November the 25th, 2016 will go down in human history as the day the world lost one of its greatest leaders. The historic leader and Commander-in-Chief of the Cuban Revolution, former President of Cuba and First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba, Fidel Castro Ruz, who died at 90, belonged to the rarest breed of finest revolutionaries. He made an invaluable contribution in the struggle for the emancipation of humanity.
The class of people who live from the economic exploitation of the labour and resources of others hated him, precisely because he firmly fought for an end to their system of domination. This prize is the fate of a true revolutionary – who cannot be liked by the exploiters of the working class, the oppressors of the people, counter-revolutionaries. Fidel, as he was simply addressed in Cuba, was a communist par excellence. To the end he fought for the overthrow of capitalism and imperialism.
Fidel survived over 638 assassination attempts directed mainly by United States (U.S.) imperialism. According to a 351-page report of the U.S Senate's Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities entitled Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign leaders, "United States leaders, including most Members of Congress, called for vigorous action to stem the Communist infection in this hemisphere". According to the report, it was policy to "get rid of Castro". The U.S Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director Richard Helms is quoted in the report saying the pressure "intensified during the period of Operation MONGOOSE and continued through much of 1963". Operation Mongoose was a covert operation of the CIA developed during the first year of U.S President John F. Kennedy's administration. Helms is further quoted in the report as saying as the pressure "to get rid of Castro" increased, "obviously the extent of the means that one thought were available ... increased too".
The sin committed by the Cuban people under the leadership of Fidel was to fight for national independence and control of their country's resources, labour and its proceeds.
As if as if that were not enough, the U.S developed propaganda of disinformation about Fidel. This intensified as the pressure to get rid of him intensified. Uncritical consumers of U.S propaganda, including in South Africa, simply regurgitated the fabrications. For those who do not see the bigger picture, the position adopted by the U.S. was only narrowly against Fidel as an individual leader. The reality is that this system of antagonism went beyond the person of Fidel. It was precisely created against the democratic revolutionary interests of the whole people of Cuba.
The sin committed by the Cuban people under the leadership of Fidel was to fight for national independence and control of their country's resources, labour and its proceeds. Ultimately, this hostility by the U.S was not limited to the Cuban people only. It extended and continues to this day to apply to the rest of humanity, especially those of us who stand on the side of democratic national sovereignty and control of our own resources, labour and its proceeds. This is why the U.S labelled as terrorists, our own leaders such as Nelson Mandela and many others. The U.S. maintained the classification beyond our 1994 democratic breakthrough.
Everywhere the oppressors finds their way among the oppressed, they create an internal enemy. Among others, this is done by means of various schemes designed to dispense patronage mainly in the form of redistributing the crumbs that fall from the wining and dining tables of the external enemy who is in charge of economic control. This happened in South Africa during the era of colonial oppression and apartheid, both in its internal and external dimensions, based on capitalist exploitation and imperialist domination of the majority of our people and country.
In Cuba, the beneficiaries of the exploitation of the majority of the Cuban people and the country's resources served as an intermediary class that facilitated the oppression. They became the privileged, better off compared to the rest of the impoverished population. This is why the ruthless fellows who lacked any sense of patriotism emigrated to the U.S when the Cuban revolution sounded the death knell for the oppression on 1 January 1959. They were of course accommodated by the U.S. Most of them settled in Miami, Florida's South-Eastern tip, 367 kilometres from Havana, Cuba's capital. Miami thus became the base of recruitment of Cuban counter-revolutionaries against their own people. This is the background behind the totally inhuman celebrations of Fidel's death in that city.
The atrocities launched with the involvement of that base of counter-revolution against the Cuban people include the Bay of Pigs Invasion. Fidel defeated this CIA-sponsored military coup undertaken by the paramilitary Brigade 2506 on 17 April 1961. The U.S committed many other atrocities against Cuba. This includes murder, as it happened during the defeated invasion.
The U.S imperialist aggression against Cuba was multifaceted. It involved an economic warfare including the long standing illegal economic blockade and occupation of the Guantanamo Bay, which is used by the U.S as its centre of human rights atrocities. The best tribute to Fidel is world unity and international solidarity to bring to an end the U.S imposed catastrophe on the Cuban people; to give rise to socialism, a system of universal emancipation in which the exploitation of one person, class, or country by another will be eliminated!
To El Comandante, our dearest Comrade Fidel we say: ¡Hasta la victoria siempre! Always, until victory!