|
 Distinguished guests;
Workers;
Compatriots:
Exactly one year ago today, we gathered
here for a historic rally. On that day, for the first time in 41 years,
the traditional May Day march was changed to a public forum. It was an
unforgettable moment in an unforgettable struggle.
The filmed images of that memorable day
must be carefully preserved, so that future generations can see how their
parents and grandparents achieved victory, and so that they may relive in
part the emotion of the time.
The struggle did not cease when the boy
returned with his father; it had barely just begun. We realized that the
reasons behind that tragedy and others remained intact, and decided that
we would not give up the fight, as we swore in Baraguá, until they had
all been removed.
After 42 years of heroic resistance to a
cruel and genocidal blockade, we have entered the new millennium with
renewed energy and greater strength.
A new era of struggle was opening. The
empire, much more powerful than ever before, had become the sole
superpower. But our people, recently freed from neocolonial status,
saturated with McCarthyist propaganda and lies, poorly educated and almost
illiterate politically, had made a colossal leap in history: they had
eradicated illiteracy and graduated in universities hundreds of thousands
of professionals with a far greater level of political consciousness than
their historical adversary.
Our people have now achieved the highest
degree of unity ever, and gained vast political experience and moral,
patriotic and internationalist strength; these are the people who
resolutely endured the Bay of Pigs invasion, the Missile Crisis, the dirty
war, an ever more rigorous economic blockade, the demise of the USSR and
the socialist bloc, and predictions of the impossibility of survival and
an inevitable collapse.
Today, we are facing an enemy that is
powerful in every way, except for ethics and ideas, with no message or
response for the grave political, economic and social problems weighing
down on the world today.
Internationally, there has never been such
confusion, discontent and insecurity. On the brink of a profound political
and economic crisis, imperialism cannot escape from its own shadow. It is
condemned to plundering the rest of the world to an ever greater extent
thus fomenting universal discontent and rebellion, even among its own
allies.
Throughout almost two centuries, the
indigenous population and other peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean
have been the victims of the United States’ policy of expansion to the
west and south of the original 13 colonies that declared their
independence from British rule in 1776. First, in their advance towards
the west they practically exterminated the indigenous peoples. Later, in
1835, they promoted the independence of Texas, where U.S. settlers were
already living in large numbers. In 1847, they invaded Mexico, unleashing
a brutal war; as a result, in February of 1848, they took possession of
55% of Mexico’s territory. And so they continued, exterminating the
native peoples or displacing them from the lands they had lived on for
centuries, and buying up territories of former European colonial powers to
annex them like they had done with Texas or conquer them like the
territory stolen from Mexico. Thus, the United States, nurtured by large
migrations from Europe in the second half of the 19th century, had become
a powerful and prosperous nation, while the states from the Patagonia to
the Canadian border that had rid themselves of Spanish colonial domination
after the independence struggles begun by Venezuela in 1810, remained
divided and isolated.
On June 20, 1898, the United States
launched a military intervention in Cuba, at a moment when after a heroic
and lengthy struggle by its finest sons and daughters our country was on
the verge of achieving its independence from an exhausted and bankrupt
Spain. Our country remained occupied by the U.S. forces for almost four
years.
In 1902, the troops of the United States of
America left the island, after the establishment of a neocolony whose
natural resources, lands and services it would retain under control with
the additional support of an amendment imposed on our Constitution
granting the United States the legal right to military intervention in our
country. The glorious party created by Martí had been dismantled; the
Liberation Army, which had fought throughout 30 years, was disarmed only
to be replaced with an army organized and trained by the United States in
the image and likeness of its own. The arbitrary and unfair right to
intervene under any pretext was used on more than one occasion.
Puerto Rico, Cuba’s twin sister in the
liberation struggle, like "the two wings of a bird," was turned
into an U.S. colony, and retains this unfortunate status until today.
Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Nicaragua and other Central
American nations, and even Mexico, have been the victims of direct or
indirect military intervention by the United States on repeated occasions.
The Isthmus of Panama was occupied to complete construction of and
guarantee access to the strategic canal that the United States controlled
for almost a century. The U.S. pervasive presence in the rest of the South
American nations was achieved through large investments, coups, military
regimes and growing political, ideological and cultural interference.
After World War II, the United States ran them all to its liking.
The first major curb on U.S. expansionism
and political and economic control of Latin America came about in Cuba
with the triumph of the Revolution on January 1, 1959. This ushered in a
new stage in the history of the hemisphere. The price paid by our country
up until today is well known, and it was almost dragged to a nuclear war.
Everything that has been done in this
hemisphere by successive U.S. administrations, right up until now, has
been strongly influenced by their obsession and fear over the troubling
presence of the Cuban Revolution, from the days of the mercenary invasion
of the Bay of Pigs and the Alliance for Progress, to Bush’s statements
from the bunker in Quebec, where he invoked the name of José Martí,
attributing to him a misinterpreted quote about freedom. Actually,
although the triumph of the Revolution troubled them, its remarkable
resistance for over four decades sometimes creates the impression of
having driven them insane.
With a despicable wretchedness that will go
down in history as an unprecedented example of infamy, all of the
governments of Latin America, with the exception of Mexico, joined more or
less willingly in the isolation and blockade of Cuba. The OAS was so
severely damaged that it has never recovered. Today, when a massive
annexation of Latin American countries to the United States is being
plotted, no one can explain the continued existence and spending of money
on that repugnant institution, morally bankrupt forever by such an
unscrupulous and treacherous behavior.
What the OAS did back then, as an
instrument of the United States, is what the United States wants to do
today with the FTAA not to isolate Cuba, but rather to liquidate
sovereignty, to prevent integration, to devour the resources and frustrate
the destinies of a group of peoples who—leaving out the English
speakers—add up to a total population of more than 500 million, with a
shared Latin-based language, culture and history.
If the OAS sold its soul to the devil back
then, betraying and selling out Cuba, so that the Latin American countries
could receive, as a reward, the Cuban sugar quota on the U.S. market
totaling several million tons, along with other favors, then what can be
expected today of those bourgeois and oligarchic governments, devoid of
any political or ethical principles, who voted alongside the United States
in Geneva? Out of opportunism or cowardice, they provided the
extreme-right U.S. government with the pretexts and justifications needed
to maintain the genocidal blockade, and even a potential excuse for
aggression against the people of Cuba, all served up on a silver platter.
Dragged along by the ill-fated
annexationist current, it is only logical that many others, in the
desperation created by enormous and unpayable debts and total economic
dependence, will be led to the suicide of the FTAA.
There are Latin American politicians for
whom talk of free trade is music to their ears, as if they were still
living in the middle of last century, depending solely on the export of
basic commodities and clamoring for the removal of U.S. tariff barriers.
They have not realized that the world has changed, that many of those
commodities, like fibers, rubber and other materials, have been replaced
by synthetics, or foodstuffs like sugar by high fructose corn syrup, with
a higher sweetening power and fewer calories which is thus preferred by
many people; or artificial flavors like vanilla, strawberry and many
others that imitate tropical and semi-tropical fruits. Their mindsets are
frozen on the demands of half a century ago. Neoliberal poison and other
lies have definitely blinded them, and still have large sectors of the
population stultified; they do not understand the basics of the problems
they suffer, because nothing is explained to them, or information is
hidden from them.
There is absolutely no doubt that the
governments of at least two of the most important countries in Latin
America, those of Bolivar’s Venezuela and of Brazil, the largest and
most highly populated Latin American nation, understand these realities,
and are heading up the resistance.
For Cuba, it is positively clear that the
so-called Free Trade Area of the Americas, under the terms, the timetable,
the strategy, objectives and procedures imposed by the United States,
would inexorably lead to Latin America’s annexation to the United
States. This kind of association between an enormous industrial,
technological and financial power and countries that suffer tearing
poverty, underdevelopment and financial dependence on institutions under
the aegis of the United States, which controls, directs and makes the
decisions in the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the
Inter-American Development Bank and others, imposes such inequality that
it is tantamount to nothing less than the total absorption of the
economies of the Latin American and Caribbean countries by that of the
United States.
All of the banks, insurance companies,
telecommunications, shipping services and airlines will be U.S.-owned. All
business will pass into the hands of U.S. companies, from the big retail
store chains to pizza outlets and McDonald’s.
The chemical, automotive, machinery and
equipment industries, as well as other basic industries will all be
U.S.-owned.
U.S. transnational companies will own the
major research, biotechnology and genetic engineering centers and large
pharmaceutical companies. The patents and technologies, almost without
exception, will be U.S.-owned. The best Latin American scientists will
work in U.S. laboratories.
The big hotel chains will be U.S.-owned.
The so-called entertainment industry will
be an almost complete U.S. monopoly. As an almost exclusive supplier,
Hollywood will produce movies and television series for the movie
theaters, television networks and videocassette market of Latin America.
Our countries, where consumption of these products is already around 80%,
will see an even greater growth in their prevalence, as destructive to
their values and national cultures as they are. But, how very wonderful
that two or three Disneylands will surely be built in Central and South
America!
The Latin American nations would continue
to serve basically as sources of raw materials, producers of primary
commodities and enormous profits for big transnational capital.
The U.S. agricultural sector receives some
$80 billion USD in subsidies and will continue receiving them in the
future, whatever the disguise, although its per capita and per hectare
productivity is much higher, due to the use of large and sophisticated
machinery and abundant fertilization. It will grow genetically modified
grains, with much higher crop yields, heedless of its implications for
human health.
As a consequence, crops of corn, wheat,
rice, soybeans and other grains will practically disappear from many Latin
American countries that will be left with no food security.
When a major drought or other disasters
affect agricultural production in entire regions of the world, in large
countries like China, with abundant hard currency reserves, or India, with
fewer reserves but a certain amount of financial resources, they could
find themselves obliged to buy tens of millions of tons of grains. If this
happened, the prices of these products could reach unattainable levels for
many Latin American countries, if their own grain production is wiped out
by the FTAA. No matter how large the crop yields are, the United States
can only produce a small percentage of the food needed by a growing world
population, which is now over 6.1 billion. A decrease in food production
in Latin America would affect not only the Latin American countries, but
also the rest of the world.
Latin America will continue, under ever
more difficult and intolerable conditions, to play the sad role of a
supplier of raw materials and increasingly cheap labor, as compared to the
salaries paid in the United States, which are 15 or 20 times higher than
what the big transnational companies pay in the factories they have opened
throughout the region. What is more, these factories employ fewer and
fewer people as automation expands and productivity grows. Therefore, the
notion that large numbers of jobs will be created is an illusion. The
agricultural sector, which tends to provide employment for a higher number
of workers, will be affected by the elements mentioned earlier. As a
result, unemployment will grow considerably. Germany and other European
countries have unemployment rates of up to 10%, despite the enormously
high number of industries and services there.
The Latin American nations will be
compelled to become large free trade areas with low taxes or none. These
countries have begun to compete with each other, seeking foreign
investment at any cost. They are invited to produce seasonal vegetables
and tropical fruit that could supply the whole U.S. market with less than
a million hectares of well-cultivated lands.
Perhaps they will be visited by a larger
number of American tourists who will travel throughout the vast territory
of Central and South America, staying in U.S.-owned hotels, traveling on
U.S.-owned airlines and cruise ships, using U.S.-owned communications
services, eating in U.S.-owned restaurants, and shopping in U.S.-owned
stores, where they will buy goods produced by U.S.-owned companies with
Latin American petroleum and raw materials. Latin America will export oil,
copper, bauxite, meat (as long as it is free of hoof-and-mouth disease),
bananas and other fruits, if there are no non-tariff protectionist
measures in place, and perhaps a few handicrafts.
What will be left? The worst paid and most
grueling jobs in U.S.-owned companies, or employment as servants in the
homes of U.S. executives and managers, highly qualified professionals, or
what is left of the local bourgeoisie. Only a minority of the privileged
bourgeoisie and the working aristocracy will stand to gain anything. Large
masses of workers will be laid off, as it is the case today in Argentina,
where the unemployment rate is between 15% and 20%, and this without any
kind of unemployment benefits. These are the fruits of neoliberalism,
despite the tens of billions of dollars of foreign capital invested, the
privatization and sale to foreign companies of almost all state companies,
and the enormous debt contracted through the large loans received.
The FTAA will mean more neoliberalism, less
protection of the national industry and interests, more unemployment, and
more social problems.
It is absolutely certain that national
currencies will be lost. None of them will survive; they will all be
replaced by the U.S. dollar. Even without the FTAA, there is already such
a rising trend involving numerous countries that follow in the steps of
the decision adopted by Ecuador. The U.S. Federal Reserve will dictate the
monetary policy of every one of them. The FTAA, which will only benefit
big transnational capital, will not benefit American workers either, as
many will be laid off. That is why their representatives protested so
strongly in Quebec, just as they had fiercely protested before against the
WTO in Seattle.
If Cuba did not have an independent
monetary policy, it would never have achieved the sevenfold appreciation
in the value of the peso between 1994 and 1999, nor would it have been
possible to endure the special period.
Two decisive elements were at play:
non-membership in the International Monetary Fund and an independent
monetary policy.
The minute that everything I have said
until now about the FTAA happens, it will no longer be possible to speak
of independence, and annexation will begin to be a reality. And this is
absolutely not an overstatement.
The worst, saddest, most shameless and
hypocritical thing of all is that they intend to take this monstrous step
without consulting their peoples. This is all the democracy that can be
expected from the imperial power and its lackeys.
I am firmly convinced that Latin America
and the Caribbean can be devoured, albeit never digested, by the decadent
empire, because the peoples will ensure that our continent’s nations
rise up from their ashes and integrate, as they must integrate and unite
in search of a greater, more dignified destiny. However, it would be much
better if the hundreds of millions of Latin American and Caribbean
citizens were spared the difficult stage of the subsequent struggle for
our liberation.
We must prevent annexation, and resolutely
demand, from this moment forward, that no government be allowed to sell
out a nation behind its people’s back! There can be no annexation
without a plebiscite! We must build an awareness of the dangers and of
what the FTAA will entail.
We must revive Bolívar’s dignity and his
dreams, and the dignity and dreams of San Martín, O’Higgins, Sucre,
Morazán, Hidalgo, Morelos, Juárez and Martí. (APPLAUSE)
Let nobody be fooled into thinking that the
peoples will sit back doing nothing and allow themselves to be sold like
slaves at an auction!
Today, we will stage the first protest.
Within a few minutes, we will set out with hundreds of thousands of
Cubans, on a Latin American protest march on the United States Interests
Section, shouting this slogan: Annexation no, plebiscite yes! Annexation
no, plebiscite yes! Annexation no, plebiscite yes! (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF
"ANNEXATION NO, PLEBISCITE YES!") Let it ring out loud and
clear, and be heard all the way up in Washington!
Today, in the company of hundreds of
leaders and representatives of the workers of Latin America, the
Caribbean, the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia and Africa, we say:
Latin American and Caribbean Independence or Death!
Hasta la victoria siempre! (APPLAUSE AND
SHOUTS OF "FIDEL! FIDEL!")
Venceremos!
(OVATION)
|
Republic of Cuba
