Thirst for blood

1

The empire is not resigning itself to being the only loser at the Rio Group meeting held in Santo Domingo on March 7th. It wants to set up the bloody mess once more. It is not difficult to demonstrate it.

On Tuesday March 11th, El Nuevo Herald, a paper that is extremely hostile to Cuba and destined to chart guidelines in Latin America, under the title of “A Cuban is the Alleged Leader of the FARC in Mexico”, signed by one of its writers born in our country, states:

“A Cuban engineer living in Mexico was identified by intelligence authorities as the alleged leader of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) support group on Mexican territory.

“The intelligence report –quoted by the newspapers El Universal and The Wall Street Journal– indicates Mario Dagoberto Díaz Orgaz, 48 years old, to be the main suspect as organizer of the expedition of a group of Mexican students to a FARC camp in Ecuador, attacked by Colombian forces on March 1.

“Mexican agents say they photographed Díaz Orgaz in Quito on March 5th at 6:25 p.m., while he was prowling around the Military Hospital where Lucía Andrea Morett Álvarez, a survivor of the armed operation, was being held.

“The young woman, known as ‘Alicia’ in the rebel ranks, had traveled from Mexico to Havana on January 10, and from there to Quito. Her return to Mexico was scheduled for Tuesday.

“The report on Díaz Orgaz also presents him as the financial operator of the FARC in Mexico…”

“The Cuban engineer had been found in Ecuador by Mexican intelligence services after surviving the military attack on the FARC camp.

“Last night, the El Nuevo Herald telephoned a close friend of his in the city of Queretaro, where Díaz Orgaz lives and works as a researcher in the Engineering and Industrial Development Center attached to the National Science and Technology Council of the Mexican government…

“In order to avoid being harassed by the press, Díaz Orgaz has been at a friends’ house since Monday.

“The source said that the Cuban engineer can prove that the trip to Ecuador attributed to him is false, since on the date that Mexican intelligence has him located in the vicinity of the Military Hospital in Quito, he was in the city of Villa Hermosa, capital of the state of Tabasco, with a group of colleagues from the Engineering and Industrial Development Center.’

“Díaz Orgaz is originally from the town of Bejucal, in La Habana Province, where he was born on January 15, 1960. According to information in the hands of the Mexican federal government, Díaz Orgaz studied mechanical engineering at the Vladimir Polytechnical Institute, 112 miles from Moscow, and later he took several specialization courses in Metrology…”

“He would have played a key role in the financial support given to FARC supporters at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), one of the largest and most prestigious academic centers in Latin America…”

“Revelations in the case are coming up a few days prior to the visit of the Mexican Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa to Havana, motivated by a policy to resume relations between the two countries.

“Last February, the Colombian army had captured the Cuban doctor Emilio Muñoz Franco in Palmira, department of Valle del Cauca. This optometrist had been mentioned as a keystone in the FARC logistical support network.

“Muñoz Franco had taken Cuban medical students as trainees to the FARC camps between 2000 and 2001.

“The Colombian authorities consider that there is enough evidence to accuse him of being a foreigner associated with the guerrillas. His neighbors in Palmira claim that they have never seen him involved in anything shocking.”

The stupid intent of mixing Cubans into the matter is very clear, besides the lie about the impossible presence of our students of Medicine in that faraway Colombian jungle. Whenever a Cuban engineer or doctor abandons his country it is someone who is walking away with the knowledge that our people have paid for with great sacrifice. Exactly on the 13th of this month, 177 members of the Medical Brigade and 35 teachers have returned after fulfilling their sacred mission in East Timor for two years.

I myself bid them farewell when they left.

In East Timor, where genocide was committed before independence, internal conflicts arose supported by Australia, a United States ally, who took over the natural gas fields in the proximity of the Timor coastline. Under no circumstances did the Cuban doctors abandon their patients who were all inhabitants of that small nation. The personnel replacing them have remained there. These are indeed Cuban doctors and graduates, of which there are thousands, the same ones which the empire tries to bribe away making unmentionable efforts, but to very little effect.

No other country in the western hemisphere or in the world has such wealth. Today we are training hundreds of young people from East Timor in our medical schools. The doctors who have just returned set an example of what conscience can do.

The quoted article from El Nuevo Herald is also a clear intent to justify the fact that among the victims there were young Mexicans who were meeting with Reyes, as a matter of curiosity or for whatever other reason, but they hadn’t planted bombs nor did they deserve to be murdered by Yankee bombs while they were in their beds at dawn.

El Mercurio of Chile, under the title “Deserter Warns that the Leader of the FARC could be Assassinated”, writes the following, in the words of Pedro Pablo Montoya, former FARC guerrilla:

“The guerrilla deserter who last week killed José Juvenal Velandia, a.k.a. ‘Iván Ríos’, member of the top FARC leadership, yesterday pointed out that the rebels in the middle and lower ranks might assassinate their leaders, among them the top leader of the Colombian guerrilla group Pedro Antonio Marín, alias ‘Manuel Marulanda Vélez’ or ‘Tirofijo’ (Sharpshot).

Pedro Pablo Montoya, a.k.a. ‘Rojas’, who since last Thursday is under Army protection after surrendering with two other FARC members after having assassinated ‘Ríos’, said in an interview to the Bogota paper El Tiempo that the non-ranking rebels are demoralized and without incentives due to the ‘bad treatment’ they are receiving from the guerrilla leaders…!

“After killing his leader, ‘Rojas’ chopped off the man’s right hand and presented himself to the soldiers who had surrounded the rebel unit with the dead man’s identification papers and his laptop computer.

“In statements to Radio Caracol, ‘Rojas’ said that the FARC doesn’t want to liberate former candidate Ingrid Betancourt. Not even for “the big guy” —they wouldn’t free her for any reason. Doña Yolanda, mother of Ms. Betancourt, should know this…”

The rebel said that he is expecting to be paid a juicy bounty that was offered by the Colombian government, equivalent to 2.6 million dollars, in exchange for information about the insurgent commanders, while lawyers are debating whether or not he should receive the booty. Last night ‘Rojas’ received backing, since the Attorney General of Colombia, Mario Iguarán, indicated that ‘in principle, the Attorney General’s Office wouldn‘t press charges for the murder of Iván Ríos, and with that the way would be cleared for him to receive the bounty’.”

For its part, The Washington Post, a well-informed paper on the prevailing mood in Washington, last March 10th published an article titled “The FARC’s Guardian Angel”, signed by Jackson Diehl, where he points out:

“Latin American nations and the Bush administration are just beginning to consider a far more serious and potentially explosive question: What to do about the revelation that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez forged a strategic alliance with the FARC aimed at Colombia’s democratic government.

“…but in their totality, the hundreds of pages of documents so far made public by Colombia paint an even more chilling picture…”

“All this is laid out in a series of three e-mails sent in February to the FARC’s top leaders by Iván Márquez and Rodrigo Granda, envoys who held a series of secret meetings with Chávez…”

“Assuming these documents are authentic –and it’s hard to believe that the cerebral and calculating Uribe would knowingly hand over forgeries to the world media and the Organization of American States– both the Bush administration and Latin American governments will have fateful decisions to make about Chávez. His reported actions are, first of all, a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1373, passed on September 2001…”

The Washington Post starts from the premise that only Uribe could invent or deliver that document to the United States government and didn’t even consider any other possibility for the complicated situation. However, it is known that since Thursday the 13th, Chávez called Uribe by phone and agreed with him to an exchange of visits between the two presidents and the normalization of trade exchange relations that so benefit both their peoples. Chavez, for his part, is not giving up on his search for peace between the brotherly peoples of Latin America.

More surprising is the very speech made by Bush on March 12th and the speedy dispatching of the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Brazil and Chile, a subject about which the wire agencies are writing reams and reams:

“BRASILIA, March 13, 2008 (AFP) – The U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, and the Brazilian Racial Integration Minister, Edson Santos, signed an agreement this Thursday in Brasilia to launch a joint action plan ‘for the elimination of racial discrimination’.

“The text of the agreement emphasizes that Brazil and the United States share the characteristic of being ’multi-ethnic and multi-racial democratic societies’.”

I read and I re-read these words. I think it is the opposite of what is really happening in the United States, while I am choosing dispatches and I write. It’s amazing!

I shall continue tomorrow.

2

I promised I would continue the reflections today, using textual news and adding pertinent commentaries.

“NEW YORK, March 13 (ANSA) – The absence of Argentina in the itinerary of the new trip by the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to South America is another sign of Washington’s annoyance with the authorities in Buenos Aires, according to the New York Times today.

“The newspaper recalled that Rice is visiting Brazil and Chile this week but ‘notably absent from her itinerary’ is Argentina where Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, wife of ex-President Néstor Kirchner, ‘became the first woman elected to be the country’s President.’

“The omission underscores Washington’s disappointment with the new Kirchner government, which has continued to strengthen ties with the President of Venezuela, Hugo Chávez, while ‘accusing the United States of political motives’ in the case of the $80,000 illegally brought into the country by Venezuelan officials.

“The New York Times describes this money as ‘suspected to be a secret contribution made by Venezuela to the Kirchner campaign’.”

“BRASILIA, March 13 (EFE) – The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice expressed her hope that Colombia’s neighbors would fulfill their commitment to prevent FARC guerrillas from using their territories ‘to continue killing innocent people.’

“’We are very concerned with the regional situation (in South America)’, said Rice at a press conference today in Brasilia accompanied by Brazilian Foreign Affairs Minister Celso Amorim.

“’Countries cannot be threatened from within or from outside. And we must avoid that the terrorists continue killing innocent people’, the head of U.S. foreign policy said after meetings with both Amorim and with Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.”

“BRASILIA, March 13 (ANSA) - […] the official said that the U.S. government maintains good relations with left-wing leaders such as Brazilian President Luiz Lula da Silva and Chilean President Michelle Bachelet.

“After the press conference, Rice and Chancellor Celso Amorim had lunch together at the Itamaraty Palace.”

“BRASILIA, March 13 (AP) - […] Rice made these declarations a day after President George W. Bush said that the recent crisis between Colombia and Ecuador was ‘the most recent step of a worrisome pattern of provocative behavior on the part of the Caracas government’.

“Washington is toughening its rhetoric against Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, at the same time it is praising its South American allies for firmly confronting terrorism.”

In Brazil, after dealing with the subject of the future composition of the Security Council, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice clearly explained that the United States would not be opposed to Brazil’s entry into that Council, but she warned that its support was committed to Japan, its strategic and economic partner.

“SANTIAGO, March 13 (AFP) – The U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will make a brief visit to Chile on Friday, where she will be meeting with President Michelle Bachelet to consolidate bilateral ties and review the regional situation.

“Rice will arrive in Santiago Friday afternoon, coming from Brazil, where she had arrived this Thursday. The chief of the United States diplomacy will be in the Chilean capital for almost six hours, and she will be returning to Washington on the same Friday, just before taking off on a trip to Moscow.”

According to that same agency, the U.S. ambassador in Santiago, Paul Simons, declared:

“The fact that she is coming to Chile in the middle of a very busy schedule shows the importance she is giving to conversations with her colleague, Chancellor Foxley, and with the President about our positive agenda.”

“Brazil and Chile ‘are countries that are friends and strategic regional partners of the United States’, the diplomat added in a press conference.

“With the Chilean authorities, Rice will be discussing the state of bilateral relations, but also the regional situation following the serious crisis created by the Colombian military incursion into Ecuadorian territory, resulting in the death of the second-in-command of the FARC guerrillas, Raúl Reyes.

“’We shall be talking about the regional situation’, Simons disclosed.

“In Santiago, Rice will also give the go-ahead to her Chilean colleague for the so-called ‘Chile-California Plan for the Twenty-first Century’, an agreement that would like to take advantage of similarities in geography, climate and productivity between the South American country and that U.S. state.

“The agreement is unprecedented and it came up following a personal conversation between Foxley and Rice, according to ambassador Simons without disclosing any more details.”

Unquestionably, the U.S. ambassador in Chile, as it is his habit let too much slip out, speaking of a plan that the Chilean government still hasn’t even publicly mentioned, nor has there been any decision made about something that appears to be a fantasy from Arabian Nights.

On the Internet there is also much news about the U.S. Secretary of State’s tour. On March 13th, the following headlines could be read:

BBC World – London, Great Britain. “Rice: Borders, No Hiding Places.”

Terra – News Portal, Spain. “Rice Ratifies in Brazil U.S. Commitment with Colombia and Against the FARC.”

Alarde – Brazilian newspaper. “U.S. Defends South American Security Plan."

El Observador – Venezuelan newspaper. “Rice Insists that U.S. Studies Information about Alleged Venezuelan Ties with the FARC."

Ansalatine – Italian News Agency. “Rice proposes joint action against FARC.”

BBC World – London, Great Britain. “Rice Visits ‘Strategic’ Partners”

El Nuevo Diario – Nicaraguan newspaper. “U.S. Toughens Rhetoric against Chávez in Rice’s Tour”

AFP – French News Agency. “Rice Will Visit Chile to Consolidate Ties and Talk about the Regional Situation.”

EFE – Spanish News Agency. “Rice Ratifies in Brazil U.S. Commitment with Colombia and Against the FARC.”

AFP – French News Agency. “Rice: U.S. Examines Ties between Chávez and FARC and will Take Action".

La Prensa – Argentine newspaper. “Borders cannot be a Hide-Out, U.S. Warns".

On March 14th, O Estado de Sao Paulo, a Brazilian news site, successively sends three articles titled: “Untimely Interference”, “Rice Discusses African Tourism in Bahia” and “Amorim and ‘Condi’ Make Mistakes.”

O Globo on Line – Digital Site of the Brazilian TV channel. “Condoleezza: Borders are not ‘Hiding Places’”.

El Mercurio – Chilean newspaper. “Rice, Arriving Today in the Country, Will Discuss with the Chilean Government a Request to send Peace Forces to Kosovo.”

Crónica Digital – Chilean News Site. “Policy: Sticks and Carrots: Condoleezza Rice’s Chilean Agenda.”

Condoleezza Rice herself would have to answer some questions: How many Americans have been killed by bombs sent by Cuba? Has even one single brick ever been broken because of an explosive device coming from our country? Why are we being included in the grotesque list of terrorist countries, the same one on which Venezuela’s inclusion is being arbitrarily threatened? Who used terrorism against our homeland to blow up planes in mid-air, commit acts of sabotage, and launch mercenary invasions and threats of bombings and wars, economic blockade and actions that have cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars? Who is going to believe you or Bush? Why are you insisting on provoking fratricidal wars between the peoples of Latin America?

In Iraq, more than a million people have died. How many deaths does the United States of America offer Latin America, a region with over 500 million inhabitants, to defend its democracy and its empire?

It is a real fact that Bush and his group are much more trapped in their foreign policy errors than even Nixon when he resigned in 1972. The bloody Iraqi War and its rejection by the U.S. people, the toll in human lives, the extremely high number of wounded and maimed for every death in the military adventure, all reveal a situation full of contradictions: the deteriorated image of the United States and the impossibility of giving up the wars of conquest for raw materials, the dollar and the price of gold, currency devaluations and inflation, consumerism and the inability to supply themselves with consumer goods, production of ethanol and the world shortage of food, fascist methods and democratic demagoguery, torture practices and secret prisons and human rights, maximum environmental pollution of the country and the species’ right to survival, the benefits of science for health and the use of the same to massively liquidate or invalidate human beings, the brain drain and underdevelopment of poor countries, the price of oil and the ever-greater wasting of energy, the November elections and growing numbers of Latinos dying on the border.

The list would be endless. It is, in essence, a contradiction between life and death.

Today, on Sunday March 16th, we can read the dispatches which correspondents were writing in Havana yesterday night, Saturday, about the material published today in Juventud Rebelde, received by them in advance on the previous day.

It is remarkable that none of the capitalist news agencies have published a single word on what was written about the former guerrilla Pedro Pablo Montoya who killed a leader of the FARC and cut off his hand in order to receive a bounty of 2.6 million dollars that was legalized by an Attorney General of Colombia. He was probably an agent infiltrated by the Yankees. The issue has elicited a great debate due to its ethical implications.

Condoleezza is off to Moscow, Bush announces a trip to the Ukraine and Bucharest for the first days of April and he will conclude the tour in Croatia, Serbia’s neighbor, from which imperialism ripped its vital province of Kosovo, site of its culture and source of essential material resources that formed the basis of its development.

McCain has just arrived in Iraq for the eighth time, to offer his full support to Bush’s war, and to the 3 trillion dollars it has cost, to which millions of victims must be added, among the displaced and the dead, for the price of the fallen and mutilated Americans already mentioned.

What can the world expect from such a policy?

The imperialist leaders and officials are working feverishly, threatening everyone with their brutal strength, but the empire is unsustainable and it doesn’t give up. It is thirsty for blood. We must persistently denounce it!