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.c The Associated Press
By The Associated Press
Official English translation of Cuban leader Fidel Castro's statement of
welcome to Pope John Paul II on Wednesday:
Holy Father,
The land you
have just kissed is honored by your presence. You will not find here the
peaceful and generous native people who inhabited this island when the first
Europeans arrived. Most of the men were annihilated by the exploitation and the
enslaved work they could not resist and the women turned into pleasure objects
or domestic slaves. There were also those who died by the homicidal swords or
victims of unknown diseases brought by the conquerors. Some priests have left
tearing testimonies of their protests against such crimes.
In the course of centuries, over a million Africans ruthlessly uprooted from
their distant lands took the place of the enslaved natives already exterminated.
They made a remarkable contribution to the ethnic composition and the origins of
our country's present population where the cultures, the beliefs and the blood
of all participants in the dramatic history have been mixed.
It has been estimated that the conquest and colonization of this hemisphere
resulted in the death of 70 million natives and the enslavement of 12 million
Africans. Much blood was shed and many injustices perpetrated, a large part of
which still remain after centuries of struggle and sacrifices under new forms of
domination and exploitation.
Under extremely difficult conditions, Cuba was able to constitute a nation.
It had to fight alone for its independence with unsurmountable heroism and,
exactly 100 years ago, it suffered a real holocaust in the concentration camps
where a large part of its population perished, mostly old men, women and
children; a crime whose monstrosity is not diminished by the fact that it has
been forgotten by humanity's conscience. As a son of Poland and a witness of
Oswiecim, you can understand this better than anyone.
Today, Holy Father, genocide is attempted again when by hunger, illness and
total economic suffocation some try to subdue this people that refuses to accept
the dictates and the rule of the mightiest economic, political and military
power in history; much more powerful than the old Rome that for centuries had
the beasts devour those who refused to abdicate their faith. Like those
Christians horribly slandered to justify the crimes, we who are as slandered as
they were, we choose a thousand times death rather than abdicate our
convictions. The revolution, like the Church, also has many martyrs.
Holy Father, we feel the same way you do about many important issues of
today's world and we are pleased it is so; in other matters our views are
different but we are most respectful of your strong convictions about the ideas
you defend.
In your long pilgrimage around the world, you have been able to see with
your own eyes many injustices, inequalities and poverty; uncultivated lands and
landless hungry farmers; unemployment, hunger, illness; lives that could be
saved with little money being lost for lack of it; illiteracy, child
prostitution, 6-year old children working or begging for alms to survive; shanty
towns where hundreds of millions live in unworthy conditions; race and sex
discrimination; complete ethnic groups evicted from their lands and abandoned to
their fate; xenophobia, contempt for other peoples; cultures which have been, or
are currently being, destroyed; underdevelopment and usurious loans, unpayable
and uncollectable debts, unfair exchange, outrageous and unproductive financial
speculations; an environment being ruthlessly and perhaps helplessly destroyed;
an unscrupulous weapons trade with disgusting lucrative intents; wars, violence,
massacres; generalized corruption, narcotics, vices and an alienating
consumerism imposed on peoples as an ideal model.
Mankind has seen its population increase almost fourfold just in this
century. There are billions of people suffering hunger and thirst for justice;
the list of man's economic and social calamities is endless. I am aware that
many of them are cause of permanent and growing concern to the Holy Father.
I have been through personal experiences which allow me to appreciate other
features of his thinking. I was a student in Catholic schools until I obtained
my bachelor's degree. There, I was taught that to be a Jew, a Muslim, a
Hinduist, a Buddhist, an animist or a participant of any other religious belief
was a terrible evil deserving severe and unmitigated punishment. More than once,
even in some of those schools for the wealthy and privileged - where I was one
of them - I came up with the question of why there were no black children there;
until this day, I have not forgotten the unconvincing answers I was given.
In later years, the Second Vatican Council convened by Pope John XXIII
undertook the analysis of some of these sensitive issues. We are aware of
efforts by the Holy Father to preach and practice sentiments of respect for the
faithful of other important and influential religions which have expanded
through the world. Respect for believers and non-believers alike is a basic
principle revolutionary Cubans try to impress upon their fellow citizens. Such
principles have been defined and consecrated by our Constitution and our laws.
If there have ever been difficulties, the Revolution is not to blame.
We entertain the hope that never again, in no school of whatever religion
nowhere in the world, an adolescent need ask why there are no black, native,
yellow or white children there.
Holy Father,
I sincerely admire your courageous statements on the events concerning
Galileo and the Inquisition's known errors; on the Crusades' bloody episodes and
the crimes committed during the conquest of the Americas; also on certain
scientific discoveries that today are not contested by anybody but which, in
their times, were the target of so many prejudices and anathemas. That certainly
required the immense authority you have come to attain within your church.
What can we offer you in Cuba? People exposed to less inequalities and a
lower number of helpless citizens; less children without schools, less patients
without hospitals, and more teachers and physicians per capita than any other
country in the world visited by the Holy Father; educated people you can talk to
in perfect freedom with the certainty of their talent and their high political
culture, their strong convictions and absolute confidence in their ideas; people
that will show all due respect and consciousness in listening to you. Another
country will not be found better disposed to understand your felicitous idea -
as we understand it and so similar to what we preach - that the equitable
distribution of wealth and solidarity among men and peoples should be
globalized.
Welcome to Cuba!
AP-NY-01-21-98 1823EST |