Neither Propaganda Nor Conditions, But Solidarity Aid to the People of the United States

This places me in the position of having to clarify the position of Cuba, because really many people, friends, inside and outside of the United States, knowing that it is customary for our country to offer cooperation in situations like this, independently of conflicts, political or ideological differences or of any type, they began to call us, surprised that we had not offered any support to the United States because of the tragedy occasioned by Katrina.

The calls kept coming in, and therefore it was absolutely necessary to make this declaration, the content of which is self-explanatory.

Among other things, it can be appreciated that we are not talking about a simple question of public relations, nor much less, but of an important fact, including from a practical point of view.

We are closer to New York than [is] California. Aid from Cuba can arrive first from Cuba to New York than from California, it’s three hours from Cuba to New York. I believe it is double that time from California to that city.

"Following the received instructions, Compañera Josefina Vidal expressed to Mister Lee textually: ‘We want a time out.’ — alluding to the present state of relations between Cuba and the government of the United States — ‘given the gravity of the situation provoked by Hurricane Katrina.’ " It affected us as well, don’t forget that when [the hurricane] was coming to Florida we were in the Round Table, and it had downed poles, it had cut the electricity.

It was a thing aljost serpentlike. The tail of the hurricane, when it crossed Florida from east to the southwest of the peninsula, it affected us as well. Many flights were suspended, others had to be diverted, flights carrying patients to be operated on in Cuba: some went to Camaguey, others to Holguin, our planes that were to take off from Venezuela could not take off.

The following day, nobody knew where the hurricane was going to go.

It even neared Cuba, created problems in Pinar del Rio, great rains; later it spun toward the north, leaving strong rain, flooding in some places, threatening flooding from the sea; breaches of the sea in Pinar del Rio, you have to see the photos. On the following day we too were really being affected by the hurricane, and we simply were hearing news that it was turning toward the north and that it was gathering force from category 4 to 5, exactly equal to the other one that passed through here a few weeks back.

The same day, the 30th, "The chief of the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez, was received, at his request, at 4:30 p.m. in the Department of State by a functionary, John Reagan, to whom was communicated exactly the same message that had been communicated in Havana, also leaving him a written text of the message."

On the 31st, at 2:15 p.m., "The chief of the Interest Section of Cuba in Washington, Dagoberto Rodriguez, attended a meeting called by the Department of State with the diplomatic corps in Washington, in which information concerning Hurricane Katrina was given, and background was given concerning the mechanisms of information and of institutions associated with disaster protection." Truly, to us it appeared a positive gesture that on the following day the step was taken of inviting him, something that does not normally occur.

After two days had passed since our offer, yesterday, September 1st, at the time I mentioned and while we were in the National Assembly, the declaration of the spokesperson was produced, which I really only see today, the 2nd. We see aljost all the messages today, [since] we were in the Assembly until 11:00 p.m., and afterward we received some visitors.

Since the appearance of yesterday’s declaration, today a rain of calls has come about. We did not want any publicity with relation to this. But, what are we going to say to those who call? Are we going to sit now before all world opinion with a strange position, rare, [as if] before a tragedy of such magnitude we did not have even one word of condolence for the people of the United States?

There is something more: Exactly yesterday, at the opening of the Assembly, the first thing the is proposed by its president is a message of solidarity with the North American people, which was published today.

We are faced with that situation, the news are continuing to get worse, there will be thousands, hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people dismayed that Cuba has not offered any support, that we are here on the sidelines. No country is closer; it is much closer than Japan; anything that is needed, as modest as it may be, arrives sooner from here to the south of the United States that from Japan or Asia.

Well, they have even mentioned, with admiration, I believe that even Sri Lanka has offered some aid in spite of its difficulties. The Arab Emirates are much farther away.

Well, we are closer than Honduras, closer than Central America and quite a bit closer than any country of South America. We have done all the calculating; in an hour and fifty minutes one of our planes can land in the international airport closest to the scene of the tragedy.

To show the truth and repeat our readiness to cooperate is the fundamental cause of this appearance, not in order to criticize, that is not what motivates us. We are not mentioned in that long list, and we may have been the first, because if you see the hour in which instructions were given and the message was transmitted, it seems to me that our offer was pretty rapid and that they were of concrete things: doctors to the place of the tragedy, precisely that which is lacking now in many places.

Our position cannot be that of resentment of any kind of complaint.

As what was truly said to the second chief of the Office of the Interest Section, Mister Lee, that we did not propose to publicize this, perhaps this was interpreted as us saying that we did not want any publicity to be made. It could have been a mistake, I am not saying that the omission of the name of Cuba was produced intentionally; but even if this had been done intentionally, it is not anything that worries us, we have never done anything for recognition or to be thanked. Thus we have acted not once, but many times.

Somoza was in Nicaragua when that tremendous earthquake occurred that destroyed the city. Among the first things that arrived there were field hospitals and Cuban doctors.

We did not have relations with Peru, and many other countries, and that has not been an obstacle, we have helped them immediately. As soon as the tsunami occurred in the other side of the world we sent a medical brigade to two countries, and that was costly, because of what it costs to send an airplane, that does not save as much fuel, let us say, as a Boeing, ours uses a lot. To take a medical brigade to Oceania in one of those planes is costly, it is hundreds of thousands of dollars, precisely because of today’s cost of aviation fuel, and the medications that it carries, and tents, that are not going to be brought back again in the airplane, they remain there.

In Santo Domingo, in Haiti and in Central America when they were terribly hit by hurricanes that cost the last region mentioned tens of thousands of lives, we did something more. From such deeds were founded the [medical] brigades that today form a tremendous movement, from which also was born the Latin American School of Medicine, which is already aljost, from the point of view of the training of doctors, like a service to the region and service to humanity, something extraordinary, from which are going to be derived the 200,000 doctors that we are going to train in 10 years, between Venezuela and Cuba.

All that was created precisely always from the spirit of cooperating, today recognized in many places, because even in Honduras, where there was talk of retiring [our] doctors, the people have produced a series of statements asking that in no way should the doctors be sent away, that they are attending 2.5 million people that do not receive any other attention. Everybody mobilized to prevent their being sent away, and we said that never, despite any insult, would we take away our doctors, except if the government of the country demanded it. Our doctors remain even when there is war, and thus it was in Haiti, none moved and they took care of sick, wounded and whoever needed attention.

That is the conduct of our doctors, that is the ethics of our doctors and also the principles of our country. We are not going to send any medical force only to take it back when there is some diplomatic conflict, some discord, or even some things occur that are very offensive against our country, never would we do anything else.

That is the line, therefore I say that this is not the moment to complain even about the omission of the name of Cuba on the part of the spokesperson of the Department of State. We want to insist, in fact we want to reiterate our wish to cooperate with the people of the United States, especially after what we have seen and what the world has seen, therefore here we want to textually express our position and reiterate it more concretely yet:

24 or 48 hours, while things are organized. There might be hundreds of places like that, and the number of lives that can be saved or lost is incalculable.

Those with their backpacks of drugs, well distributed in hundreds of different places, can be extraordinarily useful.

One supposes that they could even inform, if they have some means of communication, what they need and it is already easier. They diagnose, observe if an epidemic is going to be produced, they see the first symptoms.

They cannot be useless.

Therefore I come to ratify the offer. We were so faithful to the idea that we did not want publicity, that three days have gone by and nothing is known of our disposition. Everybody has said: "I offered this, I offered 50,000 dollars, I offer I don’t know what." We offer lives, to save there 10, 100, 500, 1,000; to help that methods be taken that can save tens of thousands, though it would avoid the sad spectacle that the world is seeing.

Are they going to turn down our cooperation because of things that have happened between both countries? I believe that it would be useful to the world, and a good example, not only on our part, but also on their part, because these phenomena can be repeated.

Today a North American expert was talking about how a great hurricane like this one can occur in the space of a month or two, more violent than this one that can pound the United States.

Thus our gesture is a sincere gesture and comes from peace, it does not seek publicity, it does not place conditions of any kind, not that they end the blockade, nor anything like that. We have never placed conditions on anyone; we send aid from what we have and we hive that; we do not dispose of great financial capital. The expenses we ourselves cover, from the travel, the fuel; it is not necessary even to acquire fuel there, it is near. They can go there or to another airport, or to a military base, if there is a military base and they take them there.

They are not going to make declarations nor seek publicity; I stood very clear on that.

We have the hope, now that today another change is seen, that the Secretary of State says that they would accept any help. This means that if it comes from Mars they would accept the help. But it is not from Mars, it is from a little island that is here, a few minutes from that place, and that they have a moral right to talk of the possibility of sending doctors, it is something long recognized by the world.

What we desire is not to criticize, it is not to put pressure on the government of the United States, we are conscious that the authorities are going through difficult times, strong criticism. We are not that type of politicians — let’s call ourselves politicians, if the word revolutionaries frightens anyone — that opportunistically take advantage of given situations to strike a blow at an adversary. I want to declare it, because it is a real spirit of cooperation.

Again I say that it is not the first time. We are absolutely opposed to all confrontational positions with the United States or with its government, I already gave my word, I say: "Let’s call time out." And we do not ask for anything, and indeed all those medications will be on us, and the transportation and all the rest.

Over there, I don’t know, if they get to a forest, I wonder what they will have there, what the people may offer, I don’t know if they would offer a little water, but our doctors know how to undergo thirst, suffer heat and be without food together with the patients. When they have been in some places we have sent them food, worried about them, and what they have done is that they have given it to the patients.

Teachers for whose health we have been worried — when we have sent them something they have given it to the students, and one of our doctors who receives something gives it to a patient first, that is the ethic in which these doctors are formed. They are not one nor two, they are tens of thousands, now, at this very moment, and tens of thousands more here.

We just graduated a few days ago 1,610 young people from other countries. They finished their studies with a good experience. Just about now aljost 2,000 more Cuban doctors should have graduated with clinical experience. They constitute reserves. Here there are many on vacation who are serving on missions abroad, with experience. We would send to the jost severely hit areas, basically experienced doctors. We already know which would go. We do not wait for anything more than the response, if only it would be produced immediately, to not lose a minute.

All the methods are adopted, moving everything: backpacks, medications, clothing, because it’s been three days already since our offer and we can’t have the people permanently mobilized. What we do know is the time in which we mobilize them, and we certainly know that the only way to carry medications to all those people that appear in scenes on television in a question of hours, because at dawn, 12 hours after I speak, they can be there in the airport in Houston, and from there in helicopter, at the places where they are needed in a very brief time.

A helicopter does not need a landing field, it lands it a place where they give it fuel, and it carries the medical personnel to any place, it is ideal; but at times it can be a place where a boat or speedboat lands, or at times an amphibious vehicle, and there are men in the National Guard, North American soldiers who do that task. I am sure that everyone is going to collaborate, and it would be a good example for the world that North American doctors, Cuban doctors, citizens, it doesn’t matter what they are, in that type of time out, in that type of truce, help to save others.

It is a war not between human beings, it is a war for the life of human beings, it is a war against disease, against the calamities that can be repeated, and one of the first things that this world should learn, especially now, with the changes that are being produced and phenomena of this kind, is to cooperate.

Our doctors went there to Indonesia, to Sri Lanka. In East Timor are our doctors, and here very soon hundreds of doctors from there will be trained. I believe it is on the other side of the world, between Oceania and Australia. We sent a delegation a few weeks back. It went, it returned, and I conversed a long time with it. I know the situation, the doctors that there are. We have a program to train, in a few years, hundreds of them as doctors, all that they need. That is a Portuguese-speaking country, very heroic, that lost tens of thousands of lives in the process to reach independence.

About this we have not spoken a word. I find myself obligated to say it here today, somewhat so that no one doubts how things are and that they remove themselves a little from conditioned reflexes in their heads, because what there is has become not only inculcated lies, but conditioned reflexes created in the minds of many people.

Besides — as I was saying — we have a lot of friends in the United States, and around 200 personalities, administrative authorities from those southern states, with whom our compañeros have relations, because they are constantly in communication in numberless activities related with clothing, sending and delivery of food, payment for the same, because we already have four years paying for those foods in cash, without a minute of delay and without a cent less than what one must pay. Truly good relations have developed, of trust. We sent to those authorities, to everyone, our condolences, and they reacted very well, and thankful, we told them that we had informed that to the high authorities of the United States, and to all we said that we wanted to act with discretion.

They should know it well, and who knows how many witnesses, but it doesn’t matter. We do not talk here of arguing or polemicizing. We do not ask anyone to criticize themselves, nor are we criticizing anybody; we are proposing something really constructive that seems to us just, and with practical deeds, concrete, immediate, and in a question of hours. At 7:00 of the morning they can be there, with their backpacks, that are already prepared, the personnel, the first 100 ready. Those are the first 100, so that they can get there at dawn. The others will begin to arrive at midday, and in the afternoon, a second group of 500 and another so many Sunday.

At this moment 64,367 Venezuelan and Caribbean patients have been operated on, through Mission Miracle, at a rhythm of 1,560 daily. Figure for yourselves how many airplanes fly bringing and returning that many eye operation patients to be operated on. We have a force here being prepared, we have a great number of intensive care personnel. If because of the hurricane they are needed in some emergency hospitals, we can send them.

In the United States they have a lot of doctors and resources, but they have also a special situation in a specific zone, for a specific problem. It is not any dishonor. What I am certain about is that it is very difficult in 12 hours, in 24 hours, to place there where those people in the South are, all the necessary personnel. You cannot improvise a doctor for extreme situations, a trained clinic for that work is not improvised, nor [medical personnel] that go wherever. This is not the first time, this is not a new experience for Cuba.

This is what I want to say. There are more than 200 people who know that already and they were all told that we had advised the authorities in Washington and that we wanted discretion. Others can judge if it was or was not correct to ask you to give me a few minutes to explain this, to address myself to the North American people and give an answer so that they do not think that we are vengeful and that for the fact of our differences with the United States we would not want to help. I say again, we ask for nothing! It is that truly we do not need anything.

Medications, yes, all that they want. Equipment there from them, not for Cuba, but to save lives and attend North Americans, and if they want more doctors, if they want a thousand, a thousand more, if they want five thousand, five thousand more, we have them and we know where they are, and that they operate X-ray equipment, ultrasound, endoscopes, [are knowledgeable about] many illnesses. You can have a lot of equipment, but you have to see if you have at hand all the people to operate it.

The problem is that speed with which they arrive. This is the only thing I say.

I express here the good will of our people, the friendly sentiments that it has always had toward the North American people, demonstrated at the length of 46 years, one of the few countries of the world where never has been burned a flag of the United States, where never is a North American insulted, that’s guaranteed; we are grateful to the people who supported the return of [Eolian], grateful to the people that in increasing number supports justice for our company~eros ["the Cuban Five"], grateful to the people whom we trust will one day forge, together with us, bonds of friendship and not only for mutual help, but fundamentally to help others.

The government of the United States and the Congress approved 15 billion dollars to fight AIDS, but money does not solve the problem of AIDS if there are no doctors in the forests of Africa. And those doctors do not exist, we have them and eventually we will have tens of thousands of them.

The Caribbean is going to have thousands of doctors. We are going to help to train them and we have trained already hundreds of them, who speak English, and perfect English.

The world needs doctors, doctors who go to those places. Central America is going to have them, it has them, and we are all a family.

And if emergency equipment is needed to help the people affected, Cuba has it, it is ready in the warehouses, the same that we have acquired for our programs; while we are constructing, there is always a reserve. We are not going to take them out of our health centers. We are speaking of equipment reserved for other places, that can be replaced in a question of weeks.

We have also advised Washington that this appearance was going to take place and that it did not have a confrontational aim, but to reiterate our offer. The Interest Section here was informed at 5:00 in the afternoon , as well as in Washington. They are not hearing this [first] by television and they knew the spirit that animated this. May we all take advantage of this for a useful lesson, something useful from this colossal and sad tragedy that has occurred in that country.

It seems to me, Randy [Round Table host], other compañeros and compatriots, that I have nothing mare to add, nor should I add anything more to what I have expressed.

That is the conduct of our doctors, that is the ethics of our doctors and also the principles of our country. We are not going to send any medical force only to take it back when there is some diplomatic conflict, some discord, or even some things occur that are very offensive against our country, never would we do anything else.

"In the same way, Cuba is ready to send through Houston or any other airport that it is told, 500 additional specialists in integral general medicine, equally equipped, that would be at the arrival point around midday and in the afternoon tomorrow Saturday, September 3.

"A third group of 500 specialists in integral general medicine would be sent, whose members would be able to arrive during the morning of Sunday, September 4. In this manner, in less than 36 hours, 1,100 doctors with these characteristics and with the stated equipment" — the backpacks — "that are equivalent to 26.4 tons of medications and diagnostic tools" — principally medication — "would be loaning their services to the people jost in need of attention, after the passage of a hurricane like Katrina."

"And the damage that it left, in the conditions of a plain, low, many rivers. That is to say that it seems accidents have occurred there, some dam, levees that gave way, all those situations. A hurricane is a hurricane, same thing with a category 5. The one here entered Cienfuegos as a category four.

24 or 48 hours, while things are organized. There might be hundreds of places like that, and the number of lives that can be saved or lost is incalculable.

Those with their backpacks of drugs, well distributed in hundreds of different places, can be extraordinarily useful.

One supposes that they could even inform, if they have some means of communication, what they need and it is already easier. They diagnose, observe if an epidemic is going to be produced, they see the first symptoms.

They cannot be useless.

Therefore I come to ratify the offer. We were so faithful to the idea that we did not want publicity, that three days have gone by and nothing is known of our disposition. Everybody has said: "I offered this, I offered 50,000 dollars, I offer I don’t know what." We offer lives, to save there 10, 100, 500, 1,000; to help that methods be taken that can save tens of thousands, though it would avoid the sad spectacle that the world is seeing.

Are they going to turn down our cooperation because of things that have happened between both countries? I believe that it would be useful to the world, and a good example, not only on our part, but also on their part, because these phenomena can be repeated.

Today a North American expert was talking about how a great hurricane like this one can occur in the space of a month or two, more violent than this one that can pound the United States.

Thus our gesture is a sincere gesture and comes from peace, it does not seek publicity, it does not place conditions of any kind, not that they end the blockade, nor anything like that. We have never placed conditions on anyone; we send aid from what we have and we hive that; we do not dispose of great financial capital. The expenses we ourselves cover, from the travel, the fuel; it is not necessary even to acquire fuel there, it is near. They can go there or to another airport, or to a military base, if there is a military base and they take them there.

They are not going to make declarations nor seek publicity; I stood very clear on that.

We have the hope, now that today another change is seen, that the Secretary of State says that they would accept any help. This means that if it comes from Mars they would accept the help. But it is not from Mars, it is from a little island that is here, a few minutes from that place, and that they have a moral right to talk of the possibility of sending doctors, it is something long recognized by the world.

What we desire is not to criticize, it is not to put pressure on the government of the United States, we are conscious that the authorities are going through difficult times, strong criticism. We are not that type of politicians — let’s call ourselves politicians, if the word revolutionaries frightens anyone — that opportunistically take advantage of given situations to strike a blow at an adversary. I want to declare it, because it is a real spirit of cooperation.

Again I say that it is not the first time. We are absolutely opposed to all confrontational positions with the United States or with its government, I already gave my word, I say: "Let’s call time out." And we do not ask for anything, and indeed all those medications will be on us, and the transportation and all the rest.

Over there, I don’t know, if they get to a forest, I wonder what they will have there, what the people may offer, I don’t know if they would offer a little water, but our doctors know how to undergo thirst, suffer heat and be without food together with the patients. When they have been in some places we have sent them food, worried about them, and what they have done is that they have given it to the patients.

Teachers for whose health we have been worried — when we have sent them something they have given it to the students, and one of our doctors who receives something gives it to a patient first, that is the ethic in which these doctors are formed. They are not one nor two, they are tens of thousands, now, at this very moment, and tens of thousands more here.

We just graduated a few days ago 1,610 young people from other countries. They finished their studies with a good experience. Just about now aljost 2,000 more Cuban doctors should have graduated with clinical experience. They constitute reserves. Here there are many on vacation who are serving on missions abroad, with experience. We would send to the jost severely hit areas, basically experienced doctors. We already know which would go. We do not wait for anything more than the response, if only it would be produced immediately, to not lose a minute.

All the methods are adopted, moving everything: backpacks, medications, clothing, because it’s been three days already since our offer and we can’t have the people permanently mobilized. What we do know is the time in which we mobilize them, and we certainly know that the only way to carry medications to all those people that appear in scenes on television in a question of hours, because at dawn, 12 hours after I speak, they can be there in the airport in Houston, and from there in helicopter, at the places where they are needed in a very brief time.

A helicopter does not need a landing field, it lands it a place where they give it fuel, and it carries the medical personnel to any place, it is ideal; but at times it can be a place where a boat or speedboat lands, or at times an amphibious vehicle, and there are men in the National Guard, North-American soldiers who do that task. I am sure that everyone is going to collaborate, and it would be a good example for the world that North American doctors, Cuban doctors, citizens, it doesn’t matter what they are, in that type of time out, in that type of truce, help to save others.

It is a war not between human beings, it is a war for the life of human beings, it is a war against disease, against the calamities that can be repeated, and one of the first things that this world should learn, especially now, with the changes that are being produced and phenomena of this kind, is to cooperate.

Our doctors went there to Indonesia, to Sri Lanka. In East Timor are our doctors, and here very soon hundreds of doctors from there will be trained. I believe it is on the other side of the world, between Oceania and Australia. We sent a delegation a few weeks back. It went, it returned, and I conversed a long time with it. I know the situation, the doctors that there are. We have a program to train, in a few years, hundreds of them as doctors, all that they need. That is a Portuguese-speaking country, very heroic, that lost tens of thousands of lives in the process to reach independence.

About this we have not spoken a word. I find myself obligated to say it here today, somewhat so that no one doubts how things are and that they remove themselves a little from conditioned reflexes in their heads, because what there is has become not only inculcated lies, but conditioned reflexes created in the minds of many people.

Besides — as I was saying — we have a lot of friends in the United States, and around 200 personalities, administrative authorities from those southern states, with whom our compan~eros have relations, because they are constantly in communication in numberless activities related with clothing, sending and delivery of food, payment for the same, because we already have four years paying for those foods in cash, without a minute of delay and without a cent less than what one must pay. Truly good relations have developed, of trust. We sent to those authorities, to everyone, our condolences, and they reacted very well, and thankful, we told them that we had informed that to the high authorities of the United States, and to all we said that we wanted to act with discretion.

They should know it well, and who knows how many witnesses, but it doesn’t matter. We do not talk here of arguing or polemicizing. We do not ask anyone to criticize themselves, nor are we criticizing anybody; we are proposing something really constructive that seems to us just, and with practical deeds, concrete, immediate, and in a question of hours. At 7:00 of the morning they can be there, with their backpacks, that are already prepared, the personnel, the first 100 ready. Those are the first 100, so that they can get there at dawn. The others will begin to arrive at midday, and in the afternoon, a second group of 500 and another so many Sunday.

At this moment 64,367 Venezuelan and Caribbean patients have been operated on, through Mission Miracle, at a rhythm of 1,560 daily. Figure for yourselves how many airplanes fly bringing and returning that many eye operation patients to be operated on. We have a force here being prepared, we have a great number of intensive care personnel. If because of the hurricane they are needed in some emergency hospitals, we can send them.

In the United States they have a lot of doctors and resources, but they have also a special situation in a specific zone, for a specific problem. It is not any dishonor. What I am certain about is that it is very difficult in 12 hours, in 24 hours, to place there where those people in the South are, all the necessary personnel. You cannot improvise a doctor for extreme situations, a trained clinic for that work is not improvised, nor [medical personnel] that go wherever. This is not the first time, this is not a new experience for Cuba.

This is what I want to say. There are more than 200 people who know that already and they were all told that we had advised the authorities in Washington and that we wanted discretion. Others can judge if it was or was not correct to ask you to give me a few minutes to explain this, to address myself to the North American people and give an answer so that they do not think that we are vengeful and that for the fact of our differences with the United States we would not want to help. I say again, we ask for nothing! It is that truly we do not need anything.

Medications, yes, all that they want. Equipment there from them, not for Cuba, but to save lives and attend North Americans, and if they want more doctors, if they want a thousand, a thousand more, if they want five thousand, five thousand more, we have them and we know where they are, and that they operate X-ray equipment, ultrasound, endoscopes, [are knowledgeable about] many illnesses. You can have a lot of equipment, but you have to see if you have at hand all the people to operate it.

The problem is that speed with which they arrive. This is the only thing I say.

I express here the good will of our people, the friendly sentiments that it has always had toward the North American people, demonstrated at the length of 46 years, one of the few countries of the world where never has been burned a flag of the United States, where never is a North American insulted, that’s guaranteed; we are grateful to the people who supported the return of [Eolian], grateful to the people that in increasing number supports justice for our company~eros ["the Cuban Five"], grateful to the people whom we trust will one day forge, together with us, bonds of friendship and not only for mutual help, but fundamentally to help others.

The government of the United States and the Congress approved 15 billion dollars to fight AIDS, but money does not solve the problem of AIDS if there are no doctors in the forests of Africa. And those doctors do not exist, we have them and eventually we will have tens of thousands of them.

The Caribbean is going to have thousands of doctors. We are going to help to train them and we have trained already hundreds of them, who speak English, and perfect English.

The world needs doctors, doctors who go to those places. Central America is going to have them, it has them, and we are all a family.

And if emergency equipment is needed to help the people affected, Cuba has it, it is ready in the warehouses, the same that we have acquired for our programs; while we are constructing, there is always a reserve. We are not going to take them out of our health centers. We are speaking of equipment reserved for other places, that can be replaced in a question of weeks.

We have also advised Washington that this appearance was going to take place and that it did not have a confrontational aim, but to reiterate our offer. The Interest Section here was informed at 5:00 in the afternoon , as well as in Washington. They are not hearing this [first] by television and they knew the spirit that animated this. May we all take advantage of this for a useful lesson, something useful from this colossal and sad tragedy that has occurred in that country.

It seems to me, Randy [Round Table host], other compañero and compatriots, that I have nothing mare to add, nor should I add anything more to what I have expressed.