No subject

message, in the First and Second Declarations of Havana, to the
fraternal peoples of Latin America. Starting from this reality, one
can understand the interest with which we follow political
developments in every country in Our America.6

I have reviewed numerous notes, reports, and documents relating to
Colombia, among them summaries of conversations with individuals who
visited Cuba, with whom we had extensive exchanges on the question of
peace in Colombia.

In 1950, when a Communist guerrilla made contact with him, Marulanda,
who came out of a Gaitanist Liberal group made up in part by his
relatives, had evolved toward positions close to the Communists; he
criticized them for excessive military formalism and for specific
sectarian tendencies in their conception.

Our idea of the guerrilla force as the developing embryo of a force
capable of taking power is not based only on the Cuban experience but
also on that of other Latin American countries. In all of them the
struggles would be carried out by the poor, independently of their
level of education, which everywhere, as the exploited classes=E2=80=94work=
er
or peasant, simple day laborers or even soldiers=E2=80=94it was very low.

In Central America, a region victimized by interventions by U.S.
filibusterers or soldiers at many different times, nearly all the
countries were governed by bloody dictatorships at the time of the
triumph of the Cuban Revolution.7 Without exception, they were
accomplices and instruments of imperialism against Cuba.

In their struggle the revolutionary groups in Nicaragua, El Salvador,
and Guatemala were divided. Sooner or later members of the Communist
Party joined the armed struggle of the peasants and the revolutionary
petty bourgeoisie. In all of them, with their specific and inevitable
characteristics always present, tendencies arose that held to a
conception of excessively prolonged struggle. Cuba=E2=80=99s efforts were
aimed at achieving unity. The meetings and photos of the historic
moments in which unity was achieved attest to this. There were
guerrillas who wasted years planning victories for the Greek calends.
This was a conception that never entered our minds. It is equally
true that the eternal fanatical advocates of capitalism, managed by
the Yankee intelligence services, planted extremist ideas in the
minds of some revolutionaries.

Central America was the site of a clash of ideas. I remember that
during the Carter years, Bob Pastor, a representative of his who made
numerous visits to our country, more than once when meeting with me
exclaimed, in a way that seemed naive, =E2=80=9CAnd why do you insist so mu=
ch
on unity, unity, unity?=E2=80=9D I smiled to myself when I observed the
allergic reaction of this young U.S. official to the unity of Latin
Americans. Carter, nevertheless, was an unusual U.S. president, with
ethical principles rooted in his religious faith, and did not plan
assassination attempts against Castro. That is why I always treated
him with respect. Under his presidency, Torrijos succeeded in winning
sovereignty over the Canal, avoiding the kind of massacre that Bush
Senior later carried out.8

The history of Central America would require a book that perhaps
someone will write one day. The revolution triumphed in Nicaragua,
which meant hope. Reagan launched the dirty war that cost thousands
of lives in that country; in Europe he killed the Siberian gas
pipeline project in complicity with Thatcher and the rest of NATO; he
put the USSR into an irremediable crisis and liquidated the socialist
camp. An entirely new situation was created.9

A short time ago I was listening to Tarek William, an outstanding
Venezuelan poet and today governor of Anzo=C3=A1tgui, the richest of
Venezuela=E2=80=99s petroleum states, and he said that they had named one o=
f
their social projects after Roque Dalton, prestigious poet and
revolutionary, member of the ERP [Ej=C3=A9rcito Revolucionario del
Pueblo=E2=80=94Revolutionary People=E2=80=99s Army], assassinated under str=
ange
circumstances in El Salvador. With sadness he gave the name of the
presumed assassin. =E2=80=9CIt causes me great pain,=E2=80=9D he stated, =
=E2=80=9Cwhen the
Yankees send him here to tell us how we should do things in
Venezuela.=E2=80=9D I really knew nothing about the shameful act that Tarek
accused him of. I knew this individual when he was a militant and
leader of the ERP, a noted revolutionary organization, combative and
firm, with magnificent fighters from the people. The allusions to the
death of Roque Dalton had seemed to be simple slanders. I personally
devoted dozens of hours to transmitting experiences, ideas, tactics
and principles of war to him. He did not waiver in applying them. The
units of the ERP fought Salvadoran battalions trained in the United
States using the most advanced techniques. I insisted to them: do not
execute prisoners, do not finish off the wounded, overcome these
stupid and sterile practices because otherwise not one of them will
ever surrender. I should add that the arms with which the Salvadoran
revolutionaries fought had been seized in Saigon and given to Cuba by
Vietnam after the victory. As will be seen in chapter 9,
revolutionary militants of the Farabundo Mart=C3=AD National Liberation
Front (FMLN) carried out feats unprecedented in the liberation
struggles in Latin America, if one takes into account the number of
men and the firing capacity of modern arms.10

With the USSR and the socialist camp gone, with the Nicaraguan
Revolution defeated electorally because of the bloody dirty war
imposed by Washington, the time came for the other Central American
movements to make a decision. They asked my opinion. =E2=80=9COnly you can
decide,=E2=80=9D was my answer, =E2=80=9CI only know what Cuba would do.=E2=
=80=9D I will add
here that the previously mentioned head of the ERP received a
scholarship to Oxford to study political science and economics. From
what the governor of Anzo=C3=A1tegui said, he is now a Yankee adviser on
the art of revolutionary governing.

The Cuban people withstood the disappearance of the USSR without
surrendering and were willing to fight to the end, in order that=E2=80=94as
Rub=C3=A9n Mart=C3=ADnez Villena said=E2=80=94their children won=E2=80=99t =
have to beg on their
knees for what their parents conquered on their feet.11