Speech at Summit of the Americas
By Raul Castro Ruz
April 13, 2015 "ICH"
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His Excellency Juan Carlos Varela, President of the Republic
of Panama;
Presidents and Prime Ministers;
Distinguished guests;
I appreciate the solidarity of all Latin American and
Caribbean countries that made possible Cuba’s participation in this hemispheric
forum on equal footing, andI thank the President of the Republic of Panama for
the kind invitation extended to us. I bring a fraternal embrace to the
Panamanian people and to the peoples of all nations represented here.
The establishment of the Community of Latin American and
Caribbean States (CELAC) on December 2-3, 2011, in Caracas, opened the way to a
new era in the history of Our America, which made clear its well-earned right to
live in peace and develop as their peoples freely decide, and chart the course
to a future of peace, development and integration based on cooperation,
solidarity and the common will to preserve their independence, sovereignty and
identity.
The ideals of Simón Bolívar on the creation of a “Grand
American Homeland” were a source of inspiration to epic campaigns for
independence.
In 1800, there was the idea of adding Cuba to the North
American Union to mark the southern boundary of the extensive empire. The 19thcentury
witnessed the emergence of such doctrines as the Manifest Destiny, with the
purpose of dominating the Americas and the world, and the notion of the ‘ripe
fruit’, meaning Cuba’s inevitable gravitation to the American Union, which
looked down on the rise and evolution of a genuine rationale conducive to
emancipation.
Later on, through wars, conquests and interventions that
expansionist and dominating force stripped Our America of part of its territory
and expanded as far as the Rio Grande.
After long and failing struggles, José Martí organized the
“necessary war”, and created the Cuban Revolutionary Party to lead that war and
to eventually found a Republic “with all and for the good of all” with the
purpose of achieving “the full dignity of man.”
With an accurate and early definition of the features of his
times, Martí committed to the duty “of timely preventing the United States from
spreading through the Antilles as Cuba gains its independence, and from
overpowering with that additional strength our lands of America.”
To him, Our America was that of the Creole and the original
peoples, the black and the mulatto, the mixed-race and working America that must
join the cause of the oppressed and the destitute. Presently, beyond geography,
this ideal is coming to fruition.
One hundred and seventeen years ago, on April 11, 1898, the
President of the United States of America requested Congressional consent for
military intervention in the independence war already won with rivers of Cuban
blood, and that legislative body issued a deceitful Joint Resolution recognizing
the independence of the Island “de facto and de jure”. Thus, they entered
as allies and seized the country as an occupying force.
Subsequently, an appendix was forcibly added to Cuba’s
Constitution, the Platt Amendment that deprived it of sovereignty, authorized
the powerful neighbor to interfere in the internal affairs, and gave rise to
Guantánamo Naval Base, which still holds part of our territory without legal
right. It was in that period that the Northern capital invaded the country, and
there were two military interventions and support for cruel dictatorships.
At the time, the prevailing approach to Latin America was the
“gunboat policy” followed by the “Good Neighbor” policy. Successive
interventions ousted democratic governments and in twenty countries installed
terrible dictatorships, twelve of these simultaneously and mostly in South
America, where hundreds of thousands were killed. President Salvador Allende
left us the legacy of his undying example.
It was precisely 13 years ago that a coup d’état staged
against beloved President Hugo Chavez Frías was defeated by his people. Later
on, an oil coup would follow.
On January 1st, 1959, sixty years after the U.S.
troops entered Havana, the Cuban Revolution triumphed and the Rebel Army
commanded by Fidel Castro Ruz arrived in the capital.
On April 6, 1960, barely one year after victory, Assistant
Secretary of State Lester Mallory drafted a wicked memorandum, declassified tens
of years later, indicating that “The majority of Cubans support Castro […] An
effective political opposition does not exist […]; the only foreseeable means of
alienating internal support [to the government] is through disenchantment and
disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship […] to weaken the
economic life of Cuba […] denying it money and supplies to decrease monetary and
real wages, to bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government.”
We have endured severe hardships. Actually, 77% of the Cuban
people was born under the harshness of the blockade, but our patriotic
convictions prevailed. Aggression increased resistance and accelerated the
revolutionary process. Now, here we are with our heads up high and our dignity
unblemished.
When we had already proclaimed socialism and the people had
fought in the Bay of Pigs to defend it, President Kennedy was murdered, at the
exact time when Fidel Castro, leader of the Cuban Revolution, was receiving his
message seeking to engage Cuba in a dialogue.
After the Alliance for Progress, and having paid our external
debt several times over while unable to prevent its constant growth, our
countries were subjected to a wild and globalizing neoliberalism, an expression
of imperialism at the time that left the region dealing with a lost decade.
Then, the proposal of a “mature hemispheric partnership”
resulted in the imposition of the Free Trade Association of the Americas (FTAA),
–linked to the emergence of these Summits– that would have brought about the
destruction of the economy, sovereignty and common destiny of our nations, if it
had not been derailed at Mar del Plata in 2005 under the leadership of
Presidents Kirchner, Chavez and Lula. The previous year, Chavez and Fidel had
brought to life the Bolivarian Alternative known today as the Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our America.
Excellencies;
We have expressed to President Barack Obama our disposition to
engage in a respectful dialogue and work for a civilized coexistence between our
states while respecting our profound differences.
I welcome as a positive step his recent announcement that he
will soon decide on Cuba’s designation in a list of countries sponsor of
terrorism, a list in which it should have never been included.
Up to this day, the economic, commercial and financial
blockade is implemented against the Island with full intensity causing damages
and scarcities that affect our people and becoming the main obstacle to the
development of our economy. The fact is that it stands in violation of
International Law, and its extraterritorial scope disrupts the interests of
every State.
We have publicly expressed to President Obama, who was also
born under the blockade policy and inherited it from 10 former Presidents when
he took office, our appreciation for his brave decision to engage the U.S.
Congress in a debate to put an end to such policy.
This and other issues should be resolved in the process toward
the future normalization of bilateral relations.
As to us, we shall continue working to update the Cuban
economic model with the purpose of improving our socialism and moving ahead
toward development and the consolidation of the achievements of a Revolution
that has set to itself the goal of “conquering all justice.”
Esteemed colleagues;
Venezuela is not, and it cannot be, a threat to the national
security of a superpower like the United States. We consider it a positive
development that the U.S. President has admitted it.
I should reaffirm our full, determined and loyal support to
the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, to the legitimate government and
civilian-military alliance headed by President Nicolas Maduro, and to the
Bolivarian and chavista people of that country struggling to pursue their own
path while confronting destabilizing attempts and unilateral sanctions that
should be lifted; we demand the repeal of the Executive Order, an action that
our Community would welcome as a contribution to dialogue and understanding in
the hemisphere.
We shall continue encouraging the efforts of the Republic of
Argentina to recover the Falklands, the South Georgia and the South Sandwich
Islands, and supporting its legitimate struggle in defense of financial
sovereignty.
We shall maintain our support for the actions of the Republic
of Ecuador against the transnational companies causing ecological damages to its
territory and trying to impose blatantly unfair conditions.
I wish to acknowledge the contribution of Brazil, and of
President Dilma Rouseff, to the strengthening of regional integration and the
development of social policies that have brought progress and benefits to
extensive popular sectors, the same that the thrust against various leftist
governments of the region is trying to reverse.
We shall maintain our unwavering support for the Latin
American and Caribbean people of Puerto Rico in its determination to achieve
self-determination and independence, as the United Nations Decolonization
Committee has ruled tens of times.
We shall also keep making our contribution to the peace
process in Colombia.
We should all multiply our assistance to Haiti, not only
through humanitarian aid but also with resources that help in its development,
and, in the same token, support a fair and deferential treatment of the
Caribbean countries in their economic relations as well as reparations for
damages brought on them by slavery and colonialism.
We are living under threat of huge nuclear arsenals that
should be removed, and are running out of time to counteract climate change.
Threats to peace keep growing and conflicts spreading out.
As President Fidel Castro has said “[…] the main causes rest
with poverty and underdevelopment, and with the unequal distribution of wealth
and knowledge prevailing in the world. It cannot be forgotten that current
poverty and underdevelopment are the result of conquest, colonization, slavery
and plundering by colonial powers in most of the planet, the emergence of
imperialism and the bloody wars for a new division of the world. Humanity should
be aware of what they have been and should be no more. Today, our species has
accumulated sufficient knowledge, ethical values and scientific resources to
move forward to a historical era of true justice and humanism. Nothing of what
exists today in economic and political terms serves the interests of Humanity.
It cannot be sustained. It must be changed,” he concluded.
Cuba shall continue advocating the ideas for which our people
have taken on enormous sacrifices and risks, fighting alongside the poor, the
unemployed and the sick without healthcare; the children forced to live on their
own, to work or be submitted to prostitution; those going hungry or
discriminated; the oppressed and the exploited who make up the overwhelming
majority of the world population.
Financial speculation, the privileges of Bretton Wood, and the
unilateral removal of the gold standard have grown increasingly suffocating. We
need a transparent and equitable financial system.
It is unacceptable that less than ten big corporations, mostly
American, determine what is read, watched or listened to worldwide. The Internet
should be ruled by an international, democratic and participatory governance,
particularly concerning its content. The militarization of cyberspace, and the
secret and illegal useof computer systems to attack other States are equally
unacceptable. We shall not be dazzled or colonized again.
Mister President;
It is my opinion that hemispheric relations need to undergo
deep changes, particularly in the areas of politics, economics and culture, so
that, on the basis of International Law and the exercise of self-determination
and sovereign equality, they can focus on the development of mutually beneficial
partnerships and cooperation in the interest of all our nations and the
objectives proclaimed.
The adoption in January 2014, during the Second Summit of
CELAC in Havana, of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a
Peace Zone made a transcendental contribution to that end, marked by Latin
American and Caribbean unity in diversity.
This is evident in the progress we are making toward genuinely
Latin American and Caribbean integration processes through CELAC, UNASUR,
CARICOM, MERCOSUR, ALBA-TCP, SICA and the ACS, which underline our growing
awareness of the necessity to work in unison in order to ensure our development.
Through that Proclamation we have committed ourselves “to have
differences between nations resolved peacefully, through dialogue and
negotiation, and other ways consistent with International Law.”
Living in peace, and engaging in mutual cooperation to tackle
challenges and resolve problems that, after all, are affecting and will affect
us all, is today a pressing need.
As the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a
Peace Zone sets forth, “the inalienable right of every State to choose its
political, economic, social and cultural system, as an essential condition to
secure peaceful coexistence between nations” should be respected.
Under that Proclamation we committed to observe our
“obligation to not interfere, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of
any other State, and to observe the principles of national sovereignty, equality
of rights and free determination of the peoples,” and to respect “the principles
and standards of International Law […] and the principles and purposes of the
United Nations Charter.”
That historical document urges “all member states of the
International Community to fully respect this Declaration in its relations with
the CELAC member States.”
We now have the opportunity, all of us here, as the
Proclamation also states, of learning “to exercise tolerance and coexist in
peace as good neighbors.”
There are substantial differences, yes, but also commonalities
which enable us to cooperate making it possible to live in this world fraught
with threats to peace and to the survival of the human species.
What is it that prevents cooperation at a hemispheric scale in
facing climate change?
Why is it that the countries of the two Americas cannot fight
together against terrorism, drug-trafficking and organized crime without
politically biased positions?
Why can we not seek together the necessary resources to
provide the hemisphere with schools, hospitals, employment, and to advance in
the eradication of poverty?
Would it not be possible to reduce inequity in the
distribution of wealth and infant mortality rates, to eliminate hunger and
preventable diseases, and to eradicate illiteracy?
Last year, we established hemispheric cooperation to confront
and prevent Ebola, and the countries of the two Americas made a concerted
effort. This should stimulate our efforts toward greater achievements.
Cuba, a small country deprived of natural resources, that has
performed in an extremely hostile atmosphere, has managed to attain the full
participation of its citizens in the nation’s political and social life; with
universal and free healthcare and education services; a social security system
ensuring that no one is left helpless; significant progress in the creation of
equal opportunities and in the struggle against all sorts of discrimination; the
full exercise of the rights of children and women; access to sports and culture;
and, the right to life and to public safety.
Despite scarcities and challenges, we abide by the principle
of sharing what we have. Currently, 65 thousand Cuban collaborators are working
in 89 countries, basically in the areas of healthcare and education, while 68
thousand professionals and technicians from 157 countries have graduated in our
Island, 30 thousand of them in the area of healthcare.
If Cuba has managed to do this with very little resources,
think of how much more the hemisphere could do with the political will to pool
its efforts to help the neediest countries.
Thanks to Fidel and the heroic Cuban people, we have come to
this Summit to honor Martí’s commitment, after conquering freedom with our own
hands “proud of Our America, to serve it and to honor it […] with the
determination and the capacity to contribute to see it loved for its merits and
respected for its sacrifices.”
Thank you.
