• Former U.S. president visits the Latin American Medical School,
                   whose students are young people from 28 nations, including the United
                   States

                   BY MARELYS VALENCIA (Granma International staff writer)

                   CUBAN President Fidel Castro and former U.S. President
                   Jimmy Carter, both wearing white guayaberas, spoke
                   yesterday to more than 8,000 young people from 24 countries
                   who are studying at the Latin American Medical School. But
                   taking it further than just sartorial coincidence, they also
                   agreed on the need to fight for a better world.

                   Fidel referred to The Carter Center’s work: "When I heard
                   about its programs, which made me very happy, I thought
                   that if so much good could be done in the world with just a
                   few dollars, what could we do with the millions and millions
                   of dollars spent on producing arms, drugs and luxury items."

                   Carter spoke first at the event. He began with a few initial
                   words in Spanish, revealing that he had learned the language
                   50 years ago at the Naval Academy.

                   He went on to comment on The Carter Center’s health care
                   efforts in over 66 nations, observing that the visit to the
                   school of medicine is very special for The Carter Center, and
                   stressing that this was a joining together of hearts to
                   alleviate human pain. Carter thanked the Cubans for having
                   taken that path.

                   As well as giving him information on the health care system,
                   his experiences on the island have allowed him to learn of the
                   help that Cuba offers to many countries, remarked the former
                   president.

                   An agenda of visits to centers linked with Cuba’s social
                   programs was planned by the U.S. delegation.

                   Fidel highlighted, "without trying to flatter" the visitor, his
                   lofty personal and family ethics which, he stated, was one of
                   the first things he noted in Carter’s speeches when he was
                   running for the U.S. presidency.

                   The Cuban president ended his impassioned and deeply
                   thoughtful speech with a reference to Cuba’s and The Carter
                   Center’s attention to the problems that the world is suffering.
                   "A world like the one he dreams of, like we dream of, a world
                   like you dream of is possible. It’s possible when everybody
                   has the knowledge, the culture and the necessary awareness
                   to live and act in the true spirit of friendship, to live and act
                   in the true spirit of justice."

                   Shortly before, he had described the legacy of consumer
                   societies as a terrible one. It is precisely those nations of the
                   hemisphere where luxury is accompanied by the illiteracy of
                   millions of people, that speak of and condemn Cuba as a
                   violator of human rights, the Cuban president noted.

                   "What is a society without justice, what is an illiterate
                   society, what freedom can be born from a lack of culture,
                   what democracy, what human rights?" Fidel asked. He
                   counterpoised that with the humanist work of the Revolution,
                   and talked of concepts that need to be rethought, "if we want
                   to move on to the future." And that future cannot be the past,
                   he affirmed in the context of Cuba.

                   He made an allusion to the Greek concept of democracy,
                   during a period when 80,000 slaves lived alongside 20,000
                   free men.

                   "When we regard the world we know today, in which
                   thousands upon thousands of human beings are living in
                   inconceivable poverty and thousands of millions populate that
                   Third World, we could ask what world we are living in.

                   "We ask ourselves what century will it be, what millennium
                   will it be when we can say that all human beings coming into
                   this world enter it with an equality of opportunity in life."

                   That is Cuba’s effort, he affirmed, even though it is a poor
                   nation.

                   "You can imagine how difficult that is, and how much more
                   difficult starting from poverty, as our country has had to do,
                   and poverty is the starting point for more than 140 countries
                   to a greater or lesser degree. Nonetheless," he added, "our
                   country is approaching a society in which all humans are
                   equal, but not in theory, because in the present world one
                   could only talk about equality in theory."

                   In this undertaking, the initiative of the Latin American
                   Medical School, whose students are trained with a
                   commitment to practice in their countries of origin, is an
                   outstanding one. Three representatives of the student body,
                   from Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea and the United States, talked
                   about this, and expressed thanks to Cuba for the unique
                   opportunity to study.

                   "Our presence here is an example of the good faith among our
                   peoples," stated Wing Wu, one of the 36 U.S. students at
                   this institution, from which the first doctors should graduate
                   in three years, according to Rector Juan Carrizo.

                   Fidel and Carter were received with applause by the students
                   at the school, who staged a brief cultural event with their
                   countries’ folk dances.

                   Without a doubt, the Latin American Medical School is an
                   undertaking of great interest to a man of Carter’s sensibility.
                   For Fidel, it continues to be a place which embodies his
                   dreams of how the world should be.