-DATE-
19600926
-YEAR-
1960
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
SPEECH
-AUTHOR-
F. CASTRO
-HEADLINE-
CASTRO DENOUNCES IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALIS AT
-PLACE-
U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY
-SOURCE-
EMBASSY OF CUBA
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS
-REPORT_DATE-
19600926
-TEXT-
DR.  FIDEL CASTRO DENOUNCES
IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM
AT THE UNITED NATIONS

DR.  FIDEL CASTRO DENOUNCES
IMPERIALISM AND COLONIALISM
AT THE UNITED NATIONS

SPEECH OF DR. FIDEL CASTRO
AT THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY,
SEPTEMBER 1960.

No. 4
ISSUED BY THE EMBASSY OF CUBA,
COLOMBO.

Mr. President,
Fellow Delegates

Although it has been said of us that we speak at great length, you may
rest assured that we shall endeavor to be brief and to put before you what
we consider it our duty to say.  We shall also speak slowly in order to
co-operate with the interpreters.

Some people may think that we are very annoyed and upset by the
treatment the Cuban delegation has received.  This is not the case.  We
understand full well the reasons behind it.  That is why we are not
irritated.  Nor should anybody worry that Cuba will not continue to the
effort of achieving a worldwide understanding.  That being so, we shall
speak openly.

It is extremely expensive to send a delegation to the United Nations.
We, the underdeveloped countries, do not have many resources to spend,
unless it is to speak openly at this meeting of representatives of almost
every country in the world.

The speakers who have preceded me on this rostrum have expressed their
concern about problems the whole world is concerned about. We too are
concerned about those problems and yet, in the case of Cuba, there is a
very special circumstance, and it is that, at this moment, Cuba itself must
be a concern for the world, because, as several delegates have rightly said
here, among the many current problems of the world, there is the problem of
Cuba.  In addition to the problems facing the world today, Cuba has
problems of her own, problems which worry her people.

Much has been said of the universal desire for peace, which is the
desire of all peoples and, therefore, the desire of our people too, but the
peace which the world wishes to preserve is the peace that we Cuban have
been missing for quite some time. The dangers that other peoples of the
world can regard as more or less remote are dangers and preoccupations that
for us are very close.  It has not been easy to come to this Assembly to
state the problems of Cuba.  It has not been easy for us to come here.

I do not know whether we are privileged in this respect.  Are we, the
Cuban delegates, the representatives of the worst type of Government in the
world?  Do we, the representatives of the Cuban delegation, deserve the
maltreatment we have received?  And why our delegation?  Cuba has sent many
delegations to the United Nations, and yet it was we who were singled out
for such exceptional measures:  confinement to the Island of Manhattan;
notice to all hotels not to rent rooms to us, hostility and, under the
pretense of security, isolation.

Perhaps not one among you, fellow delegates, you, who are not the
individual representatives of anybody, but the representatives of your
respective countries and, for that reason, whatever happens to each of you
must concern you because of what you represent, perhaps not one among you,
upon your arrival in this city of New York, has had to under go such
personally and physically humiliating treatment as that which the President
of Cuban delegation has received.

I am not trying to agitate in this Assembly.  I am merely telling the
truth.  It is about time we had an opportunity to speak.  Much has been
said about us for many days now, the newspapers have referred to us, but we
have remained silent. We cannot defend ourselves from such attacks in this
country.  Our day to state the truth has come, and we will not fail to
state it.

As I have said, we had to undergo degrading and humiliating treatment,
including eviction from the hotel in which we were living and efforts at
extortion. When we went to another hotel, we did all in our power to avoid
difficulties.  We refrained from leaving our hotel rooms and went nowhere
except to this assembly hall of the United Nations, on the few occasions
when we have come to General Assembly.  We also accepted an invitation to a
reception at the Soviet Embassy, yet this was not enough for them to leave
us in peace.

There has been considerable Cuban emigration to this country.  There
are more than one hundred thousand Cubans who have come to this country
during the last twenty years.  They have come to this country from their
own land, where they would have liked to remain for ever, and where they
wish to return, as is always the case with those who, for social or
economic reasons, are forced to abandon their homeland.  These Cubans were
wholly devoted to their work; they respected and respect the laws of this
country, but they naturally harbored a feeling of love for their native
country and its Revolution.  They never had any problems, but one day
another type of visitor began to arrive in this country, individuals who in
some cases had murdered hundreds of our compatriots.  Soon they were
encouraged by publicity here.  The authorities received them warmly and
soon encouraged them, and, naturally, that encouragement is reflected in
their conduct.  They provoke frequent incidents with the Cuban population
which has worked honestly in this country for many years.

One of such incidents, provoked by those who feel supported by the
systematic campaigns against Cuba and by the authorities, caused the death
of a child.  That was a lamentable event, and we should all regret such an
event.  The guilty ones were not the Cubans who lived here. The guilty ones
were, even less, we, the members of the Cuban delegation, and yet
undoubtedly, you have all seen the headlines of the newspapers, which
stated that "pro-Castro groups" had killed a ten-year old girl.  With the
characteristic hypocrisy of those who have a say in the relations between
Cuba and this country, a spokesman for the White House immediately made
declarations to the world pointing out the deed, in fact, almost fixing the
guilt on the Cuban delegation. And of course, His Excellency, the United
States Delegate to the Assembly, did not fail to join the farce, sending a
telegram of condolence to the Venezuelan Government, addressed to the
victim's relatives, as though he felt called upon to give some explanation
for something Cuban delegation was, in effect, responsible for.

But that was not all.  When we were forced to leave one of the hotels
in this city, and came to the United National Headquarters while efforts
were being made to find accommodation for us, a hotel, a humble hotel of
this city, a Negro hotel in Harlem, offered to rent us rooms.  The reply
came when we were speaking to the Secretary General.  Nevertheless, an
official of the State Department did all in his power to prevent our stayin
at that hotel. At that moment, as though by magic, hotels began appearing
all over New York.  Hotels which had previously refused lodgings to the
Cuban delegation offered us rooms, even free of charge.  Out of simple
reciprocity we accepted the Harlem hotel.  We felt then that we had earned
the right to be left in peace.  But peace was not accorded us.

Once in Harlem, since it was impossible to prevent us from living
there, the slander and defamation campaigns began. They began spreading the
news all over the world that the Cuban delegation had lodged in a brothel.
For some humble hotel in Harlem, a hotel inhabited by Negroes of the United
States, must obviously be a brothel.  Furthermore, they have tried to heap
infamy upon the Cuban delegation, without even respecting the female
members who work with us and are a part of the Cuban delegation.

If we were the kind of men they try to depict at all costs, imperialism
would not have lost all hope, as it did long ago, of somehow buying or
seducing us.  But, since they lost that hope a long time ago -- though they
never had reasons to sustain it--after having stated that the Cuban
delegation lodged in a brothel, they should at least realize that
imperialist financial capital is a prostitute that cannot seduce us -- and
not precisely the "respectful" type of prostitute described by Jean Paul
Sarte.

Now, to the problem of Cuba.  Perhaps some of you are well aware of the
facts, perhaps others are not.  It all depends on the sources of
information, but, undoubtedly, the problem of Cuba, born within the last
two years, is a new problem for the world.  The world had not had many
reasons to know that Cuba existed.  For many, Cuba was something of an
appendix of the United States. Even for many citizens of this country, Cuba
was a colony of the United States.  As far as the map was concerned, this
we not the case:  our country had a different color from that of the
United States.   But in reality Cuba was a colony of the United States.

How did our country became a colony of the United States?  It was not
because of its origins; the same men did not colonize the United States and
Cuba.  Cuba has a very different ethnical and cultural origin, and the
difference was widened over the centuries.  Cuba was the last country in
America to free itself from Spanish colonial rule, to cast off, with due
respect to the representative of Spain, the Spanish colonial yoke; and
because it was the last, it also had to fight more fiercely.

Spain had only one small possession left in America and it defended it
with tooth and nail.  Our people, small in numbers, scarcely a million
inhabitants at that time, had to face alone, for almost thirty years, an
army considered one of the strongest in Europe.  Against our small national
population the Spanish Government mobilized an army as big as the total
forces that had fought against South American independence.  Half a million
Spanish soldiers fought against the historic and unbreakable will of our
people to be free.

For thirty years the Cubans fought alone for their independence; thirty
years of struggle that strengthened our love for freedom and independence.
But Cuba was a fruit -- according to the opinion of a President of the
United States at the beginning of the past century, John Adams --, it was
an apple hanging from the Spanish tree, destined to fall, as soon as it was
ripe enough, into the hands of the United States.  Spanish power had worn
itself out in our country.  Spain had neither the men nor the economic
resources to continue the war in Cuba; Spain had been defeated. Apparently
the apple was ripe, and the United States Government held out its open
hands.

Not one but several apples fell in to the hands of the United States.
Puerto Rico fell -- heroic Puerto Rico, which had begun its struggle for
independence at the same time as Cuba.  The Philippine Islands fell, and
several other possessions.  However, the method of dominating our country
could not be the same.  Our country had struggled fiercely, and thus had
gained the favor of world public opinion.  Therefore the method of taking
our country had to be different.

The Cubans who fought for our independence and at that very moment were
giving their blood and their lives believed in good faith in the joint
resolution of the Congress of the United States of April 20, 1898, which
declared that "Cuba is, and by right ought to be, free and independent."

The people of the United States were sympathetic to the Cuban struggle
for liberty.  That joint declaration was a law adopted by the Congress of
the United States through which war was declared on Spain.  But that
illusion was followed by a rude awakening. After two years of military
occupation of our country, the unexpected happened:  at the very moment
that the people of Cuba, through their Constituent Assembly, were drafting
the Constitution of the Republic, a new law was passed by the United States
Congress, a law proposed by Senator Platt, bearing such unhappy memories
for the Cubans.  That law stated that the constitution of the Cuba must
have an appendix under which the United States would be granted the right
to intervent in Cuba's political affairs and, furthermore, to lease certain
parts of Cuba for naval bases or coal supply station.

In other words, under a law passed by the legislative body of a foreign
country, Cuban's Constitution had to contain an appendix with those
provisions.  Our legislators were clearly told that if they did not accept
the amendment, the occupation forces would not be withdrawn.  In other
words, an agreement to grant another country the right to intervene and to
lease naval bases was imposed by force upon my country by the legislative
body of a foreign country.

It is well, I think, for countries just entering this Organization,
countries just beginning their independent life, to bear in mind our
history and to note any similar conditions which they may find waiting for
them along their own road.  And if it is not they, then those who came
after them, or their children, or grandchildren, although it seems to us
that we will not have to wait that long.

Then began the new colonization of our country, the acquisition of the
best agricultural lands by United States firms, concessions of Cuban
natural resources and mines, concessions of public utilities for
exploitation purposes, commercial concessions of all types. These
concessions, when linked with the constitutional right -- constitutional by
force -- of intervention in our country, turned it from a Spanish colony
into an American colony.

Colonies do not speak.  Colonies are not known until they have the
opportunity to express themselves.  That is why our colony and its problems
were unknown to the rest of the world.  In geography books reference was
made to a flag and a coat of arms.  There was an island with another color
on the maps, but it was not an independent republic.  Let us not deceive
ourselves, since by doing so we only make ourselves ridiculous.  Let no one
be mistaken. There was no independent republic; there was only a colony
where orders were given by the Ambassador of the United States.

We are not ashamed to have to declare this. On the contrary:  we are
proud to say that today no embassy rules our country; our country is ruled
by its people!

Once against the Cuban people had to resort to fighting in order to
achieve independence, and that independence was finally attained after
seven bloody years of tyranny, who forced this tyranny upon us?  Those who
in our country were nothing more than tools of the interests which
dominated our country economically.

How can an unpopular regime, inimical to the interests of the people,
stay in power unless it is by force?  Will we have to explain to the
representatives of our sister republics of Latin America what military
tyrannies are?  Will we have to outline to them how these tyrannies have
kept themselves in power?  Will we have to explain the history of several
of those tyrannies which are already classical?  Will we have to say what
forces, what national and international interests support them?

The military group which tyrannized our country was supported by the
most reactionary elements of the nation, and, above all, by the foreign
interests that dominated the economy of our country.  Everybody knows, and
we understand that even the Government of the United States admits it, that
that was the type of government favored by the monopolies. Why?  Because by
the use of force it was possible to check the demands of the people; by
the use of force it was possible to suppress strikes for improvement of
living standards; by the use of force it was possible to crush all
movements on the part of the peasants to own the land they worked; by the
use of force it was possible to curb the greatest and most deeply felt
aspirations of the nation.

That is why governments of force were favored by the ruling circles of
the United States. That is why governments of force stayed in power for so
long, and why there are governments of force still in power in America.
Naturally, it all depends on whether it is possible to secure the support
of the United States.

For instance, now they say they oppose one of these governments of
force; the Government of Trujillo.  But they do not say they are against
other governments of force -- that of Nicaragua, or Paraguay, for example.
The Nicaraguan one is no longer government of force; it is a monarchy that
is almost as constitutional as that of the United Kingdom, where the reins
of power are handed down from father to son.  The same would have occurred
in my own country.  It was the type of government of force -- that of
Fulgencio Batista -- which suited the American monopolies in Cuba, but it
was not, of course, the type of government which suited the Cuban people,
and the Cuban people, at a great cost in lives and sacrifices, over threw
the government.

What did the Revolution find when it came to power in Cuba?  What
marvels did the Revolution find when it came to power in Cuba?  First of
all the Revolution found that 600,000 able Cubans were unemployed -- as
many, proportionately, as were unemployed in the United States at the time
of the great depression which shook this country and which almost created a
catastrophy in the United States. That was our permanent unemployment.
Three million out of a population of somewhat over 6,000,000 did not have
electric lights and did not enjoy the advantages and comforts of
electricity. Three and a half million out of a total of slightly more than
6,000,000 lived in huts, shacks and slums, without the slightest sanitary
facilities.  In the cities, rents took almost one third of family incomes.
Electricity rates and rents were among the highest in the world.
Thirty-seven and one half percent of our population were illiterate; 70
per cent of the rural children had no teachers; 2 per cent of population,
that is, 100,000 persons out of a total of more than 6,000,000 suffered
from tuberculosis.  Ninety-five per cent of the children in rural areas
were affected by parasites, and the infant mortality rate was therefore
very high, just the opposite of the average life span.

On the other hand, 85 per cent of the small farmers were paying rents
for the use of land to the tune of almost 30 per cent of their income,
while 1 1/2 percent of the landowners controlled 46 per cent of the total
area of the nation.  Of course, the proportion of hospital beds to the
number of inhabitants of the country was ridiculous, when compared with
countries that only have halfway decent medical services.

Public utilities, electricity and telephone services all belonged to
the United States monopolies.  A major portion of the banking business, of
the importing business and the oil refineries, the greater part of the
sugar production, the best land in Cuba, and the most important industries
in all fields belonged to American companies. The balance of payments in
the last ten years, from 1950 to 1960, had been favorable to the United
States with regard to Cuba to the extent of one thousand million dollars.

This is without taking in to account the hundreds of millions of
dollars that were extraeted from the treasury of the country by the corrupt
officials of the tyranny and were later deposited in United States or
European Banks.

One thousand million dollars in ten years.  This poor and
underdeveloped Caribbean country, with 600,000 unemployed, was contributing
greatly to the economic development of the most highly industrialized
country in the world.

That was the situation we found, and it is probably not foreign to many
of the countries represented in this Assembly, because, when all is said
and done, what we have said about Cuba is like a diagnostic x-ray
applicable to many of the countries represented here.

What alternative was there for the Revolutionary Government?  To betray
the people?  Of course, as far as the President of the United States is
concerned, we have betrayed our people, but it would certainly not have
been considered so, if, instead of the Revolutionary Government being true
to its people, it had been loyal to the big American monopolies that
exploited the economy of our country. At least, let note be taken here of
the wonders the Revolution found when it came to power.  They were no more
and no less than the usual wonder of imperialism, which are in themselves
the wonders of the free world as far as we, the colonies, are concerned!

We surely cannot be blamed if there were 600,000 unemployed in Cuba and
37.5 per cent of the population were illiterate. We surely cannot be held
responsible if 2 per cent of the population suffered from tuberculosis and
95 per cent were affected by parasites.  Until that moment none of us had
anything to do with the destiny of our country; until that moment, those
who had something to do with the destiny of our country were the rulers who
served the interests of the monopolies; until that moment, monopolies had
been in control of our country.  Did anyone hinder them?  No one. Did
anyone trouble them?  No one.  They were able to do their work, and there
we found the result of their work.

What was the state of our reserved when the tyrant Batista came to
power.  There was $500,000,000 in our national reserve, a goodly sum to
have invested in the industrial development of the country.  When the
Revolution came to power there was only $70,000,000 in our reserves.

Was there any concern for the industrial development of our country?
No.  That is why we are astonished and amazed when we hear of the
extraordinary concern shown by the United States Government for the Fate of
the countries of Latin America, Africa and Asia.  We cannot overcome our
amazement, because after fifty years we have the result of their concern
before our eyes.

What has the Revolutionary Government done?  What crime has the
Revolutionary Government committed to deserve the treatment we have
received here, and the powerful enemies that events have shown us we have?

Did problems with the United States Government arise from the first
moments?  No.  It is perhaps that when we reached power we were imbued with
the purpose of getting into international trouble?  No.  No Revolutionary
government wants international trouble when it comes to power.  What a
revolutionary government wants to do is concentrate its efforts on solving
its own problems; what it wants to do is carry out a program for the
people, as is the desire of all governments that are interested in the
progress of their country.

The first unfriendly act perpetrated by the Government of the United
States was to throw open its doors to a gang of murders who had left our
country covered with blood.  Men who had murdered hundreds of defenseless
peasants, who for many years never tired of torturing prisoners, who killed
right and left -- were received in this country with open arms.  To us,
this was amazing.  Why this unfriendly act on the part of the Government of
the United States towards Cuba?  Why this act of hostility?  At that time
we could not quite understand; now we see the reason clearly.  Was that the
proper policy as regards relations between the United States and Cuba?
Certainly not, because we were the injured party, inasmuch as the Batista
regime remained in power with the help of tanks, planes and arms furnished
by the Government of the United States; the Batista regime remained in
power thanks to the use of an army whose officers were trained by a
military mission sent by the United States Government; and we trust that no
official of the United States will dare to deny that truth.

Even when the Rebel Army arrived in Havana, the American military
mission was in the most important military camp of the city.  That was a
broken army, an army that had been defeated and had surrendered.  We could
very well have considered those foreign officers as prisoners of war, since
they had been there helping and training the enemies of the people.
However, we did not do so.  We merely asked the members of that military
mission to return to their country, because after all, we did not need
their lessons; their pupils had been defeated.

I have with me a document. Do not be surprised as its appearance, for
it is a torn document.  It is an old military pact, by virtue of which the
Batista tyranny received generous assistance from the Government of the
United States.  And it is quite important to know the contents of Article 2
of this Agreement:

"The Government of the Republic of Cuba commits itself to make
efficient use of the assistance it receives from the United States,
pursuant to the present agreement, in order to carry out the plans of
defense accepted by both Governments, pursuant to which the two Governments
will take part in missions which are important for the defense of the
Western Hemisphere, and, unless permission is previously obtained from the
Government of the United States of America ..."

-- I repeat:

"and unless permission is previously obtained from the Government of
the United States, such assistance will not be dedicated to other ends than
those for which such assistance has been granted."

That assistance was used to combat the Cuban revolutionaries; it was
therefore approved by the Government of the United States. And even when,
some months before the war was over, an embargo on arms for Batista was put
into effect, after more than six years of military help, once the arms
embargo had been solemnly declared, the Rebel Army had proof, documentary
proof, that the forces of the tyranny had been supplied with 300 rockets to
be fired from planes.

When our comrades living in this country laid these documents before
the public opinion of the United States, the Government of the United
States found no other explanation than to say that we were wrong, that they
had not sent new supplies to the army of the tyranny, but had just changed
some rockets that could not be used in their planes for another type of
rocket that could -- and, by the way, they were fired at us while we were
in the mountains.  I must say that this is a unique way of explaining a
contradiction when it can be neither justified nor explained.  According to
the United States, then, this was not military assistance; it was probably
some sort of '"technical assistance."

Why, then, if all this existed and was a cause of resentment for our
people ... because everybody knows, even the most innocent and guileless,
that with the revolution that has taken place in military equipment, those
weapons from the last war have became throughly obsolete for a modern war.

Fifty tanks of armoured cars and a few outmoded aircraft cannot defend
a continent, much less a hemisphere.  But on the other hand they are good
enough to oppress unarmed peoples. They are good for what they are used
for:  to intimidate people and to defend monopolies.  That is why these
hemisphere defense pacts might better be described as "defense pacts for
the protection of United States monopolies."

And so the Revolutionary Government began to take the first steps.  The
first thing it did was to lower the rents paid by families by fifty per
cent, a just measure, since, as I said earlier, there were families paying
up to one third of their income. The people had been the victim of housing
speculation, and city lots had also been the subject of speculation at the
expense of the entire Cuban people.  But when the Revolutionary Government
reduced the rents by fifty per cent, there were, of course, a few
individuals who became upset, the few who owned those apartment buildings,
but the people rushed into the streets rejoicing, as they would in any
country, even here in New York, if rents were reduced by fifty per cent.
But this was no problem to the monopolies.  Some American monopolies owned
large buildings, but they were relatively few in number.

Then another law was passed, a law cancelling the concessions which had
been granted by the tyranny of Batista to the Telephone Company, an
American monopoly.  Taking advantage of the fact our people were
defenseless, they had obtained valuable concessions.  The Revolutionary
Government then cancelled these concessions and re-established normal
prices for telephone services.  Thus began the first conflict with the
American monopolies.

The third measure was the reduction of electricity rates, which were
the highest in the world. Then followed the second conflict with the
American monopolies. We were beginning to appear communist; they were
beginning to daub us in red because we had clashed head on with the
interests of the United States monopolies.

Then followed the next law, an essential and inevitable law for our
country, and a law which sooner or later will have to be adopted by all
countries of the world, at least by those which have not yet adopted it:
the Agrarian Reform Law.  Of course, in theory everybody agrees with the
Agrarian Reform Law.  Nobody will deny the need for it unless he is a fool.
No one can deny that agrarian reform is one of the essential conditions for
the economic development of the country.  In Cuba, even the big landowners
agreed about the agrarian reform -- only they wanted their own kind of
reform, such as the one defended by many theoreticians; a reform which
would not harm their interests, and above all, one which would not be put
into effect as long as it could be avoided.  This is something that is well
known to the economic bodies of the United Nations, something nobody even
cares to discuss any more.  In my country it was absolutely necessary:
more than 200,000 peasant families lived in the countryside without land on
which to grow essential food crops.

Without an agrarian reform, our country would have been unable to take
that step; we made an agrarian reform.  Was it a radical agrarian reform?
We think not.  It was a reform adjusted to the needs of our development,
and in keeping with our own possibilities of agricultural development.  In
other words, was an agrarian reform which was to solve the problems of the
landless peasants, the problem of supplying basic foodstuffs, the problem
of rural unemployment, and which was to end, once and for all, the ghastly
poverty which existed in the countryside of our native land.

And that is where the first major difficulty arose.  In the neighboring
Republic of Guatemala a similar case had occurred.  And I honestly warn my
colleagues of Latin America, Africa and Asia; whenever you set out to make
a just agrarian reform, you must be ready to face s similar situation,
especially if the best and largest tracts of land are owned by American
monopolies, as was the case in Cuba. (OVATION)

It is quite possible that we may later be accused of giving bad advice
in this Assembly.  It is not our intention to disturb anybody's sleep.  We
are simply stating the facts, although the facts are sufficient to disturb
everybody's sleep.

Then the problem of payment arose.  Notes from the State Department
rained on our Government.  They never asked about our problems, not even
out of sheer pity, or because of the great responsibility they had in
creating such problems. They never asked us how many died of starvation in
our country, or how many were suffering from tuberculosis, or how many were
unemployed.  No, they never asked about that.  A sympathetic attitude
towards our needs?  Certainly not. All talks by the representatives of the
Government of the United States centered upon the Telephone Co., the
Electric Co., and the land owned by American Companies.

How could we solve the problem of payment?  Of course, the first
question that should have been asked was what we were going to pay with,
rather than how.  Can you gentlemen conceive of a poor underdeveloped
country, with 600,000 unemployed and such a large number of illiterates and
sick people, a country whose reserves have been exhausted, and which has
contributed to the economy of a powerful country with one thousand million
dollars in ten years -- can you conceive of this country having the means
to pay for the land affected by the Agrarian Reform Law, or the means to
pay for it in the terms demanded?

What were the State Department aspirations regarding their affected
interests?  They wanted prompt, efficient and just payment.  Do you
understand that language?  "Prompt, efficient, and just payment."  That
means, "pay now, in dollars, and whatever we ask for our land."  (APPLAUSE)

We were not 100 per cent communist yet (LAUGHS)  We were just becoming
slightly pink. We did not confiscate land; we simply proposed to pay for it
in twenty years, and in the only way in which we could pay for it: in
bonds, which would mature in twenty years at 4 1/2 per cent, or amortized
yearly.

How could we pay for the land in dollars, and the amount they asked for
it?  It was absurd.  Anyone can readily understand that, under those
circumstances, we had to choose between making the agrarian reform, and not
making it.  If we choose not to make it, the dreadful economic situation of
our country would last indefinitely.  If we decided to make it, we exposed
ourselves to the hatred of the Government of the powerful neighbor of the
north.

We decided to go on with the agrarian reform.  Of course, the limits
set to latifundia in Cuba would amaze a representative of the Netherlands,
for example, or of any country of Europe, because of their extent.  The
maximum amount of land set forth in the Agrarian Reform Law is 400 hectares
(988 acres).  In Europe, 40 hectares is practically a lati-fundium; in
Cuba, where there were American monopolies that had up to 200,000 hectares
-- I repeat, in case someone thinks he has heard wrong, 200,000 hectares --
an agrarian reform law reducing the maximum limit to 400 hectares was
inadmissible.

But the truth is that in our country it was not only the land that was
the property of the agrarian monopolies.  The largest and most important
mines were also owned by those monopolies.  Cuba produces, for example, a
great deal of nickel.  All of the nickel was exploited by American
interests, and under the tyranny of Batista, an American company, the Moa
Bay, had obtained such a juicy concession that in a mere five years -- mark
my words, in a mere five years -- it intended amortizing an investment of
$120,000,000.  A $120,000,000 investment amortized in five years!

And who had given the Moa Bay company this concession through the
intervention of the Government of the United States?  Quite simply, the
tyrannical government of Fulgencio Batista, which was there to defend the
interests of the monopolies.  And this is an absolutely true fact.  Exempt
from all taxes what were those companies going to leave for the Cubans?
The empty, worked out mines, the impoverished land, and not the slightest
contribution to the economic development of our country.

And so the Revolutionary Government passed a mining law which forced
those monopolies to pay a 25 per cent tax on the exportation of minerals.
The attitude of the Revolutionary Government already had been too bold.  It
had clashed with the interests of the international electric trusts;  it
had clashed with the interests of the international telephone trusts;  it
had clashed with the interests of the mining trusts; it had clashed with
the interests of the United Fruit Co; and it had in effect, clashed with
the most powerful interests of the United States, which, as you know, are
very closely linked with each other.  And that was more than the Government
of the United States -- or rather, the representatives of the United States
monopolies -- could possibly tolerate.

Then began a new period of harassment of the Revolution. Can anyone who
objectively analyzes the facts?  Who is willing to think honestly, not as
the UP or the AP tell him, to think with his head and to draw conclusions
from his own reasoning and the facts without prejudice, sincerely and
honestly -- would anyone who does this consider that things which the
Revolutionary Government did were such as to demand the destruction of the
Cuban Revolution?  No.  But the interests affected by the Cuban Revolution
were not concerned about the Cuban case; they were not being ruined by the
measures of the Cuban Revolutionary Government.  That was not the problem.
The problem lay in the fact that those very interests owned the wealth and
the natural resources of the greater part of the peoples of the world.

The attitude of the Cuban Revolution therefore had to be punished.
Punitive actions of all sorts -- even the destruction of those insolent
people -- had to follow the audacity of the Revolutionary Government.

On our honor, we swear that up to that moment we had not had the
opportunity even to exchange letters with the distinguished Prime Minister
of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev.  That is to say that when, for the
North American press and the international news agencies that supply
information to the world, Cuba was already a Communist Government, a red
peril ninety miles from the United States with a Government dominated by
Communists, the Revolutionary Government had not even had the opportunity
of establishing diplomatic and commercial relations with the Soviet Union.

But hysteria can go to any length; hysteria is capable of making the
most unlikely and absurd claims.  Of course, let no one think for a moment
that we are going to intone a mea culpa here.  There will be no mea culpa.
We do not have to ask anyone's pardon. What we have done, we have done
consciously, and above all, fully convinced of our right to do it.
(PROLONGED APPLAUSE)

Then came the threats against our sugar quota, imperialism's cheap
philosophy of showing generosity, egoistical and exploiting generosity; and
they began showing kindness towards Cuba, declaring that they were paying
us a preferential price for sugar, which amounted to a subsidy to Cuban
sugar -- a sugar which was not so sweet for Cubans, since we were not the
owners of the best sugar-producing land, nor the owners of the largest
sugar mills.  Furthermore, in that affirmation lay hidden the true history
of Cuban sugar, of the sacrifices which had been imposed upon my country
during the periods when it was economically attacked.

However when quotas were established, our participation was reduced to
28 per cent, and the advantages which that law had granted us, the very few
advantages which that law had granted us, were gradually taken away in
successive laws, and, of course the colony depended on the colonial power.
The economy of the colony had been organized by the colonial power.

The colony had to be subjected to the colonial power, and if the colony
took measures to free itself from the colonial powers that country would
take measures to crush the colony.  Conscious of the subordination of our
economy to their market, the Government of the United States began to issue
a series of warnings that our quota would be reduced further, and at the
same time, other activities were taking place in the United States of
America: the activities of counterrevolutionaries.

One afternoon an airplane coming from the north flew over one of the
sugar refineries and dropped a bomb. This was a strange and unheard-of
event, but we knew full well where that plane came from.  On another
afternoon another plane flew over our sugar cane fields and dropped a few
incendiary bombs. These events which began sporadically continued
systematically.

One afternoon, when a number of American tourist agents were visiting
Cuba in response to an effort made by the Revolutionary Government to
promote tourism as one of the sources of national income, a plane
manufactured in the United States, of the type used in the Second World
War, flew over our capital dropping pamphlets and grenades.  Of course,
some anti-aircraft guns went into action. The result was more than forty
victims, between the grenades dropped by the plane and the anti-aircraft
fire, because, as you know, some of the projectiles explode upon contacting
any object.  As I said, the result was more than forty victims. There were
little girls on the street with their entrails torn out, old men and women
wantonly killed. Was this the first time it had happened in our country?
No.  Children, old men and old women, young men and women, had often been
killed in the villages of Cuba by American bombs supplied to the tyrant
Batista.  One one occasion, eighty workers died when a mysterious explosion
-- too mysterious -- took place in the harbor of Havana, the explosion of a
ship carrying Belgian weapons which had arrived in our country, after many
efforts by the United States Government to prevent the Belgian Government
from selling arms to us.

Dozens of victims of war; eighty families orphaned by the explosions.
Forty victims as a result of an airplane that brazenly flew over our
territory.  The authorities of the United States Government denied the fact
that these planes came from American territory, but the plane was now
safely in a hangar in this country.  When one of  our magazines published a
photograph of it, the United States authorities seized the plane.  A
version of the affair was issued to the effect that this was not very
important, and that these victims had not died because of the bombs, but
because of the anti-aircraft fire.  Those responsible for this crime, those
who had caused these deaths were wandering about peacefully in the United
States, where they were not even prevented from committing further acts of
aggression.

May I take this opportunity of telling His Excellency the
Representative of the United States that there are many mothers in Cuba
still awaiting his telegrams of condolence for their children murdered by
the bombs of the United States (APPLAUSE).

Planes kept coming and going.  But as far as they were concerned, there
was no evidence.  Frankly, we don't know how they define the word
evidence.  The plane was there, photographed and captured, and yet we were
told the plane did not drop any bombs.  It is not known how the United
States authorities were so well informed.

Planes continued to fly over our territory dropping incendiary bombs.
Millions and millions of pesos were lost in the burning fields of sugar
cane.  Many humble people of Cuba, who saw property destroyed, property
that was now truly their own, suffered burns in the struggle against those
persistent and tenacious bombings by pirate planes.

And then one day, while dropping a bomb on one of our sugar mills, a
plane exploded in mid air and the Revolutionary Government was able to
collect what was left of the pilot, who by the way, was an American.  In
his documents were found, proof as to the place where the plane had taken
off from. On its way to Cuba, the plane had flown between two United States
military bases.  This was a matter that could not be denied any longer: the
planes took off from the United States.  Confronted with irrefutable
evidence the United States Government gave an explanation to the Cuban
Government.  Its conduct in this case was not the same as in connection
with the U-2.  When it was proved that the planes were taking off from the
United States, the Government of the United States did not proclaim its
right to burn over sugar cane fields.  The United States Government
apologized and said it was sorry.  We were lucky, after all, because after
the U - 2 incident the United States Government did not even apologize, it
proclaimed its right to carry out flights over Soviet territory.  Bad luck
for the Soviets!  (APPLAUSE).

But we do not have too many anti-aircraft batteries, and the planes
went on flying and bombing us until the harvest was over.  When there was
no more sugar cane, the bombing stopped.  We were the only country in the
world which had gone through a thing like this, although I do recall that
at the time of his visit to Cuba, President Sukarno told us that this was
not the case, for they, too, had had certain problems with American planes
flying over their territory.

But the truth is that in this peaceful hemisphere at least, we were a
country that, without being at war with anyone, had to stand the constant
attack of pirate planes.  And could those planes come in and out of United
States territory unmolested?  It has been stated that the defenses of the
world they call "free" are impregnable.  If this is the case, how is it
that planes, not supersonic planes, but light planes with a velocity of
barely 150 miles per hour, how is it that these planes are able to fly in
and out of United States territory undetected.

The air raids ended, and then came economic aggression. What was one of
the arguments wielded by the enemies of the agrarian reform?  They said
that the agrarian reform would bring chaos to agricultural production, that
production would diminish considerably, and that the Government of the
United States was concerned because Cuba might not be able to fulfill her
commitments to the American market.  The first argument -- and it is
appropriate that at least the new delegations in the General Assembly
should become familiar with some of the arguments, because some day they
may have to answer similar arguments -- the first argument was that the
agrarian reform meant the ruin of the country.  This was not the case.  If
this had been so, and agricultural production had deceased, the American
Government would not have felt the need to carry on its economic
aggression.

Did they sincerely believe in what they said when they stated that the
agrarian reform would cause a drop in production?  Perhaps they did.
Surely it is logical for each one to believe what his mind has been
conditioned to believe.  It is quite possible they may have felt that
without the all-powerful monopolist companies, we Cubans would be unable to
produce sugar.  perhaps they were even sure we would ruin the country.  And
of course, if the Revolution had ruined the country, then the United States
would not have had to attack us; it would have left us alone, and the
United States Government would have appeared as a good and honourable
government, and we as people who ruined our own Nation, and as a great
example that Revolutions should not be made because they ruin countries.
Fortunately, that was not the case.  There is proof that revolutions do not
ruin countries, and that proof has just been furnished by the Government of
the United States. Among other things, it has been proved that revolutions
do not ruin countries, and that imperialist governments do try to ruin
countries.

Cuba had not been ruined; she therefore had to be ruined.  Cuba needed
new markets for its products, and we would honestly ask any delegation
present if it does not want its country to sell what it produces and its
export to increase. We wanted our exports to increase, and this is what all
countries wish; this must be a universal law.  Only egotistical interests
can oppose the universal interest in trade and commercial exchange, which
surely is one of the most ancient aspirations and needs of mankind.

We wanted to sell our products and went in search of new markets.  We
signed a trade treaty with the Soviet Union, according to which we would
sell one million tons of sugar and would purchase a certain amount of
Soviet products or articles.  Surely no one can say that this is an
incorrect procedure.  There may be some who would not do such a thing
because it might displease certain intersts.  We really did not have to ask
permission from the State Department in order to sign a trade treaty with
the Soviet Union, because we considered ourselves, and we continue to
consider ourselves and we will always consider ourselves, a truly
independent and free country.

When the amount of sugar in stock began to diminish stimulating our
economy, we received the hard blow: at the request of the executive power
of the United States, Congress passed a law empowering the President or
Executive power to reduce the import quotas for Cuban sugar to whatever
limits might deem appropriate.  The economic weapon was wielded against our
Revolution.  The justification for that attitude had already been prepared
by publicity experts; the campaign had been on for a long time.  You know
perfectly well that in this country monopolies and publicity are one and
the same thing.  The economic weapon was wielded, our sugar quota was
suddenly cut by about one million tons -- sugar that had already been
produced and prepared for the American market -- in order to deprive our
country of resources for its development, and thus reduce it to a state of
impotence, with the natural political consequences.  Such measures were
expressly banned by Regional International Law.  Economic aggression, as
all Latin American delegates here know, is expressly condemned by Regional
International Law.  However, the Government of the United States violated
that law, wielded its economic weapon, and cut our sugar quota by about one
million tons.  They could do it.

What was Cuba's defense when confronted by that reality?  It could
appeal to the United Nations.  It could turn to the United Nations, in
order to denounce political and economic aggressions, the air attacks of
the pirate planes, besides the constant interference of the Government of
the United States in the political affairs of our country and the
subversive campaigns it carries out against the Revolutionary Government of
Cuba.

So we turned to the United Nations. The United Nations had power to
deal with these matters.  The United Nations is, within the hierarchy of
international organizations, the highest authority.  The United Nations'
authority is even above that of the OAS.  And besides, we were interested
in bringing the problem to the United Nations, because we know quite well
the situation the economy of Latin America finds itself in; because we
understand the state of dependence of the economy of Latin America in
relation to the United States.  The United Nations knew of the affair, it
requested the OAS to make an investigation, and the OAS met.  Very well.
And what was to be expected? That the OAS would protect the country; that
the OAS would condemn the political aggression against Cuba, and above all
that would condemn the economic aggression against our country.  That
should have been expected.  But after all, we were a small people of the
Latin American community of nations.  We were just another victim.  And we
were neither the first or the last, because Mexico had already been
attacked more than once militarily.  In one way they tore away from Mexico
a great part of its territory, and on that occasion the heroic sons of
Mexico leaped to their death from the Castle of Chapultepec enwrapped in
the Mexican flag rather than surrender.  These were the heroic sons of
Mexico (APPLAUSE).

And that was not the only aggression.  That was not the only time that
American infantry forces trod upon Mexican soil.  Nicaragua was invaded and
for seven long years was heroically defended by Ceasar Augusto Sandino.
Cuba suffered intervention more than once, and so did Haiti and Santo
Domingo. Guatemala also suffered intervention.  Who among you could
honestly deny the intervention of the United Fruit Co. and the State
Department of the United States when the legitimate government of Guatemala
was overthrown?  I understand fully well that there may be some who
consider it their official duty to be discreet on this matter, and who
may even be willing to come here and deny this, but in their consciences
they know we are simply stating the truth.

Cuba was not the first victim of aggression; Cuba was not the first
country to be in danger of aggression.  In this hemisphere everyone knows
that the Government of the United States has always imposed its own law --
the law of the strongest, in virtue of which they have destroyed Puerto
Rican nationhood and have imposed their domination on that friendly country
-- law in accordance with which they seized and held the Panama Canal.

This was nothing new, our country should have been defended, but it was
never defended.  Why?  Let us get to the bottom of this matter, without
merely studying the from.  If we stick to the dead letter of the law, then
we are protected; if we abide by reality, we have no protection whatsoever,
because reality imposes itself on the law set forth in international codes,
and that reality is, that a small nation attacked by a powerful country did
not have any defense and was not defended.

With all due respect to this organization, I must state here that, that
is why the people, our people, the people of Cuba, who have learned much
and are quite up to the role they are laying, to the heroic struggle they
are conducting ... our people who have learned in the school of
international events, know that in the last instance, when their rights
have been denied and aggressive forces are marshalled against them, they
still have the supreme and heroic resource of resisting when their rights
are not protected by either the OAS or the UN (OVATION).

That is why we, the small countries, do not yet feel too sure that our
rights will be preserved; that is why we, the small countries, whenever we
decide to become free, know that we become free at our own risk. In truth,
when people are united and are defending a just right, they can trust their
own energies. We are not, as we have been pictured, a mere group of men
governing the country.  We are a whole people governing a country -- a
whole people firmly united, with a great revolutionary consciousness,
defending its rights.  And this should be known by the enemies of the
revolution and of Cuba, because if they ignore this fact, they will be
making a regretable error.

These are the circumstances in which the revolutionary process has
taken place in our country; that is how we found the country, and why
difficulties have arisen.  And yet the Cuban Revolution is changing what
was yesterday a land without hope, a land of poverty and illiteracy, into
one of the most advanced and developed countries in this Continent.

The Revolutionary Government, in but twenty months, has created 10,000
new schools.  In this brief period it has doubled the number of rural
schools that had been created in fifty years. Cuba is today, the first
country of America that has met all its school needs, that has a teacher in
the farthest corners of the mountains.

In this brief period of time, the Revolutionary Government has built
5,000 houses in the rural and urban areas.  Fifty new towns are being built
at this moment.  The most important military fortresses today house tens of
thousands of students, and, in the coming year, our people intend to fight
the great battle against illiteracy, with the ambitious goal of teaching
every single inhabitant of the country to read and write in one year, and,
with that end in mind, organizations of teachers, students and workers,
that is, the entire people, are preparing themselves for an intensive
campaign, and Cuba will be the first country of America which, after a few
months, will be able to say it does not have one single illiterate.

Our people are receiving today the assistance of hundreds of doctors
who have been sent to the fields to fight against illnesses and parasitic
ailments, and improve the sanitary conditions of the nation.

In another aspect, in the preservation of our natural resources, we can
also point with pride to the fact that in only one year, in the most
ambitious plan for the conservation of natural resources being carried out
on this continent, including the United States of America and Canada, we
have planted nearly fifty million timber-yielding trees.

Youths who were unemployed, who did not attend school, have been
organized by the Revolutionary Government and are today being gainfully
and usefully employed by the country, and at the same time being prepared
for productive work.

Agricultural production in our country has been able to perform an
almost unique feat, an increase in production from the very beginning. From
the very start we were able to increase agricultural production. Why?  In
the first place, because the Revolutionary Government turned more than
10,000 agricultural workers, who formerly paid rent, to owners of their
land, at the same time maintaining large-scale production through
co-operatives.  In other words production was maintained through
co-operatives, thanks to which we have been able to apply the most modern
technical methods to our agricultural production, causing a marked increase
in that production.

And all this social welfare work -- teachers, housing, and hospitals --
has been carried out without sacrificing the resources that we have
earmarked for development. At this very moment the Revolutionary Government
is carrying out a program of industrialization of the country, and the
first plants are already being built.

We have utilized the resources of our country in a rational manner.
Formerly, for instance, thirty-five million dollars worth of cars were
imported into Cuba, and only five million dollars worth of tractors. A
country which is mainly agricultural imported seven times more cars than
tractors.  We have changed this around, and we are now importing seven
times more tractors than cars.
*PG*

Close to five hundred million dollars was recovered from the
politicians who had enriched themselves during the tyranny of Batista --
close to five hundred million dollars in cash and other assets was the
total we were able to recover from the corrupt politicians who had been
sucking the blood of our country for seven years.  It is the correct
investment of these assets which enables the Revolutionary Government,
while at the same time developing plans for industrialization and for the
development of agriculture, to build houses, schools, to send teachers to
the farthest corners of the country, and to give medical assistance to
everyone -- in other words, to carry out a true program of social
development.

At the Bogota meeting, as you know, the Government of the United States
proposed a plan.  Was it a plan for economic development?  No.  It was a
plan for social development.  What is understood by this?  Well, it was a
plan for building houses, building schools, and building roads.  But does
this settle the problem at all?  How can there be a solution to the social
problems without a plan for economic development?  Do they want to make
fools of the Latin American countries?  What are families going to live on
when they inhabit those houses, if those houses are really built?  What
shoes, what clothes are they going to wear, and what food are children
going toe at when they attend those school?  Is it not known that, when a
family does not have clothes or shoes for the children, the children are
not sent to schools?  With what means are they going to pay the teachers
and the doctors?  How are they going to pay for the medicine?  Do you want
a good way of saving medicine?  Improve the nutrition of the people, and
when they eat well you will not have to spend money on hospitals.
Therefore, in view of the tremendous reality of undevelopment, the
Government of the United States now comes out with a plan for social
development.  Of course, it is stimulating to observe the United States
concerning itself with some of the problems of Latin America.  Thus far
they had not concerned themselves at all.  What a coincidence that, they
are not worried about those problems!  And the fact that this concern
emerged after the Cuban Revolution will probably be labelled by them as
purely coincidental.

Thus far, the monopolies have certainly not cared very much, except
about exploiting the underdeveloped countries.  But comes the Cuban
Revolution and suddenly the monopolists are worrying, and while they attack
us economically trying to crush us, they offer aims to the countries of
Latin America.  The countries of Latin America are offered, not the
resources for development that Latin America needs, but resources for
social development--houses for men who have no work, schools where
children will not go, and hospitals that would not be necessary if there
were enough food to eat (APPLAUSE).

After all, although some of my Latin American colleagues may feel it
their duty to be discreet at the United Nations, they should all welcome a
revolution such as the Cuban Revolution which at any rate has forced the
monopolists to return at least a small part of what they have been
extracting from the natural resources and the sweat of the Latin American
peoples (APPLAUSE).

Although we are not included in that aid we are not worried about that;
we do not get angry about things like that, because we have been settling
those same problems of schools and housing and so on for quite some time.
But perhaps there may be some of you who feel we are using this rostrum to
make propaganda, because the President of the United Nations has said that
some come here for propaganda purposes.  And, of course, all of my
colleagues in the United Nations have a standing invitation to visit Cuba.
We do not close, our doors to any one, now do we confine anyone.  Any of my
colleagues in this assembly can fision Cuba whenever he wishes, in order to
see with his own eyes what is going on.  You know the chapter in the Bible
that speaks of St.  Thomas, who had to see in order to believe I think it
was St.  Thomas.

And, after all, we can invite any newspapermen, and any member of any
delegation, to visit Cuba and see what a nation is capable of doing with
its own resources, when they are used with honesty and reason.  But we are
not only solving our housing and school problems, we are solving our
development problems as well, because without the solution of the problems
of development there can be no settlement of the social problems
themselves.

Why is the United States Government unwilling to talk of development?
It is very simple:  because the Government of the United States does not
want to oppose the monopolies, and the monopolies require natural resources
and markets for the investment of their capital.  That is where the great
contradiction lies.  That is why the real solution to this problem is not
sought.  That is why planning for the development of underdeveloped
countries with public funds is not done.

It is good that this be stated frankly, because, after all, we the
underdeveloped countries, are a majority in this Assembly -- in case anyone
is unaware of this fact -- and we are witnesses to what is going on in the
underdeveloped countries.

Yet, the true solution of the problem is not sought, and much is said
about the participation of private capital.  Of course, this means markets
for the investment of surplus capital, like the investment that was
amortized in five years.

The government of the United States cannot propose a plan for public
investment, because this would divorce it from the very reason for being
the Government of the United States, namely the American monopolies.

Let us not beat about the bush, the reason no real economic plan is
being promoted is simply this:  to preserve our lands in Latin America,
Africa, and Asia for the investment of surplus capital.

Thus far we have referred to the problems of my own country and the
reason why those problems have not been solved.  Is it perhaps because we
did not want to solve them?  No.  The Government of Cuba has always been
ready to discuss its problems with the Government of the United States, but
the Government of the United States has not been ready to discuss its
problems with Cuba, and it must have its reasons for not doing so.

The Government of the United States doe not deign to discuss its
differences with the small country of Cuba.

What hope can the people of Cuba maintain for the solution of these
problems?  the facts that we have been able to note here so far conspire
against the solution of these problems, and the United Nations should
seriously take this into account, because the people and the Government of
Cuba are justifiably concerned at the aggressive turn in the policy of the
United States with regard to Cuba, and it is proper that we should be well
informed.

In the first place, the Government of the United States considers it
has the right to promote and encourage subversion in our country.  The
Government of the United States is promoting the organization of subversive
movements against the Revolutionary Government of Cuba, and we wish to
denounce this fact in this General Assembly; we also wish to denounce
specifically the fact that, for instance, a territory which belongs to
Honduras, known as Islas Cisnes, the Swan Islands, has been seized "manu
militari" by the Government of the United States and that American marines
are there, despite the fact that this territory belongs to Honduras.  Thus,
violating international law and despoiling a friendly people of a part of
its territory, the United States has established a powerful radio station
on one of those Islands, in violation of international radio agreements,
and has placed it at the disposal of the war criminals and subversive
groups supported in this country; furthermore, military training is being
conducted on that island, in order to promote subversion and the landing of
armed forces in our country.

Does the Government of the United States feel it has the right to
promote subversion on our country, violating all international treaties,
including those relating to radio frequency?  Does this mean, by chance,
that the Cuban Government has the right to promote subversion in the United
States?  Does the Government of the United States believe it has the right
to violate radio frequency agreements?  Does this mean, by chance, that the
Cuban Government has the right to violate radio frequency agreements also?
What right can the Government of the United States have over us over our
island that permits it to act towards other nations in such a manner?  Let
the United States return the Swan Islands to Honduras, since it never had
any jurisdiction over those Islands (APPLAUSE).

But there are even more alarming circumstances for our people.  It is
well known that, in virtue of the Platt Amendment, imposed by force upon
our people, the Government of the United States assumed the right to
establish naval bases on our territory, a right forcefully imposed and
maintained.  A naval base in the territory of any country is surely a
cause for concern.  First of all, there is concern over the fact that a
country which follows an aggressive and warlike international policy has a
base in the heart of our country, which brings us the risk of being
involved in any international conflict, in any atomic conflict, without our
having anything to do with the problem, because we have absolutely nothing
to do with the problems of the United States and the crises provoked by the
Government of the United States.  Yet, there is a base in the heart of our
Island which entails danger for us in case of war.

But is that only danger?  No.  There is another danger that concerns us
even more, since it is closer to home.  The Revolutionary Government of
Cuba has repeatedly expressed its concern over the fact that the
imperialist government of the United States may use that base, located in
the heart of our national territory, as an excuse to promote a self -
aggression, in order to justify an attack on our country.  I repeat: the
Revolutionary Government of Cuba is seriously concerned -- and makes known
this concern -- over the fact that the imperialist government of the United
States of America may use a self-aggression in order to justify an attack
on our country.  And this concern on our part is becoming increasingly
greater because of the intensified aggressiveness that the United States is
displaying.  For instance, I have here a United Press cable which came to
my country, and which reads as follows:,

"Admiral Arleigh Burke, United States Chief of Naval Operations says
that if Cuba attempts to take the Gunatanamo Naval base by force we will
fight back"  In an interview for the magazine U.S. News and World Report
(please excuse my bad pronunciation), Admiral Burke was asked if the Navy
was concerned about the situation in Cuba under Premier Fidel Castro.

"Yes, our Navy is concerned -- not about our base at Guantanamo, but
about the whole Cuban situation," Admiral Burke said.  The Admiral added
that all the military services are concerned.

"Is that because of Cuba's strategic position in the Caribbean?"  he
was asked.

"No, not particularly,' Admiral Burke said.  'Here are a people
normally very friendly to the United States, who like our people and were
also like by us.  In spite of this, an individual as appeared with a small
group of fanatical communists, determined to change all that.  Castro has
taught his people to hate the United States, and has done much to ruin his
country.'

"Admiral Burke said 'we will react very fast if Castro makes any move
against the Guantanamo base.'

"If they try to take the base by force, we will fight back", he added.

Asked whether Soviet Premier Krushchev's threat about retaliatonary
rockets gave Admiral Burke 'second thoughts about fighting in Cuba' the
Admiral said:

"No, because he is not going to send his rockets.  He knows quite well
he will be destroyed if he does."

He means that Russia will be destroyed.

In the first place, I must emphasize that for this gently man, to have
increased industrial production in our country by 35 per cent, to have
given employment to more than 200,000 more Cubans, to have solved many of
the social problems of our country, constitutes the ruination of our
country.  And in accordance with this line of reasoning they assume the
right to prepare the conditions for aggression.

So you see how conjectures are made -- very dangerous conjectures,
because this gentleman, in effect, thinks that in case of an attack on us
we are to stand alone.  This is just a conjecture by Mr. Burke, but let us
imagine that Mr. Burke is wrong, let us suppose for just a moment that Mr.
Burke, although an admiral, is mistaken.

Than Admiral Burke is playing with the fate of the world in a most
irresponsible manner.  Admiral Burke and his aggressive militarist clique
are playing with the fate of the world, and it would really not be worth
our while to worry over the fate of each of us, but we feel that we, as
representatives of the various peoples of the world, have the duty to
concern ourselves with the fate of the world, and we also have the duty to
condemn all those who play irresponsibly with the fate of the world.  They
are not only playing with the fate of our people; they are playing with the
fate of their people and with the fate of all the people's of the world or
does thus Admiral Burke think we are still living in the times of the
blunderbusses?  Does he not realize, this Admiral Burke, that we are living
in the atomic age, in an age whose disastrous and cataclysmic destructive
forces could not even he imagined by Dante or Leonardo Da Vinci, with all
their imagination, because this goes beyond the imagination of man.  Yet,
he made his conjectures, United Press International spread the news all
over the world, the magazine is about to come out, hysteria is being
created, the campaign is being prepared, the imaginary danger of an attack
on the base is beginning to be publicized.

And this is not all.  Yesterday a United States news bulletin appeared
containing some declarations by the United States Senator Styles Bridges
who, I believe is a member of the Armed forces Committee of the Senate of
the United States.  He said:

"The United States should maintain its naval base of Guantanamo in Cuba
at all costs";  and 'we must go as far as necessary to defend those
gigantic installations of the United States.  We have naval forces there,
and we have the Marines, and if we were attacked I would defend it, of
course, because I believe it is the most important base in the Caribbean
area."

This member of the Senate Armed Forces Committee did not entirely
reject the use of the atomic weapons in the case of an attack against the
base.

What does this mean?  This means that not only is hysteria being
created, not only is the atmosphere being systematically prepared, but we
are even threatened with the use of atomic weapons, and, of course, among
the many things that we can think of, one is to ask this Mr. Bridges
whether he is not ashamed of himself to threaten a small country like Cuba
with the use of atomic weapons (PROLONGS APPLAUSE).

As far as we are concerned, and with all due respect, we must tell him
that the problems of the world cannot be solved by the use of threats or by
sowing fear, and that our humble people, our little country, is there.
What can we do about?  We are there, however much they dislike the idea,
and our Revolution will go ahead, however much they dislike that.  And our
humble people must resign themselves to their fate.  They are not afraid,
nor are they shaken by this threat of the use of atomic weapons.

What does all this mean?  There are many countries that have American
bases in their territory, but they are not directed against the governments
that made these concessions -- at least not as far as we know.  Yet ours is
the most tragic case.  There is a base on our island territory directed
against Cuba and the Revolutionary Government of Cuba, in the hands of
those who declare themselves enemies of our country, enemies of our
revolution, and enemies of our people.  In the entire history of the
world's present-day bases, the most tragic case is that of Cuba; a base
imposed upon us by force, well within our territory, which is a good many
miles away from the coast of the United States, an instrument used against
Cuba and the Cuban people imposed by the use of force, and a constant
threat and a cause for concern for our people.

That is why we must state here that all these rumors of attacks are
intended to create hysteria and prepare the conditions for an aggression
against our country, that we have never spoken a single word implying the
thought of any type of attack on the Guantanamo base, because we are the
first in not wanting to give imperialism an excuse to attack us, and we
state this categorically.  But we also declare that from the very moment
that base was turned into a threat to the security and peace of our
country, a danger to our country, the Revolutionary Government of Cuba has
been considering very seriously the requesting, within the framework of
international law, of the withdrawal of the naval and military forces of
the United States (THE SPEAKER IS INTERRUPTED BY PROLONGED APPLAUSE) from
that portion of our National territory.

But is is imperative that this Assembly be kept well informed
regarding the problems of Cuba, because we have to be on the alert against
deceit and confusion.  We  have to explain these problems very clearly
because with them go the security and the fate of our country.  And that is
why we want exact note to be taken of the words I have spoken, particularly
when one takes into consideration the fact that the opinions or erroneous
ideas of the politicians of this country as regards Cuban problems do not
show any signs of improving.  I have here some declarations by Mr. Kennedy
that would surprise anybody.  On Cuba he says.  "We must use all the power
of the Organization of American States to prevent Castro from interfering
in other Latin American countries, and we must use all that power to return
freedom to Cuba".  They are going to give freedom back to Cuba!

"We must state our intention," he says, "of not allowing the Soviet
Union to turn Cuba into its Caribbean base, and of applying the Monroe
Doctrine".  Half-way or more into the twentieth century, this gentleman
speaks of the Monroe doctrine!

"We must make Prime Minister Castro understand that we intend to defend
our right to the Naval Base of Guantanamo."  He is the third who speaks of
the problem.  "And we must make the Cuban people know that we sympathize
with their legitimate economic aspirations...."  Why did they not feel
sympathetic before? "....that we know their love of freedom, and that we
shall never be happy until democracy is restored in Cuba...."  What
democracy?  The democracy "made" by the imperialist monopolies of the
Government of the United States?

"The forces in exile that are struggling for freedom," he says -- note
this very carefully so that you will understand why there are planes flying
from American territory over Cuba:  pay close attention to what this
gentleman has to say.  "The forces that struggle for liberty in exile and
in the mountains of Cuba should be supported and assisted, and in other
countries of Latin America communism must be confined and not allowed to
expand."

If Kennedy were not an illiterate and ignorant millionaire
(APPLAUSE)...he would understand that is is not possible to carry out a
revolution supported by landowners against the peasant in the mountains,
and that every time imperialism has tried to encourage counterrevolutionary
groups, the peasant militia has captured them in the course of a few days.
But he seems to have read a novel, or seen a Hollywood film, about
guerrillas, and he thinks it is possible to carry on guerrilla warfare in a
country where the relations of the social forces are what they are in Cuba.

In any case, this is discouraging.  Let no one think, however, that
these opinions as regards Kennedy's statements indicate that we feel any
sympathy towards the other one, Mr. Nixon...(LAUGHTER) who has made similar
statements.  As far as we are concerned, both lack political brains.

Up to this point we have been dealing with the problem of our country,
a fundamental duty of ours when coming before the United Nations, but we
understand that it would be a little egoistical on our part if our concern
were to be limited to our specific case alone.  It is also true that we
have used up the greater part of our time informing this Assembly about the
Cuban case, and that there is not much time left for us to deal with the
remaining questions, to which we wish to refer briefly.

The case of Cuba is not isolated case.  It would be an error to think
of it only as the case of Cuba.  The case of Cuba is the case of all
underdeveloped countries.  The case of Cuba is like that of the Congo,
Egypt, Algeria, Iran...(APPLAUSE)...like that of Panama, which wishes
to have its canal; it is like that of Puerto Rico, whose national spirit
they are destroying; like that of Honduras, a portion of whose territory
has been alienated.  In short, although we have not make specific
reference to other countries, the case of Cuba is the case of all
underdeveloped, colonialized countries.

The problems which we have been describing in relation to Cuba can be
applied just as well to all of Latin America.  The control of Latin
American economic resources by the monopolies, which, when they do not own
the mines directly and are in charge of extraction, as the case with the
copper of Chile, Peru, or Mexico, and with the oil of Venezuela -- when
this control is not exercised directly it is because they are the owners of
the public utility companies, as is the case in Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Peru, Ecuador and Colombia, or the owners of telephone services, which is
the case in Chile, Brazil, Peru, Venezuela, Paraguay and Bolivia, or they
commercialize our products, as is the case with coffee in Brazil, Colombia,
El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Guatemala, or with the cultivation, marketing
and transportations of bananas by the United Fruit Co. in Guatemala, Costa
Rica, and Honduras, or with the Cotton in Mexico and Brazil.  In other
words, the monopolies control the most important industries.  Woe to those
countries, the day they try to make an agrarian reform!  They will be asked
for immediate, efficient, and just payment.  And if, in spite of everything
they make an agrarian reform, the representative of the friendly country
who comes to the United Nations will be confined to Manhattan; they will
not rent hotel space to him; insult will he heaped upon him, and it is even
possible that he may be physically mistreated by the police.

The problem of Cuba is just an example of the situation in Latin
America.  And how long will Latin America wait for its development?  It
will have to wait, according to the point of view of the monopolies, until
there are two Fridays in a week.

Who is going to industrialize Latin America?  The monopolies?
Certainly not.  There is a report by the economic Commission of the United
Nations which explains how private capital, instead of going to the
countries that need it most for the establishment of basic industries to
contribute to their development, is being channeled referentially to the
more industrialized countries, because there, according to their beliefs,
private capital finds greater security.  And, of course, even the Economic
Secretariat of the United Nations has had to admit there there is no
possible chance for development through the investment of private
capital -- that is, through the monopolies.

The development of Latin America will have to be achieved through
public investment, planned and granted unconditionally without any
political strings attached, because, naturally, we all like to be
representatives of free countries.  None of us like to represent a country
that does not feel itself in full possession of its freedom.

None of us wants the independence of this country to be subjected to
any interest other than that of the country itself.  That is why assistance
must be given without any political conditions.

That help has been denied to us does not matter.  We have not asked for
it.  However, in the interest of and for the benefit of the Latin American
peoples, we do feel duty bound out of solidarity, to stress the fact that
the assistance must be given without any political conditions whatsoever.
There should be more public investments for economic development, rather
than for "social development," which is the latest thing invented to hide
the true need for the economic development of countries.

The problems of Latin America are similar to those of the rest of the
world:  to those of Africa and Asia.  The world is divided up among the
monopolies; the same monopolies that we find in Latin America are also
found in the Middle East.  There the oil is in the hands of monopolistic
companies that are controlled by France, the United States, the United
Kingdom the Netherlands....in Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, in short,
in all corners of the world.  The same thing is true, for instance, in the
Philippines, and in Africa.  The world has been divided among the
monopolistic interests.  Who would dare deny this historic truth?  The
monopolistic interests do not want to see the development of countries and
the people themselves.  And the sooner they recover or amortize the capital
invested, the better.

The problems the Cuban people have had to face with the imperialistic
government of the United States are the same which Saudi Arabia would face
if it nationalized its oil, and this also applies to Iran or Iraq; the same
problems that Egypt had when it quite justifiably nationalized the Suez
Canal; the very same problems that Indonesia had when it wanted to become
independent; the same surprise attacks as against Egypt and the Congo.

Have colonialists or imperialists ever lacked a pretext when they
wanted to invade a country?  Never!  Somehow they have always found a
pretext.  And which are the colonialist and imperialists countries?  Four
or five countries -- no, four or five groups of monopolies are the owners
of the wealth of the world.

If a being from another planet were to come to this Assembly, one who
had read neither the Communist Menifesto of Karl Marx nor the cables of the
United Press or the Associated Press or other monopolist publications, if
he were to ask how the world had been divided, and he saw on a map that the
wealth of the world was divided among the monopolies of four or five
countries, he would say, without further consideration; "The wealth of this
world has been badly distributed, the world is being exploited."

Here in this Assembly, where the majority of the underdeveloped
countries are represented, he would say:  "The majority of the peoples that
you represent are being exploited; they have been exploited for a long
time.  The form of exploitation may have changed, but you are still being
exploited."  That would be the verdict.

In the address made by Premier Khrushchev there is a statement that
attracted our attention because of the value of its contents.  It was when
he said that "the Soviet Union has no colonies or investments in any
country."

How great our world would be today, our world which today is threatened
with catastrophe, if all the representatives of all nations were able to
say:  "Our country has no colonies and no investments in any foreign
country"!  (APPLAUSE)

There is no use in going all over the question again.  This is
substance of the matter, the substance of peace and war, the substance of
the armaments race.  Wars, since the beginning of mankind, have occurred
for one, fundamental reason; the desire of some to despoil others of their
wealth.

Do away with the philosophy of plunder and you will have done away
forever with the philosophy of war!  (APPLAUSE)  Do away with the colonies,
wipe out the exploitation of countries by monopolies, and mankind will have
reached a true era of progress!

As long s that step is not taken, as long as that stage is not reached,
the world will have to live constantly under the nightmare and fear of
being involved in any crisis, in an atomic conflagration.  Why?  Because
there are some who are interested in perpetuating this exploitation.

We have spoken here of the Cuban case.  Our case has taught us because
of the problems we have had with our own imperialism, that is, the
particular imperialism that is ranged against us.  But, since all
imperialism are alike, they are all allies.  A country that exploits the
people of Latin America, or any other parts of the world, is an ally of the
exploiters of the rest of the world.

There are a number of problems which have already been discussed by
several delegations.  For reasons of time, we should like merely to express
our opinion on the Congo problem.  Of course, since we hold an
anti-colonialist position against the exploitation of underdeveloped
countries, we condemn the way in which the intervention by the United
Nations forces was carried out in the Congo.  First of all, these forces
did not go there to act against the interventing forces, for which purpose
they were originally sent.  All necessary time was given, so that the first
dissension could occur.  And as that was not enough, further time was
given, and the way was opened for the second division.  And finally, while
broadcasting stations and airfields were seized, the opportunity was
provided for the emergence of the third man, as they always call the
saviors who emerge in these circumstances.  We know them only too well,
because in the year of 1943 one of these saviors appeared in our country,
and his name was Fulgenico Batista.  In the Congo his name is Mobutu.  In
Cuba, he paid a daily visit to the American Embassy, and it appears the
same thing is going on in the Congo.  Is it because I say so?  No, because
no less than a magazine which is one of the most fervent supporters of the
monopolies and therefore cannot be against them, is the one that says so.
It cannot favor Lumumba, because it favors Mobutu.  But it explains who
Mobutu, is, how he began to work, and finally Time magazine says in its
latest issue: "Mobutu became a frequent visitor to the United States
Embassy and held long talks with officials there.  One afternoon last week
Mobutu conferred with officers of Camp Leopold and got their enthusiastic
support.  That night he went to Radio Congo -- which Lumumba had not been
allowed to use -- and abruptly announced that the army was assuming power."

In other words, all this occurred after frequent visits and lengthy
conversations with the officials of the United States Embassy.  This Time
Magazine speaking, the defender of the monopolies.

In other words, the hand of the colonialist interest has been clear and
visible in the Congo, and our opinion is consequently that colonialist
interests have been favored and that every fact indicates that reason and
the people of the Congo are on the side of the only leader who remained
there to defend the interests of his country, and that leader is Lumumba
(APPLAUSE).

As regard the problem of Algeria, we are, I need hardly say, 100
percent in support of the right of the people of Algeria to independence
(APPLAUSE), and it is, furthermore, ridiculous -- like so many ridiculous
things in the world which have been artificially created by vested
interests -- to claim that Algeria is part of France.  In the past, similar
claims have been made by other countries in an attempt to keep their
colonies.

However, these African people have been fighting a heroic battle
against the colonial power for many years.  Perhaps, even while we are
calmly talking here, Algerian villages and hamlets are being bombed and
machinegunned by the French Army.  Men may well be dying in a struggle in
which there is not the slightest doubt where the right lies, a struggle
that could be ended even without disregarding the interests of that
minority which is being used for denying nine-tenths of the population of
Algeria their right to independence.  Yet we are doing nothing.  So quick
to go to the Congo, and such lack of enthusiasm about going to Algeria!
(APPLAUSE).

We are, therefore, on the side of the Algerian people, as we are on the
remaining colonial peoples in Africa, and on the side of the Negroes who
are discriminated against in the Union of South Africa.  Similarly, we are
on the side of those peoples that wish to be free, not only politically --
for it is very easy to acquire a flag, a coat of arms, an anthem, and a
color on the map -- but also economically free, for there is one truth
which we should all recognize as being of primary importance, namely, that
there can be no political independence unless there is economic
independence, that political independence without economic independence is
a lie; we therefore support the aspirations of all countries to be free
politically and economically.  Freedom does not consist in the possession
of a flag, a coat of arms, and representation in the United Nations.

We should like to draw attention here to another right:  a right which
was proclaimed the Cuban people at a mass meeting quite recently, the right
of the underdeveloped countries to nationalize their natural resources and
the investments of the monopolies in their respective countries without
compensation; in other words, we advocate the nationalization of natural
resources and foreign investments in the underdeveloped countries.

And if the highly industrialized countries wish to do the same thing,
we shall not oppose them (APPLAUSE).

If countries are to be truly free, in political matters, they must be
truly free in economic matters, and we must lend them assistance.  We shall
be asked about the value of the investments, as we in return will ask:
what about the value of the profits from those investments, the profits
which have been extracted from the colonized and underdeveloped peoples for
decades, if not for centuries?

We should like to support a proposal made by the President of the
Republic of Ghana, the proposal that Africa should be cleared of military
bases and thus of nuclear weapon bases, in other words, the proposal to
free from the perils of atomic war.  Something has already been done with
regard to Antarctia.  As we go forward on the path of disarmament, why
should we not also go forward towards freeing certain parts of the world
from the danger of nuclear war?

Let the other people, let the West make up a little for what it has
made Africa suffer, by preserving it from the danger of atomic war and
declaring it a free zone as far as this peril is concerned.  Let no atomic
bases be established there!  Even if we can do nothing else, let this
continent at least remain a sanctuary where human life may be preserved!
(PROLONGED APPLAUSE).  We support this proposal warmly.

On the question of disarmament, we wholeheartedly support the Soviet
proposal, and we are not ashamed to do so.  We regard as a correct,
precise, well-defined and clear proposal.

We have carefully studied the speech made here by President Eisenhower
-- he made no real reference to disarmament, to the development of the
underdeveloped countries, or to the colonial problem.  Really, it would be
worthwhile for the citizens of this country, who are so influenced by false
propaganda, to compare objectively the statements of the President of the
United States with those of the Prime Minister of the Soviet Union, so that
they could see which speech contains genuine concern over the world's
problems, so that they could see who spoke clearly and sincerely, and so
they could see who really wants disarmament, and who is against it and why.
The Soviet proposal could not be clearer.  Nothing could be added to the
Soviet explanation.  Why should there be any reservations when no one has
every before spoken so clearly of so tremendous a problem?

The history of the world has taught us the tragic lesson that arms
races always lead to war; but never has the responsibility been greater,
for never has war signified so was a holocaust for mankind.  And the Soviet
Union has made a proposal regarding that problem which so greatly concerns
mankind -- whose very existence is at stake -- a proposal for total and
complete disarmament.  What more can be asked?  If more can be asked, let
us ask it; if we can ask for more safeguards, let us do so; but the
proposal could not be clearer or better defined, and, at this stage of
history, it cannot be rejected without assuming the responsibility involved
in the danger of war and of war itself.

The representative of the Soviet Union has spoken openly -- I say this
objectively -- and I urge that these proposals be considered, and that
everybody put their cards on the table.  Above all, this is not merely a
question of representatives, that is a matter of public opinion.  The
warmongers and militarists must be exposed and condemned by the public
opinion of the world.  This is not a problem for minorities only: it
concerns the world.  The warmongers and militarists must be unmasked, and
this is the task of public opinion.  This problem must be discussed not
only in the General Assembly, but before the entire world, before the great
assembly of the whole world, because in the event of a war not only the
leaders, but hundreds of millions of completely innocent persons will be
exterminated, and it is for this reason that we, who meet here as
representatives of the world -- or part of the world, since this Assembly
is not yet complete, it will not be complete until the Peoples' Republic of
China is represented here -- should take appropriate measures (APPLAUSE).
One-quarter of the world's population is of course absent, but we who are
here have the duty to speak openly and not to evade the issue.  We must all
discuss it; this problem is too serious to be overlooked.  It is more
important than economic aid and all other obligations, because this is the
obligation to preserve the life of mankind.  Let us all discuss and speak
about this problem, and let us all fight to establish peace, or at least to
unmask the militarists and warmongers.

And, above all, if we, the underdeveloped countries, want to preserve
the hope of achieving progress, if we want to have a chance of seeing our
peoples enjoying a higher standard of living, let us struggle for peace,
let us struggle for disarmament; with a fifth of what the world spends on
armaments, we could promote the development of all the underdeveloped
countries at a rate of growth of 10 percent per annum.  With a fifth of the
resources which countries spend on armaments, we could surely raise the
people's standard of living.

Now, what are the obstacles to disarmament?  Who is interested in being
armed?  Those who are interested in being armed to the teeth are those who
want to keep colonies, those who want to maintain their monopolies, those
who want to retain control of the oil of the Middle East;  the natural
resources of Latin America, of Asia, of Africa, and who require military
strength to defend their interests.  And it is well known that these
territories were occupied and colonized on the strength of the law of
force; by virtue of the law of force million of men were enslaved, and it
is force which sustains such exploitation in the world.  Therefore, those
who want no disarmament are those interested in maintaining their military
strength in order to retain control of natural resources, the wealth of the
people of the world, and cheap labor in underdeveloped countries.  We
promised to speak openly, and there is no other way of telling the truth.

The colonialists, therefore, are against disarmament.  Using the weapon
of world public opinion, we must fight to force disarmament on them as we
must force them to respect the right of peoples to economic and political
liberation.

The monopolies are against disarmament, because, besides being able to
defend those interests with arms, the arms race has always been good
business for them.  For example, it is well known that the great monopolies
in this country doubled their capital shortly after the Second World War.
Like vultures, the monopolies feed on the corpses which are the harvest of
war.

And war is a business.  Those who trade in war, those who enrich
themselves war, by must be unmasked.  We must open the eyes of the world
and expose those who trade in the destiny of mankind, in the danger of war,
particularly when the war may be so frightful that it leaves no hope of
salvation.

We, the small and underdeveloped countries, urge the whole Assembly and
especially the other small and underdeveloped nations to devote themselves
to this task and to have this problem discussed here, because afterwards we
will never forgive ourselves if, through our neglect or lack of firmness
and energy on this basic issue, the world becomes involved once again in
the perils of war.

We have just one more point to discuss, which, according to what we
have read in some newspapers, was one of the points the Cuban delegation
was going to raise.  And this, of course, is the problem of the Peoples
Republic of China.

Other delegations have already spoken about this matter.  We wish to
say that the fact that this problem has never been discussed is in reality
a denial of the "raison d'etre" and of the essential of nature of the
United Nations.  Why has it never been discussed?  Because the United
Nations Assembly going to renounce its right to discuss this problem?

Many countries have joined the United Nations in recent years.  To
oppose discussion of the right to representation here of the People's
Republic of China, that is, of 99 percent of the inhabitants of a country
of more than 600,000,000 is to deny the reality of history, the facts of
life itself.

It is simply an absurdity; it is ridiculous that this problem is never
even discussed.  How long are we going to continue the sad business of
never discussing this problem, when we have here representatives of Franco,
for instance?

At this point is its appropriate to ask by what right the navy of an
extra-continental country -- and it is worth repeating this here, when so
much is being said about extra-continental interference -- intervented in a
domestic affair of China.  It would be interesting to have an explanation.
The sole purpose of this interference was to maintain a group of allies in
that place and to prevent the total liberation of the territory.  That is
an absurd and unlawful state of affairs from any point of view, but it
constitutes the reason why the United States Government does not want the
question of the People's Republic of China to be discussed.  And we want to
put it on record here that this is our position and that we support
discussion of this question, and that the United Nations General Assembly
should seat the legitimate representatives of the Chinese people, namely,
the representatives of the Government of the People's Republic of China.

I understand perfectly that is somewhat difficult for anybody here to
free himself of the stereotyped concepts by which the representatives of
nations are usually judged.  I must say that we have come here free from
the prejudices, to analyze problems objectively, without fear of what
people will think and without fear of the consequences of our position.

We have been honest, we have been frank without being Fran coist
(APPLAUSE), because we do not want to be a party to the injustice committed
against a great number of Spaniards, still imprisoned in Spain after more
than twenty years, men who fought together with the Americans of the
Lincoln Brigade, as the comrades of those same Americans who were there to
do honor to the name of that great American, Lincoln.

In conclusion, we are going to place our trust in reason and in the
decency of all.  We wish to sum up our ideas regarding some aspects of
these world problems about which there should be no doubt.  The problem of
Cuba, which we have set forth here, is a part of the problems of the world.
Those who attack us today are those who are helping to attack others in
other parts of the world.

The United States Government cannot be on the side of the Algerian
people, it cannot be on the side of the Algerian people because it is
allied to metropolitan France.  It cannot be on the side of the Congolese
people, because it is allied to Belgium.  It cannot be on the side of the
Spanish people, because it is allied to Franco.  It cannot be on the side
of the Puerto Rican people, whose nationhood it has been destroying for
fifty years.  It cannot be on the side of the Panamanians, who claim the
Canal.  It cannot support the ascendancy of civil power in Latin America,
Germany or Japan.  It cannot be on the side of the peasants who want land,
because it is allied to the big landowners.  It cannot be on the side of
the workers who are demanding better living conditions in all parts of the
world, because it is allied to the monopolies.  It cannot be on the side
of the colonies which want their freedom, because it is allied to the
colonizers.

That is to say, it is for the Franco, for the colonization of Algeria
for the colonization of the Congo; it is for the maintenance of its
privileges and interests in the Panama Canal, for colonialism through the
world.  It is for the German militarism and for the resurgence of German
militarism.  It is for Japanese militarism and for the resurgence of
Japanese militarism.

The Government of the United States forgets the millions of Jews
murdered in European concentration camps by the Nazis, who are today
regaining their influence in the German army.  It forgets the Frenchmen who
were killed in their heroic struggle against the occupation; it forgets the
American soldiers who died on the Seigfried Line, in the Ruhr, on the
Rhine, and on the Asian fronts.  The United States Government cannot be for
the integrity and sovereignty of nations.  Why?  Because it must curtail
the sovereignty of nations in order to keep its military bases, and each
base is a dagger thrust into sovereignty; each base is a limitation on
sovereignty.

That is why it has to be against the sovereignty of nations, because it
must constantly limit sovereignty in order to maintain its policy of
encircling the Soviet Union with bases.  We believe that these problems are
not properly explained to the American people.  But the American people
need only imagine how uneasy they would feel if the Soviet Union began to
establish a ring of atomic bases in Cuba, Mexico, or Canada.  The
population would not feel secure or calm.  World opinion, including
American opinion, must be taught to see the other person's point of view.
The underdeveloped peoples should not always be represented as aggressors;
revolutionaries should not be presented as aggressors, as enemies of the
American people, because we have seen American like Carleton Beals, Waldo
Frank, and others, famous and distinguished intellectuals, shed tears at
the thought of the mistakes that are being made, at the breach of
hospitality towards us; there are many Americans, the most humane, the most
progressive, and the most esteemed writers, in whom I see the nobility of
this country's early leaders, the Washingtons, the Jeffersons, and the
Lincolns.  I say this is no spirit of demegogy, but with the sincere
admiration that we feel for those who once succeeded in freeing their
people from colonial status and who did not fight in order that their
country might today be the ally of all the reactionaires, the gangsters,
the big landowners, the monopolists, the exploiters, the militarists, the
facists in the world, that is to say, the ally of the most reactionary
forces, but rather in order that their country might always be the champion
of noble and just ideals.

We know well what will be said about us, today, tomorrow, every day, to
deceive the American people.  But is does not matter.  We are doing our
duty by stating our views in, this historic Assembly.

We proclaim the right of people to freedom, the right of people to
nationhood; those who know that nationalism means the desire of the people
to regain what is rightly theirs, their wealth, their natural resources,
conspire against nationalism.

We are, in short, for all the noble aspirations of all the peoples.
That is our position.  We are, and always shall be for everything that is
just: against colonialism, exploitation, monopolies, militarism, the
armaments race, and warmongering.  We shall always be against such things.
That will be our position.

And to conclude, fulfilling what we regard as our duty, I am going to
quote to this Assembly the key part of the Declaration of Havana.  As you
all know, the Declaration of Havana was the Cuban people's answer to the
Declaration of San Jose, Costa Rica.  Nor 10, nor 100, nor 100,000, but
more than one million Cubans gathered together.

At that Assembly, which was convened as an answer to the Declaration of
San Jose, the following principles were proclaimed, in consultation with
the people and by acclamation of the people, as the principles of the Cuban
Revolution.

"The National General Assembly of the Cuban people condemns largescale
landowning as a source of poverty for the peasant and a backward and
inhuman system of agricultural production; it condemns starvation wages and
the iniquitous exploitation of human work by illegitimate and privileged
interests; it condemns illiteracy, the lack of teachers, of schools, doctor
and hospitals; the lack of old-age security in the countries of America; it
condemns discrimination against the Negro and the Indian'; it condemns the
inequality and the exploitation of women; it condemns political and
military oligarchies, which keep our peoples in poverty, prevent their
democratic development and the full exercise of their sovereignty; it
condemns concessions of the natural resources of our countries as a policy
of surrender which betrays the interests of the peoples; it condemns the
governments which ignore the demands of their people in order to obey
orders from abroad; it condemns the systematic deception of the people by
mass communications media which serve the interests of the oligarchies and
the policy of imperialist oppression; it condemns the monopoly held by
news agencies, which are instruments of monopolist trusts and agents of
such interests; it condemns the repressive laws which prevent the workers,
the peasants, the students and the intellectuals, the great majorities in
each country, from organizing themselves to fight for their social and
national rights; it condemns the imperialist monopolies and enterprises
which continually plunder our wealth, exploit our workers and peasants,
bleed our economies to keep them in a backward state, and subordinate Latin
American politics to their designs and interests.

"In short, The National General Assembly of the Cuban People condemns
the exploitation of man by man, and the exploitations of underdeveloped
countries by imperialists capital.

"Therefore, the National General Assembly of the Cuban People proclaims
before America, and proclaims here before the world, the right of the
peasants to the land; the right of the workers to the fruits of their
labor; the right of the children to education: the right of the sick to
medical care and hospitalization; the right of young people to work; the
right of students to free vocational training and scientific education; the
right of Negroes, and Indians to full human dignity; the right of women to
civil, social and political equality; the right of the elderly to security
in their old age; the right of intellectuals, artists and scientists so
fight through their works for a better world; the right of States to
nationalize imperialist monopolies, thus rescuing their national wealth and
resources; the right of nations to their full sovereignty; the right of
peoples to convert their military fortresses into schools, and to arm their
workers -- because in this we too have to be arms-conscious, to arm our
people in defense against imperialist attacks -- their peasants, their
students, their intellectuals, Negroes, Indians, women, young people, old
people, all the oppressed and exploited, so that they themselves can defend
their rights and their destinies."

Some people wanted to know what the policy of the Revolutionary
Government of Cuba was.  Very well, them, this is our policy (OVATION).
-END-