The 40th Anniversary of the Cuban RevolutionThe 40th Anniversary ofthe Cuban RevolutionBy Fidel Castro[Speech given by Fidel Castro Ruz (first secretary of the CentralCommittee of the Communist Party of Cuba and president of theCouncils of State and Ministers) at the main ceremony for the40th anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution, in CéspedesPark, Santiago de Cuba, on 1 January 1999, Year of the 40th Anniversaryof the Triumph of the Revolution. (Fidel announced the departureof the dictator Batista at the same park and from the same balconyexactly 40 years before -- editor). Translation by Granma of theCouncil of State's transcript.]"The most extraordinary page of glory, and of patrioticand revolutionary determination has been written during theseyears of the special period."People of Santiago:Compatriots in all of Cuba:I am trying to recall that night of January 1, 1959; I am relivingand perceiving impressions and details as if everything were occurringat this very moment. It seems unreal that destiny has given usthe rare privilege of once more speaking to the people of Santiagode Cuba from this very sam place, 40 years later.Before dawn on that day, with the arrival of the news thatthe dictator and the main figures of his opprobrious regime hadfled in the face of the irrepressible advance of our forces, fora few seconds I felt a strange sensation of emptiness. How wasthat incredible victory possible in just over 24 months, startingfrom that moment on December 18, 1956, when - after the extremelysevere setback which virtually annihilated our detachment - wemanaged to gather together seven rifles to resume the battle againsta 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 advisingand guaranteed supplies from the United States? Just ideas whicha valiant people claimed as their own worked a military and politicalvictory. Subsequent vain and ridiculous attempts to salvage whatremained of that exploiting and oppressive system were swept awayby the Rebel Army, the workers and the rest of the people in 24hours.Our fleeting sadness at the moment of victory was nostalgiafor the experiences we had lived through, the vivid memory ofthe comrades who fell throughout the struggle, a full awarenessthat those exceptionally difficult and adverse 88years obligedus to be better than we were, and to transform them into the mostfruitful and creative ones of our lives. We had to abandon ourmountains, our rural life, our habits of absolute and obligatoryausterity, our tense life of constant vigilance in the face ofan enemy that could appear by land or air at any moment of the761 days of the war; a healthy, hard, pure life and one of greatsacrifices and shared dangers, in which men become brothers andtheir best virtues flourish, together with the infinite capacityfor commitment, selflessness and altruism that all humans carrywithin them. The enormous difference in equipment and strengthbetween us and the enemy forced us to do the impossible. Sufficeit to say that we won the war with rifles and anti-tank mines,in every important action always fighting against the enemy'sartillery, armored vehicles and, in particular, airplanes, whichwere always immediately present in any military action.We seized rifles and other semi-automatic and automatic lightinfantry weapons from the enemy in combat, and the explosiveswith which, in rustic workshops, we manufactured the shells weused against armored vehicles and their accompanying infantryalways came from the rain of bombs which they launched againstus, some of which failed to explode. The infallible tactic ofattacking the enemy when it was on the move was a key factor.The art of provoking those forces into moving out of their well-fortifiedand generally invulnerable positions became one of our commands'greatest skills.Enemy operations units and their garrisons were besieged, theirreinforcements were destroyed or they were forced to surrenderout 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 areunavailable. What we learned in the mountains and dense forestareas was applied there in the lowland areas, on paved highways,under cover of citrus plantations, fruit orchards and even canefields, 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 woundup being applied within the cities, isolating the garrison's variouspositions.That was how the city of Palma Soriano was taken in just threedays, and that was how the plan was conceived to attack and takecontrol of the garrison of 5000 men in the Santiago de Cuba plaza,with the deployment of 1200 rebel troops. Previously, 100 of theweapons taken in Palma had been brought in through Santiago Bayto start the uprising, five days before the start of operationswhere the four battalions defending the periphery gradually movedin to encircle the city. I am omitting more precise details ofthe plan conceived. I will simply note that there was one rebelfighter for every four enemy soldiers. We had never had a morefavorable balance of forces. The battle was initiated in Guisa,a few kilometers from Bayamo, by 180 men, who were to fight againstreinforcements sent on a paved highway and other routes from thatcity, where the enemy army and thousands of its best soldierswere located, with backup from heavy tanks. After 11 days of intensivecombat, in which our forces were growing with the arms taken andsome small reinforcements, Guisa fell into our hands on November30, 1958.This battle was yet another example of the exceptional fightingcapacity acquired by our soldiers and of their swift action. Fivemonths previously, in June of the same year, the enemy had launchedits last and apparently unbeatable offensive against the generalcommand in La Plata, in the Sierra Maestra. But we were no longerthe greenhorns who disembarked on December 2, 1956. Neither werewe so numerous. The defense was initiated with approximately 170men, with the combined and still very limited number of troopscommanded by Che, Camilo, Ramiro and Almeida, who had receivedinstructions to move towards Column No. 1's positions, the strategicobjective of the enemy offensive. Thus, we had all our columnsexcept the 2nd Eastern Front commanded by Raúl, which wastoo far away in the northeastern mountains to suppor88t our front.Four weeks later, we totaled around 300 fighters. Furthermore,hundreds of young unarmed volunteers were training in the Minasdel Frío recruitment school.Camilo And Che's March From The Sierra To The EscambrayAfter 74 days of intense fighting, the enemy battalions hadsuffered close to 1000 casualties, including deaths, wounded andprisoners. We were holding over 440 prisoners and we handed themback a few days later through the International Red Cross. I havewritten what I remember. Perhaps historians can be more preciseconcerning this data, based on our documents which have been preservedand those that were later discovered in enemy archives. What Ican confirm is that over 500 weapons were captured and as theywere seized from the army they were used to arm the trainees.Without wasting any time, when the fighting was over, the rebelcolumns, comprising no more than 900 armed men, moved into theterritory dominated by the army towards the center of the country,with the exception of the extensive eastern zone already underthe firm control of the Frank País 2nd Eastern Front. Thoserebel columns advanced in different directions, creating new warfronts that were rapidly developed. I remained in the commandpost with a few men. While carrying out those operations, Cheand Camilo, the first with approximately 140 men - according tomy recollection, without consulting any records - and the second,with around 100, carried out one of the greatest feats among themany I know from history books: they advanced more than 400 kilometersfrom the Sierra Maestra to the Escambray mountain range - in thewake of a hurricane - through low-lying swampy areas, infestedwith mosquitoes and enemy troops, under constant aerial vigilance,without guides, without food, and without the logistical supportof our underground movement, which had a weak organization inthe area of their long march. Outwitting sieges, ambushes, successivelines of contention and bombardments, they reached their goal.Such was our confidence in the fighters who routed the enemy offensiveand, most important of all, such was their infinite confidencein themselves and their legendary leaders. They were men of iron.I recommend that young people read and reread the beautiful descriptionscontained in Che's Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (Episodesof the Revolutionary War). [Published in English by PathfinderPress - editor.]And as I have almost involuntarily fallen into these reflectionsof our battles in the Sierra Maestra, to complete the historyof the events which led me once again to this beautiful city onthat January 1st whose 40th anniversary we are celebrating today,I will tell you that I left La Plata with 30 armed men and 1000unarmed recruits on November 11.Those valiant and selfless young men had more experience withhunger, bombardments and a lack of everything than they did witharms, given that there wasn't even a spare bullet for real shootingpractice. They arrived in enthusiastic waves at the school, fromall over, but at that time only one out of every 10 was able toendure those conditions. They nourished our ranks, they were moredaring than our older fighters. Inspired by the traditions andstories they heard, they wanted to achieve in one day what othershad done over several years.Collecting small rebel units along the march, plus the weaponsfrom two enemy detachments that came over into our ranks, persuadedby then Commander Quevedo, our worthy and valiant adversary inthe battle of Jigüe, and on the understanding that they wouldnot fight against their former comrades in arms, our large columnconstituted an advance guard of 180 men with weapons of war. InGuisa, Baire, Jiguaní, Maffo and Palma Soriano, scenesof numerous actions, and with the support of other forces as weadvanced, the recruits more than realized their dreams of fighting.Partially taking into account losses through the death, injuryor illness of already-equipped fighters, and with the arms seizedwith the taking of Palma, which I estimate at around 700 all together,all the recruits that left La Plata with me six weeks earlierwere armed and constituted a formidable force. In Palma alone,350 weapons were taken.I should point out that not all the arms that contributed toconverting the youth at our Minas del Frío school intofront-line soldiers were exclusively the fruit of our triumphs.In mid-December we received what in my judgment constituted themost valuable arms aid from abroad: 150 semiautomatic weaponsand a FAL automatic for me, dispatched in the name of the Venezuelanpeople by Rear Admiral Larrazábal and the revolutionaryjunta which had assumed power in Venezuela some months beforethe Cuban triumph. As you can imagine, those arms rapidly wentinto action and participated in the Jiguaní, Maffo andPalma 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 theSantiago uprising and a significant number to Belarmino Castilla,with instructions to cut off the retreat of the battalion locatedin Mayarí.Since I mentioned the Venezuelan aid, I should state that inour revolutionary struggle we didn't receive arms and ammunitionsupplies from abroad, except in very exceptional cases, of which,out of the rest I recall or heard about, the Venezuelan consignmentwas by far the largest. Over 90% of the arms and ammunition withwhich we armed ourselves and won the war were seized from theenemy in combat. They only amounted to a few thousand but, onan inviolate principle, absolutely all of them were always usedon the front line. The events that I have recalled only partiallyhave been commemorated throughout the year that has just ended.Honor and eternal glory, infinite respect and affection tothose that died then to make possible the country's definitiveindependence; 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 missionsor loyally gave up their youth and energies to the cause of justice,sovereignty and the redemption of their people; to those who havedied and to those who are still living; because, if that January1 could be spoken of as the triumph attained in five years, fivemonths and five days starting on July 26, 1953, on this anniversary- taking the same starting point - it is accurate to speak ofa heroic and admirable struggle of 45 years, five months and fivedays. (APPLAUSE)For The Youngest Generations The Revolution Has Barely BegunEven today, the Revolution has barely begun for the youngestgenerations. A day like this would have no meaning if I do notspeak for them. Who are those who are present here? In their overwhelmingmajority they are not the same men, women and young people ofthat time. The people I am addressing are not the people of thatJanuary 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'scurrent population, 7,190,400 had not yet been born; 1,359,698were under 10 years of age; the overwhelming majority of thosethen aged 50 and who would now be at least 90 have died, eventhough those living beyond that age are constantly more numerous.Of those compatriots, 30% were unable to read and write; Ibelieve that a further 60% never reached sixth grade. Only a fewdozen technical colleges and high schools existed, not all ofthem within the reach of the people; the same with teacher trainingcolleges, plus three universities and one private one. Professorsand 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 professorstotal over 250,000; doctors, 64,000; university graduates, 600,000.Illiteracy has been eradicated, it's extremely rare to find aperson who hasn't reached sixth grade. Education is obligatoryup to ninth grade; without exception, everyone who reaches thatlevel can continue high-school level studies free of charge. There'sno 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 inthe Third World.Nonetheless, I don't propose to talk of these and our manyother social achievements. There are far more important thingsthan these. What is an absolute reality is that there is no possiblecomparison between today's people and yesterday's people.The yesterday's people, illiterate and semi-illiterate, andwith really only a minimal political awareness, were capable ofmaking the Revolution, of defending the nation, of subsequentlyachieving an exceptional political consciousness and initiatinga revolutionary process that is unparalleled in this hemisphereand in the world. I do not say that out of any ridiculous chauvinisticspirit, or with the absurd pretension of believing ourselves betterthan others; I am saying it because, as a result of fate or destiny,the Revolution that was born on that January 1 has been subjectedto the hardest trial faced by any revolutionary process in theworld.With the participation of three generations, our heroic peopleof yesterday and today, our eternal people, have resisted 40 yearsof aggression, blockade, and economic, political and ideologicalwarfare waged by the strongest and richest imperialist power thathas ever existed in the history of the world. The most extraordinarypage of glory, and of patriotic and revolutionary determinationhas been written during these years of the special period, whenwe were left absolutely alone in the middle of the West, 90 milesfrom the United States, and we decided to carry on.No Cause Is More Important Than The Cause Of Humanity ItselfOur people aren't any better than other peoples. Their historicgreatness is derived from the singular fact of having been putto the test and having been able to withstand it. It's not a greatpeople in and of itself, but rather a people which has made itselfgreat, and its capacity to do so is born out of the greatnessof the ideas and the righteousness of the causes it defends. Thereare no other causes like these, and there have never been. Todayit's not a matter of selfishly defending a national cause; intoday's world an exclusively national cause cannot be a greatcause in and of itself; our world, as a consequence of its owndevelopment and historical evolution, is globalizing quickly,unhaltingly and irreversibly. Without abandoning national andcultural identities and even the legitimate interests of the peoplesof 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 todayand tomorrow, the struggle begun on January 1, 1959, has inexorablyturned into a struggle along with other peoples for the interestsof all humanity. No country on its own, no matter how big or rich- not to mention a medium-sized or small country - can solve itsproblems on its own. Only those with limited vision, those whoare politically shortsighted or blind, or who are completely devoidof concern and sensitivity toward human destiny, could deny thatreality. But the solutions for humanity will not come from thegoodwill of those who rule and exploit the world, even thoughthey can't conceive of anything except what constitutes heavenfor them and hell for the rest of humanity, a real and inescapablehell.The economic order which dominates the planet will inevitablyfall. Even a child in school who knows how to add, subtract, multiplyand divide well enough to pass an arithmetic test can understandthat. Many take recourse in the infantile practice of callingthose who talk about these subjects skeptics. There are even thosewho dream of establishing colonies on the moon or Mars. I don'tblame them for dreaming. Maybe if they achieve that, it will bethe place where some can take refuge, if the brutal and growingaggression against our planet is not halted.The current system is unsustainable because it is based onblind and chaotic laws which are ruinous and destructive to societyand nature. The very theoreticians of neoliberal globalization,that system's best academics, spokespersons and defenders areunsure, hesitant, contradictory. There are a thousand questionswhich cannot be answered. It is hypocritical to state that humanfreedom and the absolute freedom of the market are inseparableconcepts, as if laws of this kind, which have emerged from themost selfish, unequal and merciless systems ever known, were compatiblewith freedom for human beings, who the system has turned intomere commodities. It would be much more exact to say that withoutequality and fraternity, which were the sacrosanct watchwordsof the bourgeois revolution, there can never be liberty, and thatequality and fraternity are absolutely incompatible with the lawsof the market.The tens of millions of children in the world who are forcedto work, to prostitute themselves, to supply organs, to sell drugsin order to survive; the hundreds of millions of unemployed, criticalpoverty, the trafficking of drugs, of immigrants, of human organs,like the colonialism of the past and its dramatic legacy of underdevelopmenttoday, and all of the social calamities in the world today, havearisen from systems based on these laws. It is impossible to forgetthat the struggle for markets led to the horrific butchery ofthe two world wars of this century.We cannot ignore the fact that the principles of the marketare an inseparable part of the historic development of humanity,but any rational person would have every right to reject the presumedperpetuation of such social principles as the foundation for thesubsequent development of the human species. The most fanaticaldefenders of and believers in the market have converted it intoa 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 religionspracticed honestly by billions of people throughout the worldand out of respect for genuine theologians, we could simply addthat the theology of the market is sectarian, fundamentalist andnot ecumenical.For many other reasons, the current world order is unsustainable.A biotechnologist would say that its genetic map contains numerousgenes that lead to its own destruction.New and unsuspected phenomena are emerging, ones which escapethe control of governments and international financial institutions.It is no longer merely a matter of the artificial creation offabulous wealth with no relation to the real economy. Such isthe case of the hundreds of new multimillionaires who have emergedover recent years through the growth in the price of shares onthe U.S. stock markets, like a giant balloon that inflates toabsurd proportions with the serious risk that it will explodesooner or later. That is what happened in 1929, setting off adeep depression which lasted a decade. In August of last year,the simple financial crisis2 in Russia, which produces on 2% ofthe world's gross domestic product, caused the Dow Jones industrialaverage, which is the New York stock market's top indicator, todrop 512 points in one day. Panic set in, threatened to causea crisis like that of Southeast Asia in Latin America and therebyseriously threatened the U.S. economy. They have barely been ableto hold off disaster until now. The stocks traded on these stockexchanges include the savings and pension funds of 50% of U.S.citizens. At the time of the 1929 crisis, that figure was only5%, and there were numerous suicides.In a globalized world, what happens in any one place has immediaterepercussions on the rest of the planet. The recent scare wasconsiderable. The resources of the world's wealthiest countries,summoned together by the United States, were mobilized to headoff or attenuate the disaster. Nevertheless, they want to maintainRussia on the brink of the abyss, and are demanding unnecessarilytough conditions from Brazil. The International Monetary Fundhas 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 UnitedStates. They are spending more than ever, and their savings areless than zero. They're not concerned that their transnationalsinvest other people's money. Nor does it matter that the tradedeficit continues to grow and has now reached 240 billion. Theyenjoy the privileges of the empire that prints the currency ofthe world's reserves. The speculators seek refuge in their treasurybonds en masse when there is a crisis. Because the domestic marketis large and more money is being spent, the economy appears tobe in good shape, although the profits of the corporations havedecreased. Mega-mergers, euphoria; stock prices rise once again.They've gone back to playing Russian roulette. Everything willcontinue to go well eternally. The system's theoreticians havediscovered the philosopher's stone. All points of access are interceptedto keep out the ghosts that could destroy the dream. It is nolonger impossible to square the circle. There will never be acrisis.But is the balloon that continues inflating the only threatand the only speculative gamble? Another phenomenon that is reachingever more fabulous and uncontrollable proportions is that of speculativeoperations involving currencies. These operations now representa minimum of a trillion dollars a day. Some claim it to be 1.5trillion. Scarcely 14 years ago, this figure was only 150 billiondollars a year. There could be confusion regarding the figures.It is difficult to express them, and even more so to translatethem 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 thousandmillion in Spanish. Now they have come up with the milliard, whichmeans a thousand million in both Spanish and English. These languagedifficulties demonstrate how difficult it is to follow and comprehendthe fabulous figures that reflect the degree of speculation inthe current world economic order. The immense majority of theworld's nations pay for it with the perennial risk of ruin. Theslightest carelessness can lead the speculators to attack, devaluatingthe currency in any one of these nations, and liquidating theirhard currency reserves, built up over decades perhaps, in a matterof days. The world order has created the conditions for this.Absolutely no one is or can be safe. The wolves, grouped in packsand aided by computer programs, know where to attack, when toattack and why to attack.There Are Words That Cannot Be Pronounced in the Templeof the Fanatics of the Imposed World OrderFourteen years ago, when this speculation was 2000 times less,a Nobel laureate in economics proposed a 1% tax on every speculativeoperation of this kind. Today the total that would have been generatedthrough this 1% would be sufficient to develop all of the countriesof the Third World. It would be a way of regulating and holdingback this harmful speculation. But, regulate? This would clashwith the purest fundamentalist doctrine. There are words thatcannot be pronounced in the temple of the fanatics of the imposedworld order. For example: regulation, public enterprise, economicdevelopment program, any minimal form of state planning, influenceor participation in the economic area. All of this disturbs theidyllic dream of the free market and private enterprise paradise.Everything should be deregulated, even the labor market. Unemploymentbenefits should be reduced to the bare minimum, so as not to support"bums" and "freeloaders." The pension systemshould be restructured and privatized. The state should only concernitself with the police and the army, to maintain order, repressprotest and wage war. It is not even permissible for it to participatein any way in the monetary policies of the central bank; thismust be absolutely independent. Louis XIV would truly suffer,because if he said "I am the state," today he wouldhave to add, "I am absolutely nothing."Apart from the frightful speculation with currencies, therehas been an accelerated and unbelievable growth in so-called hedgefunds and the derivatives market, another rather new term. I won'ttry to explain it. It's complicated. It would take a lot of time.I'll simply say that it is an additional system of speculativegambling, another enormous casino where the players bet anythingand everything, based on sophisticated risk calculations generatedby computers, high-level programmers and economic experts. Theyexploit insecurity and use the money in the banks' savings accounts.They have practically no restrictions, make huge profits and canprovoke disasters. The fact that the current economic order isunsustainable is evidenced by the very vulnerability and weaknessof the system, which has turned the planet into a gigantic casino,and turned millions of citizens and sometimes even entire societiesinto gamblers, adulterating the function of money and of investments,given that they pursue neither the production nor the growth ofthe world's wealth, but rather a means to make money with money.Such a deformation will inevitably lead the world economy towardsdisaster. A recent incident, which took place in the United States,has been the source of scandal and profound concern. One of thehedge funds that I mentioned and tried to explain in essence,precisely the most famous one in the United States, Long TermCapital Management, which has two Nobel laureates in economy andsome of the best computer programmers in the world, and annualprofits of over 30%, was on the verge of bankruptcy, which wouldhave had, it would seem, incalculable consequences.Backed by the prestige it had acquired and depending blindlyin the infallibility of its famed programmers and Nobel Prizewinners in economics, with a fund of only 4.5 million dollars,it mobilized funds from 75 different banks, totaling 120 billiondollars, for its speculative operations; that is, it obtainedover 25 dollars in savings for every dollar of its own funds.That procedure broke all the parameters and supposed financialpractices. The calculations and the programs failed. The losseswere considerable; and bankruptcy - which is a dramatic word inthis sphere - was inevitable. It was just a matter of days. TheU.S. Federal Reserve System went to the rescue of the hedge fund,contradicting all the tenets of the United States and neoliberalphilosophy, given that this was considered irresponsible behavioron the part of that kind of institution. According to establishedprinciples, the hedge fund had to go bankrupt, the law of themarket would teach it a lesson by imposing the relevant corrective.A scandal broke out. The Senate summoned Greenspan, the chairmanof the Federal Reserve Board; he was called on to make a statement.This senior official, who came from Wall Street, is seen as oneof the most expert and eminent figures in the U.S. economy. Theprincipal merit for the current administration's economic successis attributed to him and he is currently enjoying special praisein financial and press circles as the man who halted the stockmarket crisis in the United States, by lowering interest ratesthree times in succession. After the president, he is viewed asthe most important person in the country. Well, this famous andesteemed chairman of the Federal Reserve System informed the Senatethat, if the hedge fund wasn't saved, it would lead to an economiccatastrophe which would affect the United States and the entireworld. Where is the solidity of an economic order in which theaction, qualified as adventurous and irresponsible, of a speculativeinstitution which possessed a mere 4.5 billion dollars could leadthe United States and the world to an economic disaster?When a weakness and an immunological failure of such magnitudeis perceived within the system, it could be diagnosed as sufferingfrom something very similar to AIDS.I don't wish to put forward any more arguments. Many otherproblems exist within the world economy. The prevailing orderflip-flops between inflation, recession, deflation, potentialoverproduction crises, sustained slumps of basic products. Countriesas 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 slightestidea of how to solve the problems of the Third World. What capitalgoods, technology, distribution networks, export credits do theyhave to seek markets, compete and export? Where are the consumersof their products? How are the resources to be found for healthcare in Africa, where 22 million HIV- positive persons would require,at current prices, 200 billion dollars every year to control onesole disease? How many will die before a protective vaccine ora medicine is found to eliminate the disease?Hopefully Solutions Won't Be Found As a Result Of EconomicCrisesThe world needs some leadership to confront its current realities.There are already six billion inhabitants on the planet. It isvirtually certain that in just 50 years' time there will be 9.5billion. Guaranteeing food, health care, education, employment,clothing, footwear, homes, drinking water, electricity and transportationfor such an extraordinary number of persons who will be livingprecisely in the poorest countries will be a colossal challenge.First, consumption standards will have to be defined. We cannotcontinue introducing the tastes and ways of life inspired by theindustrialized societies' wasteful model, which would be suicidalin addition to being impossible.The world's development must be programmed. That task cannotremain in the hands of the transnationals and left up to the blindand chaotic laws of the market. The United Nations is a good basisfor this task, since it has a lot of information and experience;we must strive to make it more democratic, to put an end to theSecurity Council's dictatorship, and the dictatorship within theCouncil itself, or at least to increase the number of its permanentmembers so that the Third World is properly represented, withall the prerogatives enjoyed by the current members and changingthe rules on decision making. Furthermore, the functions and authorityof the General Assembly must be broadened.Hopefully solutions won't be found as a result of economiccrises. Billions of people in the Third World would be affected.An elemental awareness of the technological realities and thedestructive power of modern weapons obliges us to think aboutthe duty to prevent the inevitable conflicts of interest fromleading to bloody wars.The existence of a single superpower, of a global and asphyxiatingeconomic order, makes it difficult - perhaps impossible - foreven a revolution such as ours to survive, if it had been borntoday instead of when if could count on a source of support, ina world which was then bipolar. Because of that support, our countryhad the necessary time to develop an invincible capacity for resistanceand to make known, in the international arena, the strong influenceof its example and heroism, in order to carry out a great battleof ideas in all forums.Peoples will keep on struggling, the masses will play an importantand decisive role in those struggles, which in essence will betheir response to the poverty and suffering to which they havebeen subjected, and thousands of creative and ingenious formsof pressure and political action will emerge. Many governmentswill be destabilized by economic crises and the absence of solutionswithin the established international economic system.We are living though a stage in which events move more quicklythan consciousness of the realities under which we suffer. Wemust sow ideas and unmask deceit, sophism and hypocrisy, usingmethods and means which counteract the disinformation and institutionalizedlies. The experience of 40 years of slander falling upon Cubalike torrential rain has taught us to trust the people's instinctsand intelligence.The European countries have given the world a good exampleof what can be achieved through the use of reason and intelligence.After centuries of internecine wars, they understood that eventhough they were wealthy industrialized countries, they couldn'tsurvive isolated from one another. Soros, a well-known personalityin the world of finance, and his group, in a speculative assault,brought Britain to its knees, despite the fact that Britain wasonce the head of a great empire, the undisputed queen of financesand the former ruler of the world's reserve currency, a role nowplayed by the dollar and the United States.The franc, peseta and lira also suffered the damage wroughtby speculation. The dollar and the euro are keeping watch overone another. The dollar now faces a prospective adversary. TheUnited States is anxiously wagering that the new currency willstruggle 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 neoliberalglobalization, which is dehumanizing, morally and socially indefensible,and ecologically and economically unsustainable, than a fair distributionof the riches that human beings are capable of creating with theirdedicated labor and fertile intelligence. May there be an endto the tyranny of an order that imposes blind, anarchic and chaoticprinciples, that is leading the human species towards the abyss.May nature be saved. May national identities be preserved, andthe cultures of all nations protected. May equality, fraternity,and with them, true liberty, prevail. The unfathomable differencesbetween the rich and poor within each country and between countriescannot continue growing. They must, on the contrary, progressivelydiminish until they disappear someday. May differences be determinedby merit, capacity, creative spirit, and what each individualactually contributes to the welfare of humanity, as opposed totheft, speculation, and the exploitation of the weakest. May humanismbe genuinely practiced, with concrete actions, and not hypocriticalslogans.Today's Struggle Is Tough and DifficultDear compatriots:The nation that is waging the heroic battle of the special periodto save the homeland, the Revolution and the conquests of socialismis advancing irrepressibly towards its goals, in the same waythat the fighters led by Camilo and Che advanced from the SierraMaestra to the Escambray. As Mella said, the future must alwaysbe better. Let's confirm this with the goals we have set ourselvesfor 1999. Let's consolidate and strengthen, work, struggle andfight with the spirit with which our heroic compatriots foughtin Uvero, in the glorious days of the major enemy offensive, inthe battles and the events we have recalled today. We have leftbehind the setback in Alegría de Pío, we have passedthrough Cinco Palmas, we have gathered forces, and now we arecapable of triumph, just as 300 triumphed over 10,000; we arenow much stronger, and certain of victory. (APPLAUSE) To all ofour compatriots, and especially the young, I assure you that thenext 40 years will be decisive for the world. Before you thereare tasks that are incomparably more complex and difficult. Newglorious goals await you; the honor of being Cuban revolutionariesdemands it. We will struggle for our nation and for humanity.And our voice can reach and will reach very far away. Today'sstruggle is tough and difficult. In the ideological war, as inarmed battles, there are also casualties. Not everyone has thecourage to withstand these tough times and difficult conditions.I was recalling today that in the midst of the war, in themidst of the bombings and countless deprivations, of all the youngvolunteers who entered the school, one in ten was able to withstandit; but that one was worth ten, a hundred, a thousand. By strengtheningawareness, forming character, educating the young in the difficultschool of life in our era, sowing solid ideas, using argumentsthat are irrefutable, preaching through example and trusting inthe honor of humankind, we can ensure that for every ten, nineremain in their battle posts alongside the flag, the Revolutionand the homeland. (APPLAUSE)Socialism or death!Venceremos!(OVATION) © Copyright GRANMA INTERNATIONAL DIGITAL EDITION. La Havana,Cuba. Total or partial reproduction of the articles in this Websiteis authorized as long as the source of the copyright is given.Back to FrontPage |
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