Reflections of Fidel: "The moment of truth" (explosive essay on UN Copenhagen events)

NEWS arriving from the Danish capital paints a picture of chaos. After planning an event in which around 40,000 people were to participate, the hosts have no way of keeping their promise. Evo, who was the first of the ALBA presidents to arrive there, expressed certain profound truths emanating from the millenary culture of his people.

According to the news agencies, he affirmed that he had received a mandate from the Bolivian people to oppose any agreement if the final declaration fails not meet expectations. He explained that climate change is not the cause but the effect, that we have an obligation to defend the rights of Mother Earth against the model of capitalist development, the culture of life against the culture of death. He spoke of the climate debt that the rich countries must pay to the poor countries, and the return of atmospheric space seized from the latter.

He described as "ridiculous" the figure of $10 billion dollars offered per year up until 2012 when, in reality, hundreds of billions of dollars are needed every year. He also accused the United States of spending trillions of dollars on exporting terrorism to Iraq and Afghanistan and establishing military bases in Latin America.

The president of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela addressed the Summit on December 16th, at 8:40 a.m. Cuban time. He made a brilliant speech that received tremendous applause. His remarks were categorical.

Contesting a document proposed to the Summit by the Danish minister chairing the conference, he stated:

"…it is a text that comes from nothing, we do not accept any other text unless it comes out of the working groups which are the legitimate texts that have been discussed with such intensity during these two years."

"There is a group of countries which believe themselves superior to us from the South, to us from the Third World…"

"…we are not surprised: there is no democracy in the world and we are here, once again, in the face of powerful evidence of a world imperial dictatorship."

"…I was reading some of the slogans painted in the streets by the young people…One: ‘Let’s not change the climate, let’s change the system’…Another: ‘If the climate was a bank, they would have saved it already.’"

"Obama… received the Nobel Peace prize virtually the same day that he was sending an additional 30,000 soldiers to kill innocent people in Afghanistan."

"We were raising our hands to accompany Brazil, India, Bolivia and China, in their interesting position … but, well, we were not given the floor…"

"The rich are destroying the Earth… do they have plans to go to another planet?"

"Climate change is, without any doubt, the most devastating environmental problem of the present century."

"The United States could amount to possibly 300 million inhabitants; China has a population that is almost five [sic] times larger than the United States. The United States consumes more than 20 million barrels of oil per day. Chine [sic] barely reaches 5 or 6 million barrels per day. One can’t ask the same of the United States and China."

"… reducing contaminating gas emissions and achieving a long-term cooperation agreement […] seems to have failed, for now. What is the reason for that? […] the irresponsible attitude and the lack of political will on the part of the most powerful nations of the planet."

"…the gap that separates the rich countries from the poor is still expanding despite the existence of the Millennium Goals, the Monterrey Summit on finance, all of these summits – as the president of Senegal said, denouncing a great truth, promises and promises and promises that have been unfulfilled, while the world continues along its destructive path."

"…The total income of the 500 richest individuals on the planet is greater than the income of the 416 million poorest people."

"Infant mortality stands at 47 per 1,000 live births; but the figure for the rich countries is just 5 ..."

"…For how long are we going to allow millions of children to continue dying from curable diseases?"

"Some 2.6 billion people live without health services,"

"Brazilian Leonardo Boff wrote: ‘that the fittest survive over the ashes of the weakest.’"

Jean Jacob Rousseau [sic] said: ""Between the weak and the strong, it is freedom which oppresses." For this reason, the empire talks of freedom, in order to invade, to murder, to annihilate, to exploit, that is its freedom. And Rousseau goes on: "it is the law which sets free."

"For how long are we going to allow armed conflicts that massacre millions of innocent human beings, with the aim of awarding the resources of other nations to the more powerful ones?"

"Almost two centuries ago, Simón Bolívar, the Liberator said:

‘If nature opposes, we will fight against her and make her obey us.’"

"This planet is billions of years old, and has existed for billions of years without us, the human race: that is to say, it does not need us to exist. Now, we cannot live without the Earth…"

Evo addressed the conference in the morning of today, Thursday. His speech will also never be forgotten.

He very candidly opened his remarks by saying: "I wish to say how upset we are over the lack of organization and the delays in this international gathering…"

His basic ideas were the following:

"When we ask the hosts what is going on, […] we are told it is the United Nations; when we ask the United Nations what is going on, they say it is Denmark, so we don’t know who is disorganizing this international event…" "…I’m very shocked because only the effects and not the causes of climate change are being discussed."

"If we fail to identify where the destruction of the environment is coming from […] we will never be able to solve this problem…"

"…two cultures are under discussion here: the culture of life and the culture of death; the culture of death, which is capitalism. We, the indigenous peoples, say that it is living better, better at the cost of others.’"

"…exploiting others, plundering their natural resources, assaulting Mother Earth, privatizing basic services…"

"…living well is living in solidarity, in equality, in complementation, in reciprocity…"

"These two different ways of life, these two cultures of life are in debate when we it comes to climate change, and if we do not decide which is the better way of living or of life, it is certain that we are never going to resolve this issue, because we have problems with life: luxury and consumerism damage humanity and sometimes we don’t want to admit the truth in this kind of international event."

"…in our way of life being truthful is sacred, and we are not practicing the truths here."

"…in our Constitution it reads ama sua, ama llulla, ama quella, which means do not steal, do not lie, do not be weak."

"…Mother Earth or Nature exist and will continue to exist without the human race, but human beings can’t live without planet Earth, therefore, it is our duty to defend the right of Mother Earth."

"…I applaud the United Nations because this year, it has finally established the International Day of Mother Earth."

"…a mother is sacred, a mother is our life; a mother cannot be rented, cannot be sold or assaulted, she must be respected."

"We have profound differences with the Western model, and that is under discussion at this moment."

"We are in Europe, and you know that many Bolivian families, many Latin American families come to Europe. Why do they come here? To improve their living conditions. In Bolivia, they might be earning $100 or $200 per month; but that family, that person comes here to take care of an elderly European grandfather or grandmother and earns $1,000 a month."

"These are the asymmetries that exist among continents and we are obliged to discuss ways in which to achieve a certain equilibrium, […] reducing these profound asymmetries that exist among families, among countries, and especially continents."

""When […] our brothers and sisters come here to survive or to improve their living conditions they are expelled. There are papers which are known as repatriation documents […] but when those elderly Europeans arrived in Latin America all those years ago, they were never expelled. My families, my brothers do not come here to seize control of mines, nor do they possess thousands of hectares in order to become landowners. In the past, no visas or passports were required to come to Abya Yala, now called, America."

"…the rich nations should welcome all migrants who are affected by climate change instead of forcing them to return to their countries as they are doing at the moment…"

"…our obligation is to save all of humanity and not half of humanity."

"…the FTAA, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, […] is not a Free Trade Area of the Americas, but a free colonization area of the Americas…"

Evo suggested the following questions, among others, for a worldwide referendum on climate change:

"..Do you agree to reestablishing a harmonious relationship with Nature, recognizing the rights of Mother Earth...?"

"…Are you in agreement with changing this system of excessive consumerism and waste, that is, the capitalist system...?"

"…Do you agree that the developed countries should reduce and reabsorb their greenhouse gas emissions…?"

"…Do you agree on transferring everything that is currently being spent in wars to create a budget higher than the defense budget to tackle the problem of climate change…?"

As is widely known, the UN Agreement on Climate Change was signed in the Japanese city of Kyoto in 1997. This protocol obliged 38 industrialized nations to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by a certain percentage in relation to those emitted in 1990. The countries of the European Union committed themselves to 8%, a move which came into effect in 2005, when most of the signatory countries had already ratified it. George W. Bush, then president of the United States – the largest producer of greenhouse gases and responsible for a quarter of total emissions – had rejected the agreement from mid-2001 onward.

The other members of the United Nations continued with their efforts. The research centers continued with their work. It is now evident that a major disaster is threatening our species. Perhaps the worst aspect is that the blind egotism of a privileged and rich minority is attempting to lay the burden of the necessary sacrifices on the vast majority of the planet’s inhabitants.

That contradiction is reflected in Copenhagen. Thousands of people are there, fiercely defending their points of view.

The Danish police are resorting to brutal methods to crush resistance; many protesters are being preventively arrested. I spoke on the phone with our Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez, who was at a solidarity rally in Copenhagen with Chávez, Evo, Lazo and other ALBA representatives. I asked him who those people were that the Danish police suppressed with such hate, twisting back their arms and beating them repeatedly across the back. He said they were Danish citizens and people from other European nations as well as members of the social movements who were demanding from the Summit an immediate solution to deal with climate change. He also told me that debates in the Summit were to continue until midnight. It was already night in Copenhagen when I spoke with him. The time difference is six hours.

Our comrades in the Danish capital have informed us that an even worse situation is expected tomorrow morning, Friday 18th. At 10:00 a.m. the UN Summit is to be adjourned for two hours while the Danish prime minister meets with 20 heads of state invited by him to discuss "global problems" with Obama. That is what they have called the meeting, which is aimed at imposing an agreement on climate change.

Even though all of the official delegations are to take part, only "invited guests" will be allowed to express their views. Of course, neither Chávez nor Evo are among those entitled to express their opinions. The idea is to give the illustrious Nobel Laureate an opportunity to read his previously drafted speech, preceded by the decision to de adopted in that meeting to postpone the agreement until the end of next year in Mexico City. The social movements will not be permitted to attend. After that show, the "Summit" will resume in the plenary hall until its ignominious closure.

As television channels have broadcast the footage, the world has been able to see the fascist methods used against the people in Copenhagen. The protesters, young people in the main, who have been repressed, have earned the solidarity of the peoples.

Despite the maneuvers and unprincipled lies of the leaders of the empire, the moment of truth is drawing closer. Their own allies are increasingly losing confidence in them. In Mexico, as in Copenhagen or anywhere else in the world, they will be met by the growing resistance of the peoples who have not lost the hope of surviving.

Fidel Castro Ruz

December 17, 2009

6:46 p.m.

Translated by Granma International