Api Wenuwen Api
Police in daily tasks that help civilians
A female constable helping an elderly woman cross the road |
Keeping the smooth flow of traffic |
Helping pedestrians |
Very rarely do we stop to appreciate the
policeman or woman standing for hours under the hot sun directing
traffic, manning a checkpoint, or just helping a civilian cross the
road. The pictures here show the police in some of their more mundane
tasks, but nevertheless tasks that are absolutely vital to the rest of
us.
No, thank you, says Cuba
Cuba welcomes with satisfaction this expression of sovereignty and
civic-mindedness, while thanking those governments which, with a spirit
of solidarity, independence and justice, have defended Cuba’s right to
return to the organization.
It also understands the desire to free the OAS from a stigma that has
remained as a symbol of the organization’s servility. However, Cuba once
again confirms that it will not return to the OAS. Since the triumph of
the Revolution, the Organization of American States has played an active
role in Washington’s policy of hostility against Cuba.
The following is the official declaration under by the Cuban
Government in response to the decision of the Organization of American
States (OAS) to revoke the expulsion of Cuba from its membership in
1962.
In an act of unusual historic significance, the OAS has just formally
buried the shameful resolution which excluded Cuba from the
Inter-American System in 1962.
Cuban President Raul Castro |
That decision was despicable and illegal, contrary to the declared
aims and principles of the OAS Constitution. It was, at the same time,
consistent with the trajectory of this organization; with the motive for
which was created, promoted and defended by the United States.
It was consistent with its role as an instrument of U.S. hegemony in
the hemisphere and with Washington’s capacity to impose its will on
Latin America at the historic moment in which the Cuban Revolution
triumphed. Today, Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing
another reality.
The decision adopted at the 39th session of the OAS General is the
fruit of the will of governments more committed to their peoples, with
the region’s real problems and with a sense of independence that,
unfortunately, did not prevail in 1962.
Cuba acknowledges the merit of the governments that have undertaken
to formally erase that resolution, referred to in that meeting as “an
unburied corpse.”
The decision to rescind Resolution 6 of the 8th OAS Meeting of
Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs constitutes an unquestioned
disrespect for the U.S. policy on Cuba followed since 1959. It pursues
the aim of repairing a historic injustice and is a vindication for the
Cuban people and peoples of the Americas.
Despite the last-minute consensus achieved, that decision was adopted
against Washington’s will and in the face of intensive moves and
pressure exerted by governments in the region. In that way, it dealt
imperialism a defeat using its very own instrument.
Cuba welcomes with satisfaction this expression of sovereignty and
civic-mindedness, while thanking those governments which, with a spirit
of solidarity, independence and justice, have defended Cuba’s right to
return to the organization. It also understands the desire to free the
OAS from a stigma that has remained as a symbol of the organization’s
servility.
Delegates at the 39th session of the Organization of
American States |
However, Cuba once again confirms that it will not return to the OAS.
Since the triumph of the Revolution, the Organization of American States
has played an active role in Washington’s policy of hostility against
Cuba.
It made the economic blockade official, ruled on the embargo of
weapons and strategic products, and stipulated member countries’
obligatory breaking off of diplomatic relations with our revolutionary
state.
Despite the exclusion in place, over the years it even tried to keep
Cuba under its authority and to subject it to its own jurisdiction and
that of its specialized agencies.
This is an organization with a role and a trajectory that Cuba
repudiates.
The Cuban people were able to resist the aggressions and the
blockade, overcome the diplomatic, political, and economic isolation,
and face, on their own, without yielding, the persistent aggressiveness
of the most powerful empire known to the planet.
Today our country enjoys diplomatic relations with all the countries
of the hemisphere apart from the United States. It is developing broad
links of friendship and cooperation with the majority of them.
Moreover, Cuba has won its full independence and is marching
unstoppably toward a society that is more just, equitable, and full of
solidarity every day.
It has done so with supreme heroism and sacrifice, and with the
solidarity of the peoples of the Americas.
It shares values that are contrary to those of neoliberal and
egotistical capitalism promoted by the OAS, and feels that it has the
right and the authority to say “no” to the idea of joining a body in
which the United States still exercises oppressive control.
The peoples and governments of the region will understand this just
position.
Today it can be understood more clearly than in 1962 that it is the
OAS that is incompatible with the most pressing desires of the peoples
of Latin America and the Caribbean, that it is incapable of representing
their values, interests and genuine yearning for democracy; it is the
OAS that has been unable to solve the problems of inequality,
disparities in wealth, corruption, foreign intervention, and the
predatory actions of transnational capital.
It is the OAS that has remained silent in the face of the most
horrendous crimes, communes with the interests of imperialism, and
conspires against and subverts governments genuinely and legitimately
constituted with demonstrable popular support.
The speeches and declarations of San Pedro Sula have been more than
eloquent.
Well-founded criticisms of the organization’s anachronism, given its
divorce from continental realities and its disgraceful record, cannot be
ignored.
The demands to end, once and for all, the criminal U.S. blockade of
Cuba reflect the growing and unstoppable sentiment of an entire
hemisphere. The spirit of independence represented there by the many
that spoke is the one with which Cuba identifies.
Aspirations for the integration and coordination of Latin America and
the Caribbean are increasingly manifest. Cuba is actively participating
in, and proposes continuing to do so, the representative regional
mechanisms of what Jos‚ Mart¡ called “Our America,” from the Rio Grande
to Patagonia, including all of the Caribbean islands.
Strengthening, expanding and harmonizing those bodies and groups is
the path chosen by Cuba; not the outlandish illusion of returning to an
organization that does not allow reform and that has been condemned by
history.
The response of the people of Cuba to the ignominious 8th Meeting of
Consultation of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the OAS was the Second
Declaration of Havana, approved in a mass assembly on February 4, 1962
by more than one million Cubans in the Plaza de la Revoluci¢n.
The declaration textually affirmed:
“...Great as was the epic of Latin American independence, heroic as
was that struggle, today’s generation of Latin Americans is called upon
to engage in an epic which is even greater and more decisive for
humanity.
For that struggle was for liberation from Spanish colonial power,
from a decadent Spain invaded by Napoleon’s armies.
Today the call for struggle is for liberation from the most powerful
imperial metropolis in the world, from the most important force in the
imperialist world and to render humanity an even greater service than
that rendered by our predecessors.
“...For this great humanity has said, “Enough!” and has begun to
march.
And its march of giants will not be halted until they conquer real
independence, for which they have died in vain more than once.”
We will be loyal to these ideas which have made it possible for our
people to maintain Cuba free, sovereign and independent.
Havana, June 8, 2009
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