Artículos

Fidel Castro - What Trump and the haters he encourages ignore

Photo: Juvenal Balán
Photo: Juvenal Balán

Fecha: 

07/05/2020

Fuente: 

Periódico Granma

Autor: 

The U.S. government's extremism toward Cuba is once again encouraging terrorism.
 
It could have been predicted; it has happened before: The U.S. government's extremism toward Cuba is once again encouraging terrorism.
 
A fanatic fires on the Cuban embassy in Washington. This was not one of the invisible and unproven "sonic attacks" on diplomatic personnel that the Trump administration alleges occurred in Havana. Bullets were fired from an assault rifle, and their marks are clearly visible on the facade of Cuba’s embassy in the U.S. capital.
 
The Trump campaign against Cuba began by insulting Fidel on the occasion of his death, giving the most aggressive sectors in South Florida the policy toward the island they wanted, and using the dubious "attacks" on diplomats in Havana, later escalating to include the persecution of shipping companies transporting fuel to Cuban ports, the suspension of commercial flights and cruise ship stops, the worldwide witch hunt to eliminate Cuban internationalist medical collaboration, the enforcement of Title III of the unconscionable Helms-Burton Act to further dissuade foreign investment in Cuba, and the intensification of global harassment of any transaction with a Cuban company. In 2019 alone, the Trump administration adopted 86 hostile measures against the island.
 
Lies, economic blockade and terrorist violence have been inseparable components of Washington's policy toward Cuba, and it is logical that the intensive use of the first two leads to the return of the third. Without ethics or scruples, Trump represents the worse political traditions of his country, putting corporate profits before the lives of his fellow citizens, with the result that one million of his compatriots have already been infected by the new coronavirus and the number of deaths in his country has surpassed those of the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, Cuba - blockaded as never before – is everyday reducing the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19, and demonstrates solidarity sending medical brigades to more than 20 countries.
 
Logically, the haters’ frustration leads to desperate action. The ridiculous claims made in hopes of overthrowing the Cuban Revolution are sinking in the mud, and Trump’s chances of being re-elected are diminishing at the same rate that, in these extraordinary circumstances, Cuba's example is increasingly admired for its ability to prevail over U.S. induced hardship, and not only saves its own people, but helps to save humanity.
 
In the face of the lukewarm attitude of the U.S. authorities in condemning the terrorist attack on the Cuban embassy, Fidel Castro shines more brightly than the morally bereft Donald Trump ever will. Fidel took a different approach, under similar circumstances, alerting President Ronald Reagan, one of his most bitter adversaries, of an attempt on his life, and offered Cuban airports to the government of another adversary, George W. Bush, to receive aircraft looking for a place to land after the terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
 
This May Day, millions of Cubans remember that, just 20 years ago, Fidel expressed with unforgettable firmness that Revolution means, among other elements, "to challenge powerful dominant forces within and outside the social and national sphere" and "never lie or violate ethical principles.” Can Trump understand this? Can the frustrated hater who fired on the Cuban embassy understand? They had better, to waste no more time on further frustration