Fidel certainly needs no defense, or a mantle of adjectives, upon reaching his 80th birthday, but the fraternal love, respect, obedience, confidence, and unlimited loyalty we profess for him compels us to note some reflections, not mine alone, but those of his compañeros and our people, as well.
It's enough to say, in the simplest way possible, who he is and what he represents to Cuba and the world, to our history over the last 50 years, and to the future of humanity.
If this were about a ridiculous personality cult, which he rejects from the deepest core of his revolutionary consciousness, our enemies would not have tried to organize more than 600 attempts on his life.
They know better than anyone that this is about a figure with no cult, but one who shows with his ideas, with his culture, his political and moral leadership, the urgent necessity of changing the world - and precisely for this, the end of this system.
Fidel's Marxism does worry them, because he has synthesized and updated what is essential in liberatory thinking from Bolívar to Martí; the heroic history of Cuba and that of all our peoples; ethical humanist ideals of universal culture; the emancipatory ideas of Marx, Lenin and other revolutionary socialists…
His unquestionable, unitary leadership of Cuba, and his ability to bring together the world's progressive forces, worry them.
Their desperation is roused by Fidel's definitive rescuing of the internationalist spirit that the selfishness of others has eroded - a sentiment held by the best of peoples at all latitudes, which far from being extinguished is today regaining strength in the Americas, coming to life in the jungles of Bolivia, exactly where they attempted in vain to bury it along with the ever-present Che.
They cannot forgive him - or forget - that they must resign themselves to an Africa without apartheid.
They have not been able to kill him or do away with the Cuban Revolution, and that is why they wage an uncompromising media war against him as an individual, attempting in vain to slander and vilify him in public opinion.
When Fidel, on May Day in 2000, defined revolution, he expressed the aspirations of our people and humanity, and without intending to do so, defined himself.
Fidel is that human being who accompanies us, but Fidel is also a son of our people, and our entire revolutionary people are a good measure of Fidel, as well.
Since 1952, when he began to organize what would become the Moncada assault, his life has been a constant educating and giving to others.
We were first exposed to this influence in our underground contingent that later became a small group in prison; later it was felt in the Rebel Army, and then throughout the entire Cuban people.
Fidel is today being reproduced across Latin America and the Caribbean, among all the exploited peoples, among men and women everywhere who aspire to justice for humanity.
Fidel is, in short, the truth of our era. Without chauvinism, I say he is the greatest world statesman of the past century and this one. He is the most extraordinary and universal of Cuban patriots of all time.
Comandante de la Revolución Ramiro Valdés Menéndez in an excerpt from his opinions written specifically for the book Absuelto por la historia, by Luis Báez, July 6, 2006.
