• HISTORY has its caprices which, as time passes, become symbols. On April 19, 1961, the Cubans defeated the mercenary invasion on the sandy beaches of Playa Giron. The Bay of Pigs invasion was been backed and paid for by the U.S. government, in an attempt to reverse the revolutionary process and halt the initial steps of our socialism. Meanwhile, we celebrated the victory. In Venezuela, it was the 150th anniversary of the meeting of residents from the province of Caracas in Cabildo to begin the independence struggle that has found continuity in the triumphant Bolivarian Revolution.

Those were sufficient reasons for the empire to convert the war against Cuban and Venezuela into a kind of medieval crusade. They are so forgetful and obtuse that on this April 19, the 200th anniversary of Venezuela’s independence struggle and the eve of the 50th anniversary of the empire’s major defeat in Latin America at the Bay of Pigs, they have organized a meeting of "freedom activists, human rights and internet experts," directed at coordinating a strategic cyber-war on Cuba and Venezuela, in addition to Iran, Russian, China, Serbia, and other nations. The meeting is sponsored by the George W. Bush Institute and Freedom House.

They do not want to leave any loose ends. For its part, the Obama administration has launched, with the old cold war arsenal, a demented campaign against both nations, trying to avert the advance of the new regional organization, the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America, from which it is excluded and thus unable to exert its unwholesome policies from within against national liberation movements that have begun to consolidate and extend into its coveted backyard. It cannot bear the idea of being excluded.

This is what it is about. This is its current priority. The discredited Organization of American States (OAS) will not be allowed to die and the U.S. government will interrupt, in any way possible, the new regional organization. In order to achieve this it is willing – as is always the case when something is not to its convenience – to use brute force to destroy it, because the ALBA’s strong development makes it nervous. The administration is aware that its friends in the media will later justify its actions.

On this occasion Obama and his team are going after what is to become a new hemispheric organization, born from the incapacity and genuflection of the current OAS, but the empire’s objective has a longer reach: to get rid of the nightmare and insomnia prompted by the Cuban Revolution since that morning of January 1, 1959, which has resulted in the multiplication of Cuba’s example. Now, they are going after Chávez, leader of the Bolivarian Revolution, that Revolution which arose from the particular characteristics of Venezuela and is advocating an eclectic socialism, with the aggravating quality - for the United States - that it is a country with enormous natural resources, possessing great hydrocarbon, gas and water deposits, resources that Washington needs like a vampire needs blood.

While this article is being written, young artists and intellectuals from various generations on the beleaguered and rebellious island are singing for the homeland because, in Cuba, independence is closely linked to culture and we turn to culture when we want to defend our socialist and internationalist principals and ideals of solidarity.

Meanwhile the sister nation of Venezuela – where the justice system is processing eight Colombian agents paid to spy on the country with the objective of sabotaging the country’s electricity – is preparing celebrations for the bicentenary of the beginning of the independence struggle. During these festivities, a special and solemn session of Parliament will take place at which Argentine President Cristina Fernández will be a guest speaker, an event that coincides with the 9th ALBA Summit, whose presidents will accompany their brother and sister Venezuelans in this commemoration and in new efforts of multilateral cooperation.

For her part, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton moved one of her pawns into the region with the objective of terrifying the few cowards still under the control of the empire and converting them into a beachhead against the liberation process that is advancing and consolidating in Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, Venezuela, among other nations.

The Latin American tour of Arturo Valenzuela, assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere Affairs began with him throwing poison darts at Venezuela. In no less than a Colombian University, the yanki official demonized the defense agreements signed by President Hugo Chávez Frías and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

"We are concerned," Valenzuela said, "by an arms logic which could be considered as something that could violate the peace of the continent (…) It is an issue that goes way beyond Venezuela. The principle should be: let’s find a way to lower the arms race."

His words could provoke laughter if they were not charged with cynicism and shamelessness. The representative of Washington, worried about a so-called arms race in the Bolivarian nation, was expressing that concern in the very territory in which the United States has seven military bases with missile heads pointed toward neighboring countries disobedient to their dictates, and when that country has a aircraft carrier maneuvering with the Peruvian Armed Forces and has revitalized the Fourth Fleet, which is provocatively prowling through the Caribbean Sea.

And in order not to overlook the important media ingredient, the Reuters news agency sent a dispatch stating that the objective of the Russian Prime Minister is to meet "with the enemies of the United States," referring to his meetings with Chávez and Evo Morales in Caracas.

Reuters says nothing – that would be like asking for pears from an elm tree – of the U.S. refusal to sell traditional Hercules aircraft to Venezuela, despite the fact that they are used as a means of transportation and for rescue work.

In what constitutes an embargo directed form the North, Venezuela cannot purchase fighter planes from Spain either, due to Washington’s pressure on that nation, and something similar happened with Brazilian Tuncano jets because they contain parts made in the United States. None of this is mentioned.

Meanwhile the empire continues to bank on presidential assassinations, the dirty war, rupturing institutional order, the search for new Pontius Pilates within the ranks of the Venezuelan Armed Forces, shortages of supplies to provoke unease in the population, and, of course, creating a climate of ungovernability. It cannot withstand the growing prestige of the Bolivarian Revolution and its leadership of a new type of regional cooperation with no political or ideological conditions and which prioritizes solidarity among the peoples.

The abovementioned George W. Bush Institute meeting against Venezuela and any other nation which does not hold similar interests is scheduled for April 19 in Dallas. It will be attended by members of the U.S. government and other organizations linked to the Washington intelligence community. It is worth noting that it was here where these same forces paid representatives of the Cuban-American mafia to assassinate John F. Kennedy, for quietly attempting a rapprochement with the Cuban Revolution. The place has a certain attraction.

And, as is usually the case with the empire, its lackeys, and the ridiculous remnants of European colonialism, they will once again get it wrong. April is the month of the year in which it has experienced the most reverses facing those who will never tire of fighting for and defending the independence, decorum and dignity of Latin America.

Some advice: remember April….remember. •

April 14, 2010

granma.cu