Message from Havana to friends
who are far away
Granma, Cuba, 4/24/03

FOR the last few days, we have been surprised and pained to see at the foot of slanderous anti-Cuban manifestos, along with the habitual signatories of the anti-Cuban propaganda machine, the names of some close friends. At the same time, statements by others, no less close to Cuba and the Cuban people have been circulated, which we believe are born from distance, disinformation and the traumas of failed socialist experiences.

Regrettably, and although that was not the intention of these friends, they are texts that are being utilized as part of the grand campaign to isolate us and prepare the way for military aggression by the United States against Cuba.

Our little country is currently being threatened as never before by a superpower that is attempting to impose a fascist dictatorship on a planetary scale. In order to defend itself, Cuba has been forced to adopt strong measures that naturally it did not wish to do. Cuba should not be judged for these measures by taking them out of context.

It is fitting that the only demonstration worldwide in support of the recent genocide took place in Miami, under the slogan "Iraq today, Cuba tomorrow", adding to explicit threats by members of the ruling fascist leadership of the United States.

These are new and testing moments for the Cuban Revolution and for humanity as a whole and it is not enough to combat aggression when it is imminent or already underway.

Today, April 19, 2003, 42 years after the defeat of the Bay of Pigs invasion, we are not directing ourselves to those who have made the subject of Cuba a business or an obsession, but to friends who can become confused in good faith and whom, on so many occasions, have afforded us their solidarity.

Alicia Alonso                 Carlos Martí

Miguel Barnet               Nancy Morejón

Leo Brouwer                 Senel Paz

Octavio Cortázar          Amaury Pérez

Abelardo Estorino        Graziella Pogolotti

Roberto Fabelo             César Portillo de la Luz

Pablo Armando Fernández        Omara Portuondo

Roberto Fernández Retamar     Raquel Revuelta

Julio García Espinosa                  Silvio Rodríguez

Fina García Marruz                     Humberto Solás

Harold Gramatges                       Marta Valdés

Alfredo Guevara                          Chucho Valdés

Eusebio Leal                                 Cintio Vitier

José Loyola