[lbo-talk] Castro on Reagan's lies about Grenada

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Mon Jun 7 08:12:03 PDT 2004


[Damn, I love the web. Was trying to remember this last night - I think MR published the text of the speech at the time. But Google found it for me in seconds...]

<http://lanic.utexas.edu/la/cb/cuba/castro/1983/19831114>

...

What placed Cuba in a morally complex and difficult situation was the announcement that Yankee naval forces were moving toward Grenada. Under these conditions we, under no circumstances, could abandon the country. If imperialism really intended to attack Grenada our, duty was to remain there. To withdraw at that moment would have been dishonorable and could even have stimulated the aggression -- now in Grenada and tomorrow in Cuba.

The events took place with such incredible rapidity that even if evacuation had been considered there would not have been time to carry it out. But in Grenada the government was morally indefensible and the country, in which there had been a divorce among the party, the government, and the Army in relation to the people was also militarily undefendable, because a revolutionary war is only possible and justifiable in union with the people. Therefore, we could only fight if we were directly attacked. There was no other alternative.

Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that despite these adverse circumstances a number of Grenadian soldiers died fighting heroically against the invaders. The internal acts which had taken place, nevertheless, [applause] in no way justified the Yankee intervention. Since when has the Government of the United States been chosen as the judge of conflicts between revolutionaries in a country? What right does Reagan have to rend his garments over the death of Bishop, who he hated so much and fought against? What reasons could exist for his brutal violation of the sovereignty of Grenada, a small, independent country, a respected recognized member of the international community? It is as if another country felt it had the right to intervene in the United States over the repugnant assassination of Martin Luther King and so many other terrible abuses which have been committed against the black and Hispanic minorities in the United States, or for intervening because John Kennedy was assassinated.

The same thing can be said about the contention that 1,000 U.S. citizens were in danger. Many more U.S. citizens are in dozens of countries throughout the world. Does this mean that there is a right to intervene when internal conflicts emerge in those countries? Could small Grenada intervene if a problem of internal politics emerges...[leaves thought unfinished] First, in the United States, England, and Trinidad there are tens of thousands of Grenadians; can small Grenada intervene if a problem of a political nature arises internally which would imply some risk for its compatriots in each of those countries? Leaving aside the fallacy and lie of such pretexts used to invade Grenada, is this really an international norm which can de defended? A thousand lessons of Marxism could not teach us better about the dirty, treacherous, and aggressive entrails of imperialism than the aggression unleashed against Grenada on the dawn of 25 October and its subsequent behavior.

To justify the invasion of Grenada and the actions it carried out afterward, the U.S. Government and its spokesmen told 19 lies, and of these 19 lies, the first 13 of them were personally told by Reagan.

1. That Cuba was involved in the coup d'etat and Bishop's death. [Crowd chants: "Lies"]

2. The U.S. students were in danger of being taken as hostages. ["Lies"]

3. That the invasion's main objective was that of protecting the lives of U.S. citizens. ["Lies"]

4. That the invasion was a multinational operation carried out at the request of Mr Scoon and the east Caribbean countries. ["Lies"]

5. That Cuba was thinking of invading and occupying Grenada. ["Lies"]

6. That Grenada was becoming an important Soviet-Cuban military base. ["Lies"]

7. That the airport that was under construction was not for civilian purposes, but for military use. ["Lies"]

8. That the weapons that were on Grenada would be used for exporting subversion and terrorism. ["Lies"]

9. That the Cubans fired first. ["Lies"]

10. That there were more than 1,000 Cubans on Grenada. ["Lies"]

11. That the majority of the Cubans were not builders but professional soldiers. ["Lies"]

12. That the invading forces were careful not to destroy anything or cause civilian casualties. ["Lies"]

13. That the U.S. troops would only remain in Grenada for 1 week. ["Lies"]

14. That rocket silos were being built on Grenada. ["Lies"]

15. That the "Vietnam Heroico" was transporting specialized weaponry. ["Lies"]

16. That Cuba was warned about the invasion. ["Lies"]

17. That 500 Cubans were fighting in the mountains. ["Lies"]

18. That Cuba had given orders to carry out reprisals against U.S. citizens. ["Lies"]

19. That the press was excluded in order to protect the journalists. ["Lies"; chants, applause]

None of these assertions has ever been proven. None of them were true. And absolutely all of them have been refuted by events. This cynical way of resorting to lies to justify the invasion of a small country brings to mind the methods used by Adolf Hitler during the years that he planned and finally unleashed World War II.

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