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F.M.- Is there any hope for
the poor to achieve a better life in the next 20 years?
F.C.- Humanity is beginning
to gain awareness. Look at what happened in Seattle and in Davos.
People frequently talk about
the horrors of the holocaust and the genocide that have taken place
throughout the century, but they seem to forget that every year, as a
result of the economic order we have been discussing here, tens of
millions of people starve to death or die of preventable diseases. They
can wield statistics of apparently positive growth but in the end things
remain the same or even worsen in the Third World countries. Growth
often rests on the accumulation of consumer goods that contribute
nothing to true development and a better distribution of wealth. The
truth is that after several decades of neoliberalism, the rich are
becoming increasingly richer while the poor are both more numerous and
increasingly poorer.
F.M.- At the recent summit
of the Group of 77 held in April in Havana, you put forward a series of
ideas to reform the international order. Could you repeat those
proposals?
F.C.- At the summit, I
advocated the cancellation of the least developed countries’ external
debt and considerable debt relief for many others. I also spoke out for
the removal of the International Monetary Fund. It is time that the
Third World countries demand to be freed from a mechanism that has not
ensured the stability of the world economy. In general, I censured the
fatal impact of the hypocritical neoliberal policies on every
underdeveloped country, particularly the Latin American and Caribbean
countries. I said that another Nuremberg trial was needed to pass
sentence on the genocide committed by the current world economic order.
F.M.- That is a bit of an
overstatement!
F.C.- Perhaps not. It might
be a bit of an understatement. For the sake of precision, I shall quote
a few paragraphs from my closing speech at the South Summit:
"People used to talk
about apartheid in Africa; today we could talk about apartheid
throughout the world, where over four billion people are deprived of the
most basic rights of all human beings: the right to life, to health, to
education, to clean drinking water, to food, to housing, to employment,
to hope for their future and the future of their children. At the
present pace, we will soon be deprived even of the air we breathe,
increasingly poisoned by the wasteful consumer societies that pollute
the elements essential for life and destroy human habitat....
"The wealthy world
tries to forget that the sources of underdevelopment and poverty were
slavery, colonialism and the brutal exploitation and plunder to which
our countries were subjected for centuries. They look upon us as
inferior nations. They attribute the poverty we suffer to the inability
of Africans, Asians, Caribbean and Latin Americans, in other words, of
black-skinned, yellow-skinned, indigenous and mixed-race peoples, to
achieve any degree of development, or even to govern ourselves....
"I am firmly convinced
that the current economic order imposed by the wealthy countries is not
only cruel, unfair, inhuman, and contrary to the inevitable course of
history, but is also inherently racist. It reflects racist conceptions
like those that once inspired the Nazi holocausts and concentration
camps in Europe, mirrored today in the so-called refugee camps in the
Third World, which actually serve to concentrate the effects of poverty,
hunger and violence. These are the same racist conceptions that inspired
the obnoxious system of apartheid in Africa....
"We are fighting for
the most sacred rights of the poor countries; but we are also fighting
for the salvation of a First World incapable of preserving the existence
of the human species, of governing itself – overwhelmed by
contradictions and self-serving interests – and much less of governing
the world, whose leadership must be democratically shared. We are
fighting – it could almost be demonstrated mathematically – to
preserve life on our planet."
In summary, Federico: it is
urgent that we fight for our survival, the survival of all countries,
both rich and poor, because we are all in the same boat. In this regard,
I made a very concrete proposal at the Summit concerning a delicate and
complex issue: I asked the Third World oil-exporting countries to grant
preferential prices to the least developed countries, similar to what
was done in the San José Pact, signed 20 years ago by Venezuela and
Mexico, which allows Central American and Caribbean countries to buy oil
on more lenient terms.
F.M.- Is your opinion about
the United Nations as severe?
F.C.- Not at all, although I
consider its structure an anachronism. After 55 years of existence, it
is essential to reestablish the organization. The United Nations should
be worthy of its name: the members should be truly united by genuinely
humane and far-reaching objectives. All of the member countries, big and
small, developed and underdeveloped, should have the real possibility of
making their voices heard. The UN should constitute a great meeting
place, where all views can be expressed and discussed. It should operate
on truly democratic bases. It is important for groups like the G-77 and
the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries to act within the United Nations
system.
The United Nations structure
should be transformed, so that the organization can play a major role in
today’s world. Social development, for example, is presently one of
the most dramatically urgent needs in the Third World, and the mission
of the World Bank is not to contribute funds to resolve financial crises
but rather to promote social development. The absence of such
development is the greatest tragedy of our times.
F.M.- Looking at a world map,
what changes would you like to make?
F.C.- I would be thinking of
a world worthy of the human species, without hyper-wealthy and wasteful
nations, on the one hand, and countless countries mired in extreme
poverty, on the other; a world in which all identities and cultures were
preserved, a world with justice and solidarity; a world without
plundering, oppression or wars, where science and technology were at the
service of humankind; a world where nature was protected and the great
throng of people living on the planet today could survive, grow and
enjoy the spiritual and material wealth that talent and labor could
create.
No need to ask; I dream of a
world that the capitalist philosophy will never make possible.
F.M.- What do you think of
the evolution of Latin America as a whole?
F.C.- I think that it has
lost almost 200 years of history in its social development and political
integration. Some Latin American countries have a great many more
economic resources than Cuba, which has been blockaded for over 40 years
now. But if you take a good look at them, it turns out that in many of
these countries, a third of the population cannot read or write,
millions of Latin Americans lack even a roof to shelter them, these
countries are so highly indebted that their development is practically
impossible.
The Latin American debt is
so large that many nations in the region, no matter what their gross
domestic product may be, do not guarantee a decent quality of life to
most of their people. Their economies, which sometimes appear to be
doing well according to the macroeconomic figures, have fallen prey to
major financial and technological powers. All of these economies are
subject to flights of capital to the wealthy countries, in amounts that
nobody fully knows or can calculate. Their weak currencies are
defenseless against the attacks of speculators. The hard currency
reserves with which they attempt to defend their economies, at the high
cost of idle funds that do not contribute to economic and social
development, are lost in a matter of days when faced with any danger of
devaluation. Incomes earned through a privatization that gives away
national heritage are lost without providing the slightest benefit. The
threat of a financial crisis or devaluation leads to overnight flight of
all forms of capital, including both the short-term loans and the funds
of nationals terrified by the imminent risk of seeing their savings
dwindle.
The handy formula of
endlessly raising interest rates renders the country’s economic life
chaotic and complicated. Latin America, like the rest of the Third
World, is a victim of the international economic order imposed, which I
have already described as unsustainable. Divided and balkanized as they
are, and seduced by deceptive illusions of progress and development
emanating from the siren song of a hemispheric free trade agreement, the
countries of Latin America are in danger of forever losing their
independence and of being annexed by the United States.
F.M.- I would now like to
address a rather sensitive issue: that of freedom of expression and
thought. The Cuban regime is regularly attacked for its repressive
policy with regard to...
F.C.- I can guess what you
were going to say. First, I wonder if it is fair to discuss freedom of
expression and thought in a region where the immense majority of the
people are either totally or functionally illiterate; it sounds like a
cruel joke, but it is worse. Many people in the world not only lack
freedom of thought but also the capacity to think, because it has been
destroyed. Billions of human beings, including a large percentage of
those living in developed societies, are told what brand of soda they
should drink, what cigarettes they should smoke, what clothes and shoes
they should wear, what they should eat and what brand of food they
should buy. Their political ideas are supplied in the same way.
Every year, a trillion
dollars is spent on advertising. This rain pours on the helpless masses
that are totally deprived of the necessary elements of judgment to
formulate an opinion and the knowledge required meditating and
discerning. This has never happened before in the history of humanity.
Primitive humans enjoyed greater freedom of thought. José Martí said,
"To be educated in order to be free." We would have to add a
dictum: freedom is impossible without culture. Education and culture are
what the Revolution has most abundantly offered to our people, much more
so than in a large number of the developed countries.
Living in a consumer society
does not necessarily make people educated. It is amazing, sometimes, how
their knowledge can be superficial and simplistic. Cuba has raised the
average educational level of its people to ninth grade, and this is just
the beginning. In 10 years, their average cultural level will be that of
a university graduate; and that will be comprehensive, not simplistic
knowledge. All of the necessary conditions have been created. No one can
prevent our people from achieving the goal of being the most cultivated,
in addition to having a profound political culture that is neither
dogmatic nor sectarian; a political culture that is severely lacking in
many of the world’s wealthiest nations. We will place at the service
of this lofty goal the great technologies created by humankind, while
avoiding commercial advertising.
It would perhaps be better
to wait a while before talking about true freedom of expression and
thought because that can never be reconciled with a brutal economic and
social capitalist system that fails to respect culture, solidarity and
ethics.
V PART |
