This is a complete transcript of the remarks made by Fidel Castro on Cuba’s TV news magazine, the Mesa Redonda (Round Table) on September 2, 2005. Fidel explained in detail the offer which Cuba made to send 1000 doctors to New Orleans immediately after Hurricane Kristina hit the city. There has been no response from the United States government to the Cuban offer as of this writing.

Spanish original may be read here: 

http://www.cuba.cu/gobierno/discursos/2005/esp/f020905e.html

Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Council of Ministers of State, repeated an offer of medical aid to the people of the United States on the television program Round Table, on September 2, 2005, "Year of the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas."

(Stenographic version of the Council of State)

 It was necessary to improvise this conference, as happens at times, when events are precipitous, and now I am going to explain why.


Yesterday a press conference was held at the Department of State, a regularly scheduled one, with the participation of the spokesperson for that department, Sean McCormack.

I must refer to the text of the spokesperson’s declarations.

"Press room of the Department of State, Washington, DC, 12:46 p.m., Thursday, September 1, 2005."

(At that hour we were tied up in the assembly of the National Assembly attending to important matters; but among them the tragedy in the United States.)

Mister McCormack said: "Good afternoon. I wanted to begin with a brief account of a subject that I know is of interest for everyone present here concerning the aid efforts after the passage of Hurricane Katrina, as well as offers of aid from abroad.

"Permit me to begin by saying we have received numerous and generous offers of aid from foreign governments and organizations, and Secretary Rice, after consulting with the White House, has made it plain that we will accept all the offers of foreign aid. Anything that might be useful in alleviating the difficult situation, the tragic situation of the people in the area affected by Hurricane Katrina, will be accepted."

Further on he continues:

"I can relate a list. To this point this is a growing list that is actually added to every hour.

"We have received general offers of aid, as well as other more specific ones from several countries and organizations, which includes Russia, Japan, Canada, France, Honduras, Germany, Venezuela, the OAS [Organization of American States], Jamaica, NATO, Australia, the United Kingdom, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Hungary, Columbia, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Mexico, China, South Korea, Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

"I will try to keep you informed as to what is added to the list. As I said, it literally is growing hour by hour."

It was only later, aljost at night, after the Assembly session had ended, that we began to see the cables, and we could not even read them all. We received information from some of the dispatches this morning, from which I just read.

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.

I am going to read a brief chronology of the offer of aid on the part of the Cuban government to the government of the United States respecting the hurricane.

"25 August 2005

"Hurricane Katrina pounds Florida, causing losses of human life and heavy material damage."

Days later. "29 August 2005.

"After reaching category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale, Hurricane Katrina pounds the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. The first news over the magnitude of the tragedy begin to circulate.

"On August 30 2005 the last gusts were blowing over these states, Louisiana and others of the South, with which we have commercial relations, at the least for important purchases of foodstuffs. We have even received visits from officials from that state and others associated with those purchases on the part of Cuba from the United States, which have been going on already for several years."

A lot of things have happened. I have spoken with several thousand farmers, because several hundred came to the first [agricultural] fair; I met one group after the other, and in these four years I have talked with thousands of U.S. farmers and visitors, state officials, governors, senators, representatives.

Visiting here just a few months ago was the governor of the state of Louisiana, a very genial person. She came, as governors do, interested on affairs and problems of their states, and these, the [states] jost affected by the hurricane, are poor states; agriculture plays an important role in them, as well as the ports, from where they export their products.

"At 11:32 in the morning of August 30, 2005, I call our Minister of Foreign Relations, compañero Felipe, to ask him to immediately transmit, through the Office of Interest Sections of the United States in Havana and through our Office of Interests in Washington, a message in which condolences are expressed to the government of the United States concerning the hurricane, offering them aid in the area of attention to health, because we knew, by the news that was arriving, that there a catastrophe was in the making."

If in any event it was important to offer what we could offer, fundamentally because of the experience that we have in the battle against hurricanes and experience in the means of protection for the population, evacuation, support, etcetera, it is in the field of medical care. Right at the catastrophe of September 11, Cuba was the first country to offer support, because we heard the news that the planes were flying and could not land in the airports. What we did immediately was to offer our airports, and afterward we also offered what we could offer: medical aid, considering the magnitude of the enormous number of possible victims.

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.

Anyway, we offered medical aid. It was nothing ridiculous; at times to save a life you need a rare blood type for a transfusion. One, two, three, ten lives, that is not the problem; if you save one, there is the obligation of saving it.

"At 12:45, following instructions, the interim director of the North American Department of MINREX [the Ministry of Foreign Affairs], Josefina Vidal, meeds with the second in command of SINA, Edward Alexander Lee, to give him the indicated message verbally, as well as hand him a written copy."

We did not lose one minute, that is the truth. Here is compañera Josefina:

"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.

Josefina, after her first words, read the indicated message, whose text is the following:

"On instructions from the leadership of the Cuban government, I express to you our condolences for the loss of human life and the material damages caused by the Hurricane Katrina, and I inform you of our disposition to send doctors and health personnel wherever needed in the affected zones, as well as three field hospitals with necessary personnel."

Following her instructions, Josefina concluded, expressing to Mister Lee that: "We do not propose making publicity out of this. We await your response." For that reason we did not make this public, really we did not publicize anything. It’s that we did not want it to appear to be a question of publicity.

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.

It says:

"Message of solidarity with the North American people"

"The people of Cuba has followed, with preoccupation the news related with the effects caused by Hurricane Katrina in the territories of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. Still incomplete reports show that this is a true tragedy of extraordinary dimensions.

"In terms of physical destruction and material damage, this is considered as the jost costly natural disaster in the history of the United States. The Red Cross of that country judges that its task will be harder that that it confronted after the atrocious attack of September 11 of 2001.

"Tens of thousands of persons are trapped in flooded areas, have lost their homes, are homeless or made refugees. The governor of Louisiana characterizes as desperate the situation of New Orleans, where the water continues rising. The mayor of that city declared that hundreds and perhaps thousands of people may have died there.

"This disaster, with its enormous toll of death and suffering, hits the entire population of the United States, but particular pounds Afroamericans, latino workers and poor North Americans who form the majority of those who still await to be rescued and taken to safe places, and it is among them that is concentrated the greatest number of fatalities and of people who have been rendered homeless.

"These news cause pain and suffering to Cubans. In their name we wish to express our profound solidarity to the people of the United States, to the state and local authorities and to the victims of this catastrophe. The entire world should feel this tragedy as its own.

"National Assembly of Popular Power of the Republic of Cuba, Havana, September 1 2005."

A minute of silence was held for the victims. It was truly an emotional and natural gesture in the sentiments of our people toward the people of the United States, and also respectful toward the authorities, without any offense, without any attack.

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:

"Our country is ready to send, in the early hours of this coming morning, 100 general practitioners and specialists in general medicine, who would be early tomorrow morning in the International Airport of Houston, Texas, the closest one to the region of the tragedy, to be transported by air" — this would basically be helicopters — "land or sea" — amphibious, which are used to penetrate zones that are very flooded — "to isolated places of refuge, installations and neighborhoods of New Orleans where the population or families needing urgent or primary auxiliary medical attention are found. Said personnel would go equipped with backpacks that would contain 24 kilos of essential medications essential in those situations to save lives, and minimum diagnostic instruments." Then have to take blood pressure, pulse and other parameters, all those minimal recourses to make a clinical diagnosis, in which our doctors have a lot of experience, because there are at this time tens of thousands of them abroad, and in many sites there are not X-rays, nor ultrasound, there is nothing, not even blood exams or fecal tests. They arrive and make clinical diagnoses, with a high level of precision. They are aljost clinical experts, since they are used to work in areas of the third world where there is no equipment for diagnosis. "They will be able to perform isolated or in groups of two or more persons, according to the circumstances, as long as needed.

"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.

It entered even stronger as it neared.

"This medical personnel disposes of the international experience and the elemental language requirements needed to attend the patients.

"We only await response from the authorities of the United States."

Our doctors have been in South Africa, in many English-speaking places, even in places of dialects; but it is very easy to make yourself understood with the doctor. The children, for example, who are eight months old don’t speak; the doctors diagnose them, they are simply capable of making diagnoses, at times one doesn’t even need language, but they have the necessary elemental knowledge.

The importance of this proposition can be deduced from a cable that came from New Orleans, today, September 2nd, from the FEE agency, and that says textually the following. It is worth the trouble to read it.

"Without electricity in hospitals, the pharmacies of New Orleans under over a meter of water, thousands of patients without sanitary care and the growing menace of infectious breakouts, the health of tens of thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina is in danger.

"The crisis in which lives New Orleans and great areas of the south of Louisiana is seen aggravated by the fact that the majority of the tens of thousands of people trapped by the water are the poorest of the poor of the country, individuals who suffer more mental and physical sickness than other social groups.

"A tragic demonstration of the sanitary problems that Katrina and the flooding that accompany it have brought to the inhabitants of New Orleans can be observed Thursday in the doors of the Convention Center of the city, where between 20,000 and 25,000 persons have sought refuge.

"By one of the outside walls of the Center rests the body of an old woman, seated in a wheel chair and covered with a shawl. In another end of the Convention Center a pair of persons administer cardiac massage on a man who lies unconscious on the ground, in a vain attempt to save his life.

"Old people, children and sick among the poor of New Orleans–where, according to official figures around a third of its 1.4 million inhabitants are poor" — aljost half a million — "the jost vulnerable are those who are paying the mayor cost of the disaster.

"Some experts have begun to warn of the psychological consequences that the chaos and violence that rule New Orleans will have over the children who live the crisis first hand, in some cases separated from their parents.

"Another preoccupation that the experts are beginning to air is that of the appearance of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera or typhoid fever.

"Eighty percent of New Orleans is underwater. The authorities fear that hundreds, probably thousands of people have died in the past days and are trapped by the water in the attics of their homes."

We are talking about lending support to people trapped in a building, in a stadium, wherever, in a forest, medical personnel that go there wherever they find them, with medications. That medical personnel can save lives in cases such as that of the man who was getting cardiac massage for a heart attack, and medication for those cases or other serious problems can be resolved by a doctor and his or her backpack of essential medications. Who knows if they could have saved that person who was in that wheel chair, you would have to see why she died.

That is to say, we are not offering doctors for Disneyland or to be put up in five star hotels.

"With temperatures that pass 30 degrees centigrade [86 F]" — that is nothing for a Cuban doctor — "decomposing bodies of people and animals are rapidly converted into a cultivating culture for bacteria.

"Besides, the sewers of the metropolitan area of New Orleans have emptied their content in the brackish waters of the city, where its inhabitants that try to escape must wade.

"And as if that was not enough, clearly observable from the air can be seen stains of dangerous chemical products that float in the water streaming from factories and industries, such as refineries or from agricultural production, located in the outskirts of New Orleans.

"The experts warn that contact with this water can cause infections in people.

"The Food and Drug Administration warned that the populace should abstain from consuming "perishable products such as meet, fish, milk and eggs that are not refrigerated in an adequate manner, as they can cause disease if consumed, even if they have been cooked in an appropriate manner."

For all these problems it is essential to have a professional in these places, where there might not be a doctor, what type of food, if in some circumstances it could be preserves. The problem is that there arrive rapidly a first auxiliary, who treats people and saves lives in

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.

If there is a circumstance where this is needed, it is this one, where many doctors can cooperate who have gone to the jungles, the plateaus, wherever, not because they are Cubans, they are not enemies who go there to kill, they are professionals, of which we have tens of thousands today in other countries, where others do not go.

"The FDA added that ‘do not eat any food that has been in contact with the floodwaters.’

"With the desperate clamoring for water and food on the part of the thousands of people trapped in the Super dome and the Convention Center" — I don’t know if already they may have been evacuated — "that in some cases have not eaten in the last three days, there are many possibilities that the FDA’s warnings–in the event that they are heard by the injured–will not have much effect."

This cable arrived today, I received it a few hours before this appearance.

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.

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:

"Our country is ready to send, in the early hours of this coming morning, 100 general practitioners and specialists in general medicine, who would be early tomorrow morning in the International Airport of Houston, Texas, the closest one to the region of the tragedy, to be transported by air" — this would basically be helicopters — "land or sea" — amphibious, which are used to penetrate zones that are very flooded–"to isolated places of refuge, installations and neighborhoods of New Orleans where the population or families needing urgent or primary auxiliary medical attention are found. Said personnel would go equipped with backpacks that would contain 24 kilos of essential medications essential in those situations to save lives, and minimum diagnostic instruments." Then have to take blood pressure, pulse and other parameters, all those minimal recourses to make a clinical diagnosis, in which our doctors have a lot of experience, because there are at this time tens of thousands of them abroad, and in many sites there are not X-rays, nor ultrasound, there is nothing, not even blood exams or fecal tests. They arrive and make clinical diagnoses, with a high level of precision. They are aljost clinical experts, since they are used to work in areas of the third world where there is no equipment for diagnosis. "They will be able to perform isolated or in groups of two or more persons, according to the circumstances, as long as needed.

"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.

It entered even stronger as it neared.

"This medical personnel disposes of the international experience and the elemental language requirements needed to attend the patients.

"We only await response from the authorities of the United States."

Our doctors have been in South Africa, in many English-speaking places, even in places of dialects; but it is very easy to make yourself understood with the doctor. The children, for example, who are eight months old don’t speak; the doctors diagnose them, they are simply capable of making diagnoses, at times one doesn’t even need language, but they have the necessary elemental knowledge.

The importance of this proposition can be deduced from a cable that came from New Orleans, today, September 2nd, from the FEE agency, and that says textually the following. It is worth the trouble to read it.

"Without electricity in hospitals, the pharmacies of New Orleans under over a meter of water, thousands of patients without sanitary care and the growing menace of infectious breakouts, the health of tens of thousands of people affected by Hurricane Katrina is in danger.

"The crisis in which lives New Orleans and great areas of the south of Louisiana is seen aggravated by the fact that the majority of the tens of thousands of people trapped by the water are the poorest of the poor of the country, individuals who suffer more mental and physical sickness than other social groups.

"A tragic demonstration of the sanitary problems that Katrina and the flooding that accompany it have brought to the inhabitants of New Orleans can be observed Thursday in the doors of the Convention Center of the city, where between 20,000 and 25,000 persons have sought refuge.

"By one of the outside walls of the Center rests the body of an old woman, seated in a wheel chair and covered with a shawl. In another end of the Convention Center a pair of persons administer cardiac massage on a man who lies unconscious on the ground, in a vain attempt to save his life.

"Old people, children and sick among the poor of New Orleans — where, according to official figures around a third of its 1.4 million inhabitants are poor" — aljost half a million — "the jost vulnerable are those who are paying the mayor cost of the disaster.

"Some experts have begun to warn of the psychological consequences that the chaos and violence that rule New Orleans will have over the children who live the crisis first hand, in some cases separated from their parents.

"Another preoccupation that the experts are beginning to air is that of the appearance of outbreaks of infectious diseases such as cholera or typhoid fever.

"Eighty percent of New Orleans is underwater. The authorities fear that hundreds, probably thousands of people have died in the past days and are trapped by the water in the attics of their homes."

We are talking about lending support to people trapped in a building, in a stadium, wherever, in a forest, medical personnel that go there wherever they find them, with medications. That medical personnel can save lives in cases such as that of the man who was getting cardiac massage for a heart attack, and medication for those cases or other serious problems can be resolved by a doctor and his or her backpack of essential medications. Who knows if they could have saved that person who was in that wheel chair, you would have to see why she died.

That is to say, we are not offering doctors for Disneyland or to be put up in five star hotels.

"With temperatures that pass 30 degrees centigrade [86 F]" — that is nothing for a Cuban doctor — "decomposing bodies of people and animals are rapidly converted into a cultivating culture for bacteria.

"Besides, the sewers of the metropolitan area of New Orleans have emptied their content in the brackish waters of the city, where its inhabitants that try to escape must wade.

"And as if that was not enough, clearly observable from the air can be seen stains of dangerous chemical products that float in the water streaming from factories and industries, such as refineries or from agricultural production, located in the outskirts of New Orleans.

"The experts warn that contact with this water can cause infections in people.

"The Food and Drug Administration warned that the populace should abstain from consuming "perishable products such as meet, fish, milk and eggs that are not refrigerated in an adequate manner, as they can cause disease if consumed, even if they have been cooked in an appropriate manner."

For all these problems it is essential to have a professional in these places, where there might not be a doctor, what type of food, if in some circumstances it could be preserves. The problem is that there arrive rapidly a first auxiliary, who treats people and saves lives in

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.

If there is a circumstance where this is needed, it is this one, where many doctors can cooperate who have gone to the jungles, the plateaus, wherever, not because they are Cubans, they are not enemies who go there to kill, they are professionals, of which we have tens of thousands today in other countries, where others do not go.

"The FDA added that ‘do not eat any food that has been in contact with the floodwaters.’

"With the desperate clamoring for water and food on the part of the thousands of people trapped in the Super dome and the Convention Center" — I don’t know if already they may have been evacuated — "that in some cases have not eaten in the last three days, there are many possibilities that the FDA’s warnings — in the event that they are heard by the injured — will not have much effect."

This cable arrived today, I received it a few hours before this appearance.

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.