-DATE-
19891222
-YEAR-
1989
-DOCUMENT_TYPE-
-AUTHOR-
-HEADLINE-
Fidel Castro Speaks on Panama Situation
-PLACE-
CARIBBEAN / Cuba
-SOURCE-
Havana Radio Rebelde Network
-REPORT_NBR-
FBIS-LAT-89-245
-REPORT_DATE-
19891222
-HEADER-
BRS Assigned Document Number:    000025223
Report Type:         Daily Report             AFS Number:     FL2212071689
Report Number:       FBIS-LAT-89-245          Report Date:    22 Dec 89
Report Series:       Daily Report             Start Page:     1
Report Division:     CARIBBEAN                End Page:       6
Report Subdivision:  Cuba                     AG File Flag:   
Classification:      UNCLASSIFIED             Language:       Spanish
Document Date:       22 Dec 89
Report Volume:       Friday Vol VI No 245

Dissemination:  

City/Source of Document:   Havana Radio Rebelde Network

Report Name:   Latin America

Headline:   Fidel Castro Speaks on Panama Situation

Author(s):   President Fidel Castro at awards ceremony for outstanding athletes
of 1989 at the Ciudad Deportiva in Havana on 21
December--recorded]

Source Line:   FL2212071689 Havana Radio Rebelde Network in Spanish 0407 GMT 22
Dec 89

Subslug:   [Speech by President Fidel Castro at awards ceremony for outstanding
athletes of 1989 at the Ciudad Deportiva in Havana on 21
December--recorded]

-TEXT-
FULL TEXT OF ARTICLE:
1.  [Speech by President Fidel Castro at awards ceremony for outstanding
athletes of 1989 at the Ciudad Deportiva in Havana on 21 December--recorded]

2.  [Text] Comrade athletes, comrade guests: A few days ago we had planned to
celebrate the ceremony that is being held today. During the past few hours, we
were thinking about whether or not to suspend this ceremony becuase of events
of which you are aware. We had also planned a reception for the athletes a long
time ago, but naturally the reception was suspended until a more appropriate
time.  We did want to hold the ceremony, anyway.  However, I do not think we
are in the mood today to talk about sports, in particular.  Sports deserve all
the honors and glory.  Athletic victories are one of the most legitimate fruits
of the revolution.  This has been a year of great successes, of great
satisfaction for our people, of great glory for our sports, which are like a
preamble to our even greater glories in the future.

3.  However, we are not in the mood to discuss sports.  It is better to
dedicate some words to the heroes of our America who at this moment are
fighting for the dignity, honor, and sovereignty of our peoples.  It is better
to dedicate a memory to those who are dying at this moment, to those who are
even being massacred with the bombs and the sophisticated means of the war of
imperialism.  We must think about the fact that they are fighting at this
moment. Thus, our ceremony coincided with one of the most painful, dramatic,
difficult moments of our contemporary history and with regard to what Marti
called our America.

4.  We have been witnesses and have received news, to greater or lesser
degrees, about everything that began to happen since 20 December during the
early morning hours.  It is not that we were surprised by the events.  It is
not that we did not imagine imperialism to be incapable of such a crime.  The
events could be anticipated.  They had been denounced with special emphasis by
our country just 2 or 3 months ago.  We are now in December, and these
denunciations were made around August or September.  They were strongly
denounced during the nonaligned summit.  We know the enemy; we know the nature
of his morals.  Therefore, what they did could not be a surprise.  However,
despite the fact that the events could be anticipated and were denounced, we
could not stop feeling extremely angry, irritated, and embittered from the
bottom of our hearts.  One cannot react in any other way in the face of such
crimes.

5.  We have been witnesses once again to how imperialism acts.  We have seen in
one way or another or we have heard on television or radio broadcasts their
excuses and explanations for carrying out this savage and uncivilized act.  We
have heard the spokespersons of imperialism, from the President of the United
States to the secretary of state, including the secretary of defense and the
chiefs of the Pentagon.  It causes repugnance, disgust--the way in which they
try to justify their actions--the lies, the ridiculous excuses.

6.  They say that the Panamanians killed an unarmed soldier, but everyone knows
that the soldiers had been in the bars of Panama. They were drunk, and who
doesn't know what Yankee soldiers do when they are drunk.  Once they even dared
to climb on the statue of the hero of our national independence in the main
park. There are pictures of that somewhere.  They fired on and injured
Panamanians.  One of them was killed as a result of the provocation.  What
could men of an institution do, when they were at their posts and were
attacked?  Now the imperialists say that an innocent, unarmed soldier was
killed.

7.  It seems that they were taking an American woman to the party.  According
to these spokesmen, the Panamanians not only killed a soldier, but also
attempted to sexually abuse an American woman.

8.  They have said these things, and they have repeated them a hundred times to
make a genocidal action against the Panamanian people appear as the most
natural and most justifiable thing in the world.  These are the methods; this
is the style used by imperialism.  We know this quite well because of wide
experience.  We know how many lies are involved in this sad episode of the
aggression against Panama because we have seen the video clips on our
television of the dozens of occasions, of the hundreds of occasions, on which
the Yankee troops violated the sovereignty of, humiliated, and offended the
Panamanian people.

9.  This was happening virtually every day.  There are videotapes, clips of
those actions, which all our people have seen. They did not respect streets or
avenues.  They sent their helicopters, their tanks, their armored carriers, and
their troops of mercenaries with their typical faces of murderers everywhere in
the Panamanian capital, to any town, thus violating every international law.

10.  It is now claimed that the Panamanians are the provocateurs; it is now
claimed that the United States had to launch an invasion against a small
country in our hemisphere to defend U.S. security.  I want to repeat this:
These pretexts and lies are repugnant; they stink.  They have spread these
pretexts and lies throughout the world through their powerful mass
communications media.

11.  The real fact is that they invaded Panama.  In what style?  In a style
known to people not too long ago, in 1939, in the style of the Nazis and of the
fascists, who used similar pretexts to start their aggression.  They followed
the style of the Nazis and the fascists of launching surprise attacks, without
any prior notice.  This time, they did so in the pre-dawn hours, at 0100, when
people are supposed to be resting, when the workers are resting, when even the
soldiers are resting.  They did not just attack one position; they
simultaneously attacked all military units and the strategic, important points
of Panama. Thus, they have taken destruction and death to that sister Latin
American nation.  Thus, they have shed--in a few hours--the blood of thousands
of Panamanians, most of them civilians.  This did not happen because the
mercenary soldiers risked their own lives in the attack.  On the contrary, they
killed as many people as necessary to prevent their own casualties.  They did
not send their soldiers in those places where they would meet resistance.  They
sent planes and helicopters to bomb those places; they blast these places with
artillery fire.  Later, they sent their men.  If they met resistance, they
would retreat again, and they would send the Air Force again and artillery
fire.  This is the type of war they fought in the capital of Panama.  This is
why they caused thousands of civilian casualties.

12.  While the mercenary soldiers of imperialism were immediately treated, were
picked up by ambulances, taken to hospital planes, and were transferred to the
best hospitals in the United States, they did not even allow the ambulances to
pick up the wounded Panamanian combatants.  They did not even allow the
ambulances to pick up wounded civilians.  Thus, people died; they bled to death
in the very heart of the Panamanian capital.

13.  Those who could be taken to the hospitals by their own people could not be
adequately treated because there was such a large number of victims, despite
the extraordinary efforts made by the Panamanian doctors, and because they were
short of plasma, they were short of medicines, there was not adequate room in
the hospitals, there was not enough equipment, there were not enough surgical
instruments.  Thus, we have seen video clips of dozens of civilians, men and
women, old men and children, whose bodies crowded the hospital corridors.

14.  Cuba not only addressed all leading international organizations; it not
only addressed the United Nations, but also the Nonaligned Movement and all
organizations that could join in the struggle, in the effort to stop this
barbaric action by Yankee imperialism.  Cuba not only talked to many friends in
the world, but also addressed the International Red Cross, the highest Red
Cross officials, explaining to them what was happening there with the victims
of the invasion, telling them that it was urgent that they take action to treat
the wounded Panamanians, who were even prevented from receiving treatment
because of the action of the mercenary soldiers of the empire.

15.  We have expressed our desire to cooperate.  We are willing to send
bread--our bread--our doctors, our equipment, our surgeons; as we have done
time and again during these years of our revolution to help countries whose
governments were our enemies, as we did with Nicaragua under Somoza; as we did
with Honduras when it was hit by an act of God, by cyclones or earthquakes; as
we did with governments with which we did not even have relations, as happened
once on the occasion of that dramatic earthquake that occurred in Peru.

16.  We are now confronted with the reality that one cannot help the wounded
Panamanians because the Yankee troops are there and they do not want the
wounded Panamanians to be assisted.  What degree of barbarism, of abuse, of
monstrosity have we reached in this world?  Thus, while the wounded soldiers of
imperialism are being taken immediately to the best hospitals, the Panamanians
are bleeding on the streets.

17.  That is why I say that the facts are sad enough, difficult enough, to
irritate and embitter anyone.  Not to mention the brutal, illegal, and
unjustified nature of the Yankee action, but in addition to that, truly
historic things have also occurred.  The resistance of the Panamanian people,
the Panama Defense Forces [FDP], the civilians organized into Dignity
Battalions, and other organizations was truly significant.

18.  The empire thought that it would only last minutes, maybe hours.  They
thought that when the paratroopers jumped, or the planes or helicopters
attacked, not a single soldier would remain on the battlefield.  Such is the
idea they have of Latin Americans.  They still have not learned enough.  Such
is the idea--more than the idea, the contempt--that they show toward our
people.  The real fact is that they did not want there to be any combat by
dawn. The U.S. President had a speech ready for 0700 to announce that
everything had ended.  One could see discouragement, anger, almost panic on the
face of the U.S. President.

19.  That morning it became evident that despite the tens of thousands of
soldiers--the hundreds of planes, helicopters, cannons, and armored
vehicles--despite the surprise attack, they found the heroic resistance of the
FDP and the civilians who opposed the aggression everywhere.  In that respect,
they were not able to imitate Hitler.  In that respect, they were not able to
imitate the fascists and Nazis of 1939 or 1940.  The Nazis were at least able
to take the cities in a matter of hours, in many countries against very
well-armed armies. The empire, at the end of 24 hours, had still not been able
to take the capital of Panama, despite the fact that they were right next door,
despite the great superiority in men and, above all, in technology.  They were
not able to defeat the resistance of a handful, a few thousands of combatants.

20.  You should not imagine that Panama has a large military force.  It has a
few thousand men in its Armed Forces distributed throughout the country, and a
few thousand civilians organized and trained over a relatively short period of
time. You should not imagine large military resources in Panamanian hands. 
Many of our municipalities have more arms and more firepower than what the
Panmanian people had during this aggression.  We ourselves have calculated our
firepower and compared it to that of Panama. According to our calculations,
Cuba has between 200 and 300 times more firepower than Panama, in terms of
means of combat, of number of weapons, of the capabilities of our weapons.

21.  Yet, 30,000 Yankee soldiers, attacking by surprise in predawn hours, were
unable to seize the city on 20 December.  Even today, they took another 24
hours to attempt to overpower resistance in a city trapped between the Pacific
Ocean and the Canal.  Thus, we believe that in the past 48 hours the Panamanian
people have achieved one of the most heroic feats in the history of this
hemisphere, and the empire has achieved none of its fundamental objectives. 
They have not even captured the FDP chief, which was one of the fundamental
objectives of the savage, illegal action. They wanted to capture him to take
him to the United States. Look at the extreme we have reached.  This marked the
implementation of a new imperial principle whereby the imperialist armed forces
may land anywhere to arrest individuals wanted by their courts, as they claim;
or people who may violate their laws; or those they regard as terrorists,
anywhere in the world.

22.  This is practically the first time they have implemented this principle. 
They have invaded a country; they have sacrificed thousands of people under the
pretext of capturing a senior official of a sovereign Latin American state that
is an outstanding member of the Nonaligned Movement and of the United Nations.

23.  They are frustrated because they have not achieved this objective.  They
also said they were going to bring democracy through a puppet, repugnant,
mercenary government that was imposed on the Panamanian people there through
the bloodshed of Panamanians.  They also said they were going to guarantee the
Canal treaties and used other similar pretexts.  What they have done thus far
is to earn themselves worldwide rejection, but they have not been able to crush
resistance, they have not been able to liquidate the problem in a few hours as
they expected.

24.  The great army of the great empire has been ridiculed by the Panamanian
combatants.  What do they fear now?  What are they afraid of?  They are afraid
of a prolonged resistance.  Its tactic was to attack the capital, to appoint a
puppet government, and starting from there, to ask everyone else to surrender. 
It is as though they attack Havana one day, and, after seizing it, they ask the
Pinar del Rio people to surrender, they ask the Villa Clara people to
surrender, they ask the people of the eastern region to surrender, they ask the
combatants of the Sierra Maestra to surrender.

25.  That is their hope, their idea.  They are using their technical means to
manipulate television and send messages.  They are using clandestine radios,
applying methods of psychological warfare to give people the idea that there is
no resistance, to lie to the world.

26.  Yesterday morning, 6 hours after the attack began, we saw how they were
already telling the world that every form of resistance had ceased.  The
Panamanian radio network was able to broadcast what was happening yesterday for
15 hours, urging the people to fight until a direct attack by helicopter
gunships silenced the Panamanian radio station.  Yes, the Panamanians have also
been listening to international radio stations.  They have been listening to
Cuban radio stations: Radio Havana Cuba, Radio Rebelde, and other stations,
which were in frequent contact with Panama yesterday, and they were informing
the people of what was going on.  Today, these stations continued to report,
though the Yankees attempted to intercept them.  They attempted to interfere
with them because they did not want, not even through Cuban radio stations, for
the Panamanian people to find out what was happening.

27.  What is it that they fear now, as if it were the devil himself?  What is
the fear that almost all the spokespersons of the empire show?  It is the fear
that the resistance continues. It is the fear that the combatants of the FDP,
Dignity Battalions, Panamanian patriots continue the war in the interior of the
country.  They know that with their large crushing number of forces they can,
in a long or short period of time, control the capital.  However, the panic
that they feel--and all the steps they are now taking are all inspired in that
panic--is the panic that the patriots organize in the interior of the country,
in the wooded and mountainous areas, to continue the war of resistance.  Their
idea is to present to the world the action as finished.  That is why today they
are using all the possible means to confuse the Panamanians, to tell them that
all resistance has ceased.  They fear they may get entangled there.

28.  It is not the same thing to control a city with the means they have as it
is to destroy the resistance.  If the Panamanians, using the rich experience
they have in irregular war... [changes thought] and that is something we have
studied a lot.  It is something in which we have trained all our combatants in
the country.  It is what we call the idea of the war of all the peoples. The
experience of the revolutionary movement has accumulated in the last few years,
as well as our own experience.  After all, we did not begin our liberation war
in the capital of the country.  We began in the mountains of the Sierra Maestra
until our guerrilla struggle extended throughout the country.  That is what the
United States fears now.  That is what they are trying to prevent at all costs
right now in Panama. The powerful imperialist gentlemen are frightened, and
they have reason to be.  But little by little, they will have to learn what we
are capable of--these people who they despise so much, and who we know as Latin
American people.  They have been learning lessons.

29.  They already learned one lesson in Giron a few years ago; they learned
another in Nicaragua with the Sandinist combatants; they learned a spectacular
lesson in recent days with the heroic actions of the Salvadoran revolutionaries
and patriots, because it was truly extraordinary that following 10 years of a
steady supply of arms to the genocidal government of El Salvador--of means, of
helicopters, of planes, of the most modern infantry weapons, of communications
equipment, of everything--that following 10 years, the number of Salvadoran
combatants has increased; that the Salvadoran combatants were able to enter the
streets of the capital and hold in check for entire weeks that so heavily armed
army, which is so heavily supplied and trained by the United States. This
happened only 5 or 6 weeks ago.

30.  They have now seen what happened to them in Panama.  They are aware that
if the Panamanian patriots take into account the Nicaraguan experience, if they
take into account the experience of the Farabundo Marti National Liberation
Front [FMLN] in El Salvador, the imperialists will get bogged down for who
knows how long in that small country.

31.  In one way or another, the Yankee imperialists have received the rejection
of the world public.  In our opinion, the rejection has not yet been strong
enough.  Much hypocrisy still remains in the world.  In Europe, which boasts so
much of being civilized, many governments have applauded the aggression against
Panama.  Other governments have conveyed their understanding of the U.S.
actions.

32.  There have also been European governments that have energetically
condemned these actions.  Among the socialist countries, as far as we know, the
USSR has condemned these actions and has requested the withdrawal of the Yankee
troops from Panama.  We have not even heard from some other socialist countries
during these days of the aggression against Panama.  An immense majority of
Latin American countries and political leaders have condemned these actions,
some more energetically and others in a more lukewarm fashion.

33.  Among international institutions, the United Nations-- more than the
United Nations, the Nonaligned Movement in the first place--has energetically
condemned these actions.  The UN Security Council has still not pronounced its
last word; its members are still discussing the matter.  But, as you know, the
United States enjoys the sacrosanct veto right, which it has used time and
again.

34.  The UN secretary general has said that he laments the acts of violence.  I
sincerely believe that this is not a time to lament the actions, but to condemn
them.  He expressed his hope that peace will be achieved, but this is not a
time to express hope that peace will be achieved-- it is the time to demand the
withdrawal of the invading U.S. troops.

35.  It is, of course, not easy to hold a high office at the United Nations
because those elected there depend on the support of the UN Security Council. 
It is enough to have just one of those enjoying the irritating, antidemocratic
veto privilege exercise this right to veto the election of any UN official.

36.  And the OAS, which is not the same trash of 30 years ago, is still far
from being a model institution.  This time the Yankees could not secure the
complicity of the OAS.  This time the Yankees could not do what they did with
Cuba, that is, get the OAS to support its aggressive measures.

37.  This time, the Yankees could not do it like they did in Santo Domingo in
1966, if I remember correctly, or 1965. After the [words indistinct] they were
able to get a resolution approved, and also troops sent.  This time, although
they did a lot of maneuvers in the OAS to get support in the political arena
for their aggressions against Panama, they were not able to do it.  Now, when
they sent their troops, they could not get the OAS to support the action, or
much less join them in sending troops.

38.  What the OAS has done is to condemn the aggressor and the victim.  It has
condemned the U.S. aggressions and has condemned the attacked government [word
indistinct].  However, despite everything, it is progress; we could say,
considerable progress.  Many governments in the world have condemned the crime,
including many capitalist governments, many Western governments.  They know it
is a savage act, a barbaric act, a blow to peace in Central America, a blow to
the stability in Central America where there are serious problems, [words
indistinct].  It is a blow to the stability in Latin America where there are so
many and such serious unresolved problems. It is a blow to the stability of
world politics.  It is a slap in the face and cause for humiliation for the
Soviet peace policy.

39.  We have been warning about this for over 1 year, ever since we had the
ceremony with the militiamen in the Plaza de la Revolucion, and during many
other occasions.  Even a few days ago, during the funeral of the comrades who
died in internationalist missions, we said what we thought about the
imperialist interpretation of peace.  We said what we thought about the dangers
of the current situation, about the evolution from a bipolar to a unipolar
world under the hegemony of the United States with the (?multiple) role of
gendarme who no longer stops anywhere.  It intervenes in Asia as easily as it
intervenes in Africa, Latin America--the right to be a gendarme, the right to
say what kind of government a country should have, and if it does not have one,
the right to overthrow it.  We said that the only guarantee and safety that our
people could have was the one that we were capable of conquering with our
heroism.

40.  How little confidence can one have today in international law when we see
these things!  How little confidence can one have in international institutions
when we see these and other things.  How little confidence can one have in the
United Nations when we see these things!  How little confidence can we have in
the UN Security Council, which cannot even deliver a mediocre resolution
passing judgment on these actions--its members are debating who the Panamanian
representative is, whether it is the representative of the puppet government
installed there or the representative of the attacked government, which has
been recognized by dozens of countries around the world.  They are discussing
that.  Up until now it has not been able to state that the representative
accepted is that of the Panamanian Government, the pro-Torrijos government of
Panama, the anti-imperialistic Government of Panama.  Not even this has the new
UN Security Council been able to decide.

41.  From here we have to draw the lessons which, despite being well known,
should continue to be a subject of permanent reflection.  I am not pessimistic
because I believe in peoples. I particularly believe in these Latin American
peoples, who have been so humiliated, so plundered, so exploited, so attacked;
because I believe in the mixture of Indians, of blacks, and of Spaniards, and
even in some who are not Spaniards, and in those having Asian blood who make up
our peoples, especially our people, and to a larger or to a lesser degree in
the Latin American mixture.  I believe in these peoples; not as a matter of
faith, but because I have seen them fighting, I have seen them in the battle. 
I admire the way Latin Americans today despise [rephrases] I am referring to
the peoples because there are still governments that are not brave enough to
face events, but the peoples are defiant of the imperialist might.  Any
country, no matter how small, has put up a fight.  The Grenadians fought; the
Nicaraguans fought against Somoza's genocidal army, which was created by the
United States.  The Nicaraguans also fought against the invading mercenaries,
the war imposed by the United States.  The Salvadorans have fought with
unsurpassable heroism. The Panamanian patriots have also fought with
extraordinary heroism.

42.  Without a single exception, these peoples are losing their fear of the
soldiers of the empire.  We do not have to talk about the people of Cuba.  We
know quite well what would be waiting for them here if one day they dared
invade our fatherland.  I believe they are aware of that and if they are not,
they should be; because we have not wasted time; because we have challenged
this empire for 30 years; because the more aggressive the empire, the more we
prepared to face it with our own forces, which are enough to defend our
fatherland, which would be defended not only with unprecedented heroism but
also with the best technological means within our reach, with the best military
and political ideas, with the best of strategies, with the best tactic.

43.  The development of this tactic was not started just 30 years ago with our
revolution, but more than 120 years ago at the time of our first war of
independence.  Thus, just one municipality, the smallest one in our country,
could wage a long war against all the troops they sent to Panama.  We have
prepared; we have trained in such a way that we have hundreds of thousands of
military cadres; and we have an experienced, tough party; and we have an
exceptionally brave and patriotic people.  Our people have always been
patriotic, but never as much as today.  Our people have always been
revolutionary, but never as much as today.

44.  This is so because of the experiences accumulated during the years of the
revolution, because of international experiences, because of the constant
observation of events and the the way the world has evolved. I say, no matter
what imperialists do, they will never be able to make Cuba give in and they
will not be able to keep Latin America in submission indefinitely. They will
have to face increasingly more aware peoples, who are increasingly more tired
of their abuses and injustices and of their plundering. They will be
increasingly less able to place into submission the peoples of the Third World,
no matter what their cheap political maneuvers may be, no matter what their
conspirations may be, even with their successes in certain countries of the
socialist camp.

45.  I am convinced that no matter what they do, those aspirations of being
gendarmes of the world, of being owners of the world, of being masters of the
world, will fail, no matter what their weapons may be. Even if they use nuclear
weapons. We already know this does not cause fear. We already know it. We were
already threatened once. I believe that absolutely nobody in this country lost
any sleep over it, no matter what they may have, no matter how sophisticated
their weapons may be.

46.  What a man carries inside, what he carries inside his chest, what he
carries in his consciousness, what he carries in his mind is worth more than
the advantages their sophisticated weapons may represent. We learned this
through our own history more than once because, ultimately, we began this
liberation war with virtually no weapons. We waged and won the war with enemy
weapons.

47.  This is not the case now.  We have millions of weapons, millions.  We also
build weapons. We also count the weapons of the invaders because we know how to
take them away from them and use their weapons against them. [applause]

48.  I believe that only an accurate awareness of the strength of our peoples,
the courage of men and women, the courage of nations, is the most certain
guarantee, even more than those so much crowed about international laws. We
believe in the people, we believe in that courage, we believe in man's dignity
to continue marching along the path of progress, to continue marching along the
path of independence, to continue marching along the paths of true freedom, and
true dignity.

49.  I am speaking here to athletes, but we know that our athletes are also
soldiers of the fatherland because they are willing--as they have said more
than once before--to defend their fatherland, not only in the field of sports
but also on the battlefield. We know about the patriotism our athletes fight
with. We know about the morale and honor our athletes fight with, the love with
which they defend our beautiful flag anywhere in the world. We know about their
honesty and the integrity of their behavior. No pressure, deceitful campaign,
or all the gold in the world is capable of buying out those athletes.

50.  I speak today and before them I express these sentiments and these
thoughts because this is not the time to talk about any other subject. You
athletes know that the better trained you are and the better prepared you are,
the more certain the victory. Heart, intelligence, and thinking are decisive
and important, but training is also decisive.

51.  This is why in the last few years, our party and our revolutionary state
have dedicated so much energy, so much time, and so many resources to prepare
the people for the war of all the people. If that difficult time comes, it will
be good to know how to shoot with the heart, it will be good to know how to
shoot with the head, and it will be good to know how to shoot with whatever
needs to be used to shoot even if the invaders come with their little
anti-bullet cadets because we are capable of building mines to make them fly
100 meters away. This is the only way Sotomayor's [Cuban athlete] record can be
broken.

52.  We have weapons of all calibers and of all kinds of abilities to pierce.
We are going to have the marksmanship to shoot wherever we have to shoot--even
if they come with an armor thicker than the ones the Spanish knights came with
during the conquest of this hemisphere or during their medieval wars. Let's use
this additional experience to confirm our awareness that we must be more and
more prepared and better and better organized so that the barbarians, the
savage, the monstrous imperialists never dare to carry out a similar attack in
our fatherland. If they dare to do so they will have to pay the price they are
going to pay.

53.  Congratulations, comrade athletes for the successes and the trophies. I
end by saying as Sotomayor--a glorious figure in our sports--Socialism or
death! Fatherland or death! We will win! [Crowd shouts: We will win!]
[applause]

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