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Fidel Castro denounced that Imperialism has just committed a monstrous crime in Ecuador, when deadly bombs were dropped in the early morning hours on a group of men and women who, almost without exception, were asleep.

“Any concrete accusations against that group of human beings do not justify that action”, Fidel Castro stressed in an article entitled “Rafael Correa”, released here today.

“They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee satellites,” he outlined.

“Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold blood. If we accept that imperial method of warfare and barbarism, Yankee bombs directed by satellites could fall on any group of Latin American men and women, in the territory of any country, war or no war”, he warned.

After remarking that “we are not enemies of Colombia”, Fidel Castro warned, though, that “if we keep quiet we shall become accomplices.”

“Correa has in his hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies. The two which are missing prove that Ecuadorian territory was occupied by troops that crossed the border. Now he can cry out like Emile Zola: J’accuse!,” he concluded.

Prensa Latina is posting below the full text of Fidel Castro´s reflection.

REFLECTION BY COMRADE FIDEL

RAFAEL CORREA

I remember when he visited us, months before the electoral campaign when he was thinking of running as a candidate for the Presidency of Ecuador. He had been the Minister of the Economy in the government of Alfredo Palacio, a surgeon with professional prestige who had also visited us as Vice President, before becoming the President in an unexpected situation that took place in Ecuador. He had been receptive to a program of ophthalmologic operations that we offered him as a form of cooperation. There were good relations between our two governments.

A while earlier Correa had resigned from the Ministry of the Economy. He was unhappy with what he called administrative corruption instigated by Oxy, a foreign company that explored and invested important sums of money, but was holding on to four out of every five barrels of oil that it extracted. He didn’t talk about nationalization, but about taxing them heavily; these taxes would be assigned in advance to specific social investments. He had already approved the measures and a judge had declared them to be valid.

Since the word “nationalize” had not been mentioned, I thought he felt apprehensive about the concept. It didn’t surprise me because he had graduated as an economist with much acclaim from a well-known U.S. university. I didn’t bother getting into much depth; I bombarded him with questions from the arsenal accumulated in the struggle against the Latin American foreign debt in 1985 and of Cuba’s own experience.

There are high-risk investments that use sophisticated technology and that no small nation like Cuba or Ecuador could take on.

Since this was already in 2006 and we were determined to promote the energy revolution, –ours was the first country on the planet to proclaim this as a vital issue for humankind– I had dealt with the subject particularly emphatically. But I halted, as I understood one of his reasons.

I related to him the conversation I had had a while ago with the president of REPSOL, a Spanish company. This company, associated with other international companies, would undertake an expensive operation to drill the ocean floor, more than 2000 meters down, using sophisticated technology, in Cuba’s jurisdictional waters. I asked the head of the Spanish company: How much is an exploratory well worth? I ask you this because we would like to participate, even if it is for one percent of the total cost and we would like to know what you want to do with our oil.

Correa, for his part, had told me that for every one hundred dollars taken out by the companies, only twenty remained in the country; it didn’t even get into the budget, he said; it was left in a separate fund for just about anything other than improving the living conditions of the people.

I abolished the fund, he told me, and directed 40 percent towards education and health, technological and highway development, and the rest towards buying back the debt if the price was favorable, and if not, investing it in something more useful. Before, every year we had to buy a portion of that debt which was becoming more expensive.

In the case of Ecuador –he added– oil policies verged on treason against the country. Why do they do it? I asked him. Is it because they are afraid of the Yankees or due to unbearable pressure? He answered: If they have a Minister of the Economy who tells them privatization would improve efficiency, you can just imagine. I didn’t do that.

I encourage him to go on and he calmly explains. The foreign company Oxy is one that has broken its contract and according to Ecuadorian law it requires an expiration date. It means that the oil field operated by this company must go over to the State, but because of Yankee pressure the government does not dare to occupy it; a situation is created which is not contemplated by the legislation.

The law just states that an expiration date must be set, and nothing more. The judge at the court of first instance at that moment was the president of PETROECUADOR and he made it happen. I was a member of PETROECUADOR and they called an emergency meeting to expel him from his position. I didn’t attend and they couldn’t fire him. The judge declared the expiration date.

What did the Yankees want? I asked him. They wanted a fine, he quickly replied. Listening to him I realized that I had underestimated him.

I was in a hurry because of a great number of commitments. I invited him to sit in on a meeting with a large group of highly qualified Cuban professionals who were leaving for Bolivia to be part of the Medical Brigade; it had staff for more than 30 hospitals including 19 surgical positions that could do more than 130 thousand ophthalmologic operations per year; all in the manner of free cooperation. Ecuador possesses three similar centers with six ophthalmologic positions.

Dinner with the Ecuadorian economist took place into the morning hours of February 9, 2006. There were scarcely any view points that I didn’t cover. I even spoke to him about the very harmful mercury that modern industry scatters throughout the planet’s oceans. Consumerism was of course a subject that I emphasized; the high cost of the kilowatt/hour in the thermoelectric plants; the differences between socialist and communist forms of distribution, the role of money, the trillions spent on advertising which people had no choice but to pay for in the prices of goods, and the studies made by university social brigades who discovered, among the 500 thousand families in the capital, the number of elderly folk lived alone. I explained the stage of university courses for all that we were involved in.

We became friends even though he perhaps received the impression that I was self-sufficient. If that happened, it was truly not my intention.

Since that time I have observed his every step: the electoral process, focusing on the concrete problems of Ecuadorians and the people’s victory over the oligarchy.

In the history of our peoples there are many things that bring us together. Sucre was always a highly admired figure, along with The Liberator Bolivar; as Marti said, what he hasn’t done in America remains to be done, and as Neruda exclaimed, Bolivar awakens every hundred years.

Imperialism has just committed a monstrous crime in Ecuador. Deadly bombs were dropped in the early morning hours on a group of men and women who, almost without exception, were asleep. That has been deduced by all the official reports right from the beginning. Any concrete accusations against that group of human beings do not justify that action. They were Yankee bombs, guided by Yankee satellites.

Absolutely no one has the right to kill in cold blood. If we accept that imperial method of warfare and barbarism, Yankee bombs directed by satellites could fall on any group of Latin American men and women, in the territory of any country, war or no war. The fact that this happened on undisputed Ecuadorian territory is an aggravating circumstance.

We are not an enemy of Colombia. Previous reflections and exchanges demonstrate how much of an effort we have made, both the current President of the Council of State of Cuba and I, to abide by a declared policy of principles and peace, proclaimed years ago in our relations with the rest of the Latin American states.

Today, with everything at risk, we have not been transformed into belligerent people. We are determined supporters of that unity among peoples which Marti named Our America.

If we keep quiet we shall become accomplices. Today they would like to have our friend, the economist and President of Ecuador Rafael Correa, seated in the dock; this is something we couldn’t even conceive that morning of February 9, 2006. At that time it seemed that my imagination was capable of embracing all kinds of dreams and risks, but never anything like what has occurred in the early morning of Saturday March 1, 2008.

Correa has in his hands the few survivors and the rest of the bodies. The two which are missing prove that Ecuadorian territory was occupied by troops that crossed the border. Now he can cry out like Emile Zola: J’accuse!

Cuban President Raul Castro said a more compact and operational structure is required, with a lower number of institutions under the central administration of the State.
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Speaking at the plenary session of the People”s Power National Assembly, shortly after the Seventh Legislature was installed, the president called for a better distribution of the State”s functions.

At his proposal, the Parliament agreed to hold a session to analyze the composition of the government.

“This is a timely decision, since we are not dealing only with appointments, but rather with decisions about which changes might be required in the system of institutions pertaining to the central administration of the State, and this needs more time,” he pointed out.

Raul Castro added that since the triumph of the revolution until 1994, “the State structures inherited from capitalism were adjusted as we went along to undertake the tasks imposed by the radical economic, political and social changes.” “The 1960″s institutionalization process, however imperfect, enabled us to structure an articulate system corresponding to those circumstances. We were then able to put ourselves on a level with the socialist countries, in terms of both good and bad experiences,” he recalled.

The Cuban president noted that institutionalization process in the 1970s and the adjustments made in 1994, amid the economic crisis, led to the reduction and merging of institutions as well as to the redistribution of the tasks previously entrusted to some of them.

Now, when the national and international panorama has changed considerably, “a more compact and operational structure is required, with a lower number of institutions under the central administration of the State,” said the newly-elected president.

He explained that this would enable us to reduce the enormous amount of meetings, coordination, permissions, conciliations, provisions, rules and regulations, among other problems.

Such measures, he added, will also allow bringing together some decisive economic activities which are presently disseminated through various entities, and to make a better use of our cadres.

He pointed out that the majority of Cubans, from all walks of society, at different stages of the Revolution, including the present, are increasingly convinced that the only source of wealth for the society rests with the productive work, above all when man and resources are efficiently employed.

Raul Castro recalled, on the other hand, that during a recent visit to Santiago de Cuba, he said that the massive support enjoyed by the revolution demands from us that we question everything we do in order to improve on it.

In that regard, he repeated that if the people are firmly united behind a single party, this must be more democratic than any other, and so must be the entire society, which, of course, can be improved, as any other human work.

He said every citizen must have the opportunity to express his/her criteria within the law, and called on to stop fearing discrepancies.

“The best solutions can come from a profound exchange of differing opinions, if such an exchange is guided by sensible purposes and the views are uttered with responsibility,” the Cuban president stressed.

“Our democracy is as participatory as few others are, but we should be aware that the functioning of the State and Government institutions is not yet as effective as our people rightfully demand. This is something we should all think about,” he admitted.

He added that in December, he had referred to the excess of prohibitions and regulations, and in the next few weeks, “we shall start removing the most simple of them.” “The suppression of other procedures, even if they might sound simple to some, will take more time for they require a more comprehensive study and changes of certain legal regulations, in addition to the fact that some of these are influenced by measures taken against our country by successive US administrations,” he pointed out.

Cuban and foreign experts highlighted on Wednesday the importance of the Gulf of Mexico as a regional oil area of potential economic interest.

This thesis was put forward by experts from Mexico, Cuba and Canada during the 1st Congress on Oil and Gas, currently in session in the Havana Convention Center.

Speaking before delegates from 19 countries, Mexican Emilio Miranda explained that only the external limits of the Gulf have been systematically explored in its coastal plain and continental platform so far.

Also Mexicans Arturo Arvate and Felipe Ortuno, and Cuban Mario Ramirez agreed that scientific, technological breakthroughs in hydrocarbon exploration in the last decades gave way to new concepts in geodynamics.

According to them, there is potential for the existence of large oil fields in Cuba’s exclusive economic zone in the Gulf of Mexico.

Geological research deep in the area enjoys the advantages of being reached by current technology, attractive terms of contract and full support from the Cuban government, according to specialists.

Cuba’s minister of Basic Industry, Yadira Garcia, said in the opening session on Tuesday that the government is promoting a program for deep-water oil exploration with foreign investment.

She added that oil exploration under risk contract agreements and the introduction of spearhead technology are main aspects that characterize work in the sector.

This led to a six-fold increase in the country’s crude production in 1991-2004 and a 17-fold increase in natural gas, she said.

There was an increase in the use of natural gas in power generation and domestic consumption, which contributed to curb pollution and recover sulphur in the process.

Cuba accused the United State at the UN Human Rights Council on Wednesday of systematically abducting people under the pretext of fighting terrorism.

During the afternoon debate on the report condemning forced abductions, Cuban delegate Yuri Gala said that the incumbent US administration has resorted to arbitrary detentions and other cruel treatment.

We must not forget that the United States, and particularly its ill-famed School of the Americas, played a key role in training those responsible for mass and flagrant human rights violations, Gala added.

He noted that the United States imposed and sponsored military dictatorships in Latin America for decades, and that Washington s logistical support and assistance allowed increased coordination among regional intelligence services.

That contributed to improving the exchange of information and prisoners, as well as carrying out joint assassinations, part of the well-known Operation Condor, the Cuban diplomat said.

Unfortunately, people are still abducted and held in secret places, where they are tortured or murdered, Gala said, alluding to Washington’s secret flights and illegal prison camps all over the world.

Cuba grants special importance to the need to strengthen international efforts to fight forced and involuntary abductions by taking actions and measures to prevent those horrible violations anywhere in the world, Gala said.

He called on the Council s working group to continue to follow up on the issue, adding that the General Assembly s International Convention to protect abduction victims was a big step forward.

Gala stressed that Cuba reaffirms the importance that those responsible for such acts should not benefit from amnesty, prescription, caducity, pardon or any similar measure, as impunity prevents truth and justice from prevailing.

Cuba urged the UN Human Rights Council’s working group on mercenaries to visit the United States, which recruits such elements to carry out deadly missions against the Cuban people.

Cuba´s Rodolfo Reyes addressed the plenary meeting of the Council on the mercenary group´s report related to structural adjustment, foreign debt and the special digest on education rights.

The Cuban official urged continued monitoring of classic and traditional mercenary activity, particularly the impact on human rights of private military and security companies.

Nearly 50,000 mercenaries are presently working as contractors in support of the coalition that invaded Iraq, the latest method to back up foreign occupation and imperial conquest, he said.

This serves US hegemonic interests, and some have been direct perpetrators of the most execrable forms of torture in Abu Ghraib, recalled Reyes.

He also stressed the need to monitor terrorist anti-Cuban groups freely operating in the US, and recalled attacks on Cuban hotels by Central American mercenaries recruited by notorious terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who bombed a Cuban civilian plane in 1976 with 73 aboard.

The US failed in its duty to extradite him to Venezuela or bring charges of terrorism against him, so Cuba considers it critical that the Council´s work group on mercenaries visit the US as soon as possible, he concluded.