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The most extraordinary page
of glory, and of patriotic
and revolutionary determination
has been written during these
years of the special period
Speech given by Fidel Castro Ruz, first
secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of the
Councils of State and Ministers, at the main ceremony for the 40th anniversary of the
triumph of the Revolution, in Céspedes Park, Santiago de Cuba, on January 1, 1999, Year
of the 40th Anniversary of the Triumph of the Revolution
(Translation of the transcript of the
Council of State)
People of Santiago:
Compatriots in all of Cuba:
 I am
trying to recall that night of January 1, 1959; I am reliving and perceiving impressions
and details as if everything were occurring at this very moment. It seems unreal that
destiny has given us the rare privilege of once more speaking to the people of Santiago de
Cuba from this very same place, 40 years later.
Before dawn on that day, with the arrival of the news
that the dictator and the main figures of his opprobrious regime had fled in the face of
the irrepressible advance of our forces, for a few seconds I felt a strange sensation of
emptiness. How was that incredible victory possible in just over 24 months, starting from
that moment on December 18, 1956, when - after the extremely severe setback which
virtually annihilated our detachment - we managed to gather together seven rifles to
resume the battle against a combination of military forces which totaled 800,000 armed
men, thousands of trained officers, high morale, attractive privileges, a totally
unquestioned myth of invincibility, infallible advising and guaranteed supplies from the
United States? Just ideas which a valiant people claimed as their own worked a military
and political victory. Subsequent vain and ridiculous attempts to salvage what remained of
that exploiting and oppressive system were swept away by the Rebel Army, the workers and
the rest of the people in 24 hours.
Our fleeting sadness at the moment of victory was
nostalgia for the experiences we had lived through, the vivid memory of the comrades who
fell throughout the struggle, a full awareness that those exceptionally difficult and
adverse years obliged us to be better than we were, and to transform them into the most
fruitful and creative ones of our lives. We had to abandon our mountains, our rural life,
our habits of absolute and obligatory austerity, our tense life of constant vigilance in
the face of an enemy that could appear by land or air at any moment of the 761 days of the
war; a healthy, hard, pure life and one of great sacrifices and shared dangers, in which
men become brothers and their best virtues flourish, together with the infinite capacity
for commitment, selflessness and altruism that all humans carry within them.
The enormous difference in equipment and strength
between us and the enemy forced us to do the impossible. Suffice it to say that we won the
war with rifles and anti-tank mines, in every important action always fighting against the
enemy's artillery, armored vehicles and, in particular, airplanes, which were always
immediately present in any military action.
We seized rifles and other semi-automatic and automatic
light infantry weapons from the enemy in combat, and the explosives with which, in rustic
workshops, we manufactured the shells we used against armored vehicles and their
accompanying infantry always came from the rain of bombs which they launched against us,
some of which failed to explode. The infallible tactic of attacking the enemy when it was
on the move was a key factor. The art of provoking those forces into moving out of their
well-fortified and generally invulnerable positions became one of our commands' greatest
skills.
Enemy operations units and their garrisons were
besieged, their reinforcements were destroyed or they were forced to surrender out of
hunger and thirst, under constant fire from our marksmen, who tightened their circle every
day avoiding frontal attacks, which cost many lives when adequate equipment and weapons
are unavailable. What we learned in the mountains and dense forest areas was applied there
in the lowland areas, on paved highways, under cover of citrus plantations, fruit orchards
and even cane fields, which served to conceal our troops, generally rookies, given the
accelerated growth of our ranks as arms were acquired, although always under the command
of more experienced comrades, mounting surprise attacks on reinforcements. The same method
wound up being applied within the cities, isolating the garrison's various positions.
That was how the city of Palma Soriano was taken in
just three days, and that was how the plan was conceived to attack and take control of the
garrison of 5000 men in the Santiago de Cuba plaza, with the deployment of 1200 rebel
troops. Previously, 100 of the weapons taken in Palma had been brought in through Santiago
Bay to start the uprising, five days before the start of operations where the four
battalions defending the periphery gradually moved in to encircle the city. I am omitting
more precise details of the plan conceived. I will simply note that there was one rebel
fighter for every four enemy soldiers. We had never had a more favorable balance of
forces.
The battle was initiated in Guisa, a few kilometers
from Bayamo, by 180 men, who were to fight against reinforcements sent on a paved highway
and other routes from that city, where the enemy army and thousands of its best soldiers
were located, with backup from heavy tanks. After 11 days of intensive combat, in which
our forces were growing with the arms taken and some small reinforcements, Guisa fell into
our hands on November 30, 1958.
This battle was yet another example of the exceptional
fighting capacity acquired by our soldiers and of their swift action. Five months
previously, in June of the same year, the enemy had launched its last and apparently
unbeatable offensive against the general command in La Plata, in the Sierra Maestra. But
we were no longer the greenhorns who disembarked on December 2, 1956. Neither were we so
numerous. The defense was initiated with approximately 170 men, with the combined and
still very limited number of troops commanded by Che, Camilo, Ramiro and Almeida, who had
received instructions to move towards Column No. 1's positions, the strategic objective of
the enemy offensive. Thus, we had all our columns except the 2nd Eastern Front commanded
by Raúl, which was too far away in the northeastern mountains to support our front. Four
weeks later, we totaled around 300 fighters. Furthermore, hundreds of young unarmed
volunteers were training in the Minas del Frío recruitment school.
CAMILO AND CHE'S MARCH FROM THE SIERRA TO THE
ESCAMBRAY
After 74 days of intense fighting, the enemy battalions
had suffered close to 1000 casualties, including deaths, wounded and prisoners. We were
holding over 440 prisoners and we handed them back a few days later through the
International Red Cross. I have written what I remember. Perhaps historians can be more
precise concerning this data, based on our documents which have been preserved and those
that were later discovered in enemy archives. What I can confirm is that over 500 weapons
were captured and as they were seized from the army they were used to arm the trainees.
Without wasting any time, when the fighting was over, the rebel columns, comprising no
more than 900 armed men, moved into the territory dominated by the army towards the center
of the country, with the exception of the extensive eastern zone already under the firm
control of the Frank País 2nd Eastern Front. Those rebel columns advanced in different
directions, creating new war fronts that were rapidly developed. I remained in the command
post with a few men. While carrying out those operations, Che and Camilo, the first with
approximately 140 men - according to my recollection, without consulting any records - and
the second, with around 100, carried out one of the greatest feats among the many I know
from history books: they advanced more than 400 kilometers from the Sierra Maestra to the
Escambray mountain range - in the wake of a hurricane - through low-lying swampy areas,
infested with mosquitoes and enemy troops, under constant aerial vigilance, without
guides, without food, and without the logistical support of our underground movement,
which had a weak organization in the area of their long march. Outwitting sieges,
ambushes, successive lines of contention and bombardments, they reached their goal. Such
was our confidence in the fighters who routed the enemy offensive and, most important of
all, such was their infinite confidence in themselves and their legendary leaders. They
were men of iron. I recommend that young people read and reread the beautiful descriptions
contained in Che's Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (Episodes of the Revolutionary
War).
And as I have almost involuntarily fallen into these
reflections of our battles in the Sierra Maestra, to complete the history of the events
which led me once again to this beautiful city on that January 1st whose 40th anniversary
we are celebrating today, I will tell you that I left La Plata with 30 armed men and 1000
unarmed recruits on November 11.
Those valiant and selfless young men had more
experience with hunger, bombardments and a lack of everything than they did with arms,
given that there wasn't even a spare bullet for real shooting practice. They arrived in
enthusiastic waves at the school, from all over, but at that time only one out of every 10
was able to endure those conditions. They nourished our ranks, they were more daring than
our older fighters. Inspired by the traditions and stories they heard, they wanted to
achieve in one day what others had done over several years.
Collecting small rebel units along the march, plus the
weapons from two enemy detachments that came over into our ranks, persuaded by then
Commander Quevedo, our worthy and valiant adversary in the battle of Jigüe, and on the
understanding that they would not fight against their former comrades in arms, our large
column constituted an advance guard of 180 men with weapons of war. In Guisa, Baire,
Jiguaní, Maffo and Palma Soriano, scenes of numerous actions, and with the support of
other forces as we advanced, the recruits more than realized their dreams of fighting.
Partially taking into account losses through the death, injury or illness of
already-equipped fighters, and with the arms seized with the taking of Palma, which I
estimate at around 700 all together, all the recruits that left La Plata with me six weeks
earlier were armed and constituted a formidable force. In Palma alone, 350 weapons were
taken.
I should point out that not all the arms that
contributed to converting the youth at our Minas del Frío school into front-line soldiers
were exclusively the fruit of our triumphs. In mid-December we received what in my
judgment constituted the most valuable arms aid from abroad: 150 semiautomatic weapons and
a FAL automatic for me, dispatched in the name of the Venezuelan people by Rear Admiral
Larrazábal and the revolutionary junta which had assumed power in Venezuela some months
before the Cuban triumph. As you can imagine, those arms rapidly went into action and
participated in the Jiguaní, Maffo and Palma Soriano combats.
For that reason, after Palma and Maffo fell under our
control, there were more than sufficient weapons for our unarmed fighters, and we were
able to send the aforementioned 100 troops for the Santiago uprising and a significant
number to Belarmino Castilla, with instructions to cut off the retreat of the battalion
located in Mayarí.
Since I mentioned the Venezuelan aid, I should state
that in our revolutionary struggle we didn't receive arms and ammunition supplies from
abroad, except in very exceptional cases, of which, out of the rest I recall or heard
about, the Venezuelan consignment was by far the largest. Over 90% of the arms and
ammunition with which we armed ourselves and won the war were seized from the enemy in
combat. They only amounted to a few thousand but, on an inviolate principle, absolutely
all of them were always used on the front line.
The events that I have recalled only partially have
been commemorated throughout the year that has just ended.
Honor and eternal glory, infinite respect and affection
to those that died then to make possible the country's definitive independence; for all
those who wrote that epic in the mountains, the plains and cities; to the underground
guerrillas and fighters; to those who, after the triumph, died in other glorious missions
or loyally gave up their youth and energies to the cause of justice, sovereignty and the
redemption of their people; to those who have died and to those who are still living;
because, if that January 1 could be spoken of as the triumph attained in five years, five
months and five days starting on July 26, 1953, on this anniversary - taking the same
starting point - it is accurate to speak of a heroic and admirable struggle of 45 years,
five months and five days. (APPLAUSE)
FOR THE YOUNGEST GENERATIONS THE REVOLUTION HAS
BARELY BEGUN
Even today, the Revolution has barely begun for the
youngest generations. A day like this would have no meaning if I do not speak for them.
Who are those who are present here? In their
overwhelming majority they are not the same men, women and young people of that time. The
people I am addressing are not the people of that January 1. They are not the same men and
women. It is another, distinct people and, at the same time, the same eternal people.
(APPLAUSE)
Of the 11,142,700 inhabitants that constitute the
country's current population, 7,190,400 had not yet been born; 1,359,698 were under 10
years of age; the overwhelming majority of those then aged 50 and who would now be at
least 90 have died, even though those living beyond that age are constantly more numerous.
Of those compatriots, 30% were unable to read and
write; I believe that a further 60% never reached sixth grade. Only a few dozen technical
colleges and high schools existed, not all of them within the reach of the people; the
same with teacher training colleges, plus three universities and one private one.
Professors and teachers amounted to 22,000. Possibly 5% of adults, that is, 250,000
persons, could have had more than a sixth-grade education.
There are some statistics I remember.
Today, much better trained teachers and working
professors total over 250,000; doctors, 64,000; university graduates, 600,000. Illiteracy
has been eradicated, it's extremely rare to find a person who hasn't reached sixth grade.
Education is obligatory up to ninth grade; without exception, everyone who reaches that
level can continue high-school level studies free of charge. There's no need to refer to
absolutely accurate and absolutely exact data. There are facts that no one would dare to
deny. Today, with pride, we are the country with the highest per capita indices of
teachers, doctors and physical education and sports instructors in the world; and we have
the lowest infant and maternal mortality rates in the Third World.
Nonetheless, I don't propose to talk of these and our
many other social achievements. There are far more important things than these. What is an
absolute reality is that there is no possible comparison between today's people and
yesterday's people.
The yesterday's people, illiterate and semi-illiterate,
and with really only a minimal political awareness, were capable of making the Revolution,
of defending the nation, of subsequently achieving an exceptional political consciousness
and initiating a revolutionary process that is unparalleled in this hemisphere and in the
world. I do not say that out of any ridiculous chauvinistic spirit, or with the absurd
pretension of believing ourselves better than others; I am saying it because, as a result
of fate or destiny, the Revolution that was born on that January 1 has been subjected to
the hardest trial faced by any revolutionary process in the world.
With the participation of three generations, our heroic
people of yesterday and today, our eternal people, have resisted 40 years of aggression,
blockade, and economic, political and ideological warfare waged by the strongest and
richest imperialist power that has ever existed in the history of the world. The most
extraordinary page of glory, and of patriotic and revolutionary determination has been
written during these years of the special period, when we were left absolutely alone in
the middle of the West, 90 miles from the United States, and we decided to carry on.
NO CAUSE IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN THE CAUSE OF
HUMANITY ITSELF
Our people aren't any better than other peoples. Their
historic greatness is derived from the singular fact of having been put to the test and
having been able to withstand it. It's not a great people in and of itself, but rather a
people which has made itself great, and its capacity to do so is born out of the greatness
of the ideas and the righteousness of the causes it defends. There are no other causes
like these, and there have never been. Today it's not a matter of selfishly defending a
national cause; in today's world an exclusively national cause cannot be a great cause in
and of itself; our world, as a consequence of its own development and historical
evolution, is globalizing quickly, unhaltingly and irreversibly. Without abandoning
national and cultural identities and even the legitimate interests of the peoples of each
country, no cause is more important than global causes, that is, the cause of humanity
itself.
Nor is it our fault or our merit that for the people of
today and tomorrow, the struggle begun on January 1, 1959, has inexorably turned into a
struggle along with other peoples for the interests of all humanity. No country on its
own, no matter how big or rich - not to mention a medium-sized or small country - can
solve its problems on its own. Only those with limited vision, those who are politically
shortsighted or blind, or who are completely devoid of concern and sensitivity toward
human destiny, could deny that reality.
But the solutions for humanity will not come from the
goodwill of those who rule and exploit the world, even though they can't conceive of
anything except what constitutes heaven for them and hell for the rest of humanity, a real
and inescapable hell.
The economic order which dominates the planet will
inevitably fall. Even a child in school who knows how to add, subtract, multiply and
divide well enough to pass an arithmetic test can understand that.
Many take recourse in the infantile practice of calling
those who talk about these subjects skeptics. There are even those who dream of
establishing colonies on the moon or Mars. I don't blame them for dreaming. Maybe if they
achieve that, it will be the place where some can take refuge, if the brutal and
growing aggression against our planet is not halted.
The current system is unsustainable because it is based
on blind and chaotic laws which are ruinous and destructive to society and nature.
The very theoreticians of neoliberal globalization,
that system's best academics, spokespersons and defenders are unsure, hesitant,
contradictory. There are a thousand questions which cannot be answered. It is hypocritical
to state that human freedom and the absolute freedom of the market are inseparable
concepts, as if laws of this kind, which have emerged from the most selfish, unequal and
merciless systems ever known, were compatible with freedom for human beings, who the
system has turned into mere commodities.
It would be much more exact to say that without
equality and fraternity, which were the sacrosanct watchwords of the bourgeois revolution,
there can never be liberty, and that equality and fraternity are absolutely incompatible
with the laws of the market.
The tens of millions of children in the world who are
forced to work, to prostitute themselves, to supply organs, to sell drugs in order to
survive; the hundreds of millions of unemployed, critical poverty, the trafficking of
drugs, of immigrants, of human organs, like the colonialism of the past and its dramatic
legacy of underdevelopment today, and all of the social calamities in the world today,
have arisen from systems based on these laws. It is impossible to forget that the struggle
for markets led to the horrific butchery of the two world wars of this century.
We cannot ignore the fact that the principles of the
market are an inseparable part of the historic development of humanity, but any rational
person would have every right to reject the presumed perpetuation of such social
principles as the foundation for the subsequent development of the human species. |
 The most fanatical defenders of and believers in the market have converted it
into a new religion. This is how the theology of the market emerged. Its academics, more
than scientists, are theologians; for them, it is a question of faith. Out of respect for
the genuine religions practiced honestly by billions of people throughout the world and
out of respect for genuine theologians, we could simply add that the theology of the
market is sectarian, fundamentalist and not ecumenical.
For many other reasons, the current world order is
unsustainable. A biotechnologist would say that its genetic map contains numerous genes
that lead to its own destruction.
New and unsuspected phenomena are emerging, ones which
escape the control of governments and international financial institutions. It is no
longer merely a matter of the artificial creation of fabulous wealth with no relation to
the real economy. Such is the case of the hundreds of new multimillionaires who have
emerged over recent years through the growth in the price of shares on the U.S. stock
markets, like a giant balloon that inflates to absurd proportions with the serious risk
that it will explode sooner or later. That is what happened in 1929, setting off a deep
depression which lasted a decade.
In August of last year, the simple financial crisis in
Russia, which produces on 2% of the world's gross domestic product, caused the Dow Jones
industrial average, which is the New York stock market's top indicator, to drop 512 points
in one day. Panic set in, threatened to cause a crisis like that of Southeast Asia in
Latin America and thereby seriously threatened the U.S. economy. They have barely been
able to hold off disaster until now. The stocks traded on these stock exchanges include
the savings and pension funds of 50% of U.S. citizens. At the time of the 1929 crisis,
that figure was only 5%, and there were numerous suicides.
In a globalized world, what happens in any one place
has immediate repercussions on the rest of the planet. The recent scare was considerable.
The resources of the world's wealthiest countries, summoned together by the United States,
were mobilized to head off or attenuate the disaster. Nevertheless, they want to maintain
Russia on the brink of the abyss, and are demanding unnecessarily tough conditions from
Brazil. The International Monetary Fund has not moved a millimeter from its fundamentalist
principles. The World Bank has rebelled and denounced the situation.
Everyone is talking about an international financial
crisis; the only ones who haven't caught on are the citizens of the United States. They
are spending more than ever, and their savings are less than zero. They're not concerned
that their transnationals invest other people's money. Nor does it matter that the trade
deficit continues to grow and has now reached 240 billion. They enjoy the privileges of
the empire that prints the currency of the world's reserves. The speculators seek refuge
in their treasury bonds en masse when there is a crisis. Because the domestic market is
large and more money is being spent, the economy appears to be in good shape, although the
profits of the corporations have decreased. Megamergers, euphoria; stock prices rise once
again. They've gone back to playing Russian roulette. Everything will continue to go well
eternally. The system's theoreticians have discovered the philosopher's stone. All points
of access are intercepted to keep out the ghosts that could destroy the dream. It is no
longer impossible to square the circle. There will never be a crisis.
But is the balloon that continues inflating the only
threat and the only speculative gamble? Another phenomenon that is reaching ever more
fabulous and uncontrollable proportions is that of speculative operations involving
currencies. These operations now represent a minimum of a trillion dollars a day. Some
claim it to be 1.5 trillion. Scarcely 14 years ago, this figure was only 150 billion
dollars a year. There could be confusion regarding the figures. It is difficult to express
them, and even more so to translate them from English to Spanish. What we call a billion
in Spanish, that is, a million million, is a trillion in North American English. On the
other hand, a billion in North American English is a thousand million in Spanish. Now they
have come up with the milliard, which means a thousand million in both Spanish and
English. These language difficulties demonstrate how difficult it is to follow and
comprehend the fabulous figures that reflect the degree of speculation in the current
world economic order. The immense majority of the world's nations pay for it with the
perennial risk of ruin. The slightest carelessness can lead the speculators to attack,
devaluating the currency in any one of these nations, and liquidating their hard currency
reserves, built up over decades perhaps, in a matter of days. The world order has created
the conditions for this. Absolutely no one is or can be safe. The wolves, grouped in packs
and aided by computer programs, know where to attack, when to attack and why to attack.
THERE ARE WORDS THAT CANNOT BE
PRONOUNCED IN THE TEMPLE OF THE FANATICS
OF THE IMPOSED WORLD ORDER
Fourteen years ago, when this speculation was 2000
times less, a Nobel laureate in economics proposed a 1% tax on every speculative operation
of this kind. Today the total that would have been generated through this 1% would be
sufficient to develop all of the countries of the Third World. It would be a way of
regulating and holding back this harmful speculation. But, regulate? This would clash with
the purest fundamentalist doctrine. There are words that cannot be pronounced in the
temple of the fanatics of the imposed world order. For example: regulation, public
enterprise, economic development program, any minimal form of state planning, influence or
participation in the economic area. All of this disturbs the idyllic dream of the free
market and private enterprise paradise. Everything should be deregulated, even the labor
market. Unemployment benefits should be reduced to the bare minimum, so as not to support
"bums" and "freeloaders." The pension system should be restructured
and privatized. The state should only concern itself with the police and the army, to
maintain order, repress protest and wage war. It is not even permissible for it to
participate in any way in the monetary policies of the central bank; this must be
absolutely independent. Louis XIV would truly suffer, because if he said "I am the
state," today he would have to add, "I am absolutely nothing."
Apart from the frightful speculation with currencies,
there has been an accelerated and unbelievable growth in so-called hedge funds and the
derivatives market, another rather new term. I won't try to explain it. It's complicated.
It would take a lot of time. I'll simply say that it is an additional system of
speculative gambling, another enormous casino where the players bet anything and
everything, based on sophisticated risk calculations generated by computers, high-level
programmers and economic experts. They exploit insecurity and use the money in the banks'
savings accounts. They have practically no restrictions, make huge profits and can provoke
disasters.
The fact that the current economic order is
unsustainable is evidenced by the very vulnerability and weakness of the system,
which has turned the planet into a gigantic casino, and turned millions of citizens and
sometimes even entire societies into gamblers, adulterating the function of money and of
investments, given that they pursue neither the production nor the growth of the world's
wealth, but rather a means to make money with money. Such a deformation will inevitably
lead the world economy towards disaster.
A recent incident, which took place in the United
States, has been the source of scandal and profound concern. One of the hedge funds that I
mentioned and tried to explain in essence, precisely the most famous one in the United
States, Long Term Capital Management, which has two Nobel laureates in economy and some of
the best computer programmers in the world, and annual profits of over 30%, was on the
verge of bankruptcy, which would have had, it would seem, incalculable consequences.
Backed by the prestige it had acquired and depending
blindly in the infallibility of its famed programmers and Nobel Prize winners in
economics, with a fund of only 4.5 million dollars, it mobilized funds from 75 different
banks, totaling 120 billion dollars, for its speculative operations; that is, it obtained
over 25 dollars in savings for every dollar of its own funds. That procedure broke all the
parameters and supposed financial practices. The calculations and the programs failed. The
losses were considerable; and bankruptcy - which is a dramatic word in this sphere - was
inevitable. It was just a matter of days. The U.S. Federal Reserve System went to the
rescue of the hedge fund, contradicting all the tenets of the United States and neoliberal
philosophy, given that this was considered irresponsible behavior on the part of that kind
of institution. According to established principles, the hedge fund had to go bankrupt,
the law of the market would teach it a lesson by imposing the relevant corrective. A
scandal broke out. The Senate summoned Greenspan, the chairman of the Federal Reserve
Board; he was called on to make a statement. This senior official, who came from Wall
Street, is seen as one of the most expert and eminent figures in the U.S. economy. The
principal merit for the current administration's economic success is attributed to him and
he is currently enjoying special praise in financial and press circles as the man who
halted the stock market crisis in the United States, by lowering interest rates three
times in succession. After the president, he is viewed as the most important person in the
country. Well, this famous and esteemed chairman of the Federal Reserve System informed
the Senate that, if the hedge fund wasn't saved, it would lead to an economic catastrophe
which would affect the United States and the entire world.
Where is the solidity of an economic order in which the
action, qualified as adventurous and irresponsible, of a speculative institution which
possessed a mere 4.5 billion dollars could lead the United States and the world to an
economic disaster?
When a weakness and an immunological failure of such
magnitude is perceived within the system, it could be diagnosed as suffering from
something very similar to AIDS.
I don't wish to put forward any more arguments. Many
other problems exist within the world economy. The prevailing order flip-flops between
inflation, recession, deflation, potential overproduction crises, sustained slumps of
basic products. Countries as immensely rich as Saudi Arabia now have budget and trade
deficits, even through every day they export eight million barrels of oil. Optimistic
growth forecasts are evaporating. No one has the slightest idea of how to solve the
problems of the Third World. What capital goods, technology, distribution networks, export
credits do they have to seek markets, compete and export? Where are the consumers of their
products? How are the resources to be found for health care in Africa, where 22 million
HIV-positive persons would require, at current prices, 200 billion dollars every year to
control one sole disease? How many will die before a protective vaccine or a medicine is
found to eliminate the disease?
HOPEFULLY SOLUTIONS WON'T BE FOUND AS A RESULT
OF ECONOMIC CRISES
The world needs some leadership to confront its current
realities. There are already six billion inhabitants on the planet. It is virtually
certain that in just 50 years' time there will be 9.5 billion. Guaranteeing food, health
care, education, employment, clothing, footwear, homes, drinking water, electricity and
transportation for such an extraordinary number of persons who will be living precisely in
the poorest countries will be a colossal challenge. First, consumption standards will have
to be defined. We cannot continue introducing the tastes and ways of life inspired by the
industrialized societies' wasteful model, which would be suicidal in addition to being
impossible.
The world's development must be programmed. That task
cannot remain in the hands of the transnationals and left up to the blind and chaotic laws
of the market. The United Nations is a good basis for this task, since it has a lot of
information and experience; we must strive to make it more democratic, to put an end to
the Security Council's dictatorship, and the dictatorship within the Council itself, or at
least to increase the number of its permanent members so that the Third World is properly
represented, with all the prerogatives enjoyed by the current members and changing the
rules on decision making. Furthermore, the functions and authority of the General Assembly
must be broadened.
Hopefully solutions won't be found as a result of
economic crises. Billions of people in the Third World would be affected. An elemental
awareness of the technological realities and the destructive power of modern weapons
obliges us to think about the duty to prevent the inevitable conflicts of interest from
leading to bloody wars.
The existence of a single superpower, of a global and
asphyxiating economic order, makes it difficult - perhaps impossible - for even a
revolution such as ours to survive, if it had been born today instead of when if could
count on a source of support, in a world which was then bipolar. Because of that support,
our country had the necessary time to develop an invincible capacity for resistance and to
make known, in the international arena, the strong influence of its example and heroism,
in order to carry out a great battle of ideas in all forums.
Peoples will keep on struggling, the masses will play
an important and decisive role in those struggles, which in essence will be their response
to the poverty and suffering to which they have been subjected, and thousands of creative
and ingenious forms of pressure and political action will emerge. Many governments will be
destabilized by economic crises and the absence of solutions within the established
international economic system.
We are living though a stage in which events move more
quickly than consciousness of the realities under which we suffer. We must sow ideas and
unmask deceit, sophism and hypocrisy, using methods and means which counteract the
disinformation and institutionalized lies. The experience of 40 years of slander falling
upon Cuba like torrential rain has taught us to trust the people's instincts and
intelligence.
The European countries have given the world a good
example of what can be achieved through the use of reason and intelligence. After
centuries of internecine wars, they understood that even though they were wealthy
industrialized countries, they couldn't survive isolated from one another. Soros, a
well-known personality in the world of finance, and his group, in a speculative assault,
brought Britain to its knees, despite the fact that Britain was once the head of a great
empire, the undisputed queen of finances and the former ruler of the world's reserve
currency, a role now played by the dollar and the United States.
The franc, peseta and lira also suffered the damage
wrought by speculation. The dollar and the euro are keeping watch over one another. The
dollar now faces a prospective adversary. The United States is anxiously wagering that the
new currency will struggle and fail. We are keeping a close eye on events.
Anguish, uncertainty and doubt lead some to seek out
eclectic alternatives. The world, nevertheless, has no other alternative to neoliberal
globalization, which is dehumanizing, morally and socially indefensible, and ecologically
and economically unsustainable, than a fair distribution of the riches that human beings
are capable of creating with their dedicated labor and fertile intelligence. May there be
an end to the tyranny of an order that imposes blind, anarchic and chaotic principles,
that is leading the human species towards the abyss. May nature be saved. May national
identities be preserved, and the cultures of all nations protected. May equality,
fraternity, and with them, true liberty, prevail. The unfathomable differences between the
rich and poor within each country and between countries cannot continue growing. They
must, on the contrary, progressively diminish until they disappear someday. May
differences be determined by merit, capacity, creative spirit, and what each individual
actually contributes to the welfare of humanity, as opposed to theft, speculation, and the
exploitation of the weakest. May humanism be genuinely practiced, with concrete actions,
and not hypocritical slogans.
TODAY'S STRUGGLE IS TOUGH AND DIFFICULT
 Dear compatriots:
The nation that is waging the heroic battle of the
special period to save the homeland, the Revolution and the conquests of socialism is
advancing irrepressibly towards its goals, in the same way that the fighters led by Camilo
and Che advanced from the Sierra Maestra to the Escambray. As Mella said, the future must
always be better. Let's confirm this with the goals we have set ourselves for 1999. Let's
consolidate and strengthen, work, struggle and fight with the spirit with which our heroic
compatriots fought in Uvero, in the glorious days of the major enemy offensive, in the
battles and the events we have recalled today. We have left behind the setback in Alegría
de Pío, we have passed through Cinco Palmas, we have gathered forces, and now we are
capable of triumph, just as 300 triumphed over 10,000; we are now much stronger, and
certain of victory. (APPLAUSE)
To all of our compatriots, and especially the young, I
assure you that the next 40 years will be decisive for the world. Before you there are
tasks that are incomparably more complex and difficult. New glorious goals await you; the
honor of being Cuban revolutionaries demands it. We will struggle for our nation and for
humanity. And our voice can reach and will reach very far away.
Today's struggle is tough and difficult. In the
ideological war, as in armed battles, there are also casualties. Not everyone has the
courage to withstand these tough times and difficult conditions.
I was recalling today that in the midst of the war, in
the midst of the bombings and countless deprivations, of all the young volunteers who
entered the school, one in ten was able to withstand it; but that one was worth ten, a
hundred, a thousand. By strengthening awareness, forming character, educating the young in
the difficult school of life in our era, sowing solid ideas, using arguments that are
irrefutable, preaching through example and trusting in the honor of humankind, we can
ensure that for every ten, nine remain in their battle posts alongside the flag, the
Revolution and the homeland. (APPLAUSE)
Socialism or death!
Patria o muerte
Venceremos!
(OVATION)
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