| CUBA
NEWS
The
Miami Herald
Parts of Castro bio parrot his speeches
An upcoming book that
purports to be based on 100 hours of interviews
with Fidel Castro includes passages that,
word for word, are from Castro's speeches.
By Frances Robles. frobles@MiamiHerald.com.
Posted on Wed, Apr. 05, 2006.
It was supposed to be a big scoop, one
of those rare tell-all interviews with Fidel
Castro that fills books and sells papers.
But the interview published Sunday in the
prominent Spanish daily El País has
some apparent problems: several quotes are
verbatim from public speeches the Cuban
leader gave.
''When I read it, it sounded familiar,''
said Ernesto Hernández-Busto, a Cuban
writer based in Spain who discovered the
similarities. "It wound up being a
cut-and-paste operation.''
El País on Sunday published an excerpt
from Fidel Castro: Biografia a dos voces
-- Fidel Castro: A Two-Voiced Biography
-- written by French leftist intellectual
Ignacio Ramonet and published by Debate,
a division of Random House Mondadori. The
headline said Ramonet, the editor of La
Monde Diplomatique, a Paris scholarly review,
got an unprecedented 100 hours of conversations
with Castro. His is only the fifth such
book based on conversations with Castro
in 50 years, according to the Spanish newspaper.
FROM CASTRO'S MOUTH
Begun January 2003, the last interview
was in December, El País said. Ramonet
is known to be close to the Cuban government
and has written a prior book on Castro.
In the excerpt of the book published by
El País, Castro goes into great detail
about the time he slipped and fell in 2004,
but is circumspect about his brother Raúl's
role in an eventual transition government.
''When I reached the concrete area, about
15 or 20 meters from the first row of chairs,
I did not realize that there was a relatively
high curb from the pavement to the crowd.
My left foot came down into the air, because
of the difference in height. The momentum,
and the law of gravity discovered some time
ago by Newton, caused me, when I took that
false step, to plunge forward until I fell,
in a fraction of a second, onto the pavement,''
Castro told Ramonet.
That's exactly what he told the Cuban people
in a letter explaining his fall published
Oct. 21, 2004, in the government newspaper
Granma.
And when Ramonet asked whether Cuba's socialist
revolution could dissolve, the excerpts
have Castro saying: "This country can
self-destruct; this revolution can destroy
itself, but they can never destroy us; we
can destroy ourselves, and it would be our
fault.''
An English-language transcript provided
to The Miami Herald by the Cuban government
of a Nov. 17 Castro speech states: "This
country can self-destruct; this Revolution
can destroy itself, but they can never destroy
us; we can destroy ourselves, and it would
be our fault.''
Random House Mondedori insists that Ramonet
did interview Castro, and defends the writer
with a simple explanation: the Cuban leader
is nothing if not repetitive.
''Fidel Castro is an older man who has
been saying the same things for years,''
spokeswoman Carlota del Amo said by phone
from Barcelona. "We believe in Ignacio
Ramonet 100 percent. He says it was an interview,
then of course it was an interview.''
She said the book is based on a documentary
that shows Ramonet interviewing the Cuban
leader.
''It's stupid to suggest the interview
didn't happen,'' she said.
Ramonet's office in Paris said he was out
of town and not available for comment, and
he did not respond to a Miami Herald e-mail.
An e-mail from the executive editor's office
at El País said the paper's role
was limited to printing the excerpt.
DENIAL AND ADMISSION
In 2002, Ramonet was involved in another
flap when an article he purportedly wrote
criticizing Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez
appeared in a Caracas newspaper. Ramonet
first denied writing the article and blasted
the paper for publishing it without verifying
it with him.
He later admitted writing it to illustrate
the unreliability of the Venezuelan media,
which had been highly critical of Chávez.
This time, the similarities between the
excerpts from Ramonet's book and Castro's
speeches were exposed by prominent Spanish
blogger Arcadi Espada on his website, www.arcadi.espasa.com.
Writer Hernández-Busto was the first
to notice, but others followed with at least
five paragraphs that matched word for word.
Hernández-Busto said he figures
Ramonet likely struck a deal with the Cuban
government that required him to turn in
his manuscript for approval prior to publication.
The Cuban government ''probably sent it
back to him with corrections,'' Hernández-Busto
said.
Related:
El
Pais article (in Spanish)
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