Fidel Castro has accused the US of using the battle against drugs to entrench its military presence, take control of economic resources and markets in the entire Americas region.
The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Castro, on Monday said the US Empire never waged the struggle on drugs within its borders but did so in the Latin American countries.
Castro wondered since when the US fourth fleet and modern combat planes were used to combat drugs.
“The struggle against drugs is a pretext to establish military bases in the whole hemisphere. The true objective is to control the economic resources, the markets, and to struggle against social changes,” Castro said. “Was there any need to re-establish that fleet which was demobilised after the Second World War, more than 60 years later, when the Cold War is over and the USSR no longer exists? The arguments used for the installation of seven air and naval bases in Colombia are an insult to intelligence. History will not forgive those who have been so disloyal to their own peoples or those who resort to the exercise of sovereignty as a pretext to harmonize this with the presence of Yankee troops. What sovereignty do they refer to? The one conquered by Bolivar, Sucre, San Martin, O’Higgins, Morelos, Juárez, Tiradentes and Martí? None of them would have accepted such a repugnant argument to justify the granting of military bases to the Armed Forces of the United States, an empire far more dominant, powerful and universal than the Crowns of the Iberian Peninsula.”
Castro warned that no single Latin American country would agree with the presence of US bases.
“If as a consequence of such agreements promoted illegally and unconstitutionally by the United States, any government in that country uses those bases, as was done by [former US president Ronald]Reagan during the dirty war, and [former US president George W]Bush at the time of the Iraq war, to provoke an armed conflict between two sister nations, this would be a big tragedy,” he said. “Venezuela and Colombia were born together in the history of the Americas, after the battles of Boyaca and Carabobo, under the leadership of Simon Bolivar. The Yankee forces could promote a dirty war as they did in Nicaragua, and even recruit soldiers of foreign nationalities trained by them and attack any country, but the combatant, brave and patriotic people of Colombia would hardly let itself be dragged into a war against a brother people like the Venezuelan. The imperialists would be making a mistake if they equally underestimate the other Latin American peoples. None of them would agree with the presence of Yankee military bases. None of them will stop expressing its solidarity with any Latin American people that is being attacked by the imperialism.”
The US claims the bases would form America’s anti-drug central command in Latin America. Ecuador forced the US out of the Manta Base on expiry of the initial contract. Colombia remains Washington’s staunch ally under President Alvaro Uribe who has received billions of dollars in military aid.
But Castro has observed that as a consequence of the war unleashed by drug trafficking for which Mexico had deployed 36,000 troops, almost 4,000 Mexicans had died in 2009 alone.
He said the same phenomenon repeated itself to a greater or lesser degree in the rest of Latin America. Castro said drugs not only cause serious health problems but that they were also a source of violence which was causing a lot of pain in Mexico and Latin America as a consequence of the insatiable US market.
– Article from The Post.
