http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2004/julio/vier2/28asam.html
FIDEL AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
‘We have an adversary powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in terms of ideas’
BY MARIA JULIA MAYORAL AND LOURDES PEREZ-Granma daily staff writers-
“WE have the tranquility of being prepared on every terrain to confront any aggression. Enormous trenches of stone can be united with enormous trenches of idea at the precise and exact moment at which imperialism is condemned to an insoluble crisis,” affirmed President Fidel Castro yesterday, speaking during the Cuban National Assembly debate, which approved a declaration against the new measures designed to provoke the rapid end of the Revolution implemented by the U.S. government.
“They forget,” he noted, “that our people defeated the criminals who governed here with more than 100,000 men under arms. Today Cuba has millions of weapons and millions of people who know how to use them, well-prepared officers and chiefs, hundreds of thousands of university graduates, close to one million intellectuals and a people with the highest political culture in the world.
“We know that we have an enemy powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in ideas. I am in no doubt that this empire is not going to have the duration of the Roman one; the rate and the velocity at which events are occurring in these times and the point that the planet has reached give me total certainty of that,” stated the president of the Councils of State and Ministers.
The declaration, unanimously approved, was presented by Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly.
During the session, with the presence of First Vice President of the Council of State and General of the Army Raúl Castro, deputies also advocated the circulation and discussion of the imperialist plans by all means possible.
Many expressed their condemnation of the infamous measures approved and put into practice by the Bush administration.
Dr. Agustín Lage qualified this new Yankee brainchild as a perverse plan, that likewise militates against scientific labors being developed in Cuba, commenting that dozens of U.S. researchers wishing to attend important international medical events here have recently been denied travel permits to do so.
Osvaldo Martínez, president of the Parliamentary Economics Commission, referred to the chapters of the report that conceive of our country as a subsidiary of Florida and a Puerto Rico on its knees, with a previously appointed colonial administrator to undertake the so-called transition. He explained that the intention is to privatize everything as rapidly as possible. This aggression, he stated, is an insult to the intelligence and culture attained by the Cubans.
With its obsessions, the Washington plan gives prime place to the return of properties to their former owners, above and beyond any humane considerations. Moreover, it acknowledges that the process of such a transition would be slow, painful and politically sensitive, affirmed the likewise director of the Center for Research into the World Economy.
The measures recently passed in the United States are part of promises by Bush to the pro-Batista and annexationist mafia who brought him to power, stated journalist and youth leader Randy Alonso.
Deputy Nieves Alemañy, representative of the Cuban Women’s Federation, expressed that nobody can bring their stories or lies about a “free Cuba” to that sector of the population. “Today we are playing leading roles in a revolutionary project, in which Cuban women represent 66.1% of the country’s technical and professional work force, and we enjoy rights that we are not disposed to losing to satisfy the cravings of this ultra-right clique,” she confirmed.
Reverend Raúl Suárez pointed to the wide gulf between the peace and justice-based pastoral vocation and the petition for “help” the document presents to the church in order to manipulate awareness, separate families, destroy the economy and drive the masses to desperation. “We do not have the vocation of Judas; the evangelical churches have cast in our lot with the Cuban people,” he emphasized.
Another deputy and pastor, Sergio Arce, appealed to the condition of devout and Christian believer that Bush claims to espouse, for a proper understanding of the concept of the family. He said that the head of the White House dreams in a delirious way of being the substitute for God, but that satanic undertaking is an impossible one to fulfill.
Armando Hart, director of the José Martí Program Office, warned of the dangers of this diabolical annexationist plan not only for Cuba, but for the entire world. “Be careful, Mr. Bush,” the deputy affirmed, adding: “Cuba is not alone; don’t go looking for another Viet Nam in the Caribbean in the 21st century.”
City Historian Eusebio Leal emphasized the importance of a closer rapprochement with the U.S. intelligentsia and people, where there are important human values. These measures by the current U.S. administration, he affirmed, “are the most defiant of all the aggressions throughout history against our people from an arrogant state.
FIDEL AT THE NATIONAL ASSEMBLY
‘We have an adversary powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in terms of ideas’
BY MARIA JULIA MAYORAL AND LOURDES PEREZ-Granma daily staff writers-
“WE have the tranquility of being prepared on every terrain to confront any aggression. Enormous trenches of stone can be united with enormous trenches of idea at the precise and exact moment at which imperialism is condemned to an insoluble crisis,” affirmed President Fidel Castro yesterday, speaking during the Cuban National Assembly debate, which approved a declaration against the new measures designed to provoke the rapid end of the Revolution implemented by the U.S. government.
“They forget,” he noted, “that our people defeated the criminals who governed here with more than 100,000 men under arms. Today Cuba has millions of weapons and millions of people who know how to use them, well-prepared officers and chiefs, hundreds of thousands of university graduates, close to one million intellectuals and a people with the highest political culture in the world.
“We know that we have an enemy powerful in technology and armaments, but a total orphan in ideas. I am in no doubt that this empire is not going to have the duration of the Roman one; the rate and the velocity at which events are occurring in these times and the point that the planet has reached give me total certainty of that,” stated the president of the Councils of State and Ministers.
The declaration, unanimously approved, was presented by Ricardo Alarcón, president of the National Assembly.
During the session, with the presence of First Vice President of the Council of State and General of the Army Raúl Castro, deputies also advocated the circulation and discussion of the imperialist plans by all means possible.
Many expressed their condemnation of the infamous measures approved and put into practice by the Bush administration.
Dr. Agustín Lage qualified this new Yankee brainchild as a perverse plan, that likewise militates against scientific labors being developed in Cuba, commenting that dozens of U.S. researchers wishing to attend important international medical events here have recently been denied travel permits to do so.
Osvaldo Martínez, president of the Parliamentary Economics Commission, referred to the chapters of the report that conceive of our country as a subsidiary of Florida and a Puerto Rico on its knees, with a previously appointed colonial administrator to undertake the so-called transition. He explained that the intention is to privatize everything as rapidly as possible. This aggression, he stated, is an insult to the intelligence and culture attained by the Cubans.
With its obsessions, the Washington plan gives prime place to the return of properties to their former owners, above and beyond any humane considerations. Moreover, it acknowledges that the process of such a transition would be slow, painful and politically sensitive, affirmed the likewise director of the Center for Research into the World Economy.
The measures recently passed in the United States are part of promises by Bush to the pro-Batista and annexationist mafia who brought him to power, stated journalist and youth leader Randy Alonso.
Deputy Nieves Alemañy, representative of the Cuban Women’s Federation, expressed that nobody can bring their stories or lies about a “free Cuba” to that sector of the population. “Today we are playing leading roles in a revolutionary project, in which Cuban women represent 66.1% of the country’s technical and professional work force, and we enjoy rights that we are not disposed to losing to satisfy the cravings of this ultra-right clique,” she confirmed.
Reverend Raúl Suárez pointed to the wide gulf between the peace and justice-based pastoral vocation and the petition for “help” the document presents to the church in order to manipulate awareness, separate families, destroy the economy and drive the masses to desperation. “We do not have the vocation of Judas; the evangelical churches have cast in our lot with the Cuban people,” he emphasized.
Another deputy and pastor, Sergio Arce, appealed to the condition of devout and Christian believer that Bush claims to espouse, for a proper understanding of the concept of the family. He said that the head of the White House dreams in a delirious way of being the substitute for God, but that satanic undertaking is an impossible one to fulfill.
Armando Hart, director of the José Martí Program Office, warned of the dangers of this diabolical annexationist plan not only for Cuba, but for the entire world. “Be careful, Mr. Bush,” the deputy affirmed, adding: “Cuba is not alone; don’t go looking for another Viet Nam in the Caribbean in the 21st century.”
City Historian Eusebio Leal emphasized the importance of a closer rapprochement with the U.S. intelligentsia and people, where there are important human values. These measures by the current U.S. administration, he affirmed, “are the most defiant of all the aggressions throughout history against our people from an arrogant state.
