TELESUR — broadcast
20261011 010000 UTC
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[00:00:23] in the development of
[00:00:44] This report tells the story of why, for Fidel Castro,
[00:00:47] Palestine was never a distant cause but an
[00:00:51] extension of his own
[00:00:52] battle.
[00:00:57] of
[00:01:06] I was a correspondent for refugees are living witnesses to Prensa Latina in
[00:01:10] Lebanon. While there, I was able to
[00:01:13] feel the identity
[00:01:17] of the
[00:01:20] Palestinian fighters. Some had adopted Fidel Castro's
[00:01:24] name as their war name, and
[00:01:27] Che Guevara's, but especially Fidel Castro's. And
[00:01:30] I met, on more than one occasion, some who, in the
[00:01:34] South above all, bore that name,
[00:01:37] were identified within their
[00:01:40] groups with that name because for them
[00:01:43] it was the greatest symbol of courage,
[00:01:46] daring and dignity. This love story,
[00:01:50] I say, between Cuba and the Palestinians, was also with
[00:01:54] the brilliant idea and the
[00:01:57] internationalism, the solidarity. The internationalist
[00:02:01] solidarity that characterizes this revolution with a
[00:02:04] leader who is a symbol of internationalist
[00:02:06] solidarity in the history of
[00:02:09] humanity. No leader in the
[00:02:13] 1979 in world, on the planet, has
[00:02:15] conceived
[00:02:17] the depth and essence of
[00:02:21] internationalist solidarity as
[00:02:24] Fidel has conceived it. The day after the Israeli invasion
[00:02:27] of Lebanon in '82, a message of solidarity from Fidel
[00:02:31] for Arafat was received, and Fidel
[00:02:34] gave the order to Marmierca, the Cuban Foreign Minister,
[00:02:38] to go personally to Beirut and
[00:02:41] meet with Arafat, to make him feel
[00:02:45] the solidarity, the message of
[00:02:48] solidarity from Cuba and the non-aligned countries. For
[00:02:52] song of them, that was inconceivable, unspeakable. Wherever
[00:02:56] the caravan that was forming as we
[00:03:00] entered the areas controlled by the Palestinians, the Lebanese, the Lebanese
[00:03:03] Progressive Movement, passed, they knew that the
[00:03:07] Cuban Embassy car with the flag was coming.
[00:03:10] Everyone applauded, everyone cheered,
[00:03:14] and it was recorded in history as an
[00:03:17] unprecedented event in revolutionary
[00:03:20] diplomacy. Cuba has always
[00:03:23] defended Palestine, to the hilt,
[00:03:26] to the last, to the last, no matter the
[00:03:30] cost. Cuba broke off its
[00:03:33] relations with Israel, unlike the Arab
[00:03:36] countries that have shamefully
[00:03:40] normalized.
[00:03:43] Cuba has been offered, and I have
[00:03:46] proof of this. The former Secretary
[00:03:49] General of the Uspal was at
[00:03:52] one point at the Cuban Embassy to the United
[00:03:56] Nations, and the Israeli ambassador.
[00:04:02] of him constantly and brought him a
[00:04:04] The basis for a just peace in proposal, he said: tell your government, your
[00:04:07] government, that the blockade against Cuba will be lifted in
[00:04:11] 24 hours if
[00:04:12] Caribbean, that's what they call us, the resistance of it reestablishes relations with the Zionist state of
[00:04:16] Israel, and Cuba did not accept,
[00:04:20] the immensity of
[00:04:22] countries, especially from Fidel, said that man and morality and
[00:04:25] ethics are worth much more, and we will
[00:04:28] continue fighting. And resisting
[00:04:32] and we stand by the side of the poor and the
[00:04:37] land, nor oppressed, the dispossessed, this is the Cuban
[00:04:40] revolution, this, this is the
[00:04:43] light of the Cuban revolution.
[00:04:54] destruction, nor Cuba was one of the 13 nations that
[00:04:58] voted against the plan to partition Palestine, which led to the founding of
[00:05:02] Israel in 1947 at the
[00:05:04] UN. The only country in the Americas and one of only two non-Islamic
[00:05:08] states that defended the right of that people to self- determination.
[00:05:21] 12 years later, the Cuban revolution, led by Fidel
[00:05:25] Castro, transformed that historic position into state
[00:05:28] policy.
[00:05:37] Utopia on the shoulder, charisma on
[00:05:40] fire.
[00:05:43] The first contacts with the Arab country took place in June
[00:05:46] 1959 when Che Guevara, as part of his international
[00:05:50] tour, included a visit to the Gaza Strip
[00:05:54] controlled at that time by Nasser's Egypt. For the first
[00:05:57] time a Latin American leader set foot on
[00:06:00] Palestinian land.
[00:06:06] The Palestinian cause became part of the island's international
[00:06:10] agenda, not as a diplomatic gesture, but as an
[00:06:13] unnegotiable principle: the fight against colonialism,
[00:06:16] imperialism and racism in any of its forms. Only the
[00:06:20] closest alliance between
[00:06:23] all progressive forces in the
[00:06:26] world will give us the necessary
[00:06:29] strength to
[00:06:32] overcome the still powerful
[00:06:35] forces of imperialism,
[00:06:39] colonialism, neocolonialism and racism, and to fight
[00:06:42] successfully for the aspirations of justice and
[00:06:46] peace of all peoples of the world. It is
[00:06:49] precisely at this summit of the Non-Aligned Movement in
[00:06:53] 1973 in Algiers, where Cuba announces the
[00:06:56] rupture of diplomatic relations with Israel.
[00:07:00] Israel makes a mockery of the United Nations agreements
[00:07:03] and refuses to return the territories occupied
[00:07:06] by force. Let us adopt concrete measures
[00:07:10] and agreements to...
[00:07:19] Fidel's commitment to the Palestinian cause then led to concrete
[00:07:23] actions: he invited leader Yasser Arafat to Cuba and opened in
[00:07:27] Havana an office for the liberation of
[00:07:29] Palestine. November 14,
[00:07:33] 1974, Yasser Arafat,
[00:07:37] President of the Palestine Liberation Organization,
[00:07:39] arrived in Cuba.
[00:07:45] Arafat visited the Antillean steel factory, the Lenin vocational
[00:07:49] school, and paid tribute to the national hero of Cuba. This is how the
[00:07:53] cinematographic newsreels of the
[00:07:55] time reported it.
[00:07:58] The Palestinian people have not submitted to Zionism. The Palestinian
[00:08:01] people have not been defeated, have not lost their identity or their
[00:08:05] national character. While the North American government
[00:08:09] adopts a hostile position against Palestine, arming
[00:08:12] the Zionist aggressors, the Palestinian people, grouped around the
[00:08:16] Palestine Liberation Organization, fight and struggle to
[00:08:19] liberate their land, their
[00:08:22] homeland, from the Zionist yoke.
[00:08:28] The President of the Republic, Dr. Osvaldo Dorticos, bestowed upon
[00:08:32] Yasser Arafat, the supreme leader of the Palestinian people, the
[00:08:35] Playa Girón order, as an expression of admiration and
[00:08:38] recognition of our people for his execution and example.
[00:09:15] Arafat visited the island eight times, one of them for
[00:09:19] the eleventh World Festival of Youth and Students in
[00:09:22] 1978, invited by Fidel
[00:09:25] Castro.
[00:09:34] We will never forget the heroic
[00:09:38] people,
[00:09:45] criminally stripped of their
[00:09:49] the just cause of the Arab peoples in their
[00:09:53] struggle against imperialist, Zionist
[00:09:57] aggression. Men and peoples will not
[00:10:00] resign themselves to self-
[00:10:07] to oppression.
[00:10:10] They will know how to conquer peace.
[00:10:14] And they will also know how to conquer
[00:10:17] freedom.
[00:10:25] Let us support decisively and resolutely the
[00:10:29] aggressed Arab peoples and the heroic people of Palestine.
[00:12:25] The Cuban leader did not miss an opportunity to denounce the
[00:12:28] injustices faced by the people of the Arab country in international
[00:12:31] forums. He did so in his capacity as president of the
[00:12:35] non-aligned countries in
[00:12:38] Havana. And from the bottom of our souls,
[00:12:42] we repudiate with all our might, the
[00:12:45] ruthless persecution and genocide that in
[00:12:49] its time Nazism unleashed against the Hebrew
[00:12:52] people. But I cannot
[00:12:56] remember anything more similar in our
[00:12:58] contemporary history
[00:13:01] than the eviction, persecution and
[00:13:04] genocide that imperialism
[00:13:07] and Zionism are carrying out today
[00:13:11] against the Palestinian people,
[00:13:14] dispossessed of their lands,
[00:13:17] expelled from their own homeland,
[00:13:20] dispersed throughout the world, persecuted and murdered.
[00:13:26] The heroic Palestinians constitute an impressive
[00:13:28] example of self-sacrifice and
[00:13:31] patriotism, and are the living symbol of the
[00:13:34] greatest crime of our era.
[00:13:51] Also memorable was this speech by... by the
[00:13:55] president of the Non-Aligned Movement in 1979 at the
[00:13:58] UN, the Cuban leader
[00:14:01] defended before the concert of nations the existence and future
[00:14:05] of humanity, and of course, the Palestinian cause could
[00:14:08] not be missing from such a rhetorical piece. For the Non-Aligned
[00:14:12] countries, the question of
[00:14:14] Palestine is the core of the Middle
[00:14:18] East problem. Both form an integral
[00:14:21] whole that cannot be solved
[00:14:25] separately.
[00:14:29] the region begins with
[00:14:33] the total and unconditional withdrawal of
[00:14:35] Israel from all occupied
[00:14:39] Arab territories, and implies for the Palestinian
[00:14:42] people the return of all their
[00:14:45] occupied territories and the recovery of their
[00:14:49] inalienable national rights,
[00:14:52] including the right of return to their homeland,
[00:14:55] self- determination and the establishment of an independent
[00:14:59] state in Palestine, in accordance with
[00:15:03] General Assembly Resolution 3236.
[00:15:06] In the early 80s, Havana became
[00:15:10] one of the first Latin American settings where the Palestinian
[00:15:13] flag would fly in an official representation,
[00:15:17] coinciding with the start of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June
[00:15:20] 1982, the representation was granted embassy status.
[00:15:38] decides to grant to His Excellency President Fidel
[00:15:42] Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and
[00:15:45] of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba,
[00:15:48] special Order Bethlehem 2000,
[00:15:52] acknowledging the historical positions of
[00:15:56] Cuba, the personal position of President Castro
[00:16:01] the struggle of the Palestinian people for their freedom, for the
[00:16:05] achievement of their hopes for independence.
[00:16:37] But solidarity has not only been political. Thousands of young
[00:16:40] Palestinians graduate and study in Cuban universities, such as the Latin American
[00:16:44] School of Medicine. They say they are making their dreams
[00:16:48] come true.
[00:16:56] My dream was to be a doctor and I wanted to study
[00:17:00] medicine. I like the relationship between Fidel
[00:17:03] Castro and Palestine because the
[00:17:06] best option to study medicine is here in
[00:17:09] Cuba. Life in Cuba is a
[00:17:12] little difficult, but it's very, very beautiful.
[00:17:15] I hope to be a doctor, yes, in Cuba
[00:17:19] as my dad and my
[00:17:22] mom want, because in
[00:17:24] Palestine, life is
[00:17:28] difficult because of the occupation.
[00:17:31] Fidel supported Palestine and in a
[00:17:34] practical way, Cuba ...
[00:17:56] The relationship between Fidel and
[00:17:59] Palestine, as far as I know, is a human
[00:18:03] relationship and friendship.
[00:18:05] Pedro Castro is a great man
[00:18:09] and supported the Palestinian
[00:18:11] cause as the only legitimate
[00:18:14] representative. He received Yasser Arafat as
[00:18:18] head of state in
[00:18:21] Havana,
[00:18:23] which is why there's such a verse of history in the
[00:18:29] sincerity.
[00:18:30] sinceridad.
[00:19:18] Retired from the presidency, Fidel Castro continued to speak out in favor of the
[00:19:22] Palestinian cause. In 2014, during the Israeli offensive
[00:19:25] on Gaza, he signed a document titled "In Defense of
[00:19:29] Palestine," where he condemned the military operation as a systematic
[00:19:32] genocide. A few months later, he published in the newspaper
[00:19:36] Gramma "Reflections on the Palestinian Holocaust in Gaza,"
[00:19:40] warning then that a new and repugnant form of fascism was
[00:19:44] emerging with notable force, and reproaching the complicity of
[00:19:47] the United States in what he called a brazen
[00:19:50] massacre.
[00:19:58] Never has the Palestinian cause seemed
[00:20:00] more just in contrast
[00:20:04] with the repulsive brutality of its adversaries.
[00:21:59] an 18-month-old baby, burned with
[00:22:03] cigarettes,
[00:22:05] pierced with a nail, everything is possible in Gaza, today,
[00:22:09] when the world observes with astonishment the genocide in real time, here the
[00:22:13] lasting echo of a conviction is felt: defending Palestine
[00:22:16] is defending Cuba.
[00:22:28] On this island, any pretext is sought to talk about
[00:22:31] Palestine, so assure Leslie Alonso and Yodeni Maso,
[00:22:35] who reported for 30 months as Prensa Latina correspondents
[00:22:38] in Lebanon, the attack on Beirut and the extermination and
[00:22:42] occupation in the Gaza Strip. They tell
[00:22:45] Telesur that they lived through stormy days and risked their
[00:22:48] lives. There we are. The drones
[00:22:51] flying,
[00:22:53] uh, when the plane, when the war plane breaks the sound
[00:22:56] barrier, as if it were a, it
[00:23:00] feels like the bomb is right there, close by, and we are not only talking about the
[00:23:04] enemy that threatens with bombs, we are talking about a
[00:23:07] barbaric, cruel enemy. October
[00:23:10] 7 changed our reality and our
[00:23:13] lives, when Operation Al-Aqsa Flood
[00:23:17] began. Well, since we were close, it was our
[00:23:20] responsibility to cover it. What can be in the
[00:23:24] heart and mind of an Israeli soldier,
[00:23:27] of any Israeli, who is capable of
[00:23:30] running over a girl's head with his war
[00:23:34] tank, like Jin Rahab? There is a word that Cubans have always
[00:23:37] mentioned, which is resistance, but I did not understand the
[00:23:41] value of resistance until I got there, until
[00:23:45] I interviewed for the first time the mother of a martyr
[00:23:48] of the resistance. Mila was only three years old, she was
[00:23:52] murdered by Israel's infanticidal army along with her mother
[00:23:56] after a bombing in southern Lebanon. Zionism continues to kill
[00:23:59] children daily, whether in Gaza or Lebanon, while the press normalizes
[00:24:02] it. We returned from Lebanon
[00:24:06] being more convinced of being
[00:24:09] anti-imperialists. That's how Fidel was.
[00:24:12] So Fidel, Che Guevara, the revolution, the
[00:24:16] example of the Cuban revolution are always present. Visiting a Palestinian
[00:24:20] camp or a solidarity campaign with
[00:24:23] Palestine is undoubtedly something linked
[00:24:27] to Cuba. I believe that behind all those
[00:24:30] thoughts of Fidel that made us feel that all humanity is home,
[00:24:34] that all humanity is the homeland,
[00:24:37] there are those convictions
[00:24:39] that we incorporated throughout our work in Lebanon. We did not arrive
[00:24:43] like that, we did not leave Cuba as the professionals
[00:24:47] who returned. We always say, and it is not a cliché,
[00:24:51] that Lebanon changed us, transformed
[00:24:53] us.
[00:24:59] that we are the resistance of the
[00:25:02] the left there, it's really something that
[00:25:06] we feel, that we experience. We have
[00:25:10] never felt the same for other human beings, and Fidel was the
[00:25:13] inspiration. From Cuba we are calling
[00:25:17] on Latin American women for an action of denunciation against the Israeli
[00:25:20] colonialist genocide, which has lasted 75
[00:25:24] years.
[00:25:26] We are fully aware that our destinies are intertwined with
[00:25:30] our sisters and brothers in Palestine. A feminist
[00:25:33] look at the armed conflict is offered by the "Juntas por
[00:25:37] Palestina" movement through the performative act of shaving their
[00:25:40] hair. They problematize from their
[00:25:43] bodies the childhoods marked by violence, misogyny,
[00:25:47] abandonment, misery.
[00:25:50] Hair grows, murdered children
[00:25:53] don't. It was so hard to know that so many children had gone.
[00:25:56] After two months there were already 500 children murdered. It was such a
[00:26:00] huge impact, and I realized that I was living my life
[00:26:04] every day, and every
[00:26:07] now and then I remembered that this was happening, and
[00:26:10] it's a feeling
[00:26:14] of incoherence, that it's
[00:26:17] also one's responsibility to continue living a normal
[00:26:21] life when there are children being murdered, when there is a
[00:26:24] people in resistance that is being
[00:26:28] eh, that is being massacred.
[00:26:33] So I decided to cut my
[00:26:35] hair. The therapeutic clown Aniel Venereo
[00:26:39] leads the initiative that started in Cuba and now includes
[00:26:42] women from Mexico, the United Kingdom, Belgium, Argentina, Venezuela,
[00:26:46] Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Paraguay, Puerto Rico and the United
[00:26:50] States, so that people discover with
[00:26:53] our own shaved heads, that every year of the
[00:26:57] 76 years
[00:26:59] Israeli
[00:27:02] occupation there has been this type of horror that
[00:27:05] horrifies us today. The
[00:27:09] the tragedy that began in 1948.
[00:27:12] They are the essence of the Palestinian cause. It is not
[00:27:16] 5 months, it is more than 76 years of genocide
[00:27:19] and occupation. It is the same enemy, the
[00:27:22] enemy of what is happening today in Gaza is
[00:27:26] happening to us, what we don't have are bombs. In
[00:27:30] Cuba there is also a genocide,
[00:27:33] because the lack of food, the lack of medicine, the lack of
[00:27:36] fuel to generate the electricity we need to live,
[00:27:40] that, that, that, that is also a genocidal
[00:27:43] thought, and it is the same, it is the same enemy.
[00:27:47] I believe that the people of Gaza and the people of Cuba have many things in
[00:27:50] common, it is the
[00:27:54] decision of "homeland or death," the
[00:27:57] decision
[00:27:59] that you cannot come and trample on and...
[00:28:02] comment that I love your boot, and the
[00:28:06] decision that for my people and for
[00:28:10] just causes we are capable of giving up our lives. Mr.
[00:28:13] Fidel, so
[00:28:15] profoundly, that generations pass and generations will
[00:28:19] pass and that will
[00:28:21] remain.
[00:28:27] how can one lead that
[00:28:30] life forward?
[00:29:02] circumstance to anything, exactly, a space built
[00:29:06] from art and memory is born from a common need, and that's why we
[00:29:10] do it together, because it's everyone's problem
[00:29:13] and we do it through social networks because that's disputed
[00:29:17] political territory.
[00:29:21] The Palestinian cause is the cause of the world, because sometimes we forget one thing that
[00:29:25] we have said many times, that we have a common enemy, because the same one who
[00:29:28] finances the genocide of the occupation against Palestine is the one who has the blockade on Cuba.
[00:29:32] And the land without a people that Zionism refers to is the Palestinian land that was
[00:29:36] inhabited by Palestinians who had lived there for centuries, meaning
[00:29:40] it was the Palestinian population that had
[00:29:42] customs, beliefs, they had coins. These are the filmmakers of the
[00:29:46] documentary "The Root of the Olive Tree," a
[00:29:48] film
[00:29:51] Do you know that when I'm alone, I don't remember when I was little,
[00:29:54] I remember you.
[00:30:00] "The Root of the Olive Tree" gives voice to five Palestinians living far from
[00:30:04] their homeland to tell their experiences in the face of the re-escalation
[00:30:08] of the Israeli genocide and occupation. From
[00:30:11] a distance, Waatan, Omaima, Murid, Bailasan and
[00:30:14] Basel share stories of struggle, loss and hope.
[00:30:18] To talk about Cuba and Palestine and
[00:30:21] to talk about the relationship between both
[00:30:24] the figure of the historical leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel
[00:30:28] Castro, who has been one of the exponents who has inspired
[00:30:31] the director of the documentary and me as part of his
[00:30:35] team to carry out this project. We must understand that
[00:30:38] these two countries are narrated, especially by international media, by hegemonic
[00:30:42] media, from frameworks that often
[00:30:45] have nothing to do with the objective reality of these two countries. I believe that
[00:30:49] Fidel Castro understood this from the beginning, and that is why he always supported
[00:30:53] the struggle of the Palestinian people. For Fidel,
[00:30:56] Palestine is not just a regional conflict, but is
[00:31:00] among all peoples.