That can give you an idea of what I mean. That country --well, there is hardly any need to say it-- is the United States of America, the only one protected. Others, faced with the continuous and incessant devaluations, crises, catastrophes and flights of capital, in their desperation begin considering the idea of suppressing their national currencies and adopting the US dollar which is governed by the United States Federal Reserve.

Now, could our country survive if we had such a system? That is, if our currency were the US dollar and this country blockaded and unable to acquire dollars were to buy the peasants' products --chicken, eggs, mangoes-- in US dollars, could this country exist? Based on what we have had to go through and what we have learned, we realize that in our conditions, if we did not have our very modest peso, which we have revalued, as I said, seven times, we would not have been able to revalue in the slightest. Practically all the schools would have been closed here while not a single one has been closed, and all the hospitals while not a single one has been closed. On the contrary, in this special period, we have increased the country's medical staff, especially the doctors working in the community but also those working in the hospitals by a figure that comes to approximately 30,000 new doctors. All this despite our great economic difficulties, lack of resources and often even of medicines, although we have the basic ones.

Today, a newspaper reported that in a central province of the country, not in the capital but in Villa Clara, infant mortality in children under one year was 3.9 for 1,000 live births. If we consider Washington, the United States capital, for example, its infant mortality rate is four or five times higher than in the Villa Clara province. There is one area, the Bronx, where it is 20 for 1,000 live births and other places in the United States where it is 30 for 1,000.

Our national average of infant mortality is lower than the United States national average by at least two or three percentage points. They are at perhaps 10 or 11 and our hope this year is to reduce it to 7 for 1,000. Last year, it was 7.1.

Needless to say that it is due to the efforts made that not a single day-care center has been closed. Not a single family doctor’s office has been closed. The number of doctor's offices has increased by many thousands during the special period. We have been able to do this, of course, because there is a revolution, there is a united people, there is a spirit of sacrifice and there is an extensive political culture.

When we speak about culture we do not forget the political culture. It is one of the sectors whose development is badly needed and which is very much lacking in the world. It is impossible to believe or imagine that an average person in the United States has a higher political culture than a Cuban or a European. I admit that Europeans have a higher political culture than Americans but, in general, Europeans do not have a higher political culture than Cubans. That is for sure. You could even have a contest to compare the European average political knowledge and the Cuban average, a contest between people who unfortunately live alienated by millions of things and people who do not live like that.

In our Latin American countries, sometimes necessity and poverty help in the development of a political culture higher than in those very rich countries that do not suffer the calamities that we do. That is why, in the Latin American teachers’ Congresses held in Cuba with thousands of teachers in attendance they constantly speak of the horrors of the neoliberalization that cuts off their budgets; and, in the medical Congresses they do likewise, as in the students Congresses or any congress for that matter, because they see it every day and they are conscious of it. Of course, awful things happen in Latin America that have not been seen for quite some time in Europe where the unemployed enjoy benefits that, according to some, allow them to vacation abroad for 15 days and more a year.

Where none of that exists, people suffer much more. We have more fertile ground to become politically cultured. In our case, we also have the experience accumulated by the country in very difficult battles against imperial aggression and in very great difficulties; and difficulties make good fighters.

But, all that notwithstanding, we could have done none of what I am telling you if we did not have a national currency that helps us to redistribute, and also many free services.

Of course, you compare it with the US dollar and there comes the misleading formula of the exchange rate between the US dollar and the Cuban peso in the Exchange Bureaux. And, if they say that it is 20 to 1, then somebody earning 300 Cuban pesos is said to earn 15 US dollars. If it was in New York, to those 15 US dollars you would have to add 1,000 to 1,500 US dollars to pay the rent, another 500 to pay for public health services --this is about 2,000 already-- another 500 or 1,000 for education, depending on the educational level because there are university courses there that cost 30,000 dollars a year. The add some 750 dollars more for the free education given to children, adolescents and young people here and the total could be some 2,750 US dollars, plus 15 that would be 2,765 dollars. All this is very misleading, is it not?

If you take into account that all children in Cuba up to the age of seven receive a liter of milk for 25 cents of a Cuban peso, then this would be a child or a family that is paying only 1.3 [1.25] cents of a US dollar out of the supposed 15 US dollars, for a liter of milk, and similarly for other essential food. Unfortunately, there is not enough food but there is a certain amount that, measured in dollars, are bought at a minute price.

If you go to our stadium, you can watch an important baseball match for 50 cents or one peso at most. If you go to Baltimore, where our team played the US team, of the 45,000 fans there, the ones who paid the least paid 10 US dollars and the ones who paid the most paid 35. To watch a similar performance a hundred times, a Cuban pays a maximum of 100 pesos. An American must pay 3,500 dollars. The same applies to a lot of other activities and services. But our system, with all those characteristics, could not have had such achievements without a national currency.

Well, so far this long disquisition on the importance of a national currency and the delirious things crossing the minds of those considering the removal of the national currency.

There in Europe, when they talk about sovereignty, they cannot have the same concept we do. They are uniting and giving up many of the attributes of the nation state to a supranational state, to a supranational community. Other countries elsewhere in the world should do that and we, Latin Americans, should do that, too. If not, we will not advance even three yards. In fact, we will go backwards more yards every year if we do not integrate. In the light of what is happening in the world, it is not something to preach but rather to build an awareness about, to transmit a basic idea.

Actually, there is a very close powerful neighbor who wants to integrate us into it. Of course, this is to have access to our natural resources and the cheap labor of hundreds of millions of Latin Americans producing jeans, shoes, T-shirts, handicrafts that are very labor-intensive. Meanwhile, they keep the cutting-edge industries and the brain drain continues. Right now, they are talking about hiring 200,000 highly qualified foreign workers for their electronic industries, preferably Latin Americans. And so, they take away those highly qualified people that you train in the universities, the most scientifically talented. They give visas to them all right. These do not need to become wetbacks or illegal immigrants.

If there is a good artist, an excellent artist who can be exploited commercially, he is coaxed to go there. They cannot coax a great writer like García Márquez because García Márquez might be coaxing them (Applause). At the very least with the high value of his works he might take a substantial part of the banknotes they print.

Actually, a good writer can work in his own country, he does not need to emigrate but in many areas of the arts it is not the same and they are coaxing the best talents to go there; many of them, at least. A man like Guayasamín could not be bought, not with all the money printed by the Federal Reserve. There are men who cannot be seduced with any money, men and women --I rather add those two words than be accused of gender discrimination-- and we have them here. We have them here! I do not need to mention names, they are humble men and women who are worth more than all the gold in the world. That is a fact.

I am explaining all this because they can help understand these phenomena of sovereignty, this battle. Because there are so many lies, so much demagogy, so much confusion and so many methods devised to disseminate them that an enormous effort should be made at constant clarification. If some things are not understood, the rest cannot be understood.

They talk about flight of capital, about volatile capital such as the short-term loans, as if those were the only kind of volatile capital. In any Latin American country, the volatile capital suddenly goes. But, alongside the volatile capital goes all the money saved by the country's savers because if some people withdraw their money for fear of a devaluation or so, the others rush to the bank, change it for US currency and transfer it to the U.S. banks where the interest rate is higher or lower, depending on the situation.

So, all the Latin American and Caribbean money is volatile capital. Let us be well aware of this. Volatile capital is not limited to those short-term loans with a high interest rate that are then quickly withdrawn by the owners when faced with a risky situation. Any money can become volatile, except for Cuban money; there is no way our money can become volatile. If they want to take it away we shall be delighted. The liquidity would decrease and the value of the peso would increase.

Now the Europeans are uniting. They do it to compete with their competitor. They talk about being partners but the United States does not want to be anybody’s partner. At any rate, our neighbor wants to be a privileged partner. It constantly takes measures against Europe: banning the export of cheese for such a reason or other or whatever other meat products because they use certain fodder. They are always fabricating pretexts. Right now, because of the banana and a resolution from the World Trade Organization which is nit unbiased, they have punished European exports for a total of about 500 million dollars. They take measures every day or threaten to take them. They are always wielding that weapon. Indeed, it is very clear to anybody who does a little thinking that Europe must compete very hard with them.

We welcome this Caribbean and Latin American meeting with the European Union that I previously mentioned. It is good and it is convenient. I think that it is convenient for Europe, it is convenient for the Caribbean and for Latin America as well. And let us hope that the euro is strengthened. It has now dropped a little. It is enduring the consequences of that adventurous and genocidal war --to call it by its true name.

It suits us that there is another reserve currency, so that there are two and not just one in the world. If only there were three. It suits us that there is more than one strong and stable currency.

I hope that, among the many historical acts of madness committed in this hemisphere we do not end up adopting the US dollar as a circulation currency. It is a currency entirely managed from the United States by the Federal Reserve and they are not going to accept any Latin American representative there. Because if they were willing to accept in their Federal Reserve System a representative for each Latin American country, even we would send them one, if we were allowed to, of course.

Obviously, that is a utopia. Of course, they are not going to welcome anybody, not even from the richer and more developed countries with a higher GDP, not even from Brazil, Argentina or Mexico, to mention the largest fraternal countries of Latin America. They are never going to accept our representatives in their Reserve System. The Latin American and Caribbean destiny is in danger but everything is not lost, far from it, we can still fight.

I hope you understand, European comrades, that the concept of sovereignty cannot be the one openly and shamelessly defended yesterday by a European representative for the first time since ideas began to be debated and doctrines developed against sovereignty. Europe, in general, is quite committed to that anti-sovereignty doctrine promoted by the imperialism of the superpower.

This explains that a European country --whose ambassador spoke at the United Nations in a way nobody had ever spoken there-- could regard as anachronistic the United Nations Charter and the principle of sovereignty and non-intervention, something fundamental in international law. Those who so express themselves have practically renounced sovereignty and will enjoy, in an near future, a simple national autonomy within a supranational state, with a supranational parliament and a supranational executive.

Even now, as a reward for his glorious wartime exploits and forgetting those who died and the millions who have suffered and will keep those wounds for life, they have created the position of European Minister of Foreign Affairs; a prize for an outstanding character who seriously believes that he is what he is not and who acts like he really is. I mean the great Marshall and Secretary General of NATO.

Our comrades are asked by the press: Are you not worried that they have named him Europe's minister of Foreign Affairs? We, in fact, do not tend to worry about anything, nor do we exchange principles for interests or convenience. But we might answer that we would rather have him as a minister of Foreign Affairs than as a NATO field Marshall. I do not know what his power will be as a minister of Foreign Affairs but we know only too well the power that he claims as a NATO Secretary General.

We have all the statements he has made, both before and during the war, and I know few people as attached to the doctrine of violence who use such a threatening style, with such a merciless and tough language. Obviously, he has a very great responsibility which he assumed when he formally ordered U.S. General [Wesley] Clark, head of the NATO military forces in Europe, to start bombing at such and such an hour and at such and such a point, after the NATO countries had given their Secretary General the power to start the war when, in his view, the diplomatic procedures had been exhausted.

In his capacity as Secretary General he issued orders and made statements almost constantly during more than 70 days of brutal bombings. They were all threatening, arrogant, abusive, almost cynical statements. Then, after the Security Council’s meeting yesterday he issued the last of his assumed orders: the cessation of the bombings. All this with the corresponding theatrical overtones.

How obedient those American Generals! A model of discipline such as history had never seen! They immediately attack or they immediately cease to attack because a distinguished ex-minister of Culture gives the order.

Can the countries of the European Union have the same concept of sovereignty as Mexico, Cuba, the Dominican Republic or any small Caribbean island, like a Central American country or like Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Brazil, Argentina or a south-east Asian country like Indonesia, Malaysia or the Philippines? Can they have the same concept as the vast majority of countries in the world which are dismembered?

When we are all integrated in a Latin America and Caribbean union, our concept of sovereignty will be different. We will have to give up a lot of those principles to obey the laws and the administration or the decisions of a supranational state.

Moreover, a Marxist can never be a narrow national chauvinist. A Marxist can be a patriot, which is different, and love his or her homeland, which is different, too.

A long time before today, there were men who dreamed, like [Simón] Bolívar almost 200 years ago, of a united Latin America. There were men, like [José] Martí who, more than 100 years ago dreamed of a united Latin America. At that time, when Bolívar proclaimed his dreams, Latin America was not made up of free independent countries, not yet.

In fact, the first independent country following the United States of America was Haiti, a country that provided material assistance to Bolívar in his struggle for Latin American independence and which also contributed, with its ideas and exchanges, to consolidate Bolívar’s consciousness about the impossibility to defer the slaves emancipation which was not attained after the first triumphant independence movement in Venezuela.

As you know, there was in the United States a struggle for independence and a declaration of principles in 1776. But, it was only after almost 90 years and a bloody war that the emancipation of slaves was formally declared. Of course, the slaves situation was often worse off afterwards since they were no longer any master’s property, they were no longer their owners’ assets so, if they died, the former masters did not lose a dime. Previously, if a slave died, his or her master lost what the slave had cost him in the infamous auction. Later, as it was the case here too, and everywhere, they were practically worse off.

There were not even independent states when Bolívar dreamed of a united, big and powerful Latin American state based on our similarities, such as no other group of countries in the world have in terms of language, ethnic groups of similar ancestry, religious beliefs and general culture.

Religion is also a part of culture. When we see the invasion of Latin America by fundamentalist sects --these things are known, these ideas emerged during the cold war-- I wonder about this invasion that wants to divide us into a thousand pieces. Why is there this fundamentalist invasion, by hundreds, even thousands of religious denominations that are not at all ecumenical, that are different from the traditional Christian religious denominations which have an increasing ecumenical spirit?

When I was a student there was nothing ecumenical about them. Really, when the Pope visited us, in my welcoming speech, I praised the current ecumenical spirit of his church. I recalled that it was not like that in my early youth, from first grade until I graduated from high school when I studied in Catholic schools. As a rule, I was a boarding student except for very short periods when I was a day pupil. Relations among the traditional churches have changed a lot since then.

Now I wonder, why do they want to fragment us with this invasion of thousands of non-unitary sects? As we understand it, in Latin America common religious beliefs constitute an important element of culture, identity and integration. It is not that there has to be a single church --far from it-- but pro-unity churches, ecumenical churches. Such elements should be preserved.

We, Latin Americans, have many more things in common than the Europeans. Until not long ago, for centuries, they were warring against each other. There was one war that they called the Hundred Years War, and wars of every kind: religious, national, ethnic wars. Those who know a bit of history know that only too well.

The Europeans have transcended all that because they have become aware of the importance of unity. It must be said, really, that the Europeans became conscious --their politicians, in general, did-- of the need to unite and to integrate and for around 50 years they have been working to that end. We have hardly even started.