Copenhagen 20-08-05: conference on the Five

Tomas Widen of the Swedish-Cuban Association

I will connect to some aspects which Katrien already has actualized: The effort to create The New Man, humanism and the fundamental foundation of all our struggles, that another world is possible.

I choose to initially present two quotations. The first one is from the defence speech held by René González, which he held in front of the court in Miami on December 14 the year 2001, at the point when the judge Joan Lenard was to decide the sentences.

"… there is no such thing as a good person who is also a terrorist. You must be sick to be a terrorist, just as you must be sick to believe that there is such a thing as a good terrorist."

René spoke these words at a point of time when his Cuba had been the target of terrorist actions and attacks for more than four decades.

The origin of the second quotation is a terrorist action that took place close to exactly 40 years before René made his statement in Miami. On January 5, 1961, Conrado Benítez was murdered, together with the peasant Heliodoro Rodríguez, by counterrevolutionary terrorists. Conrado was an 18 year old volunteer teacher in the literacy campaign. Former terrorist Mirio Pérez Venegas has given a testimony:

"It was as if there had been a party in the camp that night. We were all shouting at him at the same time in the corral, we threw stones at him, we spat, swore and threw obscenities at him. Then Osvaldo turned up and he said to Conrado Benítez: 'If you join us we'll spare your life.' He replied that he was, above all, a revolutionary. You know, to tell that right in Osvaldo's face. … I repeat, it was as if we were having a party. First they got hold of Conrado Benítez, who had to practically run with the rope around his neck in order not to be dragged, while all those present beat him with sticks and cut him with knives. … when he was under the tree chosen for his execution, the rope was thrown over a branch, and the literacy teacher looked around him as if he were asking himself whether we were human beings or animals. The body was lowered and raised several times, as if he were a puppet, until he was dead; then we left him hanging there. Even though he was clearly dead, Osvaldo ordered him to be stabbed and beaten. "

Here we see the face of terror.

Conrado Benítez was not the only idealistic volunteer that was murdered in this way during the literacy campaign.

The terror against Cuba has continued and continues. This war of terror has also for more than 40 years been supported, encouraged and made possible by the power elite of the United States. The strategic, highly prioritised aim has since 1959 been to exterminate the Cuban Revolution.

The hatred of the imperialistic power elite, and its sustained aggression, has its roots in the fact which the Cubans at an early stage themselves declared as the most important lesson of their revolution: That revolution is possible!!

The Cubans have also always emphasised that the goal of US-imperialism to exterminate the Cuban Revolution not at all primarily has to do with Cuba's economic importance, any extraordinary important natural resources or Cuba as a market. No, primarily the eagerness of the Empire stems from political and ideological danger: Cuba as an example; as an example of successful struggle and development for the exploited and oppressed worldwide; and above all for Latin America.

The systematic, by US-imperialism supported and often directly managed terror has also struck Latin America with indescribable brutality. Progressive attempts and strivings have been drowned in blood, repeatedly time after time.

Tens and hundreds of thousands have been jailed, kidnapped, tortured and assassinated; victims of a power that has not hesitated from using any horrifying means in safeguarding what it defines as its vital economic and political interests. A power that simultaneously has described itself energetically as the most eminent protagonist of democracy, freedom and human rights; and because of the power structure of global media it has to a high degree been successful in marketing the through and through false image of its acts and motives. To the military-industrial complex may for certain a third component be added: the media.

These days the political leadership of U.S. imperialism is confident in its belief that, on the basis of its military capacity, industrial strength and worldwide position in the media field, it is able to realize everything it wishes to be realized. The arrogance knows no limit. When Minister of Foreign Affairs Condoleezza Rice the other day announced her appointment of Caleb McCarry to the post "coordinator of transition in Cuba", the total and bottomless contempt for international law was obvious. The cynical euphemism "transition" stands for aggressive US-led counter revolutionary intervention, clearly demonstrated in the 600 pages document, the Powell-report, in which the "coordinator" post was invented. Even so, signs of criticism in media or among the governments of the so called European western democracies are, to say the least, rare.

But the Empire will face problems. In Latin America the support for Cuba's right to self-determination now also is expressed among the governments. And more than that: The whole continent trembles as a result of the growing strength of radical anti-imperialist moods and progressive political currents. The hopes of millions are expressed through the words: Another world is possible!

The alternative to radical change is a horrifying development. Certainly: the alternatives which mankind now stands in front of are, as already Rosa Luxemburg declared, barbarism or socialism. On that basis we also say: Another world is necessary! It is necessary for the survival of humanity, and even for the survival of the human race.

It certainly has meaning saying that the world today is inhuman, and that when Che spoke of The New Man , he spoke of the human man, the liberated, liberating and genuine man! What he also emphasised was that in the period of deep socio-economic transformation we must consciously struggle in the moral and cultural field for the creation of the new man. We must consciously combat the heavy influences of the oppressive and destructive old inhuman culture. Socio-economic transformation will not be possible without a moral and cultural transformation; this was the message of Che. Also important, and certainly a source of optimism, is that the moral and culture of the new man harmonizes with the most genuine moral feelings and values of the human being. We therefore don't speak empty words when we say that that the process of transformation is a struggle between the deformed inhuman man and the genuine, liberated man.

The words of René González in the court in Miami therefore have a deep and distinct meaning. The terrorist is sick , alienated from what is genuine and deeply human in man . Mirio Pérez says that Conrado Benítez looked at his torturers as if he was asking himself if they were human beings. What Conrado Benítez saw were deformed men; inhuman and sick men, reflecting an inhuman, oppressive, aggressive and certainly sick culture.

Inhuman in a strict sense are also all the men and women in the imperialist towers of power, those who decide about the bombings, massacres, systematic assassinations and oppressing actions, all for the sake of the economic and political interests of the power elite, the ruling classes of imperialism. The military-industrial complex is a psychopathic murderous machine of destruction, a sick structure producing sick operators. It must be defeated and it will be defeated; by the people of U.S.A.

In the struggle for genuine humanity Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González are frontline soldiers. People all over the world demand: Set them free! Now!
And the global movement for a decent and humane world, comprising millions, increases and becomes stronger every day. We are allowed to call out:
Another world is possible! If we together struggle for its realization!