FRFI 163 October / November 2001
Extracts from the statement from Radio Havana Cuba
…The most powerful nation on earth has been put on a war footing and history has taught us all what to expect when Washington starts waving the cudgel self-righteously. The families of almost a million Japanese, four million Koreans, three million Vietnamese, and thousands of Iraqis and Yugoslavians can all attest to what occurs when the Oval Office scrambles its bombers.
…But who is the ‘enemy?’ The enemy are successive Washington administrations that have for more than five decades promoted terrorism on an enormous scale across the globe. Administrations that have trained international military personnel in techniques of torture and terrorism in its meek-sounding School of the Americas. Administrations that have for 40 years permitted and supported terrorist attacks against its island neighbour whose only crime was to advocate a different socio-political system. Administrations that introduced the world to nuclear holocaust, to carpet bombing, to horrendous use of phosphorous and napalm bombs. Administrations that maintain an economic blockade that is directly responsible for the loss of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children’s lives. Administrations that support one of the most repressive, brutal and racist regimes on earth with massive flows of money and weapons to use against the Palestinian people. Administrations that financed the Latin American dictatorships of the eighties and then later ‘apologised’ for some of the unspeakable crimes they committed in the name of ‘democracy’
Tuesday was the anniversary of the US-sponsored coup in Chile in which a legitimately elected government was brought down with extreme violence. The man behind this event and the covert wars within Cambodia and Argentina, Henry Kissinger, is one of those that today clamour for a ‘tough and decisive’ response to the attacks in New York and Washington, who clamours for a blind war against an invisible enemy.
…No solution will be forthcoming in the destruction of those deemed responsible. The enemy will still be there because the enemy comes from within. The CIA supported Noriega, Marcos, Sukarno, the Shah, Idi Amin, Mobuto, the Contras, Pinochet, the Argentinian generals, d’Aubuison, Somoza, Batista, Stroessner et al – the list is long and represents the obliteration of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives.
…The chickens have come home to roost and there is no smugness or satisfaction in saying it – just very sincere anxiety for what may follow.
