Fidel: Meeting at the Memorial Jose Marti with Artists, Religious Leaders and Members of Pastors for Peace

The leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, paid tribute to Cuba’s Hero Jose Marti, and held a meeting with artists, journalists and foreign guests with whom he discussed national and world issues.

The Cuban icon laid in a private ceremony a wreath at Jose Marti Memorial in Havana on the occasion Monday of the 57th Anniversary of the assault on the Moncada garrison, which served as the spark that triggered the revolution.

He then held a one-hour televised meeting at the Memorial’s small theater with painters, musicians, journalists, designers, print workers, local religious leaders who are members of Parliament, and members of the U.S. Pastors for Peace caravan among other guests.

In an open exchange of questions and answers, Fidel Castro discussed the huge challenges the humanity is facing, and recalled some of the historical events of the assault on the Moncada garrison on July 26th, 1953, celebrated in Cuba as the National Day of Rebelliousness.

The Cuban leader recalled some of the events of that action and the revolutionary struggle that followed.

He then announced the forthcoming launching of a book of his on the victorious struggle of the revolutionary forces over the tyranny of Fulgencio Batista in 1958 when 300 men were able to defeat an army of 10,000 well-armed soldiers backed by the air force and the navy.

Commenting on world issues, Fidel Castro specially referred to the great dangers of a potential war in the Middle East, warning that Israel could push the U.S. into a nuclear war against Iran.

He explained, too, that he had thought the war would erupt first in the Korea Peninsula after Washington accused North Korea and made half the world believe that it had sunk a sophisticated South Korean war vessel.

The Cuban icon recalled that in times of Nixon the U.S. had threatened to use tactical nuclear weapons against Vietnam and Korea, adding that as the pressures and threats were growing against Iran, "the issue of the oil spill broke out".

It’s been 107 days and they haven’t been able to solve the problem, and (Barack) Obama knows, but publicly does not accept that it is a very big problem, he stressed.

If the accident had not taken place, British Petroleum would have kept drilling, he warned, and said that BP has 27,000 non-productive wells. The U.S. government -he added- is growingly concerned that methane gas could start coming out from those unused wells, and then there’ll be no solution to the spill.

He announced that he would request an extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly to talk about this serious issue.

On the increasing military deployment of the U.S. in Latin America, Fidel Castro said that "all those things show the irresponsibility of the Empire. They have no control, they can’t control their instinct. I seriously mean it: they belong to prehistory." And all that -he satirized- is inspired on a noble purpose: to fight drug trafficking.

In an answer to Lucius Walker, the Pastor for Peace leader, about Haiti’s future, Fidel Castro said that according to today’s world order, there’s no future for that country. However, in the world he talks about -he insisted- there can be a solution.

He recalled Washington’s selfishness and insensibility toward the millions of starving people and the needy, and toward those who need medical care particularly the children.

Fidel Castro further mentioned the blockade Cuba is suffering and the unjust incarceration of the five Cuban antiterrorists in separate jails in the U.S. "They haven’t had the least gesture to release them. Five human beings separated from their families …But they will release them", he predicted.