BY BRIAN TAYLOR
Welcoming the national baseball team home after their
victorious match with the Baltimore Orioles, President Fidel
Castro took the occasion to express the Cuban government's
stance on Washington's war against Yugoslavia. His May 4
speech was given on the steps of the University of Havana, at
an event celebrating 40 years of the Cuban revolution.
"At this moment in Europe," Castro said, NATO forces "are carrying out brutal air strikes... sowing desolation, death, and terror in a country inhabited by millions.
"Europe - meaning NATO and its members, including the United States - is entangled in what you could, like it or not, call genocide. Cutting electricity and heat... to a million people overnight; cutting communications, all sources of energy and transport; destroying civilian centers that provide vital services to the entire population; and bringing ruin to all the means of life built up by a nation. At the same time, in their destructive fury, either by error or irresponsibility, they are directly killing or injuring thousands of civilians.... This is, unquestionably, a great genocide."
The Cuban government believes that "only a political solution, not a military solution, based on respect for all the nations in that region, their religions, their ethnicities and cultures; a solution for Serbs and for Kosovars" is possible, Castro said. "I am most certain that this problem will not be solved by force. I am most certain that all military technology shatters before the will to resist of a people who have decided to fight. I am certain, as is true in our country, that no force, as powerful as it may be, can defeat a people prepared to fight.
"Those who are attacking Serbia thought they were in for a simple stroll, a three-day adventure, and that the Serbs would surrender after the first bombs," Castro continued. "It has been more than 40 days now, they've dropped thousands and thousands of bombs," and Cuban diplomats on the scene "have seen no symptoms of weakening in their will to fight." Castro pointed to the example of the Yugoslav people's victory against heavily armed Nazi invaders in World War II. He also recalled Washington's defeat by the fighting people of Vietnam.
Offers aid for those forced from Kosova
"We are not against the rights of anyone. We support the
rights of the Serbs like those of the Kosovars," Castro said.
After all the bombs NATO powers have dropped in the Balkans, they have only taken in a few thousand refugees, "because they don't want Kosovan refugees in their own territories.
"We, who energetically condemn the brutal attacks and genocide that is waged against the Serbian people, also share the suffering of the hundreds of thousands of refugees, resulting from a number of factors, not only historic...but also from the disintegration of Yugoslavia, which lived in peace for 40 years after the second world war," Castro said.
He recounted how U.S. officials informed the Cuban government that they planned to use Guantánamo Naval base - a piece of Cuban territory held by Washington against the will of the Cuban people - to house 20,000 displaced Kosovars. One reason the U.S. rulers initially considered this was to prevent those forced to leave Kosova from applying for asylum in the United States. When Washington made this declaration, Havana's response was "one they least expected - they don't know this country," Castro said.
"We told them, `Not only do we agree with lodging 20,000 or more Kosova refugees there, but we are also willing to cooperate on whatever is possible to attend to those refugees, to offer our hospital services if needed, doctors, any cooperation that is within our power.' " In the end, Washington scrapped the use of Guantánamo base for this purpose.
"When we propose solutions, we propose solution for everyone: for refugees, for citizens of Kosova, the Serbs who live there and other nationalities, and for all the nations that today make up what's left of Yugoslavia." Castro said representatives of the San Egidio Community, a relief organization involved in aid for the displaced Kosovars, came to Cuba in early April, after the bombing began, and explained they had only 30 doctors available. "We told them, `Look, we don't have many resources, but we do have human capital. If you need medical personnel to tend to those hundreds of thousands of refugees that live in those precarious camps, our country is willing to cooperate by contributing 1,000 doctors for absolutely no charge to treat the Kosovar refugees,' " he continued.
The Cuban president pointed to the doctors and other medical personnel from Cuba who are currently volunteering in Central America, Haiti, and Africa. The U.S. government, with so many more resources, couldn't bring together 2,000 doctors to voluntarily work where Cuban doctors work, he said. "When you say to a Cuban, `Look, there are two places you can go: here or there. There, there is more danger than here, so what would you prefer?' Right away they'll tell you, `There.' That is the tradition of heroism. And not just men, but something very encouraging: women, as well."
In a final remark regarding Yugoslavia Castro said, when the day comes for Kosovars to return to their country "we will be prepared also to go with them to help" in rebuilding of their territory of Kosova.