IN THE FACE OF U.S. AGGRESSION

• National Assembly approves stiffer sentences against serious crimes like the trafficking of drugs and persons
• Creates legislation to severely punish those collaborating with the United States in its war against the island
• President Fidel Castro states that it is a matter of refusing to allow the United States to carry out its death
sentence on the Cuban Revolution

BY ALDO MADRUGA (Granma International staff writer) Photos: Ahmed VELAZQUEZ

THE National Assembly of People's Power, Cuba's highest legislative institution, recently
approved stiffer sentences for a range of serious crimes which have marked repercussions on
citizens' sensibilities, after extended debates which confirmed enemy attempts to destabilize
the country through promoting violations of law, social indiscipline and civic insecurity.

The country will create the laws it needs to defend itself from an enemy which spares no weapon
in its arsenal to attack it, affirmed Fidel, who appears in the photo with first vice president Raúl
Castro, vice president Juan Almeida and Abelardo Colomé, minister of the interior.
 

Speaking at an extraordinary session called for this purpose, and which continued into the
evening hours over two days, President Fidel Castro emphasized that those methods had
become one of the principal planks of the U.S. strategy of destroying the Cuban Revolution,
over and above the Helms-Burton Act and other actions.

Included among the modifications to the Penal Code are prison terms of up to 30 years, or life
sentences for crimes such as robbery with violence, robbery with force, theft from occupied
homes and other crimes linked to the manufacture and trafficking of drugs, all of which were
fully discussed by known jurists and deputies representing a wide range of professions,
activities and sectors of the Cuban population.

SEVERE, JUST AND HUMANE

The Cuban Penal Code now includes the crimes of money laundering and the traffic of persons
- which have recently appeared on the island - and, concurrently, harsher sanctions were
approved for persons involved in the corruption of minors or pimping, phenomena that were
virtually eradicated by the Revolution and that have reappeared in recent years with the
country's opening to international tourism, and the economic crisis resulting from the
disappearance of the socialist camp and the intensification of the U.S. economic blockade.

Deputies were in agreement that, with the new penal measures, the humanism of the
Revolution, far from disappearing, will increase, be better defined and directed and will
become a genuine stimulus for saving human beings, correcting their ways and awarding their
positive side, as opposed to fueling impunity.

In this context, nobody will be sentenced in the absence of full legal evidence, nor on account of
their ethnic origin, nor for being poor; and neither will anyone escape punishment through
having money, a high position or power, Fidel stated in one of his many speeches during the
debating sessions.

Moreover, he stressed that this is a country of justice, in which legislation has been applied and
will continue to be applied with maximum equity and equality, in contrast to countries like the
United States, where racist and classist considerations have clearly intervened on thousands of
occasions.

Reverend Raúl Suárez, speaking of the Church's role in the fight against crime and on behalf of
citizens' tranquility and security, affirmed that the institution, in conjunction with other social
organizations, has a duty to cultivate the best values in the family and the community,
highlighting what he referred to as the "ethic of being" rather than "the ethic of having."

He clarified that he was not in agreement with the application of the death penalty due to his
profound Christian convictions, in a demonstration of honesty that was subsequently praised by
Fidel, who described the religious leader as a revolutionary.

THE RIGHT TO SELF-DEFENSE

The first extraordinary session of the 5th legislature of the National Assembly also devoted much space
to approving the Act for the Protection of the National Independence and  Economy of Cuba, whose
central objective is to defend the country from the annexationist aims of the Helms-Burton Act and all
complimentary measures (included those yet to be adopted) in the economic and subversive warfare
waged against this island by the U.S. government.

Due to its exceptional nature, this legislation takes precedence over any prior acts, without signifying the
repeal of any crime against state security included in the Penal Code currently in force.

Criminal acts typified in the new legislation include: the supply, search for or obtainment of
information benefiting the U.S. government in its aggression; the introduction into the country of
subversive material, its reproduction or diffusion; direct collaboration or through a third party
with radio or television stations, newspapers, magazines or other mass media to the
aforementioned ends.

It likewise sanctions persons promoting, organizing, inducing or participating in meetings or
demonstrations with the previously mentioned aims; and is applicable to those who support,
solicit, receive, distribute or facilitate financial, material or other kinds of resources to the ends
covered by the new legislation.

In general terms, this act is an attempt to respond to the various channels and tracks
established by the Helms-Burton Act, and to which the federal budget has even assigned public
funds.

As Fidel commented: "we are drawing up legislation to live by the law as we have always done,
and to confront problems head on. The country will create the legislation needed to defend itself
from an enemy which spares no weapon in its arsenal at the moment of attacking it and trying
to bring it to its knees."

The Cuban President affirmed that it is a matter of not allowing the Cuban Revolution to be
killed, or the death sentence passed against it to be carried out, which would be equivalent to a
death sentence on national dignity, independence and the major social gains attained by the
Cuban people.