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CounterPunch
February
28, 2003
Cuba's Biological Weapons
The World Needs
More of Them
By RICHARD LEVINS
Every once in a while, stories appear about "Castro's"
biological weapons, as in "Castro Weaponizes West Nile Virus"(by
Martin Arostegui, Insightmag posted September 16, 2002. The term
"Castro" is used in this literature interchangeably
with "Cuba". It is apparently the indigenous name for
the largest of the Antilles, and like "Borinquen" for
"Puerto Rico" or "Quisqueya" for "Hispaniola",
it seems to have great sentimental value especially for the exile
community.
The stories usually originate in publications
linked to the right wing of Miami exiles. They quote each other,
and sometimes they make it to Washington, where they are eventually
qualified by a cooler head or are allowed to fade away.
But all these tales miss the point. Cuba's
real biological weapons programs are hidden in the way the Purloined
Letter was hidden, right in the open where everyone can see it
and no one recognizes it for what it is.
It seems that while a student in the
Jesuit Seminary of his youth, Fidel read Edgar Allen Poe's famous
mystery story and remembered it for the rest of his life. Or
maybe he didn't. Or it is possible that on some dark and stormy
night in the Sierra Maestra, when Batista's soldiers were all
tucked in their beds and there was nobody to ambush, and when
he was finally bored with thinking up new ways of tormenting
the Cuban people, Fidel borrowed the book from Che. In any case
we suspect that he was familiar with Poe's story and that he
used the stratagem made famous by that American author to confound
the world. Anyway, everyone is free to make things up about Fidel.
The fact of the case is, I am now able
to confess (without guarantee of book or movie rights) that for
more than 35 years I have been an active participant and observer
of three of Cuba's major biological weapons programs and can
testify to their deceptive locations and advanced status of development.
The three major programs are: Universal,
free, and quality health care; Ecological agriculture; Preservation
of sustainable biodiversity.
Cuba's health program is now recognized
as one of the most effective in the world. Infant mortality,
at 6.5/1000 live births, is tied with Canada for the best record
in the western hemisphere. Life expectancy is up among the industrialized
high income countries. Cuba has the highest number of physicians
per capita in the world, the most complete coverage of infant
immunizations, the most equitable access to medical care. Cuban
health education includes an active pushing of increased vegetable
use, while urban gardens provide 3 million tons of fresh produce
per year for 11 million people. An outbreak of dengue fever,
now a major scourge in the world tropics, was contained by mass
mobilizations to eliminate breeding sites for mosquitoes.
Cuban vaccines such as the one against
meningitis are widely used in Latin America. Cuba has been able
to send public health teams abroad, to Central America and Africa,
and receives patients from all over the world in their specialized
hospitals and clinics including some 11,000 Ukrainian children
injured by the Chernobyl meltdown.
After a period of trying out high-tech
industrialized approaches to agriculture, Cuba is rapidly advancing
toward ecologically sound organic production. Chemical fertilizers
are being replaced by the use of nitrogen-fixing bacteria, fungi
that mobilize soil minerals, earthworms, compost, animal manure
and recycling the residues from processing of the harvests. Pesticides
are being replaced by polyculture (the mixed plantings that confuse
or obstruct herbivores), natural enemies (predatory ants, mites,
ladybugs, lacewings and others), parasites of insect pests (mostly
wasps and flies), fungus infections of the pests, and the application
of natural products such as neem or mineral oil. In increasingly
diversified farms, goats and horses contribute to weed control.
Almost all the urban vegetable and about
half the total food production is organic.
Cuba leads the world in active compliance
with the environmental agendas of Rio and Kyoto. Freon is being
replaced in Cuban refrigerators by a Cuban coolant derived from
sugar cane in order to protect the ozone layer. Special programs
aim at the protection of the fragile mangroves along the coast,
resistance to desertification, and integrated development of
the mountains. Forests covered some 14% of Cuba's land at the
time of the revolution. It has now increased to some 21% and
the target is around 27%. The press often reports the completion
of local reforestation and clean-up programs.
These three programs are the cores of
Cuba's biological weapons program. The policy question is, how
can the international community respond? The United States, on
its own, as the one world super-power, can warn Cuba that if
they persist with their public health strategy the US will provide
universal health care for all residents and offer women 11 prenatal
clinic visits free. If they do not dismantle their national parks
and reserves we will forbid oil drilling in the Alaskan Wildlife
Refuge. If they continue to push organic agriculture we will
progressively ban the most toxic pesticides and fund an organic
research program comparable to the Human Genome Project.
The Cuban scheme to reduce primary school
class size to 20 students per teacher is a dual-use program aimed
at educating all children in the sciences and humanities, and
is capable of producing scientists capable of producing more
weapons. With 2 % of the population of Latin America they already
have 11% of the scientists, and if this trend continues for 400
years almost every scientist south of the border will be a Cuban!
The United States cannot wait indefinitely. We must respond by
cutting primary school classes to 18 children per teacher!
Together with our allies we should call
an International Conference where we will introduce and offer
to fund a Biological Weapons Proliferation Treaty which obliges
all countries, in a multilateral Coalition of the Reluctant,
to catch up with Cuba. Only then will the danger to our freedoms
disappear.
Richard Levins
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