Article “Fidel Castro is Dying"

Granma and Trabajadores newspapers published, on Monday, an article written by Cuban Revolution leader Fidel Castro rejecting ill rumors recently launched about his health. In his article, the Cuban Revolution leader says that as soon as his message addressed to the first graduates from the Victoria de Giron Medical Science Institute was published, the imperialist propaganda and news agencies began to unleash their lies, even adding the most unexpected and stupid arguments. Spain’s ABC newspaper said that some Venezuelan doctor revealed that Castro had suffered from a massive stroke and that he was about to undergo a neuro-vegetative condition, Fidel explains in his article. Though many people in the world are misled by the media, most of which are in the hands of the privileged and the rich, the people increasingly disbelieve this press, says Fidel Castro and he goes to recall that in 1961, everybody believed some news agencies saying that the Bay of Pigs mercenaries were about to reach Havana, when in fact some of them were actually trying to return to the US warships that had escorted them. Fidel Castro also recalls in his article that just few days before the 50th anniversary of the Missile Crisis, the news agencies pointed to three guilty ones: Kennedy, who had just taken the Imperial power, Nikita Khrushchev and Castro, and he notes that Cuba had nothing to do with the nuclear weapon, or with the unnecessary massacre in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which was perpetrated by US President Harry S. Truman, an action that established the tyranny of nuclear weapons. Cuba was defending its right to independence and social justice, Fidel points out. “We accepted the Soviet assistance in terms of weapons, oil, food and other resources to defend ourselves from Yankee plans of invading our homeland, submitted to a dirty and bloody war imposed by that capitalist country since the first months, which cost thousands of lives and mutilated Cubans.” Fidel says that when Khrushchev proposed Cuba to install mid-range missiles similar to those the U.S. had deployed in Turkey, as a necessary gesture of solidarity, Cuba did not hesitate in accepting the risk. “Our behavior was ethically irreproachable. We will never apologize for what we did. The fact is that half a century after that we are still here holding our head high.” Fidel said that he likes to write and he does, that he likes to study and he does, and that there are tasks to meet in the area of knowledge; for instance, sciences had never advanced at such an amazing speed, he says. Finally, Fidel Castro explains that he stopped publishing his Reflection articles because he did not want to use the pages of the press, which are dedicated to other duties required by the country. And he concludes by stating: birds of ill omen! I do not even recall what a headache feels like. As a proof of how much you lie, here I give you the photos that go with this article. www.granma.cubaweb.cu