Cuba: Six Decades in Defense of the Truth

The Revolution knows how to fight and win battles in the fields of information and public opinion, assured Fidel Castro when calling ''Operation Truth'' before more than one million Cubans just 21 days after the triumph of the Rebel Army.

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19 de enero de 2019 - Taken from Prensa Latina

The Revolution knows how to fight and win battles in the fields of information and public opinion, assured Fidel Castro when calling ''Operation Truth'' before more than one million Cubans just 21 days after the triumph of the Rebel Army.

The 60th anniversary of that iniciative occupies the center of an International Meeting of Journalism that will begin on Monday at the National Hotel of Cuba with the assistance of fifty or so directors of international media, organized by the Latin American News Agency Prensa Latina.

Operation Truth brought together 400 foreign journalists and some US congressmen and marked the need to defend the truth of Cuba against the hostile campaigns of the major international media.

Those who believed that after our military victories were going to crush us in the field of information, in the field of public opinion, they have found that the Cuban Revolution also knows how to fight and win battles in that field, he stressed in front of the Presidential Palace. (Today Museum of the Revolution).

The leader of the Revolution, then 33 years old, argued that the campaigns of the big US agencies, in fact, had strengthened the Revolution: 'Instead of weakening it they have strengthened it'.

He said that those who believed that, through the monopoly of international cables, sowing lies and slanders, were going to weaken and discredit the Cuban people 'and then launch themselves on him'.

On several occasions during his speech he stated that those campaigns had their origin in the fact that the Cuban people want to be free politically and economically and because Cuba 'has become a dangerous example in all of America'.

He described the media offensive as 'the most infamous, most criminal and most unjust that has been launched against any people', set up to criticize the public trials that were carried out against war criminals and torturers of the overthrown regime of Fulgencio Batista.

When just four or five days had passed since the triumph, the international cable agencies and certain American congressmen started the barrage of defamation against the Cuban people, he said.

He insisted on the need to convince public opinion of the world through journalists from all over the continent who arrived in Havana to meet the next day at the Havana Riviera Hotel, to whom, he said, he was going to 'be interrogated as you can submit who has done your duty. ' 'I am going to submit to the interrogation of America, as a man who has a clear conscience can submit,' Fidel Castro added.

For that, he reiterated, we have called journalists, to come here to witness, with their own eyes, the truth.

And, to demonstrate the democratic character of the nascent Cuban political process, the leader of the Revolution formulated asked the crowd if they agree with the justice that is being applied. Those who agree that the minions are shot, raise their hands. '

The attendees of the massive concentration voted with their hands up, in what Fidel described as 'an immense jury of one million men and women of all social classes, religious beliefs, social classes and political ideas.'

He also addressed the numerous press professionals and diplomats accredited in Cuba by stating that 'our revolution must be defended as it is defended, not something from Cuba, but something from America.'

At the same time, he asked the honorable journalists of the continent to 'not let them slander us because they want to destroy it, in harm, not only of Cuba, but in damage of America'

They do not want the Cuban Revolution to raise its head so that no American people can rise, he said.

Before concluding his speech, Fidel Castro warned: 'we are going to fight the battle of public opinion. If necessary, we invite not only journalists from America, but from all over the world, to come to Cuba to know the truth. '

Five months after Operation Verdad, Prensa Latina emerged and today has 40 offices around the world.

The International Journalism Meeting that will be held in Havana includes several panels on 'the media in times of globalization', 'the dangers of Latin American journalism' and 'access to information and communication technologies', as well as presentations on the history, culture, economy, politics and tourism in Cuba.

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