Letters and Messages

Message to internationalists returning from Bolivia

Dear combatants for the health of people born with disabilities:
 
Yesterday, I signed 213 books "Por todos los caminos de la Sierra: La victoria estratégica," with today's date, the one on which you are returning to the homeland for a brief rest.
 
You have come face to face with really severe cases, like those of human beings who are born blind, deaf and speechless, and who have never seen a ray of light, nor have heard a single sound. That is to say, they have never been in touch with life in spite of having been born, and those two simple elements are enough for humans to feel happy, to sing and to communicate with others; simply, to live.
 
The people that you are attending to, the bearers of a gamut of suffering, will reward you with the joy of doing good, something that cannot be bought with all the gold in the world. That demonstrates that human beings, over and above their instincts, are capable of becoming a symbol of generosity and goodness.
 
There is no other way of explaining your untiring battle, facing heat, rain and danger; crossing forests and swamps; defying the cold and the snows of steep mountains, to help those who cannot do without you as, by now, you cannot do without them.
 
Within two weeks you will be leaving again, this time not from the land where the heroic guerrilla fell, to Cuba as a reinforcement battalion, but from Cuba to Ecuador where, for many months, other compatriots have been immersed in the same battle, together with doctors from that sister country.
 
Our force, which brought joy to close to 800,000 people in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua, is no more than a wisp of what can be done for the people of this hemisphere and the rest of the world without charging a single cent for it. The most important thing is the example that you have bequeathed to the youth who, together with you, have begun to undertake that task in the heart of their nation and in other countries.
 
In all of its history the empire has not been capable, nor could it ever do the same with even one percent of this amount. What use is such a system?
 
It is for that reason that, with much pleasure and very fraternally, that I added my signature to the names and last names of each one of you.
 
¡Hasta la victoria siempre!
 
Fidel Castro Ruz
August 17, 2010
18/08/2010