SPECIAL REPORT. Mysterious "Mr. X" in photo with Lee Harvey Oswald -- FBI couldn't identify him By Wayne Madsen Report

SPECIAL REPORT. Mysterious "Mr. X" in photo with Lee Harvey Oswald -- FBI couldn't identify him By Wayne Madsen Report
Significant questions have surfaced about not only the father of Texas Republican senator and presidential contender Ted Cruz, Rafael B. Cruz, Sr., but now also the senator's Cuban grandparents, Rafael and Emilia Cruz.

WMR has been at the forefront of asking questions about the Cruz family from Cuba and our recent report about a male bearing a striking resemblance to Rafael Cruz, Sr. appearing handing out "Fair Play for Cuba" pamphlets at the International Trade Mart in New Orleans in August 16, 1963, has generated a firestorm of comments on the web.

In 1957, Rafael Bienvenidos Cruz, the son of an employee of the U.S. intelligence-linked RCA Corporation with the same name, Rafael Bienvenidos Cruz, left Cuba for the United States. Cruz claims he fought with Castro against the fascist government of Fulgencio Batista but soured on the revolution. However, Cruz left Cuba two years before the Castro revolution and there is no solid evidence that Cruz fought with Castro's forces. However, in from the early days of the Cuban revolution in the early 1950s to the time before Castro took power, some in the CIA supported Castro against Batista while the United States officially backed the Batista regime. One of these was Bob Chapman, the CIA station chief in Santiago in eastern Cuba where the Castro forces were strongest. He and his predecessor, Bill Patterson, allegedly steered covert U.S. aid to Castro against the wishes and without the knowledge of Earl Smith, the pro-Batista U.S. ambassador in Havana. In any event, Ted Cruz's father's story about supporting Castro against Batista could have been told by any CIA agent operating in eastern Cuba at the time.

RCA, which employed Rafael B. Cruz, Sr.'s father, was a major player in CIA operations throughout the world, and especially in Latin America, where it helped install CIA clandestine radio stations and operated signals intelligence bases for the U.S. National Security Agency. RCA's chairman and CEO, General David Sarnoff, was involved in a number of anti-Communist fronts linked to the CIA. Sarnoff also directed his NBC network to help train CIA agents in developing anti-Communist propaganda. The grandfather Cruz's links to RCA may have helped him and his wife obtain visas to enter the United States in 1966. Sarnoff supported supplying anti-Communist guerrilla forces behind the lines in the Baltic States, China, Poland, Hungary, Albania and "other areas" with clandestine radios and other equipment.

Cruz arrived in Austin where he enrolled in the University of Texas. This is a strange story since he claimed he left Cuba with only $100, which he said was sewn into his underwear. Cruz eventually gained U.S. permanent residency and a degree in mathematics from the University of Texas. In 1959, Cruz married Julia Ann Garza on January 1, 1959, and, after Cruz graduated from the University of Texas in 1961, the couple moved to New Orleans from Dallas after the birth of their second daughter on November 18, 1962.



Cruz, Sr. maintains that he moved to New Orleans from Dallas after his divorce from Julia. However, a 1967 New Orleans phone book listing for Cruz, Sr. lists him and Julia living in the same residence in New Orleans. Cruz is listed with the profession of "geophysical computer" technician and residence of H201 French Street. It is but one of several anomalies in the official Cruz biography.



The FBI analyzed the news footage of accused John F. Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald passing out pro-Castro pamphlets on August 16, 1963. The photo of a group of supposed pro-Castro activists was taken on August 16, 1963 in front of Clay Shaw's International Trade Mart in New Orleans. An FBI New Orleans memo dated November 26, 1963, states that WDSU photographer Johann Rush did identify Oswald and spoke to him. Rush said he could not identify "Mr. X," the man standing behind Oswald to his left as one Barry Baguglia.
The Baguglia name arose with U.S. Secret Service agent John Rice who sauid WDSU TV news people told him that Mr. X might be one Barry Baguglia. Rush denied he mentioned Baguglia and that he never heard of him. WDSU's John Corporon, Jim Mitchie, Bill Slatter, and Mike Lala told the FBI they never heard of a Barry Baguglia. It turns out that the Secret Service's Special Agent Garretts was the one who passed on the name Baguglia. Garretts claimed he received the Baguglia name from Herman Kohlman, Assistant District Attorney for Orleans parish. Kohlman later told the FBI that he never mentioned the name Baguglia to Garretts. What Kohlman told Garretts was that his Orleans detectives had arrested Alvin Roland Beauboeuf at David Ferrie's apartment and that Garretts may have confused the name Beauboeuf with Baguglia. The FBI concluded that the man present with Oswald wearing a white shirt and narrow tie was not Baguglia: ". . . it does not appear that there is any basis for the comment made by RICE that one of the five or six people handing out literature in front of the International Trade Mart was a person who might be BARRY BAGUGLIA."



The individual who bears a resemblance to Rafael B. Cruz, Sr. was never identified by the FBI or the 1978 House Select Committee on Assassinations. This "Mr. X" -- who resembles Rafael B. Cruz, Sr. -- remains an enigma. However, all those appearing in the photo at the trade mart, including Oswald's Cuban assistants, were identified by Chauncey Holt, the man on the far right, as being members of the CIA's Mongoose operation to overthrow Fidel Castro's government. On August 17, 1963, the day after the pamphleteering at the trade mart, Oswald appeared on an interview program at WDSU-AM radio called "Latin Listening Post" with host William Stuckey.

On August 21, 1963, Oswald appeared with Stuckey and WDSU-TV's Bill Stuckey on an interview program, Conversation Carte Blanche, that also included Ed Butler, the Executive Vice-President of the Information Council of the Americas (INCA), headquartered in New Orleans and involved in distributing anti-communist educational materials throughout Latin America, and Carlos Bringuier, Cuban refugee and New Orleans Delegate of the Revolutionary Student Directorate (DRE), one of the more active of the anti-Castro refugee organizations. Bringuier had gotten into a physical altercation with Oswald on August 9, 1963, during a Fair Play for Cuba pamphleteering operation in downtown New Orleans. But Oswald and Bringuier actually worked in the same ground floor offices of the infamous Newman Building, where Guy Banister Associates was located 5312 Lafayette Street while Oswald's "pro-Castro" Fair Play for Cuba Committee was located around the corner but within the ground floor office, but with an address of 544 Camp Street. Between September 6 and 9, 1963, Oswald was seen in the company of Clay Shaw, according to New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison.


Photo from WDSU-TV New Orleans footage of the August 16, 1963 pro-Castro demonstration in front of the International Trade Mart. Man in sun glasses at far right is Chauncey Holt, said to have been the accountant for mobster Meyer Lansky. Mr. X [the man in the white shirt and necktie to Oswald's left rear], according to an FBI New Orleans memo dated November 25, 1963, never handed out Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets but was merely holding them.  The annotations on the identities of two of the men -- Bud Belcher and Leroy Young, both CIA agents involved with MONGOOSE -- came from Holt.


Left-to-right: Comparison photographs of Rafael B. Cruz, Sr. taken sometime in the late 1950s; "Mr. X" seen with Oswald in New Orleans on August 16, 1963; and Cruz now.

Oswald, earlier during the day of August 16, 1963, is said to have walked into the state employment office and offered to pay anyone who would help him hand out pamphlets during the noon lunch hour at the trade mart. One was Charles Hall Steele, Jr., who told the Warren Commission that Oswald paid him $2 to hand out pamphlets at the trade mart for 15 to 20 minutes. Steele, after dropping off his girlfriend, met Oswald and Mr. X on Canal Street. According to Steele's testimony, Mr. X was already with Oswald and would have likely been one of the Cuban MONGOOSE agents that was coordinating Oswald's pro-Castro street activities. The fact that the FBI memo states that Mr. X never handed out pamphlets, as did Oswald, indicates that the individual was serving as a coordinator of the activity at the trade mart. It is known that MONGOOSE involved CIA assets in Louisiana and Houston, Texas, places where Rafael B. Cruz, Sr. had resided.

The height of Rafael Cruz, Sr. listed on his draft registration form from 1967 is also curious. He claimed he was 6 foot. In recent photographs of him standing next to his son, Ted, the elder Cruz is shorter than Ted, who is 5' 7". Individuals do grow shorter with age but not by six inches. The elder Cruz's Selective Service form does show signs of the height entry being altered. The 1967 form also lists Cruz's address as 2246 Carondelet Street in Apartment 2-B, not the French Street address listed in the phone directory listing Cruz along with his wife, who he was reported to have divorced prior to leaving Dallas.



The draft registration form also lists Cruz's employer on July 26, 1967 as "Geophysics & Computer Service, Inc." This company is the French-based Compagnie Générale de Géophysique(CCG). The date July 26, 1967 is also significant for Cubans. Castro called his revolutionary popular front the "July 26 Movement." CCG is linked to the large Schlumberger oil conglomerate, which, along with Halliburton, is one of the two largest oilfield drilling companies in the world. Schlumberger had been active with the CIA and Zapata Offshore Company, which was owned by George H. W. Bush. Moreover, Jean de Menil, the son-in-law of Schlumberger founder Conrad Schlumberger, was a key figure in Permindex, the New Orleans-based CIA front headed up by Clay Shaw that was a key target of Garrison's investigation of the New Orleans connection to JFK's assassination in Dallas. The year 1967, when Rafael Cruz, Sr. departed New Orleans, allegedly with his second wife (and Ted Cruz's mother) Eleanor Darragh Wilson, was the same year that Garrison's official investigation of the New Orleans connection to Kennedy's assassination commenced with an indictment of Shaw, the same man whose office was located inside the International Trade Mart where Oswald and Mr. X were involved with handing out Fair Play for Cuba pamphlets on August 16, 1963.

Ted Cruz's mother Eleanor also reportedly worked for the Schlumberger affiliate. When the Cruzes left for Calgary in 1967, they worked under the aegis of Rafael B. Cruz & Associates, Ltd., which was owned by Rafael B. Cruz, Sr.

Mystery also surrounds Ted Cruz's mother Eleanor. She was married to Texas native Alan Wilson and lived with him in London from 1960 to 1966. In 1965, their infant son Michael died from crib death. Alan Wilson, who still lives in London, told McClatchy News Service that Michael was not his son. In his autobiography, Senator Ted Cruz not only claims Michael was the son or his mother and Alan but also claims the baby died in 1965. In fact, Michael, according to London vital statistics records, died in 1966 and well after the Wilsons were divorced. Eleanor Cruz, who lives in Houston, has been mum on her marriage to Wilson and her marriage to Cruz, which lasted from 1969 to 1997. Rafael B. Cruz, Sr., a Canadian citizen, became a U.S. citizen in 2005. Ted Cruz did not renounce his Canadian citizenship until 2013.

Enter a small London-based British firm called Strategic Communications Laboratories, Ltd. (SCL). Specializing in mass deception, psychological warfare, influence operations, and behavioral modification, the firm, thought to have ties with British intelligence and the CIA, has been in business since 1993. The firm's U.S. subsidiary, Cambridge Analytics, is now advising the Cruz for President campaign. SCL has proudly admitted that it has influenced elections in Ukraine, Romania, India, Kenya, Thailand, Latvia, Nigeria, and South Africa. 

Exotic assassination methods worry foreign leaders by Wayne Madsen

Exotic assassination methods worry foreign leaders by Wayne Madsen

It is one thing for the National Security Agency and its foreign partners to eavesdrop on the phone calls and email exchanges of various world leaders. However, publicly-disclosed classified NSA material on how the agency and its partners are increasingly intercepting on-line medical data and even the shipments of pharmaceuticals and medical equipment to bring about political assassinations from seemingly "natural causes" has piqued the concerns of many security services around the world.

NSA's collection of medical intelligence or "MEDINT" on targeted individuals, data that includes medications and their dosages, medical test results, DNA prints, medical equipment such as dialysis machines, and wireless tele-medicine components, coupled with the use of pharmaceutical "honey pots" relied on to deliver fatal dosages of drugs to victims means that the NSA is no longer merely in the surveillance business but also "wet affairs," that is political assassinations.

Because of NSA's involvement with the Central Intelligence Agency in exotic means of assassinating political leaders by medical means, Russian President Vladimir Putin employed food tasters to test his food prepared for him by the Brisbane Hilton Hotel during the G20 summit in that city last November.  Putin and his security entourage feared that the U.S. and the Tony Abbott government in Australia may have tried to poison Putin's food during his abbreviated two-day stay at the G20 conclave.


TOP SECRET slide describes NSA's medical intelligence program and the use of human intelligence (HUMINT) agents and pharmaceutical "honey pots." Such cloak and dagger terms would not be used if the purpose of the program was benign. However, it is clear that NSA and the CIA are using such tradecraft to deliver fatal doses of prescription medication, as well as lethal poisons, to targeted political leaders.

After the March 2013 death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez at the age of 58 from fast-acting pelvic cancer, Venezuela's new president, Nicolas Maduro, charged that Chavez was assassinated through the use of a cancer weapon developed by the United States. General José Ornella, the head of the Venezuelan presidential guard, said, "I think it will be 50 years before they declassify a document  . . . I think [will show] the hand of the enemy is involved." Ornella did not have to wait 50 years since the technology and strategy employed by the CIA and NSA in carrying out medical assassinations is described in a set of highly-classified PowerPoint slides prepared for NSA's Signals Intelligence (SIGINT) Development Conference in June 2010, a full year before Chavez announced to the world that he was being treated for cancer.

The CIA had long been involved in researching exotic methods to assassinate political leaders. The agency's Technical Services Division, headed by Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, tried to use poison, including a cancer-inducing drug, and highly radioactive substances to kill Cuban leader Fidel Castro and an ampule containing a deadly pathogen to be used on Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. Castro survived scores of CIA assassination attempts while Lumumba was assassinated in 1961 by bayonet stabs followed by a volley of bullets. Gottlieb's cancer weapons were developed in cooperation with Dr. Alton Oschner, the former president of the American Cancer Society.

Before he succumbed to what have been a designer cancer-inducing drug, Chavez noted how many leftist Latin American leaders were contracting cancer at the same time. Chavez said, "I find it very strange. It is hard to explain" why Brazil's Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his successor, Dilma Rousseff, and the president of Argentina, Cristina Kirchner, all got cancer around the same time. Chavez included himself in the group of Latin American leaders who suddenly developed cancer. In August 2010, Paraguay's President Fernando Lugo was discovered to have a cancerous tumor in his lymphatic nodes. Lugo recovered but was ousted in a CIA-directed coup d'etat. In 2008, Lugo and other Paraguayan presidential candidates were the targets of a DNA collection operation carried out by the CIA station in Asuncion. Chavez said that Fidel Castro once warned him, "Chavez take care. These people have developed technology. You are very careless. Take care what you eat, what they give you to eat  . . . a little needle and they inject you with I don’t know what."

Chavez also said he was concerned about Bolivian President Evo Morales. Chavez said, "We'll have to take good care of Evo. Take care Evo!" In January 2009, Morales underwent surgery, performed by a Cuban medical team, for a cancerous tumor discovered in his nasal passage.

Putin was right to be concerned about poisoning in Brisbane last November. World leaders opposed to U.S. and neoconservative machinations may have to think seriously about the propriety of attending summits and conferences with the threat of CIA and NSA medical assassination teams looming.

The CIA's medical assassination weapons were discussed at the Senate hearings chaired by Sen. Frank Church (D-ID) in 1975:






What White House "culinary" secrets might have former presidential executive chef Walter Scheib (above) taken with him to his grave?

As more and more information is leaked about U.S. involvement in medical assassination programs, world leaders are justifiably increasing their security protection. Many of these leaders may also forgo availing themselves of the food and drink at luncheons and dinners served at the White House. If the CIA's and NSA's medical assassination teams have managed to penetrate the White House service staff only the White House executive chef may have been aware of any problems in food serving protocols and VIP security provided by the Secret Service, an agency that has experienced more than its share of security lapses. The White House executive chef who served Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Walter Scheib, was recently found dead in a river near the Yerba Canyon hiking trail near Taos, New Mexico. What "cooking secrets" of the CIA -- not the Culinary Institute of America but the Central Intelligence Agency -- could Scheib have taken with him to his grave?

August of 2010 60-year-old Paraguayan President Fernando Lugo was diagnosed with a tumor of lymphatic system - See more at: http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/05-01-2012/120158-south_america-0/#sthash.vlGohfnN.dpuf

Bio-assassination weaponry used on Kim Jong Il

 Bio-assassination weaponry used on Kim Jong Il

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez said he was thinking aloud when he speculated that diagnoses of cancer affecting Latin America's most notable progressive leaders may have been the result of a U.S. plot through technological means. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, the wife of neocon and Zionist foreign policy adviser Robert Kagan, immediately called Chavez's remarks "horrific and reprehensible."

However, the State Department may or may not be aware of what has been gleaned by WMR from Japanese intelligence sources in Pyongyang: that North Korea's late leader Kim Jong Il, who we previously reported was assassinated by rebellious military officers, met his demise from the use of a sophisticated bio-weapon. Kim Jong Il, whose only medical problems were periodic blackouts and the early onset of dementia, did not die from a heart attack, according to Japanese military intelligence sources. North Korean official news reports claimed that the late Dear Leader died from a heart attack aboard a train outside of Pyongyang. Neither of these reports was correct.

Kim Jong Il, while not in perfect health, was on a strict diet, exercised regularly, and was frequently examined by doctors.

However, the military coup plotters arranged for Kim Jong Il to be administered a series of doses of toxins. The toxins ultimately built up in Kim Jong Il's vital organs, causing renal failure and heart stoppage. The plot by North Korean military officers resulted from a major split over a secret deal made by some North Korean officials with Israel. The secret compact was for North Korea to stop missile shipments to Syria, Iran, and Egypt in return for Israel supplying low-grade enriched weapons-grade uranium to the North Koreans.

It is not certain what Chavez based his fears on, however, Cuba enjoys close relations with North Korea. Chavez cited a warning he once received from former Cuban President Fidel Castro, who, himself contracted a mysterious and almost fatal stomach disorder after visiting Argentina, that he should "take care. These people have developed technology . . . Take care of what you eat, what they give you to eat . . . a little needle and they inject you with I don't know what." Chavez went on to say, "It would not be strange if they developed the technology to induce cancer and nobody knew about it until now."

Progressive Latin American leaders, including Chavez, have recently been diagnosed with cancer. The latest to fall victim to cancer is Argentina's President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner, who recently won re-election in a landslide. Others contracting cancer include Paraguay's President Fernando de Lugo, Brazil's President Dilma Rousseff, and former Brazilian President Luiz Ignacio Lula da Silva. Chavez said other Latin American leaders should exercise caution, including Bolivia's Evo Morales. Former Argentinian President Nestor Kirchner, Fernandez de Kirchner's husband, died from a sudden heart attack before running again for the presidency. Fidel Castro contracted an almost fatal stomach disease after meeting with Nestor Kirchner and Chavez in Argentina.

Castro's warning to Chavez about being stuck with a fatal needle comes from someone who was on the receiving end of such assassination plots. Tulane Medical School researcher Dr. Alton Ochsner, a friend of such notorious Latin American right-wing leaders as Juan Peron, Panama's Tomas Gabriel Duque, and Nicaragua's Anastasio Somoza, was known to be conducting CIA-sponsored research to develop weaponized cancers from monkey viruses. The prime target for such a weapon was Castro.

When it comes to U.S. bio-assassination weaponry, Chavez had the best source of information in Castro. Nuland and her neocon associates in the Obama administration and corporate media would rather ridicule the messenger, in this case Chavez, than in recognizing the fact that the United States is one of the few countries in history to conduct medical research for the purpose of assassinating perceived foreign and domestic threats including Castro; Congo's Patrice Lumumba; Iraq's Abdul Karim Qassem, Yugoslavia's former President Slobodan Milosevic; Jack Ruby, the slayer of Lee Harvey Oswald; and, quite possibly, U.S. ambassador to the UN Adlai Stevenson who died of a sudden heart attack in 1965 on a street in London located near the U.S. embassy.

The UN, Impunity and War

Reflections of Fidel

The UN, Impunity and War

RESOLUTION 1929 of the United Nations Security Council on June 9, 2010 sealed the fate of imperialism.

I don’t know how many people noticed that, among other absurdities, the secretary general of that institution, Ban Ki-moon, fulfilling orders from above, made the blunder of appointing Alvaro Uribe – when the latter was on the verge of concluding his mandate –vice president of the commission responsible for investigating the Israeli attack on the humanitarian flotilla that was transporting essential foodstuffs to the besieged population in the Gaza Strip. The attack occurred in international waters at some considerable distance from the coast.

That decision gave Uribe – accused of war crimes – total impunity, as if a country full of mass graves containing the corpses of murdered people, some with as many as 2,000 victims, and seven yanki military bases, plus the rest of the Colombian military bases at its service, had nothing to do with terrorism and genocide.

On the other hand, on June 10, 2010, Cuban journalist Randy Alonso, who hosts the "Roundtable" national television program, wrote an article for the CubaDebate website, entitled: "The so-called World Government meets in Barcelona." The article states:

"They arrived at the pleasant Dolce Hotel in luxury cars with darkened windows or by helicopter."

"They were the 100-plus economic, financial, political and media leaders from North America and Europe who came to this place for the annual meeting of the Bilderberg Club, a sort of shadow world government."

Other honest writers like him were likewise following the news that somehow was leaked from that strange meeting. Somebody much more informed than them has been on the trail of these events for many years.

"The exclusive Club, which met in Sitges, was founded in 1954. It was the idea of Joseph Retinger, a political advisor and analyst. Its original promoters were U.S. tycoon David Rockefeller, Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands and Belgian Prime Minister Paul Van Zeeland. Its founding purpose was to combat the growing "anti-Americanism" existing in Europe at that time and to confront the Soviet Union and communism that was gaining in strength on the European continent."

"The first meeting took place at the Bilderberg Hotel in Osterbeck, Holland, on May 29 and 30, 1954, hence the name of the group which, with the exception of 1976, has since met on an annual basis.

"There is a core group of permanent members who are the 39 members of the steering committee, the rest are guests.

"…the organization insists that no one ‘gives interviews’ or reveals anything that ‘any individual participant has said.’ The essential requisite is an excellent command of the English language […] there are no translators present."

"Nobody knows for sure the current reaches of the group. Those who have studied the body say that it is not by chance that it always meets shortly before the G-8 (previously, the G-7) and that it seeks a new world order with one sole government, military, economy and ideology."

David Rockefeller said, in a Newsweek magazine article: "Somebody has to take governments’ place, and business seems to me to be a logical entity to do it.

"…banker James P. Warburg confirmed: ‘we shall have a world government whether or not we like it. The only question is whether world government will be achieved by consent or by conquest."

"Ten months beforehand, they knew the exact date of the invasion of Iraq; they also knew what was going to happen with the real estate bubble. With information like that, you can make a lot of money in all kinds of markets. What we are talking about are clubs of power and information.’

"According to analysts, one of the issues that most concerns the Club is ‘economic threat’ represented by China and its repercussions on North American and European societies.

"Some people have demonstrated the Club’s influence on the elite with the fact that Margaret Thatcher, William Clinton, Anthony Blair and Barack Obama were among those invited to the Club before being elected to the highest position of government in Britain and the United States. In June 2008 Obama attended the meeting in Virginia, U.S.A, five months before his electoral victory and that victory had already been predicted at the 2007 meeting."

"Amid such secrecy, the press has revealed certain names here and there. Among those who attended the meeting in Sitges were important businesspeople such as the presidents of FIAT, Coca Cola, France Telecom, Telefónica de España, Suez, Siemens, Shell, Novartis and Airbus.

"Financial and economic gurus have also attended meetings, such as the famous speculator George Soros; Paul Volcker and Larry Summers, economic advisors to Obama; George Osborne, the new British chancellor of the exchequer; Peter Shilton, former president of Goldman Sachs and British Petroleum, […]; World Bank President Robert Zoellic; IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn; Pascal Lamy, director general of the World Trade Organization; Jean Claude Trichet, president of the European Central Bank; and Philippe Maystad, president of the European Investment Bank."

Did our readers know that? Has any major organ of the spoken or written media mentioned it? Is this the freedom of the press that they extol so much in the West? Can any one of them deny that that these systematic meetings of the world’s most powerful financiers take place every year, with the exception of the year mentioned?

"The military power sent some of their hawks," Randy continues. "Donald Rumsfeld, former defense secretary to Bush; his subordinate, Paul Wolfowitz; NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his predecessor Jaap de Hoop Scheffer."

"Bill Gates, magnate of the digital age, was the only attendee who spoke to the press before the meeting. ‘I am one of those who will be present,’ he said and announced, ‘There will be a lot of financial debates on the table.’

"News speculators are saying that the shadow powers analyzed the future of the euro and strategies to save it, the current state of the European economy, and the trajectory of the crisis. Using the religion of the market and with the aid of drastic social cuts, they are hoping to prolong the patient’s life.

"Cayo Lara, coordinator of United Left, clearly defined the world imposed on us by the Bilderberg Club: ‘We are in an upside down world; democracies are controlled, guided and pressured by the dictatorships of financial powers.’"

"The most dangerous thing to have come to light in the Spanish daily Público is the consensus on the part of Club members in favor of a U.S. attack on Iran […] Remember that members of the Club knew the exact date of the 2003 invasion of Iraq, 10 months before it happened."

When added to all the evidence presented in my latest Reflections, is the idea such a capricious one? The war on Iran has already been decided in the upper echelons of the empire and only an extraordinary effort on the part of world opinion could prevent it breaking out in the near future. Who is concealing the truth? Who is being deceptive? Who is telling lies? Can anything affirmed her be refuted?

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 15, 2010

8:25 a.m.

Translated by Granma International

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL: The giant with the seven-league boots

Part 1

I learned of it through Aristotle, the most famous philosopher in the history of humankind.

Human beings are capable of marvelous actions or the very worst injustices.

Their astonishing intelligence is capable of using the unalterable laws of nature for good or evil.

With much less experience than I possess today, during those days in which our armed struggle was developing in the mountains of Cuba, in the great nation of Mexico – in which all Cubans saw something of their own – we experienced a fleeting but unforgettable period in which all those wonders came together in one corner of the Earth.

There would be no form or words of describing my impressions like a certain Mexican has done who, no wonder, is the person with the greatest authority to speak of the tragedy of that country, as he was the elected mayor of Mexico’s most important electoral district, that of Mexico City, capital of the Republic, and in the 2006 elections was the candidate of the "Coalition for the Good of All."

He stood during the elections and won a majority of votes against the PAN candidate. But the empire would not allow him to assume the mandate.

Like other political leaders, I knew how Washington had drawn up the ideas of the "neoliberalism" that it sold to the countries of Latin America and the rest of the Third World as the embodiment of political democracy and economic development, but I never had such a clear idea of the way in which the empire used this doctrine to destroy and devour the wealth of such an important country, rich in natural resources and the home of an heroic people who possessed their own culture before the pre-Christian era, more than 2,000 years ago.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, a person with whom I have never spoken or maintained a friendship, is the author of a small volume that has recently been published, and I am grateful to him for his brilliant exposé of what is happening in that sister nation. His title is "The Mafia That Has Taken Over Mexico…and 2012."

I received the book four days ago, in the afternoon of August 7, after I had returned from my meeting with deputies of the National Assembly of People’s Power of Cuba. I read it with great interest. It describes the way in which the United States is totally devouring a sister nation in this hemisphere, one from which it has already snatched more than 50% of its territory, the largest high-quality gold mines, and the oil wealth that has been intensively exploited for more than one century, of which almost three million barrels are still being extracted a day. I am omitting the reference to the vast volume of gas extracted, as I am aware of the details.

In Chapter 1, he explains the extremely bizarre phenomenon of the total disappearance in Mexico of the railroad created during the time of Benito Juárez - when the first stretch from Mexico City to Veracruz was begun.

During the administration of Porfirio Díaz, it was extended by more than 20,000 kilometers, an endeavor that was subsequently and considerably expanded by the Mexican Revolution.

Today, there is a railroad that "goes from Chihuahua, Chihuahua to Los Mochis, Sinaloa. In the blink of an eye, the technocrats did away with the dreams of 19th century liberals, who saw in the railroad links the ideal way of making Mexico progress," Obrador’s book recounts.

"Fox’ arrival in the presidency of the Republic merely served to revamp the old regime and continue with the same corruption. In reality, it concerned the six-year period of gatopardism, that maneuver via which, in all appearances, everything changes but everything stays the same. Prior to assuming the presidency, Fox subordinated himself to the international financial organizations and, obviously, continued serving the country’s tycoons. Furthermore, not only did he maintain economic policy as inalterable, but supported the same group of technocrats who had been working since the era of Salinas."

Some pages further on, the author states, "…today, almost all the banking institutions belong to foreigners; they do not award credits to promote the country’s development, they invest in government securities, charge the highest interest rates in the world, obtain fabulous profits and are the fundamental source of the transfer of resources to their headquarters in Spain, the United States and the United Kingdom."

"With Fox, the assets of the people and the nation continued being handed over to private companies, both national and foreign […] with Fox, the handing over of national territory for the exploitation of gold, silver and copper was extended without limits […] the Mining Act was modified in order to award unique exploration and exploitation concessions valid for up to 50 years and with the possibility of being further extended […] up to December 2008, 24,816,396 hectares had been granted, 12% of national territory and equivalent to the size of Chihuahua state, the largest in the country."

Something truly astounding and surprising, even for those who have the worst opinion of neoliberalism, are the details that López Obrador offers in the final part of Chapter 1 of his book.

During the Fox government, he affirms: "…in 2005, during Fox-ism, the law on revenue tax was changed again, once again conceding 100% of benefits to large corporations. In order to better understand what this means, we have to bear in mind that in 2008, according to official figures, 400 large monopolies, which obtained incomes of five billion pesos – according to official figures – more than half the country’s GDP for that year – only paid 1.7% in revenue tax and business tax at a unique rate (IETU)."

"In addition, it was during the Fox government that the highest tax refunds were issued in favor of the so-called large contributors and, as is obvious, both the PRI and PAN governments have justified this fiscal sinecure with the fallacy of encouraging investment. If that was a certain fact, we would have had economic growth in the past 27 years and not the paralysis that has prevailed. At the same time, it can be demonstrated that the tax refunds are superior to the increase in private investment; in the 2001-2005 period alone, while private investment increased by 279 billion pesos, tax refunds reached 604 billion pesos; in other words, double that amount. Corruption in the upper echelons of power has been made so official that the Federal Institute of Access to Public Information (IFAI) has decided to keep secret for 12 years – until 2019 – the names of companies that, in 2005, were the beneficiaries of the Tax Administration Service (SAT), having received multi-million peso tax refunds."

Those were the exact words of Carlos Ahumada, when we arrested him in Cuba for violation of our laws. López Obrador knows them because we sent him the minutes together with the deportee Carlos Ahumada on April 28, 2004.

Without any doubt, the event constituted one of the greatest political frauds in the history of America. There are some other points that I will clarify with total precision.

In Chapter 1 itself, under the title, "The masters of Mexico", López Obrador writes: "During the time that I was mayor of Mexico City (2000-2005), I met almost every member of this elite…"

I also share López Obrador’s opinion of Carlos Slim. I also met him. He always visited me when I went to Mexico and, on one occasion, visited me in Cuba. He gave me a television set – the most modern at that time – which I kept in my house until just one year ago. He didn’t do it with the intention of bribing me. And I never asked him for any favors either. In spite of being the richest of all of them, with a fortune in excess of $60 billion, he is an intelligent man who knows all the secrets of the stock markets and mechanisms of the capitalist system.

There would have been multimillionaires with or without Salinas, and with or without Fox, although since then, never as many as there were under the mafia that took over Mexico. López Obrador includes their names in his book and identifies the power of the mafia that took over the country.

Chapter 2 is entitled "Abandonment, corruption and poverty." He notes the GDP of countries throughout the world during 1982-2009; he refers to China with admiration: 10.1%. Furthermore, in a separate paragraph, he mentions the GDP in 2009. He remarks that "if that were not enough – that year – Mexico occupied, in this matter, last place among all the countries on the American continent and, although it may seem incredible, we were below Haiti."

"The technocrats have behaved like fundamentalists. Not only did they comply with the orthodoxy of international financial organizations but they transformed their recommendations into ideology."

"Rural Mexico has been the most affected by so-called neoliberal policies. The abandonment of the countryside is dramatic. I still recall that Pedro Aspe, secretary of housing during the Salinas government, boasted that stimulating production activities in the agricultural sector was unimportant because in a globalized world, it was more economical to buy what we consume abroad."

"The package of neoliberal policies applied to rural areas has given rise to a serious decline in the agricultural sector in relation to population growth. In the three-year period of 1980-1982 to that of 2007-2009, the agriculture, forestry and fishing GDP per inhabitant fell by 15.2%. In other words, while total food production advanced at an annual rate of 1.5%, the population of the country grew, during the periods mentioned, at a rate of 1.7% annually."

"From 1996, oil production continued to rise until, in 2004, it reached the record figure of 1,231,145,000 barrels. Between 1996 and 2004, exports of crude rose from 563 to 683 million barrels per year. This increase coincided with the over-exploitation of the Cantarell complex which, from 2000 to 2004, increased its production from 47% to 61% of national production, becoming the oil field with the greatest output in the history of the world

"While oil extraction was increasing, proven reserves registered a resounding decrease: in 1982, these were 48.3 billion barrels; however, in 2009, they fell to 10 billion. During the period of the Fox government alone, a third of proven reserves were consumed."

"This absurd policy also led to devastation in oil refining, and the gas and petrochemical sectors. Companies linked to these activities were deprived of resources for their expansion and upgrading. No new refineries have been built in the country since 1979. Recently, because of our movement, Calderón was forced to say that there would be one; however, two years have passed since he announced it and still not one brick has been laid."

"And at the same time the price assigned in the United States, the most expensive in the world, was established as a reference. For that reason, we have turned into importers of gas."

In the case of the petrochemical industry, given the lack of investment and neglect, the only thing that has been done is to reduce "the losses" of the petrochemical complexes by halting production lines."

"…the large business and finance corporations have opted for confiscating all its revenues from Pemex. From 2000 to 2009, this company recorded accumulated sales of 8.841 trillion pesos and it paid 6.185 trillion pesos in taxes; in other words, the equivalent of 70% of its sales. …direct public investment in Pemex (not including debt) was 437 billion pesos, or 5% of its total sales."

"Logically, starting with the adoption of neoliberal policies, the energy sector was closely linked to external interests. In this period the possibility of integrating it and utilizing it as a national development lever became even more distant, and all the neoliberal governments have maintained the idea and the intention of privatizing both the electrical and oil industries."

"We do not accept any occupation of our territory. Mexico must continue being a free, independent and sovereign country. We do not want to turn into a colony."

"…on that occasion I ended by reminding them of what General Lázaro Cárdenas del Río once said: ‘a government or individual that hands over national resources to foreign companies is betraying the homeland.’ However, in these times, unfortunately, corruption is stronger than patriotism."

"One of the juiciest businesses benefiting officials and contractors has been buying gas from foreign companies. For this reason, for the technocrats, it has never been really important to extract gas or avoid it being wasted. Mexico is the oil-producing country that burns the most gas into the atmosphere."

"These days, what most concerns the people is the lack of work. Unemployment is alarming. The decline in the job market has grown exponentially. It is estimated that one million young people enter the job market every year and the new jobs that have gradually been created in the formal economy do not even satisfy 25% of demand."

"Even those people who have been able to hold onto their employment have incomes that do not even cover essentials. In a January 2010 investigative report, the Multidisciplinary Analysis Center attached to the UNAM Faculty of Economy maintains that 17.776 million people, who receive less than two minimum salaries and represent 41% of the economically active population, receive incomes that do not permit them to acquire a recommendable family shopping basket, taking into account nutritive, cultural and economic aspects."

"In terms of education, the backslide is dramatic: the population aged 15 and over without a complete elementary education has reached 34% and illiteracy

stands at 9.46%, but in states with a higher degree of marginalization, like Oaxaca, Guerrero and Chiapas it has even reached 23%."

"In Mexico, only two out of every 10 young people have access to higher education, or 20%. UNESCO has established 40-50% as a reference parameter for this level."

"In February 2010, Dr. José Narro Robles, UNAM rector, announced that out of the 115,736 students who took the entrance examination, only 10,350 were selected: 8.9%.

"In the last 20 years, as a consequence of the abandonment of higher education on the part of the state, matriculation in private schools has grown from 16% to 37%."

In Chapter 3 López Obrador reaffirms: "…The oligarchy, the power mafia, felt threatened and it wasn’t of any importance to them to destroy the little that had been constructed to establish democracy in Mexico."

"Time and the reality have demonstrated that fraud caused immense damage: it wounded the sentiments of millions of Mexicans, undermined institutions, totally degraded the so-called political society…"

"Today, March 9, 2009, here in Tamazula, Durango, where Guadalupe Victoria, the first president of Mexico was born, I end my tour of the 2,038 municipalities of the party regime existing in the country. Now, all that I am missing are the 418 indigenous municipalities, in terms of habits and customs, of the state of Oaxaca, which I will visit in the last quarter of this year."

"Over 430 days we covered 148,173 kilometers of paved and dirt roads, to reach the most isolated towns of Mexico."

"The lack of infrastructures and basic services in the municipalities is notorious. Of the 2,038 that I visited, 108 do not have paved roads in their administrative centers. The most backward state in this aspect Oaxaca; of its 152 party regime municipalities, 36 are unpaved. It is followed by Puebla with 15; there and in the region of the Guerrero mountain, I not only confirmed the bad state of the roads; I saw that the new ones, that are just barely being built, are of such poor quality that within 12 months at most they will revert to dirt roads."

"It is illogical that so much Coca-Cola or its equivalent is consumed…"

"I believe that this consumption of soda, calculated at one million liters per day, is fundamentally due to publicity and has become, in certain regions, a status symbol."

"It is indispensable to eliminate the current political economy which has not even produced results in quantitative terms. Mexico is one of the countries of the world with the lowest growth in the last few years."

"It is necessary to change the way of doing politics. This noble profession has been completely perverted. Today, politics is synonymous with deceit, elite arrangements and corruption. Legislators, leaders and public officials are removed from the sentiments of the people; the idea prevails that politics is a thing of politicians and not a concern of everyone."

"The transformation that the country needs must not only propose to achieve economic growth, democracy, development and wellbeing. It also, and above all, implies crystallizing a new current of thought sustained on the culture of our people, on their vocation for work and on their immense generosity; adding values such as tolerance, respect for diversity and environmental protection."

In March 2009, I concluded my tour of the 2,038 municipalities of the country’s party regime, for that reason I drafted a text called ‘‘El país desde abajo: apuntes de mi gira por México’ (The Country from Below: Notes of my Tour of Mexico). On November 20 I completed my visit to the 418 indigenous municipalities in habits and customs of the state of Oaxaca."

"The people of Oaxaca have survived because of their culture. Their mystique of work, their talent and their strong family and community relations emanate from that culture. Their link with the land helps them to maintain an economy of self-sufficiency in food, based on the production of corn, beans and farmyard poultry, as well as coffee cultivation, making use of forests, weaving mats and hats, handicrafts and other activities. In the country’s cities, in the agricultural areas of the north and abroad, their creativity and their workforce are highly appreciated. In the United States, the Mixteca peoples have really earned their reputation of being among the best workers in the world."

"Due to government neglect, Oaxaca is the state with the greatest poverty and marginalization in the country. And in these times they are feeling that more. Let us begin on the basis that people have three fundamental sources for sustaining themselves: an economy of self-sufficiency in food, government support and the money derived from emigration. In the first case, the principal cultivation is that of corn. This blessed plant is what ensures that they do not lack basic foods, among others, tortillas complemented with beans, chili, nopal, and which makes it possible to alleviate hunger. However, in 2009, given a delayed rainy season, the harvests were lost and they have had to buy corn."

"Finally, the third source of income is made up of remittances, which have fallen by approximately 18% in 2009, due to the economic crisis in the United States and in our country. In 2008, Oaxaca received $1.456 billion and in 2009 it is estimated that barely $1.194 billion was obtained."

"It broke my heart to see grown men crying while telling me of the difficult situation that they are enduring and the abandonment in which they find themselves."

"In terms of health, neglect is also a constant. There are municipalities without a doctor and although there are first-rate clinics in the administrative centers, the doctors there only work Monday through Friday and there is a shortage of medicines everywhere."

"In terms of education, despite the effort of pupils and teachers, the decline is apparent. The schools are neglected, with roofs in bad condition, they lack chalkboards, desks and chairs, there are classrooms built with flimsy materials. And most lamentable is that many children and adolescents walk for up to two hours to attend school and almost all of them arrive without having breakfasted."

"In the personal context I have been painted as messianic and a lunatic. Here, I am opening a parenthesis to say that I recently took part in a series of conferences at Mexico City College and the historian Lorenzo Mayer asked me if I had thought of doing something to counteract the attacks on my person, because if in 2006 I was associated with Chávez, whom I do not know, it wasn’t too ridiculous to think that, looking toward the presidential elections of 2012, they would even reach the point of comparing me with Osama Bin Laden."

"The campaign against us has gone so far that many have taken as read rumors that I have a lot of money and luxury residences in the country and abroad. Some people, blinded by their right wing position, and others, totally manipulated, cannot accept that I am not corrupt and that I am fighting for ideals and principles, for me the most important thing in my life."

"However, it is a motive of pride that, in spite of their attempts to destroy us, they have not succeeded nor will they do so. Not only because we have moral authority, but because we, the women and men taking part in this fight, profess a profound love for our compatriots and, beyond treachery and in the face of all kinds of adversity, we maintain the firm conviction of constructing a more just, more humane and more egalitarian society."

In that final chapter López Obrador notes 10 objectives as a synthesis of his political thinking:

"1. To rescue the state and place it at the service of the people and of the nation.

"2. To democratize the mass media.

"3. To create a new economy.

"4. To combat monopolistic practices.

"5. To abolish taxation privileges.

"6. To exercise politics as an ethical imperative and to put republican austerity into practice.

"7. To strengthen the energy sector.

"8. To achieve food sovereignty.

"9. To establish a welfare state.

"10. To promote a new current of thought."

He asks: "What are we doing with the mafia?"

"…our question on what we are doing with the mafia, or rather, what we will do with the oligarchies, moves in another context and is based on our concept that Mexico’s principal problem is, precisely, the predominance of a handful of people who hold power and are responsible for the current national tragedy. And, as is evident, if we are pledged to establishing democracy and transforming the country, it is best to make it known from now what we would do with the oligarchies upon the triumph of our cause."

"…unfortunately, what has predominated in the country is greed and making money at all costs, without moral scruples of any kind. In other words, the culture of agandalle (ruthlessly self-seeking) and the maxim that ‘he who doesn’t cheat, doesn’t advance.’"

He ends on Page 205, with the following words:

"So, the revolution of conscience to construct the new Republic is underway. The task is a sublime one, nothing in the public terrain can be more important than the renaissance of Mexico. No other activity can produce more satisfaction than that of fighting for the wellbeing of others. It is a seal of pride to live with daring and moreover, to have the good fortune of making history."

His book is a valiant and irrefutable condemnation of the mafia who took over Mexico.

1. He does not mention the fact that a colossal drug market has been created in the United States and that its military industry supplies the most sophisticated weapons, which have converted Mexico into the first victim of a bloody war in which more than 5,000 young Mexicans are dying every year. Although I understand that a man who is incessantly touring the most isolated municipalities of the country could not tackle that matter. However, for my part, I consider it a duty to remind the Mexican people that this problem is added to the facts noted in López Obrador’s courageous condemnation.

2. Neither does he put on record the fact that climate change has become a colossal danger to the survival of the species, that it is in fact already creating extremely grave problems like the one that Russia is currently suffering, where a the number of victims of heat and smoke from the fires it is provoking in the forests and peat bogs, has more than doubled the number of people requiring funeral services in Moscow and other cities. Mexico is precisely the country where the future Climate Change Summit and many other activities related to it will take place.

3. He omits any reference to the imminent risk of a nuclear war, which could make our species disappear. However, it is fair to note that on May 24, 2010, when López Obrador completed his book, the United Nations Security Council had not adopted Resolution 1929 of June 9, 2010, ordering the inspection of Iranian merchant ships and creating a situation from which it can no longer escape.

Nevertheless, López Obrador will be the person with the greatest moral and political authority in Mexico when the system collapses and, with it, the empire. His contribution to the battle to avert President Obama unleashing that war will be of great value.

I shall continue tomorrow.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 11, 2010

9:53 p.m.

Translated by Granma International

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL A call to the President of the United States

REFLECTIONS OF FIDEL

A call to the President of the
United States

A few days ago, an article was published that really contained many facts related to the oil spill that occurred 105 days ago.

President Obama had authorized the drilling of that well, trusting in the capacity of modern technology to produce oil, which he wished to make abundantly available, thus freeing the United States from its dependence on foreign supplies of that product vital to current civilization. Its excessive consumption of oil had already given rise to energetic protests from environmentalists.

Not even George W. Bush had dared to take that step given the bitter experiences suffered in Alaska with a tanker that was transporting extracted oil there.

The accident was caused in the search for that product so desperately needed by the consumer society, which the newer generations inherited from preceding ones, the difference being the unimagined speed at which everything moves these days.

Scientists and environmentalists have presented theories related to disasters that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago with the so-called methane mega-bubbles responsible for colossal tsunamis that swept across a large part of the planet, with winds that reached twice the speed of sound and waves that rose to 1,500 meters in height, wiping out 96% of living species.

They have expressed the fear that, in the Gulf of Mexico – which for some cosmic reason is the region of the planet where carsic rock separates us from the vast layer of methane – that layer could be perforated in the desperate search for oil with the cutting-edge technical equipment available today.

With respect to the BP oil spill, news agencies are reporting:

"…The EPA (Environment Protection Agency) has officially stated is on record that Rig No.1 is releasing methane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide and other toxic gases. Workers there now wear advanced protection including state-of-the-art, military-issued gas masks."

Events of enormous significance are occurring with unusual frequency.

The first and most immediate is the risk of a nuclear war in the wake of the sinking of the sophisticated flagship Cheonan which, according to the government of South Korea, was the result of a torpedo fired from a submarine of Soviet make – both manufactured more than 50 years ago – while other sources inform the only possible and non-detectable cause: a mine placed by the intelligence services of the United States on the Cheonan’s hull. The government of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was immediately blamed.

Added to this strange event, some days later came Resolution 1929 of the United Nations Security Council, ordering the inspection of Iranian merchant ships within a time limit of no more than 90 days.

The second, which in part is already producing its devastating effects, is the progressive advance of climate change, the effects of which are even worse, giving rise to the condemnation contained in the documentary Home, directed by Yann Arthus-Bertrand with the participation of the world’s most eminent ecologists; and now the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a few miles from our homeland, which is generating all kinds of concerns.

On July 20, a cable from the EFE news agency referred to a statement by the now well-known Admiral Thad Allen, coordinator of and responsible for the battle against the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, who "stated that he had authorized BP, owner of the well and responsible for the spill, to continue for another 24 hours with the tests that it is conducting to determine the solidity of the ‘Macondo’ structure after the installation 10 days ago of a new containment dome."

"According to official data, there are close to 27,000 abandoned wells on the Gulf seabed…"

"Ninety-two days after the accident on the BP platform, the U.S. government’s principal concern is that the underground structure of the well is damaged and that crude is leaking via the rock and will end up flowing out at multiple points of the seabed."

It is the first time that an official statement has mentioned the fear of oil beginning to flow from wells that are no longer productive.

Readers interested in the issue are setting about sifting the sensationalist aspects from the scientific data. For me, there are events that do not have a satisfactory explanation. Why did Admiral Allen state that "the government’s principal concern is that the underground structure of the well is damaged and that crude is leaking through the rock and will end up flowing out at multiple points of the seabed?" Why did BP state that it cannot be blamed for the crude that appeared 15 kilometers from the damaged well?

We would have to wait for another 15 days that it would take to perforate the auxiliary well, which has an almost parallel trajectory to the one that originated the spill, at a distance of less than five meters from the other one, according to the Cuban group that is analyzing the problem. Meanwhile we must wait like well-behaved children.

If they are so confident about the parallel well, why didn’t they implement that measure earlier?

What will we do afterward if that measure fails like all the rest have?

In a recent interchange that I had with a person who is extremely well informed about the details of the accident, due to his country’s interests, I learned that, given the characteristics and the situation around the well, in that case there is no risk there of a methane emission.

July 23: no news whatsoever appeared on the problem.

The 24th: the DPA agency affirmed that, "a prominent U.S. scientist has accused the British BP oil corporation of bribing experts investigating the black tide in the Gulf of Mexico to delay the publication of data, according to the BBC television network," but did not relate that immorality to any damage to the structure of the seabed and emissions of oil and unusual methane levels.

July 26: the principal London press media – the BBC, Sunday Times, Sunday Telegraph and others – reported that "a BP board meeting would make a final decision today on whether its CEO, Tony Hayward, is to go, for his mismanagement of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico."

For their part, Notimex and El Universal, of Mexico, published that BP "had not made any decision on changes among its directors, and adds that a directors’ meeting is planned for this afternoon."

The 27th: news agencies informed that the executive president of BP had been dismissed.

July 28: Twelve cables and 14 countries, including the United States and a number of its most important allies, drew up embarrassing statements given the divulgation, by the Wikileaks organization, of secret documents on the war in Afghanistan. Although "Barack Obama admitted that he was ‘concerned’ about the leak… he noted that the information is old and does not contain anything new."

That was a cynical statement.

"The founder of Wikileaks, Julian Assange, said that the documents are evidence of war crimes committed by the U.S. forces."

They so accurately evidenced them that they have shaken U.S. secretiveness to the foundations. They talk of "civilian deaths that were never made public." It has created conflicts among the parties involved in those atrocities.

On the risks of methane gas emanating from wells that are not in production, total silence.

July 29: an AFP cable informs on the unimaginable: Osama Bin Laden was an agent of the U.S. intelligence services: "… Osama Bin Laden appears in secret reports published by Wikileaks as an active agent, present and adulated by his men in the Afghan-Pakistani area."

It was known that, during the Afghanis’ fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, Osama cooperated with the United States, but the world supposed that, in his fight against foreign invasion, he accepted the support of the United States and NATO as a necessity and that, once the country was liberated, he rejected foreign interference by creating the Al Qaeda organization to combat the United States. Many countries, Cuba among them, condemn his terrorist methods that do not exclude the death of countless innocent victims.

What a surprise for world public opinion now to discover that Al Qaeda was a creation of the government of that country.

That was the justification for the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and one of the motives, among others, for the subsequent invasion and occupation of Iraq by the military forces of the United States. Two countries in which thousands of young Americans have died and a large number of them have been mutilated. Between the two, more than 150,000 U.S. soldiers are committed for an indefinite period and together with them, members of units of the militaristic NATO organization, and other allies like Australia and South Korea.

On July 29, a photo was published of a 22-year-old U.S. citizen, Bradley Manning, an intelligence analyst, who leaked 240,000 classified documents to the Wikileaks website. There has been no statement as to his guilt or innocence. However, nobody can touch one hair of his head. The members of Wikileaks have sworn to make the truth known to the world.

The Brazilian theologian Frei Betto published an article datelined July 30, titled "Cry of the earth, clamor of the peoples."

Two paragraphs express the essence of its content. "The ancient Greeks had already noted: Gaya Earth, is a living organism. And we are the fruit of her, engendered in 13.7 billion years of evolution. However, in the last 200 years we have not known how to take care of her, but have transformed her into merchandise, from which it is hoped to obtain the maximum profit."

"Today all forms of life on the planet are threatened, including the human race (two-thirds of the world population is surviving below the poverty line) and Earth herself. Avoiding the anticipation of the Apocalypse demands questioning the myths of modernity – as market, development, uninational state – all of them based on instrumental reason."

For its part, that same day AFP published: "The People’s Republic of China 'does not approve of the unilateral sanctions’ adopted by the European Union against Iran, Jiang Yu, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson, stated today."

Likewise Russia delivered an energetic protest condemning the sanction of that region, closely allied to the United States.

July 30: an AFP cable notes that the Israeli defense minister stated: "The sanctions imposed on Iran by the UN… will not make it suspend its uranium enrichment activities in search of the atomic bomb."

August 1: an AFP cable notes "High-ranking military chief of the Guardians of the Revolution warned the U.S. today against a possible attack on Iran."

"Israel did not discount military action against Iran in order to halt its nuclear program."

"The international community, headed by Washington, recently intensified its pressure on Iran, accused of seeking to equip itself with nuclear weapons via a covert civil nuclear program."

"Javani’s affirmations preceded a statement from the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, Michael Mullen, who assured this Sunday that a U.S. plan of attack on Iran is in place to stop Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons."

August 2: an AFP news report similar in content to those of other news agencies informed:

"’I have to travel to New York in September to take part in the UN General Assembly. I am prepared to sit down with Obama, face to face, man to man, before the media in order to find the best solution,’ Ahmadinejad affirmed during a speech broadcast by state television."

"But President Ahmadinejad warned that the dialogue will have to be based on mutual respect.

"’If they believe that they can wave a wand and tell us that we have to accept everything that they say, that will not happen,’ he added. The Western powers ‘do not understand that things have changed in the world,’ he added."

"’You are backing a country that has hundreds of nuclear weapons but you are saying that you want to stop Iran, which could possibly have them some day…’"

The Iranians have stated that they will fire 100 rockets against every one of the U.S. and Israeli ships that are blockading Iran, as soon as they inspect any Iranian merchant ship.

In that way, when Obama gives the order to comply with the Security Council resolution, he will be decreeing the sinking of all the U.S. warships in that area.

Never before has such a dramatic decision fallen upon a president of the United States. He should have foreseen that.

On this occasion, for the first time in my life, I am addressing United States President Barack Obama:

You must know that it is in your hands to offer humanity the only real possibility of peace. Only on one occasion can you make use of your prerogatives by giving the order to fire.

It is possible that later, on the basis of this traumatic experience, solutions might be found that will not lead us once again to this apocalyptical situation. Everybody in your country, including your worst adversaries of the left or the right, will doubtless be grateful to you, and also the people of the United States, who are not in any way guilty of the situation created.

I ask you to deign to hear this appeal that I am conveying to you in the name of the Cuban people.

I understand that a rapid response cannot be expected, nor would you ever give one. Think it through well, consult your specialists, ask your most powerful allies and international adversaries for their opinion on the matter.

I am not interested in honors or glories. Do it!

The world really can be liberated from nuclear weapons and also conventional ones.

The worst of all the variants will be nuclear war, which is already virtually inevitable. PREVENT IT!

Fidel Castro Ruz
August 3, 2010
6:00 p.m.