By: Earle Clarke
“To part, is the lot of mankind. The world is a scene of constant leave taking and the hands that grasp in cordial meeting today are doomed ere long to unite for the last time, when the quivering lips pronounce the word -FAREWELL!” R. M.Ballantyne.
Dear reader, on Sunday, 29th October, a goodly group of persons from the St. Kitts-Nevis Cuba Association, the Cuba Alumni Association, the Cuba Residents Association, the Taiwanese Ambassador and others from different countries, Ambassador Sam Condor the Federation’s Representative at the United Nations, Dr.Denzil Douglas former Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition and the featured speaker, Dr. Earl Asim Martin – the first Kittitian to study in Cuba, Civil Servants from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs representing the Hon. Mark Brantley, who was absent due to his Partys Convention in Nevis and the Prime Minister’s Office representing Prime Minister Harris who was off island, representative from the Jamaica Association resident in St. Kitts, friends, well-wishers, all met at the Mojito pronounced (Mohito) Bar at Port Zante, to bid so long to the departing Cuban Ambassador Hugo, his wife Teresa and their son Tito, and also to welcome the new Ambassador Hernandez and his wife to the Federation.
There are some people who we meet on the pathway of life as strangers and yet, they do not appear as strangers, for, without knowing it, a very close bond develops and they become like family. Ambassador Hugo, his wife and his son were like that.
Anyone who had the good fortune of meeting them or working with them was completely enveloped by their kindness, their magnetic charm, their genuineness, their love for people. They were really a people’s people – no doubt about that!
In attempting to be poetic, I will refer to them as humble people, very down to earth people, and very approachable people, in whose presence you shaded under the branches of warmth and friendship. But this is the description of the Cuban people on a whole.
Were you ever to visit the home of any Cuban in Cuba and there is only one cup of coffee in the house, as the guest, you will be entitled to partake of that cup. No people in the Caribbean have suffered deprivation like the Cuban people, prior to the successful 1959 Revolution led by Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who were born in privilege, but were touched by the plight of their fellow men and women. One cannot begin to comprehend the love and affection that these two men bore for their down trodden brothers and sisters. Their father owned a sugar plantation; he was considered a very rich man.
Fidel and his brother were able to attend university at a time when seventy percent (70%) of a population of 11 million (7 million, 7 hundred thousand) were illiterate; more than half of the population could not read in 1959 when the Revolution Triumphed; yet, within two years, (1959- 1961), illiteracy was totally wiped out; even the Haitians who were imported from Haiti to work on the sugar plantations were taught to read and write. What a feat?
Now, if under President Batista, the capitalist, who was propped up by the mighty USA the bastion of capitalism, so many citizens were illiterate and had no access to proper medical attention and housing, if, under President Batista who was supported by the USA, little girls at the age of 13 years were kidnapped on their way to schools (the authorities turned a blind eye to these Abuses), and forced to work in the whorehouses owned by the USA mafia. Could the Castro brothers and all those who headed the Revolution use the same capitalist system to improve the lot of their fellow men?
Can you liberate your people using the same economic system which enslaved them, which degraded and dehumanized them, which forced them under the crack of the whip to work for free, so that others could reap huge profits from their toil, sweat, tears, blood and lives? If this were to happen, only the leader would change but the sadistic and demonic system of oppression and exploitation would still remain the same.
The USA and its minions have oft times referred to Castro as a tyrant and as a dictator, and this is what they do whenever a leader liberates his people from illiteracy and allow them to think for themselves, for you cannot enslave a people who have been educated, for their eyes are now opened and they can think for themselves. They can analyze and parse the realities of life.
UNESCO (The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) a specialized agency of the United Nations based in France has declared that Education is a Universal Human Right. Being denied access to schools is it common for the world’s 93 million children with disabilities? In the world’s poorest countries, up to 95 percent (95%) of disabled children are out of school. Jessica Shepherd, education correspondent for the Guardian Newspaper in England reported on Monday 17th 2010, “Over 70 million children across the world are prevented from attending school each day, according to a study published today reveals. (These atrocities do not take place in Cuba). Now, dear reader, if education is a UNIVERSAL HUMAN RIGHT and Cuba, despite the terrorist economic blockade which is imposed upon it by the so-called World Defender of Human Rights- the USA, why does it want to assassinate the leaders of Cuba and any other Leader who lifts the scales of ignorance and illiteracy from the eyes of their people?
The question has to be poised and the facts would attest to it – “Is the USA a bona fide (genuine, real) defender of Human Rights? If the answer is a genuine or real emphatic “YES!” the second question posed is, “Why are they not shaking off the hands of the Leaders of Cuba and all other progressive Leaders around the world congratulating them for a job, “Well Done”, instead of its Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) attempting several times at assassinating these leaders?” Cuba, the largest island in the Caribbean suffered its share of colonization just like the rest of us, but its National Hero Jose Marti, always believed in its true freedom. Having freed itself from Spanish Colonialism, it was not going to be the colony of the Yankee! Freedom for it meant charting its own course, paddling its own canoe.
Whatever seas it encountered, the Leaders and their people will have to navigate their ship and surmount them. Dear reader, look at the caliber of people the Cubans are? They liberated themselves with the 1959 Triumphant Revolution, but they did not enjoy their freedoms by themselves. They realized the backwardness of their brothers and sisters in the Caribbean and the Third World, who were also colonized, and they extended scholarships to all of them including the down trodden in the USA who would not otherwise have realized their dream of becoming the professionals they yearned to be. When the Apartheid system was introduced in South Africa and the leaders who opposed it were assassinated and imprisoned and the Black brothers and sisters re-enslaved, not a whisper of protest was heard from those who like to speak with the forked tongue of deceit about Human Rights Abuses. Not even the tiniest whisper of protest, of concern was expressed by them! You see, dear reader, their multinationals were raking in huge profits from the cheap labour of the enslaved Black people. They were blinded to these atrocities and deaf to the moans and groans of the oppressed.
When our sister African country of Angola captured its Independence from Portugal in 1975, the apartheid South African government and the USA’s CIA, wanted to topple the new Government. Its leader requested help from Fidel Castro who immediately dispatched 36,000 troops. Cuba also assisted Namibia in becoming Independent in 1990, and Nelson Mandela to be released from South African Jail in 1990 after he was imprisoned for 27 years for daring to fight the whites of South Africa who were re-enslaving his brothers and sisters.
During the 14 years of war in Southern Africa, a total of over 300,000 Cuban Doctors, teachers, engineers, nurses and soldiers, played a major role. Our own Ambassador Hugo Cabrera was a soldier who fought in the liberation of the sister African countries of Angola and Namibia. Let us laud him for his heroic efforts!
The most important battle in the liberation of the two countries was the Battle of Cuito Cuanavale, a town and municipality in Angola, in which the once touted invincible South African army, equipped and supported by the USA was thoroughly defeated by the Cubans. Fidel Castro directed that battle from Cuba. Here we have the Cubans who had liberated themselves (1959-2017 = 58 years) through their Revolution, not only freeing themselves from Yankee Imperialism, educating their people, providing them with first class medical attention free of cost, providing their people with proper housing, extending free scholarshipsto study any profession in the country, sending its troops to liberate the brothers and the sisters in Africa, who were second-class citizens in the land of their birth, while the champion of Human Rights Violations combined with those who wanted to degrade and humiliate the brothers and sisters, treating them like animals.
Can you ever refer to the leaders of such a country as dictators? Look at the difference between the two countries and the two systems?The same so-called Champion of Human Rights Independent (1776 – 2017 = 241 years) has a population of 324.60 according to the 2017 census. Thirty two million (32 million or 14%) of that population are illiterate according to Credit Donkey which has compiled a list of 23 startling statistics on illiteracy in the USA.
How can any country attempt to glorify itself as the Defender of Human Rights Abuses when its citizens lack the most Universal Human Rights- the Right to Universal Education?
Here is Cuba, an island nation (with 58 year of Independence) which has liberated itself from colonial rule, liberated itself from capitalism when it overthrew the USA supported Batista regime, has completely eliminated illiteracy providing its citizens with education from kindergarten to University, thus enabling them to pursue the profession of their choice, adopted a Socialist economic system which has entitled its people to free medical attention regardless of the ailment; It takes a vehicle nine hours to travel from Havana to Santiago.
Prior to the Revolution, Cubans had to walk from Santiago to Havana to seek medical attention, because all the Doctors were centered in the capital Havana. Compare this to the Developed United States of America (with 243 years of Independence) where the homeless walk the streets in the dead of winter, searching the garbage bins for discarded food, huddling around an oil drum filled with burnt pieces of card board and newspapers for warmth, unable to access proper medical attention and end up dying like dogs in the streets, sleeping under bridges and in the train stations on pieces of cardboard, where three times the population of Cuba’s 11 million are illiterate. This country hounds Cuba; tries desperately to destroy its Revolution, all because Cuba refused to follow its exploitative and oppressive capitalist pathway but, instead, humanized its people!
Ambassador Hugo has been a true patriot of this great country called Cuba, and was therefore expected, to portray its High Moral Principles. He has been a true son who will be returning home feeling proud of the duties he has performed on behalf of his country and its heroic people. We will surely miss him deeply for he is firmly embedded in our hearts where he will always remain and be remembered. We therefore wish him, his charming wife Teresa and his friendly son Tito, the very best that life has to offer. The world is getting smaller and it’s shrinking every day, making it possible for us to meet again someday. Tom Petty summed it up this way with his quote: “You and I will meet again, When we’re least expecting it, one day, in some far off place, I will recognize your face. I won’t say goodbye my friend, for you and I will meet again!”