Vol. 73/No. 18      May 11, 2009

BY FIDEL CASTRO  
Our courts hand down verdicts based on laws to punish counterrevolutionary actions. The idea that anyone is punished in our country for professing a belief other than those of the revolution is absolutely ridiculous. There are tens of thousands of people whose political and religious concepts and beliefs differ from those of the revolution. They have full legal guarantees. The idea that anybody is in prison for having ideas that differ from those of the revolution is simply nonsense. No one in our country has ever been punished because he was a dissident or had opinions different from those of the revolution. Our penal code precisely defines those acts for which a citizen may be punished. Some of these laws were adopted prior to the triumph of the revolution, in the liberated territory of the Sierra Maestra, and were applied to punish torturers and other criminals.

We have defended ourselves and will continue to do so. I don’t expect that the counterrevolutionaries will put up a statue to me or that our enemies will honor me. I’ve followed my line all my life—a line of conduct in the revolution, during the war, of absolute respect for individuals’ physical integrity. If we had to mete out punishment—even drastic punishment— we meted it out. But, no matter what our enemies may say, or how much they may lie and slander us, the history of the revolution is free of cases of physical abuse or torture. All the citizens in this country, without exception, know this. We waged a hard campaign against these practices throughout the underground struggle and the war. Our cadres, our soldiers, and our people became very aware of and opposed to these methods. I might ask whether any other revolution has maintained the serenity, coolheadedness, firmness, and consistent respect for laws and ethical principles that has typified the Cuban revolution. Not even in the most difficult moments during the war did we depart from those principles!

Why did we triumph in our struggle against the counterrevolution, against the CIA with all its experience? Because our people knew more than the CIA. The CIA worked on the basis of mercenaries, high pay, and accounts in U.S. banks. We worked on the basis of people who had ideals, thoughts, revolutionary fervor, and strong ideological motivations for supporting the revolution and for infiltrating the counterrevolutionary organizations both inside the country and abroad. Our police couldn’t use torture, so they developed their intelligence and became very effective in the struggle against elements which lacked sound moral convictions. We often knew more about what they were doing than they did. They might not remember what they had done seven months earlier on a specific day, but we did, because it was on record.

We have defended ourselves with the support of the people and the cooperation of the masses. We’ve never had to resort to anything illegal—to force, torture, or crime. Throughout the entire history of the revolution, no one can point to a single case of torture, murder, or disappearance, which are common, everyday occurrences in the rest of Latin America. Another thing: never has a demonstration been broken up by the police! Never in twenty-six years has a policeman used tear gas, beaten a citizen during a demonstration, or used trained dogs against the people. Never has a demonstration here been repressed by the army or the police—something that happens every day everywhere else in Latin America and in the United States itself.

Every so often I see dogs and policemen in action in the United States. I see prostrate people being violently and humiliatingly stepped upon. Something else: I frequently see demonstrations being broken up everywhere. How strange that this revolution has never used a policeman or a soldier or tear gas or a dog against the people! Why not? Because the people support it; the people defend it. All the people are soldiers; all the people are policemen. All the people defend the revolution.

Injustice, violence, torture, disappearance, and murder— those things happen in countries whose governments are against the people, whose governments have to defend themselves against the people—in Argentina under the military dictatorship, in Chile, El Salvador, and elsewhere—with repressive forces and death squads trained by the United States. You see, they need those procedures to defend themselves against the people. When the people themselves are the revolution, when it is the people who resolutely defend the revolution, you may rest assured there’ll be no need for violence or injustice to defend it. Ours is the only government in this hemisphere—I can state this proudly—that has never used a policeman or a soldier against the people, never inflicted any bodily harm upon an individual, and never resorted to political assassination or disappearances.
 
 
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