Cuba’s Fidel Warns on Korean Conflict
HAVANA TIMES – Former president Fidel Castro published one of his “Reflections” in the Cuban media on Friday warning of the consequences of a possible war on the Korean peninsula.
Castro compared the danger with the Cuban Missile Crisis that brought the world to the brink of nuclear war in October 1962, with Cuba as the frontline scenario.
Fidel recalls having been favorably impressed when meeting the historic Korean leader Kim Il Sung, whose grandson is now the president of his country. Castro also warned Barack Obama that a war in Korea would be disastrous for his presidency.
The following is an official translation of Fidel Castro’s commentary translated by Granma International:
The duty to avoid a war in Korea
FIDEL CASTRO
A few days ago I mentioned the great challenges humanity is currently facing. Intelligent life emerged on our planet approximately 200,000 years ago, although new discoveries demonstrate something else.
This is not to confuse intelligent life with the existence of life which, from its elemental forms in our solar system, emerged millions of years ago.
A virtually infinite number of life forms exist. In the sophisticated work of the world’s most eminent scientists the idea has already been conceived of reproducing the sounds which followed the Big Bang, the great explosion which took place more than 13.7 billion years ago.
This introduction would be too extensive if it was not to explain the gravity of an event as unbelievable and absurd as the situation created in the Korean Peninsula, within a geographic area containing close to five billion of the seven billion persons currently inhabiting the planet.
This is about one of the most serious dangers of nuclear war since the October Crisis around Cuba in 1962, 50 years ago.
In 1950, a war was unleashed there [the Korean Peninsula] which cost millions of lives. It came barely five years after two atomic bombs were exploded over the defenseless cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki which, in a matter of seconds, killed and irradiated hundreds of thousands of people.
General Douglas MacArthur wanted to utilize atomic weapons against the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Not even Harry Truman allowed that.
It has been affirmed that the People’s Republic of China lost one million valiant soldiers in order to prevent the installation of an enemy army on that country’s border with its homeland. For its part, the Soviet army provided weapons, air support, technological and economic aid.
I had the honor of meeting Kim Il Sung, a historic figure, notably courageous and revolutionary.
If war breaks out there, the peoples of both parts of the Peninsula will be terribly sacrificed, without benefit to all or either of them. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba has always been and will continue to be with her.
Now that the country has demonstrated its technical and scientific achievements, we remind her of her duties to the countries which have been her great friends, and it would be unjust to forget that such a war would particularly affect more than 70% of the population of the planet.
If a conflict of that nature should break out there, the government of Barack Obama in his second mandate would be buried in a deluge of images which would present him as the most sinister character in the history of the United States. The duty of avoiding war is also his and that of the people of the United States.
Cuba is too great to ever be part of america. Puerto rico would be better on its own or even better with cuba
America is obligated to do what? To pay off the North Korean dictatorship for their latest round of extortion? That is the real purpose of this temper tantrum from Fat Kim, to threaten and scream until the US pays him to behave. President Obama is following the best course of action, by ignoring the hysterical outbursts from Kim while quietly reassuring allies like Japan and South Korea. Even China is fed up with their troublesome neighbor.
YES! i agree it is amerikkks obligation enough is enough..if Pres Obama listens to the neo cons and the hawks more people will die
With all respect to Fidel, but here he´s definitely on the wrong side I´d say. He rather should advise with all his authority this spoiled nut – dictador to shut up and rather think about how to improve the countrie`s situation. Ftrange comment by the otherwise so clear-sighted Fidel.
The “totalitarian hell-hole of North Korea,” as Griffin correctly describes it, is the product of the Marxian, state monopoly deviation from authentic socialism.
The fact that the N. Korean military is now in the hands of a spoiled, immature lunatic is a result of this 1848, state monopoly, absolutist deviation.
The way to prevent a new Korean war is to remove the immature lunatic who is playing right into the hands of the imperialists. But, how might this be done?
I wonder if Kim Jong Un was a special needs student in his schooldays?
Most people seem to understand that the horror of war is not dropping a bomb but what happens after it has reached ignition.
Fidel may be an old fox in politics but his letter shows he is fully aware of the implications of nuclear warfare in the eastern peninsula of north and South Korea .
Now lets see! Fidel can write, meet with journalists for hours but cannot appear on national Cuban TV Live?? A man known for his multi-hour speeches! With a gigantic ego! You can draw your own conclusions on why no Fifo Live!
So Fidel praises and defends the totalitarian hell-hole of North Korea. That says it all. He ignores the fact that North Korea started the Korean War, at the behest of Stalin and Mao and are responsible for the deaths of 5 million people killed in that terrible war.
Then, while giving advice about the horrors of nuclear war, he fails to mention the time in 1962 when he was begging the Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to launch a pre-emptive nuclear strike on the USA.
Fidel Castro…keep your
mouth closed you old fool!!! You are clueless just like the North Korean’s…Cuba and all of Korea will be part of the United States in the next few years along with Puerto Rico. You need to learn who runs the world and makes thing happen!
Who the f*ck is this tyrant to opine on how to avoid nuclear war? This is the same hollow-hearted monster who wrote a letter to Khrushchev urging a first strike nuclear attack against the US in October of 1962.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/jfk-attack/
He has no credibility here. If anything, it is partly because of his tacit support of this suicidal megalomaniac in North Korea that this problem exists in the first place. I am just not buying into the whole ‘elder statesman’ gig Castro I tries to play. He will never win the Nobel Prize, his burning ambition, so he might as well focus on keeping his adult diapers handy and his stoma drained and keep his supercilious opinions to himself. Leave the international politics to to people with skin in the game.
If N. Korea dares to use Nuke first, it surely will be suicidal, but how counter side to defend themselves? Can non nuke weapon system counter nuke attack. Kim’s is totall crazy that defied all common sense. Castro’s warning is right on spot.