Castro backs Kosovar rights

Extracts from speech by Cuban leader Fidel Castro on May 4, after some remarks to the Cuban baseball team

"On the eve of the next millennium Europe, —that is, NATO and its members, the United States of America included— is involved in what can be described, whether they like it or not, as genocide.

That is what results from depriving one million people from electricity and heating services, overnight and in mid winter. Also from cutting off all communications, sources of energy and transportation; destroying non-military facilities providing crucial services to all the population and tearing to pieces all the means of life created by a nation.

Such destructive frenzy, either by mistake or recklessness, is directly killing or injuring thousands of civilians while trying to submit them by the destruction of their mass media and the intensification of the psychological warfare with overpowering technology and bombs. Unquestionably, this is a major genocide.

Europe is involved in a conflict hazardous to itself and the world. An extremely serious precedent is being set in defiance of international law and the United Nations Organisation, and resulting in an increasingly complicated the situation.

We are of the view that in such a predicament only a political, and not a military, solution is possible based on respect for the rights of every nation in that region, and every religion, ethnic group and culture: a solution for both, Serbians and Kosovars.

I am deeply convinced that the problem cannot be solved by force, that the military technology will crash against the will of any people determined to fight. I firmly believe that when the people are willing to fight —and this is how I feel about our own people, too— no power, regardless of its might, can throw them down on their knees.

(…)

"Europe and NATO have become the hostages of a subjective factor: the decision the Serbians might adopt —or not— to resist to the end, although it is to be assumed that after such destruction they are not going to be much inclined to give up. What is happening there was obvious to us from the beginning.

This does not mean that we are against anybody’s rights; we support both, the rights of the Serbians and the Kosovars’ rights.

When we were recently informed that Guantanamo Naval Base would be used to accommodate 20 thousand Kosovar refugees, we immediately agreed, and I think it is the first time that we have agreed with anything the United States of America has done in that base.

We said that we did not only agree that 20 thousand Kosovar refugees were sheltered there but also that we were willing to cooperate as much as possible in providing care for those refugees, that we offered our hospital services if required, our doctors and any other cooperation within our capabilities.

In the end, the refugees were not sent in. The truth is that none of the NATO countries, which have dropped so many bombs there, really want to receive refugees."