24 March 2020 — Internationalist 360°

Stella Calloni

In these difficult times for humanity, confronted with the danger of constant predatory action by the greed and boundless ambition of the hegemonic powers in the name of the free market, free enterprise, wild neo-liberalism, the destruction of nature ravaged to extremes never before seen by decadent capitalism, only solidarity and responsibility illuminate our habitat.

In this situation, it is important to recall the events that have been heavily manipulated and to transmit the truth, which emerges by unmasking the faces of human misery and, in contrast, the most beautiful examples of solidarity and resistance that leave the sowers of hate exposed.

In a world shaken and paralyzed by the effects of a pandemic provoked by the mutation of the already known coronavirus, the dehumanization, cruelty and insensitivity of the most powerful is evident in a way that is rarely seen.

One of the events, made invisible, that could have been a warning to the world, happened in the United States on October 18, 2019, at a meeting of the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in New York that became known as “Event 201”. It was “a careful simulation of a ‘coronavirus’ epidemic, under the name CoV-2019,” which was analyzed by sociologist and social anthropologist Andrés Piqueras, professor at the University Jaume I of Spain.

In an article titled, “Global crisis, coronavirus and dying capitalism: a deadly cocktail“, Piqueras pointed out that the Gates Foundation, the World Economic Forum, as well as Johnson & Johnson and Henry Schein corporations (world leader in the production of medical material) also participated in the “Simulation 201”, reaching the conclusion, along with other strong economic data, that “15% of the financial markets would collapse and approximately 65 million people in the world would lose their lives”. Interestingly, the World Health Organization (WHO) first named the current coronavirus, as it did in “event 201”, to finally call it Covid-19.

Furthermore, this meeting took place in the same month that the 2019 Military World Games were held, from October 18 to 27 in Wuhan, with wide participation of the US military, and at this point it is noted that “today, deaths that were believed to be due to influenza in the US are being reviewed as possible deaths due to coronavirus; but that American country has not found its patient zero”.

He warned that what is clear is that many of the features of the simulation have occurred in January 2020, and that 15% stock market crash -which was discussed then- has actually occurred at the end of February this year. On Wall Street, it was necessary to intervene in the stock market to prevent it from collapsing.

Referring to other challenges being confronted at the moment, beyond what is the real origin of this “timely” virus Covid-19, he warned about the “panic mode” that the world market has entered impacting the production and supply chains, affecting the whole of the global value chains and that “never, not even in times of war, has consumption been subjected to such a shock discipline […] The vicious circle is the classic one: trade stops, production slows down, unemployment soars, consumption collapses”, and if this is already catastrophic, “one can go further and social indicators can be worse, especially when the virus hits countries with scarce health resources”.

There are other data, but this leads us to propose that we cannot ignore anything about the origin of this virus or its impact on the future of humanity, and in the midst of the catastrophe we can record the reactions to understand what the ways of acting of each country in these circumstances are about.

President Donald Trump, who has been working to minimize the effects of the new coronavirus, offered to pay $1 billion to a laboratory of the German biopharmaceutical company CureVac, based in Tubeingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany, which is working on the manufacture of a vaccine, on the condition that it be produced exclusively for the United States.

The laboratory works with the state-run Paul Ehrlich Institute and it was the well-known German newspaper Dei Welt am Sonntag that reported on Trump’s offer, trying to bring the German company to the United States and secure exclusive rights to the vaccine, as recorded in Business Insider (translated by Cubadebate, March 15).

It is known that there are a number of negotiations, albeit with a German bias, for vaccines and active substances against the new coronavirus to be developed in Germany and Europe. The German authorities are opposed to the purchase of this vaccine with exclusive rights by the United States or under the condition that this country first obtains access to the hoped-for drug, and Interior Minister Peter Altmaier told local television that “Germany is not for sale”.

The face of solidarity

From another point of view, the world could not ignore the actions of the Cuban government at this crucial time, both in sending Interferon Alpha 2B, used in China, where the new strain of the coronavirus suddenly appeared in the central province of Wuhan, and in offering professionals and their collaboration received the gratitude of the Chinese people, when it was announced that the epidemic had been controlled there.

It was the opposite of what happened in Italy, where the continuity of neoliberal governments led to the dismantling of a large part of the public health system, but also to a war-like decision, selecting those who “could” be left to die (the elderly), which will undoubtedly mark the future of that country.

China sent a plane loaded with medicines and specialized professionals to Italy to deal with the pandemic. And Cuban doctors and medicines were also requested, not only in Italy, but in other European countries.

They were also requested from Latin America, including Brazil, where the government of Jair Bolsonaro intemperately dismissed the Cuban doctors who were on health missions in distant locations where the population had never received medical assistance. During those days when they were forced to leave the country, popular demonstrations took place in rejection of the official decision and the images of that farewell were painful and unforgettable.

The same thing happened in Bolivia, with the decision of the coup leaders who overthrew President Evo Morales last November, where the Cuban medical missions had done an extraordinary job. Their departure in the midst of violent threats left large sectors of the population without medical assistance. In both cases these measures were taken at the behest of Washington.

The results are visible in these hours, as is the impiety of the capitalist system. The small island in the Caribbean, under blockade, under siege by the United States, has become a world power in health, education, culture and dignity through an incredible will to resist.

On March 17, at the request of the government of Great Britain, the British cruise ship MS Braemar carrying 682 passengers and 381 crew members docked at the port of Mariel, located in the west of Havana, with five passengers affected by the coronavirus and others under quarantine, after several attempts to get any country to accept the landing.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel immediately accepted the British request and coordinated the sending of planes to pick up the passengers at Havana’s José Martí International Airport, establishing that those who were affected would be treated in Cuba, as well as others who might be left for observation, and the rest were taken to Great Britain, in a sensitive rescue operation.

That was another exciting scene recorded by many of the travellers who, as they disembarked, displayed a hastily made sign: “I love you Cuba”. Which would later be transformed into messages on the networks thanking this country for the generosity and humanity shown, as reported by Cuban media.

UK Ambassador Antony Stoke expressed his gratitude to the Cuban Government, whose actions saved many lives. One can only imagine what would have happened if the cruise ship had continued to drift without being accepted at any port.

In reality, it was not easy in the midst of the situation that Cuba is experiencing, due to the deepening of the blockade through a number of criminal measures taken by the Trump government to suffocate the people in a veritable policy of extermination.

The flip side of this solidarity was the response of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to a request by President Nicolas Maduro to grant Venezuela a credit of five billion dollars to address the pandemic, given that the U.S. government is keeping more than 40 billion dollars of the Venezuelan state frozen in its banks.

In addition, it appropriated Citgo, among others, and maintains a blockade against the country, preventing the arrival of food, medicines, and hygiene products, preventing trade in an economic war that has reached levels of extreme criminality.

Indeed, the continuation of the blockade against Cuba and Venezuela and the coup attempts against Nicaragua deepen the crime against humanity that is aggravating the current situation. The fact that the IMF does not recognize the government that is functioning as such and “doubts” whether the current president of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro or a supposed phantom “interim president” Juan Guaidó who has no government headquarters anywhere in the world,, is one of the biggest scandals in the diplomatic and political history of the world.

That the IMF denied Venezuela this money clearly destined for humanitarian purposes, while it “loaned” the former right-wing government of Mauricio Macri in Argentina 54 billion dollars, knowing that this president had sunk the country and that the money was going to be smuggled out, which is what happened, clearly shows the criminal nature of the imperial-colonial system and the global state terrorism that is being applied to us.

This reality emerges today without mercy over suffering and death, where only truth and solidarity maintain the hope of a world subjected to criminal experimentation.

Denunciations and the explosion of the internal situation within the electoral framework in the United States, as well as the demands of some European countries, led to the final suspension of manoeuvres with the North Atlantic Organisation (NATO) “Defend Europe 20” after the transfer of soldiers and equipment trapped in a region seriously affected by the pandemic.

However, it is worthwhile, in this series of comparisons and splintered mirrors, to summon the necessary strength and unity to prevent, as the Spaniard Piqueras warns, an attempt to begin “a new age of capitalism (its long, slow agony?), which would be one of widespread barbarism” for the majority of humanity.

Translation by Internationalist 360º