Cuban diplomat Clinton Adlum: 'We've had to encounter the United States for too long to be surprised at this stage'

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US. Hands Uff Cuc Over 300 rallied in San Francisco on May 19 to demand escalating U.S. threats against Cuba.

The following is a March 19, 1990, interview with Clinton Adlum, who is First Secretary of the Cuban Interests Section in Washington, D.C. The interview, conducted over the telephone by Socialist Action staff writer, Alex Chis, has been abridged and changed only for style.

Socialist Action: It is well known that there is tremendous popular support for the government in Cuba, unlike what had been the case in Eastern Europe. How does Cuba view what is happening in Eastern Europe now?

Clinton Adlum: I can't tell you in detail what has happened, not having been there or having the opportunity of following closely how socialism was constructed there. I am afraid that my view would probably be affected by the information that I get here, even through your press.

But what I do know is that there are principles which should never be violated, and apparently they were violated there.

Now for us, socialism is the highest form of democracy. Whoever constructs socialism and does not keep this in mind, and does not guarantee a higher form of democracy for the people, deserves to be kicked out.

I suppose that based on what the press says about what happened, what was being done there [in Eastern Europe]: corruption, distancing from the masses, and accumulation of funds abroad—as it has been said in the case of Romania, where they had funds in Switzerland and things like this-these things have nothing to do with socialism.

Now we in Cuba keep this principle very much in mind. We maintain closeness with the masses to guarantee an adequate interpretation of the masses' desires. We work for the masses. The fact that you are a member of the party is not a privilege. So this is one of the basic principles that we have to understand.

The fact that you are a member of the party means that you are expected to make sacrifices for the people; not to use this as a stepping stone towards living a life-style which has nothing to do with socialism.

S.A.: In light of what has happened in

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CUBA elections were going on, the contras were creating problems.

S.A.: With the events that have happened in Central America, including the U.S. invasion of Panama, and the firing on a Cuban merchant ship, is it accurate to say the Cuban revolution is in more danger now than it has been in many years.

Adlum: Well, the situation is undoubtedly very dangerous. Because for obvious reasons the United States is projecting themselves in a very emboldened manner.

In recent months the things which are being done indicate that the U.S. government feels free to go around with a big stick; intervening and interfering in people's affairs, more or less like a policeman of the world.

In Panama, for example, you still don't know exactly how many people were killed there, but as far as I know thousands of people were killed there.

We have observed in recent times an escalation, in the U.S. press for example. Every single day, not a day passes, we have become very popular, but in a negative manner. Yes, every day we appear in the papers, and they are trying very hard to discredit our leader, Fidel Castro, and my country. We don't know what they are planning to do but we have a very fertile imagination and we know the United States quite well.

So this makes us expect the worst. They keep creating problems. This case of firing on the ship was another one. They also shot at our sentinel at the [Guantanamo] naval base. They didn't hit him, but this was no accident. At least we cannot accept this was an accident.

They provoked a resolution in the U.N. Human Rights Commission in Geneva and succeeded in getting Czechoslovakia and Poland to cosponsor this attack against us.

And many other things, which we see as an escalation. And now they're trying to start TV Marti, another violation of international law.

The U.S. economic embargo, and these attitudes which the United States has adopted; this escalation; and this manipulation of American public opinion; combined with the alliance which apparently has been established with some of these new partners the United States has now in Eastern Europe, which were our trade partners, forces us to expect the worst.

We are prepared for the worst and our people are prepared for everything. We have had to encounter the United States for too long to be surprised at this stage.

S.A.: Is there anything else you would like to say to our readers?

Adlum: I'm pleased to talk to you because first, in a world where we are not given the opportunity to put over our message, we are always grateful for this type of opportunity.

The possibility of putting forth our message and giving the people of the United States the opportunity of knowing exactly what is going on in Cuba, to know how we are thinking and so on, is an opportunity we rarely enjoy.

Even when some of these major media organizations come to Cuba, they interview our leadership and when they return to the U.S. the information is very trequently distorted. There is no free flow of information to and from.

For example, many people don't know that we have eradicated illiteracy, that we have free education for all regardless of race or sex; that we guarantee health services for all of our people, which did not exist in the past.

This is why sometimes we doubt—I know sometimes I doubt very much-when it is said that there is a free press in the United States. If people in the United States were that free, they would know what's going on in other parts of the world. We are just 90 miles away and yet there are so many things about Cuba which are deliberately hidden from the people of the United States.

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Stop TV e Joseph Ryan/Socialist Action