for the same cause, common causes that are far beyond ideology. We have to struggle against energy problems, global economic crisis, high food prices, climate change, the issue of fresh water that may become a serious problem… All these things will affect us but most seriously the poor. Today, 1.2 billion go to sleep without food, each time the number of illiterates is increasing and so is the issue of unemployment. Whatever solutions we come up with are for the survival of the human race. We need to be united. The other day, I read about Africa's development perspectives. They are encouraging but one thing that we need to achieve is unity. The forthcoming event, which is, the 50th anniversary of the African Union is a good starting point.
You see colonialists created conditions that perpetuated divisions, that divided us but today we have conditions and mechanisms for integration and mutual cooperation," Lazo said. "Africa should be part of CELAC [Community of Latin America and Caribbean states. We must join forces. Latin America, the Caribbean and Africa need strong links to better defend ourselves and our interests. To fight the new form of colonialism."
He said Zambia and Cuba were both poor countries.
Lazo said just like Cuba, Zambia sacrificed in the liberation of among others Zimbabwe, South Africa, Namibia and Mozambique.
"The concept of solidarity is such that you give not what you have in excess but sharing the little that you have. And for us Cuba, we never stop providing that kind of assistance. We do so to Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean," he said.
Lazo asked Zambia to help Cuba in the struggle to free the five Cuban anti-terror agents incarcerated in the US.
He said while one of them, Rene Gonzalez, had been freed upon renouncing his US citizenship the other four remained in America, serving harsh sentences.
Lazo said for over years, he had visited several African countries but somehow he could not land in Zambia.
"That visit to Zambia is pending," he said. "We Cuba love Africa very much for several reasons but primarily because part of our nationality comes from Africa."
Lazo explained that when the Spaniards arrived in Cuba in 1492, they gradually exterminated the 120,000 Tainos who inhabited the island.
He said after that the colonialists brought in 1.2 million African slaves who ended up forming part of the Cuban nationality.
Lazo said those Africans were in the forefront of the Cuban independence struggle.
He said he himself was of African and Chinese heritage.
"I am telling you this with confidence and sentimental feelings as to why we love Africa… we want the very best for Africa," Lazo said. "When we went to Africa to help in the liberation of Angola, to end Apartheid, the liberation of Namibia among others, we were helping ourselves in that we are part of Africa."
And Lungu said Zambia appreciated the developmental efforts Cuba made to Africa in the areas of education, health and agriculture.
He said bilateral relations between Cuba and Zambia dated back to 1972.
Lungu said in the last 41 years, Zambian leaders Dr Kenneth Kaunda, late Frederick Chiluba and Rupiah Banda visited Cuba.
He said President Michael Sata felt that Zambia's presence in Cuba should be by way of opening an embassy.
Lungu said that process would commence upon winding his tour to Cuba.
He said Zambia condemned the US embargo against Cuba.
Lungu said Cuba must be spared the US sanctions that date back to 1961.
"It is our prayer that this thing should come to an end sooner than later," he said.
And Lungu invited Cuba to participate at the UN World Tourism Organisation congress to be co-hosted by Zambia and Zimbabwe in August.
He also invited Cuba to attend the Cluster Munitions convention to be hosted in Zambia in September.
And when he met Cuban foreign trade and investment first deputy minister Orlando Hernandez Guillen, Lungu said Zambia was inviting Cuban engineers and other specialists to help set up a sugar project.
He said there was also need for help in agronomy in general.
Lungu said in the past, Zambia National Service officers were sent to Cuba to train in animal husbandry.
"The Cuban research centre in agriculture and Zambia are working together to develop livestock feed," he said.
Lungu said Zambia desired direct investment and trade with Cuba in manufacturing, agriculture and infrastructure.
He said under direct trade and investment, Zambians could fully benefit, bearing in mind the things that the two countries had in common.
Lungu said little had been done since Cuba and Zambia signed a trade protection agreement in 2000.
He said it was time to implement the already signed trade agreement and invited Cuban companies to participate at the Zambia International Trade Fair. On his part, Guillen invited Zambian entrepreneurs to attend the Havana International Trade Fair in November.
At Ministry of Higher Education, Lungu said Zambia had a lot to learn from the Cuban education system.
He said the Cuban education system was very accommodative to the majority of the population.
Lungu said it was for that reason that the Zambian government had asked the Cuban government to help in training teachers in different fields.
"We have also asked Cuba to upgrade our teachers from diploma to degree levels and also in special education and in the special programme 'Yes I Can'," said Lungu.
"I would like to express our gratitude over the scholarships that Zambia has been receiving from Cuba. All we are asking for is for the increase in the number of scholarship so that more Zambians could come and learn here."
But higher education deputy minister Jose Saborido Loidi said Cuba was facing economic hardships and therefore, it had decided to reduce scholarships.
He said the island was currently encouraging self-financed scholarships which were highly subsidised. Saborido Loidi said his ministry was very pleased with the performance of Zambian students in Cuba, adding that to date, 89 Zambian students had graduated from Cuba in different fields.
Labels: 2007 BUDGET, CUBA, ESTABAN LAZO, NEOCOLONIALISM
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Scavenger Hunt
E. Howard Hunt talks about Guatemala, the Bay of Pigs, and what really happened to Che.
By Ann Louise Bardach|Updated Wednesday, Oct. 6, 2004, at 8:04 AM
MIAMI, Aug. 25, 2004—E. Howard Hunt is one of the most notorious spies of the 20th century. The son of an influential Republican leader in upstate New York, Hunt began his career as a founding member of the OSS, the precursor of the CIA in the 1940s.
After beginning as an intelligence operative in China, Hunt trailblazed the path for the CIA in Latin America from 1950 to 1970, ever on the lookout for the Communist menace. By his account, he was the architect of the 1954 U.S.-backed coup ("Operation Success") in Guatemala that deposed democratically elected President Jacobo Arbenz.
Adept at psych ops (propaganda and subversion) and running "black flights" (covert operations), he also played a role in the Bay of Pigs: He was responsible for propaganda operations and the organization of a post-Castro government. Such exploits and excesses led to the scaling back of the CIA's prerogatives following hearings by the Church Committee in 1976.
In July 1970, Hunt went into "private practice," taking with him the tools he acquired during his 25 years in the intelligence business. His most famous black-bag jobs were breaking into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office and, later, Watergate, where Hunt's "plumbers" cadre, recruited from among his Cuban exile comrades, rifled and bugged the offices of the Democratic Party in May and June of 1972.
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Since pleading guilty to his role in Watergate and spending "33 months in 13 federal prisons," Howard Hunt has lived in Miami where he met and married his second wife of 27 years, Laura. An expert storyteller, Hunt has had a second career as a spy novelist. The couple live in a modest ranch house at the end of a cul-de-sac in north Miami. Posted around his door are warnings against trespassing, which seems somehow appropriate for a man with a history of illegal entry.
Hunt answered the door in a wheelchair. One of his legs has been amputated due to atherosclerosis, and for the past few months, he's battled lymphoma localized in his jaw (it is now in remission). He wears a hearing aid and sports rimless, bifocal glasses. While no longer the dapper spymaster, he remains salty and unremorseful.
As a general rule, Hunt said, he doesn't talk about Watergate or "the old days." But with his 86th birthday soon to occur on Oct. 9, he was feeling a bit more chatty.
Slate: You started the CIA's first bureau in Mexico in 1949. Did you first start working on Guatemala from there?
Hunt: In Mexico, I had a few agents from Washington with me, and I had recruited a few others … [including] a young Catholic priest. So the priest came to me one time, and he said, "I'm sending down several young men to Guatemala to get a view of the situation there. It's not good." He said, "My people were beaten up and put into jail, and then exiled from the country." And he sort of sat back expectantly. And I said, "That's certainly not right. I'll let Washington know what's going on in Guatemala." So I retold the story of Guatemala and the treatment of my young Catholic friend. I found that there was a lot of intense interest in what I had to say.
Slate: We're talking about the time after 1952, the year Jacobo Arbenz was elected president of Guatemala.
Hunt: He was in power then, yes. But his wife was by far the smarter of the two and sort of told him what to do. She was a convinced communist. … I waited for orders [from Washington]. A couple of [CIA and military] officers came down to join me, and it became apparent that there was going to be an effort to dislodge the communist management [laughs] of Guatemala. Which indeed happened. We set up shop and had some very bright guys working against Arbenz, and the long and short of it was that we got Arbenz defenestrated. Out the window. [Laughs]
Slate: But President Arbenz ended up in exile—not really out the window?
Hunt: Yeah. In Czechoslovakia. With his very bright and attractive wife.
Slate: So it seems you were the architect for the Guatemalan operation?
Hunt: It was mine because nobody else knew more than I did. I would say that I had more knowledge about it than anybody did. I knew all the players on both sides.
Slate: How did you run the Guatemalan operation?
Hunt: We set up the first Guatemalan operation/shop at Opa-Locka [airport in Miami, formerly an Army base]. There were three barracks, and we used the airstrip to fly in people from Guatemala and to send our people into Guatemala. These were known as "the black flights." They always occurred at night; they are a secret and officially do not exist as having happened.
Slate: Do you think the Guatemala coup went well?
Hunt: Yes—it did. And I'm glad I kept Arbenz from being executed.
Slate: How did you do that?
Hunt: By passing the word out to the people at the airport who had Arbenz to "let him go."
Slate: To whom did you give the word?
Hunt: It was a mixed band of CIA and Guatemalans at the airport and their hatred for him was palpable.
Slate: You were worried they would assassinate him right there?
Hunt: Yeah. … And we'd [the CIA and the United States] get blamed for it.
Slate: Some 200,000 civilians were killed in the civil war following the coup, which lasted for the next 40 years. Were all those deaths unforeseen?
Hunt: Deaths? What deaths?
Slate: Well, the civil war that ensued for the next 40 years after the coup.
Hunt: Well, we should have done something we never do—we should have maintained a constant presence in Guatemala after getting rid of Arbenz.
Slate: Did you ever actually meet Jacobo Arbenz?
Hunt: They [he and his wife] were neighbors of mine—years later—on the same street in Montevideo, Uruguay.
Slate: What were you doing there?
Hunt: I was the CIA chief of station.
They had come from [exile in] Czechoslovakia, and nobody in Washington had told me they were coming and so it was a big surprise to me, to my wife and me. We went to the country club for dinner one evening and lo and behold, the Arbenzes were seated a few tables away.
Slate: What did you do?
Hunt: Well, nothing. I sent a cable to Washington saying, "In the future when we have important arrivals, please let me know." It's the least they could do.
Slate: I'd like to talk about Cuba now. Did you have a lot of responsibility during Bay of Pigs?
Hunt: Leading up to it.
Slate: How so?
Hunt: I came to Miami, and of course there were [Cuban] exiles, all anxious to take weapons in hand and charge back [to Cuba]. And the CIA was given the responsibility of a twofold action against Cuba. There was the psychological warfare branch which I headed [propaganda, covert operations], and the paramilitary which oversaw the training [of Cuban exiles] that took place in Guatemala.
My [other] responsibility was to form and manage the future government of Cuba. At that point I formed the Cuban government-in-exile with Manuel Artime [Bay of Pigs veteran designated by the United States to succeed Castro]. I had told them [the exile trainees] to meet me in my safe house in Coconut Grove. An FBI guy whom I knew came to me and he said your neighbor has reported you to the police saying that men are coming and going at all hours of the night. … He said he thought it was a gay brothel.
Slate: Did you go to Cuba after Castro took power in January 1959?
Hunt: I did go to Cuba. I went there under a very flimsy cover. Batista was out—it was 1959. I'd been sent to Havana to nose around and get a grass-roots feeling and talk to the proverbial taxi drivers and find out what their likely response would be to a possible U.S. invasion. And I did. And I told them don't count on it because it's not going to happen. But that is exactly what happened.
Slate: Did you help in the planning of Bay of Pigs?
Hunt: Not the military [planning]. And I couldn't find anybody who thought that it was a good plan.
Slate: What were the objections?
Hunt: There was an objection on the part of Dean Rusk, secretary of state under Kennedy. He didn't want a "go-and-see invasion"—that was the term he used. And our people [CIA planners] had planned an invasion that combined both a seaborne assault and an airlift. Dean Rusk was a great naysayer—he was not a fellow with useful ideas. When our plan was submitted to Rusk for his OK, he said, "This is too noisy, you gotta do something else." So the assault point was moved to the Bahia de Cochinos—the Bay of Pigs. Which had nothing in its favor. It was a beach that came down from the jungle. A lot of mosquitoes. Our people made that beach landing and they were scooped up pretty soon thereafter.
Slate: Did you ever think there was a way to get rid of Castro, short of a military coup?
Hunt: No. When Castro went into Cuba and took over, this was the moment—with all the chaos and disorganization—that our forces could have gone in and unseated him. But we always confronted this dreadful organization called the Department of State. Who needs it?!
Slate: What was your feeling about Batista?
Hunt: Well, I thought he ran a good government there. There was a lot of corruption, but there's always been corruption in Latin America. We can't be too purist about these things.
Slate: Let's talk about the finals days and execution of Che. Do you know what the real story was there?
Hunt: I do. El Che was becoming a popular threat to Castro. Castro was a gradualist; his view was that great changes couldn't take place immediately. But El Che had a different idea—he had wanted the entire continent of Latin America to become Communist. And Castro, sort of to get rid of him, said, "Take a band down to Bolivia. Here's money, and radio phones, and all that." So Che went down there. But Che's very first [radio] transmissions were picked up by our people at the National Security Agency. The agency was able to track him wherever he went with his little forlorn band. The Bolivians wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible, and our people kept the Bolivian army informed as to where he was.
Slate: So you knew where he was all the time?
Hunt: Yes. There was no question about where he was or what he was trying to do. The Bolivians had gone through this kind of BS before, and they wanted to put an end to it as soon as possible. Eventually they just said, "We're gonna put an end to this farce," and they rounded up this little band of Che's, and they didn't kill anybody except Che.
Slate: I thought it was Felix Rodriguez, the Bay of Pigs Cuban exile, who says he killed Che.
Hunt: No, the Bolivians did.
Slate: What did the Americans want to do with Che?
Hunt: We wanted deniability. We made it possible for him to be killed.
Slate: Do you think anybody back then was thinking this guy would become a cult figure, that he might be more trouble dead than alive?
Hunt: No, nobody had the foresight for that. … What I thought was great foresight was that the Bolivian colonel had Che's hands cut off.
Slate: Why did he do that?
Hunt: So he couldn't be identified by fingerprints. That was a pretty good idea—if you don't want somebody identified. People still shiver a little when they think about hands being cut off.
Slate: Did that idea come from the Bolivian colonel or from the CIA?
Hunt: I have no idea. But I talked with Felix about it. I said, "You were there when Che expired." He said they had taken him into this room, and they shot him there and killed him. And they had kind of a medical examination table. They put his body on that and cut off his hands. They fooled around for a day or so before they disposed of the body. And that was done in a very sloppy fashion. The colonel had a shallow grave dug and his remains were dumped in there.
Laura Hunt: [Interjects] For all we know, Felix [Rodriguez] did shoot him.
Hunt: It was just important that it was done.
Slate: Maybe Rodriguez arranged for the Bolivians to do the killing and then took credit?
Hunt: What we certainly didn't want was a public monument to Che. We wanted his memory to vanish as soon as possible. But it never did. Even my son goes on about Che.
Slate: What do you think of Felix Rodriguez campaigning these days against John Kerry, who questioned him at the Iran-Contra hearings?
Hunt: I think that's great! Felix can do no wrong in my book.
Slate: What led you to leave the CIA?
Hunt: I found out the CIA was just infested with Democrats. I retired in '70. I got out as soon as I could. I wrote several books immediately thereafter.
Slate: I still don't understand how you get involved in Watergate later. Through the CIA?
Hunt: I had been a consultant to the White House. I greatly respected Nixon. When Chuck Colson [special counsel to Nixon] asked me to work for the administration, I said yes. Colson phoned one day and said, "I have a job you might be interested in." This was before Colson got religion.
Slate: How long were you in prison for the Watergate break-in?
Hunt: All told, 33 months.
Slate: That's a lot of time.
Hunt: It's a lot of time. And I've often said, what did I do?
Slate: Did you get a pardon?
Hunt: No. Never did. I'd applied for one, and there was no action taken, and I thought I'd just humiliate myself if I asked for a pardon.
Laura Hunt: He was sort of numb because all of this happened to his wife and his family, his children went into drugs while he was still in prison.
Slate: Wasn't your first wife killed in a plane crash?
Laura Hunt: She was killed when her plane crash-landed at Chicago's Midway Airport. And there was all this speculation from conspiracy buffs that the FBI blew the plane up or something … so that she would never talk, all this ridiculous stuff.
Slate: How do you feel about Chuck Colson?
Hunt: He failed to come to my assistance, which would have helped Nixon and me.
Slate: Do you hold anyone responsible for Watergate?
Hunt: No, I don't.
Slate: And you didn't apologize?
Hunt: No. It never occurred to me to apologize.
Slate: Should Nixon have resigned?
Hunt: No.
Slate: I know there is a conspiracy theory saying that David Atlee Phillips—the Miami CIA station chief—was involved with the assassination of JFK.
Hunt: [Visibly uncomfortable] I have no comment.
Slate: I know you hired him early on, to work with you in Mexico, to help with Guatemala propaganda.
Hunt: He was one of the best briefers I ever saw.
Slate: And there were even conspiracy theories about you being in Dallas the day JFK was killed.
Hunt: No comment.
Laura Hunt: Howard says he wasn't, and I believe him.
Slate: Any regrets?
Hunt: No, none. [Long pause] Well, it would have been nice to do Bay of Pigs differently.
Labels: BOLIVIA, CUBA, E. HOWARD HUNT, GUATEMALA, KENNEDY ASSASSINATION
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(ZAMBIA REPORTS) Kabimba Embraces Cuban Socialism
Published February 21, 2013 By Nse Udoh
Following a visit by a Zambian delegation to Cuba this past week, Minister of Justice Wynter Kabimba has taken a confrontational stance against Washington
by stating his government’s “permanent support” for the Cuban regime on the issue of the blockade and the Cuban Five prisoners.
Speaking in an interview published by Cuba’s state-owned newspaper Granma, Kabimba shared some ideological perspectives that have been interpreted by some parties as step toward socialism by the ruling Patriotic Front.
Among other statements, he expressed criticism of foreign investors in Zambia, remarking that they do little to contribute to development, while also slamming “Western forces with economic interests” for intervening in the conflict in Mali.
According to the translated introduction in the article in Granma,
“Today we live in a world characterized by injustice, where the powerful nations have the ability to decide how to gain access to the natural resources of less developed countries and what they will pay for them. A world where the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer. Such considerations relate to the secretary general of the ruling Patriotic Front party of Zambia Wynter Kabimba, who during his recent visit to Cuba spoke with Granma.”
“Currently we are facing the phenomenon of globalisation, which determines the global economic order and has turned the world into small village in which ‘the partners’ are in conditions of inequality,” Kabimba said to Granma, later emphasizing that the ideal solution would be to “rebuild the dominant economic order so that social justice wins.”
“In Africa, we now have political independence, but this won’t be enough for us to obtain economic independence,” Kabimba said.
Asked about the challenges Zambia faces from the global financial crisis, Kabimba said “the level of foreign direct investment is high, but most of it doesn’t contribute to the development of our people and this is something we must revert to from a legal point of view.”
Commenting on the PF’s social policies, Kabimba told the Cuban press that the Zambian government it has subdivided the districts so that government spending is distributed in the most equitable manner and so that each community decides what are its development priorities.
The issue of re-districting and creation of new provinces in Zambia has in the past created signficant controversies, as citizens complain that they were not consulted while opposition parties decried the unconstitutional decrees which circumvented parliamentary procedure.
Asked about regional security issues, Kabimba took aim at the foreign intervention in Mali:
“The question that we should be asking ourselves is ‘who is the instigator of this conflict?’ In my opinion, it’s the Western forces with economic interests who, once again, want to control our natural resources. The issue of terrorism in Africa is a smokescreen, a front.”
Kabimba said that in university he studied a course on Latin American history, and learned that today the Latin American people are uniting in search of economic independence “to fight against the multinationals who for years have taken control of their wealth.”
Kabimba also praised Ecuadoran President Rafael Correa, who was recently reelected to a third term in office, and also praised the “good examples” of Bolivia, Venezuela, and Brazil.
“In Africa, we are watching with hope what is happening in Latin America and the Caribbean,” Kabimba said. “We see that it is possible for the people to defeat imperialist forces. For example, in Venezuela, when a coup de etat was organised by the CIA, we saw a people who went out into the streets to defend their government they had voted for. It’s important to understand that what happens today in countries like Honduras and Paraguay constitute the exception and not the rule, like it happened in the past.”
Concluding the interview, Kabimba said “our position with respect to the blockade and the Five is that of permanent support. For us, injustice is injustice, whether it is against Cuba, against Palestine, or against the the Polisario Front [Western Sahara]. Here you have an ally in Zambia.”
According to the 2012 report by monitor Human Rights Watch, “Cuba remains the only country in Latin America that represses virtually all forms of political dissent. In 2011 Raúl Castro’s government continued to enforce political conformity using short-term detentions, beatings, public acts of repudiation, forced exile, and travel restrictions.”
Kabimba’s comments are likely to raise concerns in Washington, which was previously supportive of the Patriotic Front’s campaign in 2011.
Many commentators online are also speculating what his comments will mean for future policies in Zambia.
Labels: CUBA, GLOBALISATION, WYNTER KABIMBA
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Kabimba's visit to Cuba
By The Post
Sun 17 Feb. 2013, 11:00 CAT
Wynter Kabimba's visit to Cuba is very important because it is a continuation of a tradition that started under Dr Kenneth Kaunda and UNIP.
For over 40 years, our country has maintained direct relations with Cuba. Dr Kaunda has been to Cuba. And his successor Frederick Chiluba also visited Cuba. We have historic ties that need to be renewed in the 21st century, in these new times.
We need to extend our solidarity to Cuba. We also need to learn from Cuba. And this is in line with what Fidel Castro said on May 1, 1960 : "… we are fighting for all of them (sister nations) because they will learn from our experience. They will learn from the success that we have, and they will learn even from the errors that we make.
So, our mistakes as well as our successes will be useful to our sister nations. We have faith in the solidarity of these sister nations and faith in the solidarity of the peoples of the world…May our visitors go and repel the lies that are written about this generous and noble land. And we will know how to respond to the friendship and solidarity that we have received."
It is said that those who don't know have a duty to learn from those who know. And those who know have a duty to teach those who don't know. We have a duty to learn from the experiences of the Cuban Revolution. And the Cuban Revolution has a duty to share its experiences with us. It is in this spirit that Wynter, the secretary general of the ruling Patriotic Front, is visiting Cuba.
There is also something very important about this visit. Wynter's visit to Cuba is a demonstration of the independence of the Patriotic Front. It is a clear demonstration of the Patriotic Front's independence to do what it wants to do, to go where it wants to go and to deal with whoever it wants to deal with. There are still people, political parties and governments in this world that cannot freely deal with Cuba because of not wanting to displease the United States who have an over 50-year economic and political embargo on Cuba.
It is good that our country has maintained its unwavering solidarity with Cuba. Zambia's relationship with Cuba is not ideological because even the most 'right wing' of our regimes, the most reactionary of our governments have maintained a good relation with Cuba. And they have all voted in favour of lifting the embargo on Cuba.
Cuba is a small country which has fulfilled its duty to Africa and humanity in general. Cuba is a poor country that has made a contribution it could in the struggle to liberate millions of our people from the yoke of apartheid, the yoke of colonialism.
We who participated in the liberation of our region, of our continent are indeed grateful to the leadership of the Communist Party of Cuba, and in particular to Fidel, for the concrete material assistance, political and diplomatic support.
Through visits like the one undertaken this week by Wynter, we are paying special tribute to the Cuban patriots and internationalists who travelled thousands and thousands of kilometres to our continent to assist in a special way our people who were languishing in the chains of colonialism.
Wynter's visit to Cuba also shows that it is not geography that separates or unites people and that the common day-to-day struggles for a better life, a more just, fair and humane world should unite our peoples more and more, independently of geography.
Cuba has several times fulfilled its elementary internationalist duty when it comes to Africa. It has always been a stated belief of Fidel, the leader of the Cuban Revolution that "if a man cannot sacrifice himself for others, he is incapable of sacrificing himself for anything; a people that cannot sacrifice itself for other people is incapable of sacrificing itself for its own sake; a people that is not willing to fight for freedom of others will never be ready to fight for its own freedom".
We have an unsettled debt with Cuba. Despite the progress that Cuba has made in many fields, the country is today facing many challenges arising from the US embargo and natural calamities. Cuba needs help. Cuba has been there for other poor countries, sometimes even for rich countries. It is time we pay back our debt to Cuba, especially at this time when things are very difficult for that heroic people.
We may not have much in terms of money, but we can't wait until we have a lot of money to help others. If we wait until we have a lot of money to help others, we may never help anyone because there may not be a time when we have a surplus.
We are proud, as Zambians, of our independence. Our successive governments, regardless of the limitations of some of them, have been able to maintain the country's independence. And this is demonstrated in our relations with Cuba. Our leaders have been able to go to Cuba as and when they want. No one has been able to control our successive governments' relations with Cuba.
And this newspaper has had an office in Cuba for more than five years now. Our friends in the international media ask us what we are doing in Cuba. Our response has always been, "What's wrong with being in Cuba?" Cuba is the heart of Caribbean and Latin America. And our ties with the Caribbean and Latin American peoples, first of all, are blood ties. They are Latin Africans, we have historic ties that should be renewed and strengthened in the 21st century.
Cuban doctors have been there to serve our people. Our young people have been in Cuba to study on Cuban government scholarships. Why shouldn't we be in Cuba? Why shouldn't our politicians and government leaders be in Cuba? We will always be in Cuba to express our gratitude for what Cuba has done for us, for our continent.
Labels: CUBA, WYNTER KABIMBA
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Kabimba urges stronger Zambia-Cuba ties
By Ernest Chanda
Sun 17 Feb. 2013, 11:30 CAT
WYNTER Kabimba says Zambia and Cuba should build on the strong relations established between the two countries by their founding fathers, Dr Kenneth Kaunda and Fidel Castro.
Speaking when he met Cuba's deputy foreign affairs minister Rogelio Sierra in Havana, Kabimba said the two countries had a common set of challenges that could only be addressed through increased solidarity and cooperation.
Kabimba, who is the ruling PF secretary general and Minister of Justice, acknowledged the support Cuba had given Zambia over the years especially in the areas of health and education.
And Sierra said Cuba was happy with Zambia's solidarity with the Caribbean island on various issues, including the campaign for the release of the Cuban Five and the lifting of the economic embargo imposed by the United States.
He said Cuba would continue with its support to Zambia and Africa.
Kabimba also attended the official opening of the Book Fair in old Havana and earlier visited the Immune Assay Institute (SUMA), which was set up to develop screening technology for the early diagnosis of diseases such as cervical and prostate cancer and many other ailments.
Kabimba's delegation, which includes PF media and publicity director Chanda Mfula and head of protocol, Longa Chibesakunda, was also scheduled to meet with the Young Communist League, a youth wing of the Communist Party of Cuba, and the Latin American Medical School where he would meet Zambian students studying at the institution.
Kabimba and his delegation are in Cuba at the invitation of the Communist Party.
Labels: CUBA, WYNTER KABIMBA
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Sanctions: Zim should take lessons from Cuba
Sunday, 27 January 2013 00:00
Sunday Mail Reporter
The Cuban government has implored Zimbabweans to continue fighting Western imperialism and the economic sanctions on the country. Cuban Ambassador to Zimbabwe Cde Enrique Antonio Prieto Lopez said Zimbabweans should concentrate on boosting economic objectives by empowering youths.
Speaking at the 54th Anniversary of the Cuban Revolution and the 160th Anniversary of the birth of Cuban national hero Jose Marti, Ambassador Lopez said despite the illegal 54-year-old blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States, his country has continued to champion free health and education.
“Zimbabweans should take lessons from Cubans, who, against all odds, resisted and maintained their socialist conquests with free health care and education systems,” he said.
“We boast of having more than 56 200 collaborators serving in 101 countries and four overseas territories.
“Over the past three years, Cuba has assisted more than 3 000 Zimbabweans to graduate in different science professions and over 250 Cuban collaborators have assisted in the health industry.
“Currently, we have 55 collaborators in Zimbabwe helping in Chinhoyi, Marondera, Mutare, Gweru, Bulawayo, Gwanda, Chitungwiza and Harare.”
Ambassador Lopez said US terrorism and military aggression have cost the Cuban economy over US$1 billion and thousands of victims.
“Despite all these things, our economy has managed to grow by 2,1 percent, received close to 2,9 million tourists and managed to assist more than 29 300 young students in more than 115 countries.
“We have continued developing the biotechnology sector and improving the sugar industry.”
Speaking at the same occasion, Zimbabwe Cuba Friendship Association (Zicofa) chair Cde Fananidzo Pesanai encouraged Africans to rally behind Cubans in their fight against the illegal blockade.
“As Zicofa, we reiterate our profound gratitude to Cde Fidel and Cde Raul Castro and the Cuban people for having come to our rescue and to the rescue of many countries in the world during our time of need.
“As Zimbabweans, we believe that if yesterday we were helped it is now time for us to assist Cuba.
“We demand the removal of the blockage against Cuba and the liberation of the five imprisoned Cuban nationalists so that they can participate in the development of their country.”
Labels: CUBA, SANCTIONS
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The Achievements of Cuba’s “Ecological Agriculture”
By Global Research News
Global Research, December 26, 2012
Monthly Review 1 January 2012
Miguel A. Altieri and Fernando R. Funes-Monzote
When Cuba faced the shock of lost trade relations with the Soviet Bloc in the early 1990s, food production initially collapsed due to the loss of imported fertilizers, pesticides, tractors, parts, and petroleum. The situation was so bad that Cuba posted the worst growth in per capita food production in all of Latin America and the Caribbean.
But the island rapidly re-oriented its agriculture to depend less on imported synthetic chemical inputs, and became a world-class case of ecological agriculture.1 This was such a successful turnaround that Cuba rebounded to show the best food production performance in Latin America and the Caribbean over the following period, a remarkable annual growth rate of 4.2 percent per capita from 1996 through 2005, a period in which the regional average was 0 percent.2Much of the production rebound was due to the adoption since the early 1990s of a range of agrarian decentralization policies that encouraged forms of production, both individual as well as cooperative—Basic Units of Cooperative Production (UBPC) and Credit and Service Cooperatives (CCS). Moreover, recently the Ministry of Agriculture announced the dismantling of all “inefficient State companies” as well as support for creating 2,600 new small urban and suburban farms, and the distribution of the use rights (in usufruct) to the majority of estimated 3 million hectares of unused State lands. Under these regulations, decisions on resource use and strategies for food production and commercialization will be made at the municipal level, while the central government and state companies will support farmers by distributing necessary inputs and services.3 Through the mid-1990s some 78,000 farms were given in usufruct to individuals and legal entities. More than 100,000 farms have now been distributed, covering more than 1 million hectares in total. These new farmers are associated with the CCS following the campesino production model. The government is busy figuring out how to accelerate the processing of an unprecedented number of land requests.4
The land redistribution program has been supported by solid research- extension systems that have played key roles in the expansion of organic and urban agriculture and the massive artisanal production and deployment of biological inputs for soil and pest management. The opening of local agricultural markets and the existence of strong grassroots organisations supporting farmers—for example, the National Association of Small Scale Farmers (ANAP, Asociación Nacional de Agricultores Pequeños), the Cuban Association of Animal Production (ACPA, Asociación Cubana de Producción Animal), and the Cuban Association of Agricultural and Forestry Technicians (ACTAF, Asociación Cubana de Técnicos Agrícolas y Forestales)—also contributed to this achievement.
But perhaps the most important changes that led to the recovery of food sovereignty in Cuba occurred in the peasant sector which in 2006, controlling only 25 percent of the agricultural land, produced over 65 percent of the country’s food.5 Most peasants belong to the ANAP and almost all of them belong to cooperatives. The production of vegetables typically produced by peasants fell drastically between 1988 to 1994, but by 2007 had rebounded to well over 1988 levels (see Table 1). This production increase came despite using 72 percent fewer agricultural chemicals in 2007 than in 1988. Similar patterns can be seen for other peasant crops like beans, roots, and tubers.
Cuba’s achievements in urban agriculture are truly remarkable—there are 383,000 urban farms, covering 50,000 hectares of otherwise unused land and producing more than 1.5 million tons of vegetables with top urban farms reaching a yield of 20 kg/m2 per year of edible plant material using no synthetic chemicals—equivalent to a hundred tons per hectare. Urban farms supply 70 percent or more of all the fresh vegetables consumed in cities such as Havana and Villa Clara.
Table 1. Changes in Crop Production and Agrochemical Use
Crop Percent production change Percent change in agrochemical use
1988 to 1994 1988 to 2007 1988 to 2007
General vegetables -65 +145 -72
Beans -77 +351 -55
Roots and tubers -42 +145 -85
Source: Peter Rosset, Braulio Machín-Sosa, Adilén M. Roque-Jaime, and Dana R. Avila-Lozano, “The Campesino-to-Campesino Agroecology Movement of ANAP in Cuba,” Journal of Peasant Studies 38 (2011): 161-91.
All over the world, and especially in Latin America, the island’s agroecological production levels and the associated research efforts along with innovative farmer organizational schemes have been observed with great interest. No other country in the world has achieved this level of success with a form of agriculture that uses the ecological services of biodiversity and reduces food miles, energy use, and effectively closes local production and consumption cycles. However, some people talk about the “Cuban agriculture paradox”: if agroecological advances in the country are so great, why does Cuba still import substantial amounts of food? If effective biological control methods are widely available and used, why is the government releasing transgenic plants such as Bt crops that produce their own pesticide using genes derived from bacteria?
An article written by Dennis Avery from the Center for Global Food Issues at the Hudson Institute, “Cubans Starve on Diet of Lies,” helped fuel the debate around the paradox. He stated:
The Cubans told the world they had heroically learned to feed themselves without fuel or farm chemicals after their Soviet subsidies collapsed in the early 1990s. They bragged about their “peasant cooperatives,” their biopesticides and organic fertilizers. They heralded their earthworm culture and the predator wasps they unleashed on destructive caterpillars. They boasted about the heroic ox teams they had trained to replace tractors. Organic activists all over the world swooned. Now, a senior Ministry of Agriculture official has admitted in the Cuban press that 84 percent of Cuba’s current food consumption is imported, according to our agricultural attaché in Havana. The organic success was all a lie.6
Avery has used this misinformation to promote a campaign discrediting authors who studied and informed about the heroic achievements of Cuban people in the agricultural field: he has accused these scientists of being communist liars.
The Truth About Food Imports in Cuba
Avery referred to statements of Magalys Calvo, then Vice Minister of the Economy and Planning Ministry, who said in February 2007 that 84 percent of items “in the basic food basket” at that time were imported. However, these percentages represent only the food that is distributed through regulated government channels by means of a ration card. Overall data show that Cuba’s food import dependency has been dropping for decades, despite brief upturns due to natural and human-made disasters. The best time series available on Cuban food import dependency (see Chart 1) shows that it actually declined between 1980 and 1997, aside from a spike in the early 1990s, when trade relations with the former Socialist Bloc collapsed.7
Chart 1. Cuba Food Import Dependency, 1980–1997
Chart 1. Cuba Food Import Dependency, 1980–1997
Source: José Alvarez, The Issue of Food Security in Cuba, University of Florida Extension Report FE483, downloaded July 20, 2011 from http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/pdffiles/FE/FE48300.pdf.
However, Chart 2 indicates a much more nuanced view of Cuba’s agricultural strengths and weaknesses after more than a decade of technological bias toward ecological farming techniques. Great successes have clearly been achieved in root crops (a staple of the Cuban diet), sugar and other sweeteners, vegetables, fruits, eggs, and seafood. Meat is an intermediate case, while large amounts of cooking oil, cereals, and legumes (principally rice and wheat for human consumption, and corn and soybeans for livestock) continue to be imported. The same is true for powdered milk, which does not appear on the graph. Total import dependency, however, is a mere 16 percent—ironically the exact inverse of the 84 percent figure cited by Avery. It is also important to mention that twenty-three other countries in the Latin American-Caribbean region are also net food importers.8
Chart 2. Import Dependence For Selected Foods, 2003
Chart 2. Import Dependence For Selected Foods,
2003
Source: Calculated from FAO Commodity Balances, Cuba, 2003, http://faostat.fao.org.
There is considerable debate concerning current food dependency in Cuba. Dependency rose in the 2000s as imports from the United States grew and hurricanes devastated its agriculture. After being hit by three especially destructive hurricanes in 2008, Cuba satisfied national needs by importing 55 percent of its total food, equivalent to approximately $2.8 billion. However, as the world food price crisis drives prices higher, the government has reemphasized food self-sufficiency. Regardless of whether food has been imported or produced within the country, it is important to recognize that Cuba has been generally able to adequately feed its people. According to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), Cuba’s average daily per capita dietary energy supply in 2007 (the last year available) was over 3,200 kcal, the highest of all Latin American and Caribbean nations.9
Different Models: Agroecology versus Industrial Agriculture
Under this new scenario the importance of contributions of ANAP peasants to reducing food imports should become strategic, but is it? Despite the indisputable advances of sustainable agriculture in Cuba and evidence of the effectiveness of alternatives to the monoculture model, interest persists among some leaders in high external input systems with sophisticated and expensive technological packages. With the pretext of “guaranteeing food security and reducing food imports,” these specific programs pursue “maximization” of crop and livestock production and insist on going back to monoculture methods—and therefore dependent on synthetic chemical inputs, large scale machinery, and irrigation—despite proven energy inefficiency and technological fragility. In fact, many resources are provided by international cooperation (i.e., from Venezuela) dedicated to “protect or boost agricultural areas” where a more intensive agriculture is practiced for crops like potatoes, rice, soybean, and vegetables. These “protected” areas for large-scale, industrial-style agricultural production represent less than 10 percent of the cultivated land. Millions of dollars are invested in pivot irrigation systems, machinery, and other industrial agricultural technologies: a seductive model which increases short-term production but generates high long-term environmental and socioeconomic costs, while replicating a model that failed even before 1990.
Last year it was announced that the pesticide enterprise “Juan Rodríguez Gómez” in the municipality of Artemisa, Havana, will produce some 100,000 liters of the herbicide glyphosate in 2011.10 In early 2011 a Cuban TV News program informed the population about the Cubasoy project. The program, “Bienvenida la Soya,” reported that “it is possible to transform lands that over years were covered by marabú [a thorny invasive leguminous tree] with soybean monoculture in the south of the Ciego de Ávila province.” Supported by Brazilian credits and technology, the project covers more than 15,000 hectares of soybean grown in rotation with maize and aims at reaching 40,500 hectares in 2013,with a total of 544 center pivot irrigation systems installed by 2014. Soybean yields rank between 1.2 tons per hectare (1,100 lbs per acre) under rainfed conditions and up to 1.97 tons per hectare (1,700 lbs per acre) under irrigation. It is not clear if the soybean varieties used are transgenic, but the maize variety is the Cuban transgenic FR-Bt1. Ninety percent of machinery is imported from Brazil—“large tractors, direct seeding machines, and equipment for crop protection”—and considerable infrastructure investments have been made for irrigation, roads, technical support, processing, and transport.
The Debate Over Transgenic Crops
Cuba has invested millions in biotechnological research and development for agriculture through its Center for Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology (CIGB) and a network of institutions across the country. Cuban biotechnology is free from corporate control and intellectual property-right regimes that exist in other countries. Cuban biotechnologists affirm that their biosafety system sets strict biological and environmental security norms. Given this autonomy and advantages biotechnological innovations could efficiently be applied to solve problems such as viral crop diseases or drought tolerance for which agroecological solutions are not yet available. In2009 the CIGB planted in Yagüajay, Sancti Spiritus, three hectares of genetically modified corn (transgenic corn FR-Bt1) on an experimental basis. This variety is supposed to suppress populations of the damaging larval stage of the “palomilla del maíz” moth (Spodoptera frugiperda, also known as the fall armyworm). By 2009 a total of 6,000 hectares were planted with the transgenic (also referred to as genetically modified, or GM) variety across several provinces. From an agroecological perspective it is perplexing that the first transgenic variety to be tested in Cuba is Bt corn, given that in the island there are so many biological control alternatives to regulate lepidopteran pests. The diversity of local maize varieties include some that exhibit moderate-to-high levels of pest resistance, offering significant opportunities to increase yields with conventional plant breeding and known agroecological management strategies. Many centers for multiplication of insect parasites and pathogens (CREEs, Centros de Reproducción de Entomófagos y Entomopatógenos) produce Bacillus thuringiensis (a microbial insecticide) and Trichogramma (small wasps), both highly effective against moths such as the palomilla. In addition, mixing corn with other crops such as beans or sweet potatoes in polycultures produces significantly less pest attack than maize grown in monocultures. This also increases the land equivalent ratio (growing more total crops in a given area of land) and protects the soil.
When transgenic Bt maize was planted in 2008 as a test crop, researchers and farmers from the agroecological movement expressed concern. Several people warned that the release of transgenic crops endangered agrobiodiversity and contradicted the government’s own agricultural production plans by diverting the focus from agroecological farming that had been strategically adopted as a policy in Cuba. Others felt that biotechnology was geared towards the interests of the multinational corporations and the market. Taking into account its potential environmental and public health risks, it would be better for Cuba to continue emphasizing agroecological alternatives that have proven to be safe and have allowed the country to produce food under difficult economic and climatic circumstances.
The main demonstrated advantage of GM crops has been to simplify the farming process, allowing farmers to work more land. GM crops that resist herbicides (such as “Roundup Ready” corn and soybeans) and that produce their own insecticide (such as Bt corn) generally do not yield any more than comparable non-GM crops. However, using these GM crops along with higher levels of mechanization (especially larger tractors) have now made it possible for the size of a family corn and soybean farm in the U.S. Midwest to increase from around 240 hectares (600 acres) to around 800 hectares (2,000 acres).
In September 2010 a meeting of experts concerned about transgenic crops was convened with board and staff members from the National Center for Biological Security and the Office for Environmental Regulation and Nuclear Security (Centro Nacional de Seguridad Biológica and the Oficina de Regulación Ambiental y Seguridad Nuclear), institutions entrusted with licensing GM crops. The experts issued a statement calling for a moratorium on GM crops until more information was available and society has a chance to debate the environmental and health effects of the technology. However, until now there has been no response to this request. One positive outcome of the year-long debate on the inconsistency of planting FR-Bt1 transgenic corn in Cuba was the open recognition by the authorities of the potential devastating consequences of GM crops for the small farmer sector. Although it appears that the use of transgenic corn will be limited exclusively to the areas of Cubasoy and other conventional areas under strict supervision, this effort is highly questionable.11
The Paradox’s Outcome—What Does the Future Hold?
The instability in international markets and the increase in food prices in a country somewhat dependent on food imports threatens national sovereignty. This reality has prompted high officials to make declarations emphasizing the need to prioritize food production based on locally available resources.12 It is in fact paradoxical that, to achieve food security in a period of economic growth, most of the resources are dedicated to importing foods or promoting industrial agriculture schemes instead of stimulating local production by peasants. There is a cyclical return to support conventional agriculture by policy makers when the financial situation improves, while sustainable approaches andagroecology, considered as “alternatives,” are only supported under scenarios of economic scarcity. This cyclical mindset strongly undermines the advances achieved with agroecology and organic farming since the economic collapse in 1990.
Cuban agriculture currently experiences two extreme food-production models: an intensive model with high inputs, and another, beginning at the onset of the special period, oriented towards agroecology and based on low inputs. The experience accumulated from agroecological initiatives in thousands of small-and-medium scale farms constitutes a valuable starting point in the definition of national policies to support sustainable agriculture, thus rupturing with a monoculture model prevalent for almost four hundred years. In addition to Cuba being the only country in the world that was able to recover its food production by adopting agroecological approaches under extreme economic difficulties, the island exhibits several characteristics that serve as fundamental pillars to scale up agroecology to unprecedented levels:
Cuba represents 2 percent of the Latin American population but has 11 percent of the scientists in the region. There are about 140,000 high-level professionals and medium-level technicians, dozens of research centres, agrarian universities and their networks, government institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture, scientific organizations supporting farmers (i.e. ACTAF), and farmers organizations such as ANAP.
Cuba has sufficient land to produce enough food with agroecological methods to satisfy the nutritional needs of its eleven million inhabitants.13 Despite soil erosion, deforestation, and loss of biodiversity during the past fifty years—as well as during the previous four centuries of extractive agriculture—the country’s conditions remain exceptionally favorable for agriculture. Cuba has six million hectares of fairly level land and another million gently sloping hectares that can be used for cropping. More than half of this land remains uncultivated, and the productivity of both land and labor, as well as the efficiency of resource use, in the rest of this farm area are still low. If all the peasant farms (controlling 25 percent of land) and all the UBPC (controlling 42 percent of land)adopted diversified agroecological designs, Cuba would be able to produce enough to feed its population, supply food to the tourist industry, and even export some food to help generate foreign currency. All this production would be supplemented with urban agriculture, which is already reaching significant levels of production.
About one third of all peasant families, some 110,000 families, have joined ANAP within its Farmer to Farmer Agroecological Movement (MACAC, Movimiento Agroecológico Campesino a Campesino). It uses participatory methods based on local peasant needs and allows for the socialization of the rich pool of family and community agricultural knowledge that is linked to their specific historical conditions and identities. By exchanging innovations among themselves, peasants have been able to make dramatic strides in food production relative to the conventional sector, while preserving agrobiodiversity and using much lower amounts of agrochemicals.
Observations of agricultural performance after extreme climatic events in the last two decades have revealed the resiliency of peasant farms to climate disasters. Forty days after Hurricane Ike hit Cuba in 2008, researchers conducted a farm survey in the provinces of Holguin and Las Tunas and found that diversified farms exhibited losses of 50 percent compared to 90 to 100 percent in neighboring farms growing monocultures. Likewise agroecologically managed farms showed a faster productive recovery (80 to 90 percent forty days after the hurricane) than monoculture farms.14 These evaluations emphasize the importance of enhancing plant diversity and complexity in farming systems to reduce vulnerability to extreme climatic events, a strategy entrenched among Cuban peasants.
Most of the production efforts have been oriented towards reaching food sovereignty, defined as the right of everyone to have access to safe, nutritious, and culturally appropriate food in sufficient quantity and quality to sustain a healthy life with full human dignity. However, given the expected increase in the cost of fuel and inputs, the Cuban agroecological strategy also aims at enhancing two other types of sovereignties. Energy sovereignty is the right for all people to have access to sufficient energy within ecological limits from appropriate sustainable sources for a dignified life. Technological sovereignty refers to the capacity to achieve food and energy sovereignty by nurturing the environmental services derived from existing agrobiodiversity and using locally available resources.
Elements of the three sovereignties—food, energy, and technology—can be found in hundreds of small farms, where farmers are producing 70–100 percent of the necessary food for their family consumption while producing surpluses sold to the market, allowing them to obtain income (for example, Finca del Medio, CCS Reinerio Reina in Sancti Spiritus; Plácido farm, CCS José Machado; Cayo Piedra, in Matanzas, belonging to CCS José Martí; and San José farm, CCS Dionisio San Román in Cienfuegos). These levels of productivity are obtained using local technologies such as worm composting and reproduction of beneficial native microorganisms together with diversified production systems such as polycultures, rotations, animal integration into crop farms, and agroforestry. Many farmers are also using integrated food/energy systems and generate their own sources of energy using human and animal labor, biogas, and windmills, in addition to producing biofuel crops such as jatrophaintercropped with cassava.15
Conclusions
A rich knowledge of agroecology science and practice exists in Cuba, the result of accumulated experiences promoted by researchers, professors, technicians, and farmers supported by ACTAF, ACPA, and ANAP. This legacy is based on the experiences within rural communities that contain successful “agroecological lighthouses” from which principles have radiated out to help build the basis of an agricultural strategy that promotes efficiency, diversity, synergy, and resiliency. By capitalizing on the potential of agroecology, Cuba has been able to reach high levels of production using low amounts of energy and external inputs, with returns to investment on research several times higher than those derived from industrial and biotechnological approaches that require major equipment, fuel, and sophisticated laboratories.
The political will expressed in the writings and discourses of high officials about the need to prioritize agricultural self-sufficiency must translate into concrete support for the promotion of productive and energy-efficient initiatives in order to reach the three sovereignties at the local (municipal) level, a fundamental requirement to sustain a planet in crisis.
By creating more opportunities for strategic alliances between ANAP, ACPA, ACTAF, and research centers, many pilot projects could be launched in key municipalities, testing different agroecological technologies that promote the three sovereignties, as adapted to each region’s special environmental and socioeconomic conditions. These initiatives should adopt the farmer-to-farmer methodology that transcends top-down research and extension paradigms, allowing farmers and researchers to learn and innovate collectively. The integration of university professors and students in such experimentation and evaluation processes would enhance scientific knowledge for the conversion to an ecologically based agriculture. It would also help improve agroecological theory, which would in turn benefit the training of future generations of professionals, technicians, and farmers.
The agroecological movement constantly urges those Cuban policy makers with a conventional, Green Revolution, industrial farming mindset to consider the reality of a small island nation facing an embargo and potentially devastating hurricanes. Given these realities, embracing agroecological approaches and methods throughout the country’s agriculture can help Cuba achieve food sovereignty while maintaining its political autonomy.
Notes
1. ↩ Peter Rosset and Medea Benjamin, eds., The Greening of the Revolution (Ocean Press: Melbourne, Australia, 1994); Fernando Funes, et. al., eds., Sustainable Agriculture and Resistance (Oakland: Food First Books, 2002); Braulio Machín-Sosa, et. al., Revolución Agroecológica (ANAP: La Habana, 2010).
2. ↩ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), The State of Food and Agriculture 2006 (Rome: FAO, 2006), http://fao.org.
3. ↩ MINAG (Ministerio de la Agricultura), Informe del Ministerio de la Agricultura a la Comisión Agroalimentaria de la Asamblea Nacional, May 14, 2008 (MINAG: Havana, Cuba, 2008).
4. ↩ Ana Margarita González, “Tenemos que dar saltos cualitativos,” Interview with Orlando Lugo Fonte, Trabajadores, June 22, 2009, 6.
5. ↩ Raisa Pagés, “Necesarios cambios en relaciones con el sector cooperativo-campesino,” Granma, December 18, 2006, 3.
6. ↩ Dennis T. Avery, “Cubans Starve on Diet of Lies,” April 2, 2009, http://cgfi.org.
7. ↩ Fernando Funes, Miguel A. Altieri, and Peter Rosset, “The Avery Diet: The Hudson’s Institute Misinformation Campaign Against Cuban Agriculture,” May 2009, http://globalalternatives.org.
8. ↩ FAO, Ibid.
9. ↩ FAOSTAT Food Supply Database, http://faostat.fao.org, accessed July 28, 2011.
10. ↩ René Montalván, “Plaguicidas de factura nacional,” El Habanero, November 23, 2010, 4.
11. ↩ Fernando Funes-Monzote and Eduardo F. Freyre Roach, eds., Transgénicos ¿Qué se gana? ¿Qué se pierde? Textos para un debate en Cuba (Havana: Publicaciones Acuario, 2009), http://landaction.org.
12. ↩ Raúl Castro, “Mientras mayores sean las dificultades, más exigencia, disciplina y unidad se requieren,” Granma, February 25, 2008, 4–6.
13. ↩ Fernando Funes-Monzote, Farming Like We’re Here to Stay, PhD dissertation, Wageningen University, Netherlands, 2008.
14. ↩ Braulio Machin-Sosa, et. al., Revolución Agroecológica: el Movimiento de Campesino a Campesino de la ANAP en Cuba (ANAP: La Habana, 2010).
15. ↩ Fernando Funes-Monzote, et. al., “Evaluación inicial de sistemas integrados para la producción de alimentos y energía en Cuba,” Pastos y Forrajes (forthcoming, 2011).
Miguel A. Altieri (agroeco3 [at] berkeley.edu) is Profesor of Agroecology at the University of California, Berkeley and President of the Latin American Scientific Society of Agroecology (SOCLA). He is the author of more than 250 journal articles and twelve books.
Fernando R. Funes-Monzote (mgahonam [at] enet.cu) is currently a researcher at the Experimental Station Indio Hatuey, University of Matanzas, Cuba. He is one of the founding members of the Cuban Association of Organic Agriculture.
Labels: AGRICULTURE, CUBA
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