Fidel Castro in Monterrey:
'An unsustainable social order cannot be imposed on
world'
This is the official translation of the speech by
Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, president of the Republic
of Cuba, at the International Conference on Financing for
Development in Monterrey, Mexico, on March 21.
Excellencies:
Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still, I will
respectfully say what I think.
The existing world economic order constitutes a system of
plundering and exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the
peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.
The prestige of the international financial institutions
rates less than zero.
The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses
indicate that for every dollar that goes into trade, over one
hundred end up in speculative operations completely
disconnected from the real economy.
As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the
world population lives in underdevelopment, and extreme poverty
has already reached 1.2 billion people in the Third World. So,
far from narrowing, the gap is widening.
The revenue of the richest nations that in 1960 was 37 times
larger than that of the poorest is now 74 times larger. The
situation has reached such extremes that the assets of the
three wealthiest persons in the world amount to the Gross
Domestic Product of the 48 poorest countries combined.
The number of people actually starving was 826 million in
the year 2001. There are at the moment 854 million illiterate
adults while 325 million children do not attend school. There
are 2 billion people who have no access to low cost medications
and 2.4 billion lack basic sanitation conditions. No less than
11 million children under the age of 5 perish every year from
preventable causes while half a million go blind for lack of
vitamin A.
The life span of the population in the developed world is 30
years higher than that of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa.
A true genocide!
The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy.
They neither conquered nor plundered entire continents for
centuries; they did not establish colonialism, or
re-established slavery; and, modern imperialism is not of their
making. Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore, the
main responsibility for financing their development lies with
those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today
the benefits of those atrocities.
The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant
them fresh soft credits to finance their development. The
traditional offers of assistance, always scant and often
ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.
For a true and sustainable economic and social development
to take place much more is required than is usually admitted.
Measures as those suggested by the late James Tobin to curtail
the irrepressible flow of currency speculation--albeit it was
not his idea to foster development--would perhaps be the only
ones capable of generating enough funds, which, in the hands of
the UN agencies and not of awful institutions like the IMF,
could supply direct development assistance with a democratic
participation of all countries and without the need to
sacrifice the independence and sovereignty of the peoples.
The Consensus draft, which the masters of the world are
imposing on this conference, intends that we accept
humiliating, conditioned and interfering alms.
Everything created since Bretton Woods until today should be
reconsidered. A farsighted vision was then missing, thus, the
privileges and interests of the most powerful prevailed. In the
face of the deep present crisis, a still worse future is
offered where the economic, social and ecologic tragedy of an
increasingly ungovernable world would never be resolved and
where the number of the poor and the starving would grow
higher, as if a large part of humanity were doomed.
It is high time for statesmen and politicians to calmly
reflect on this. The belief that a social and economic order
that has proven to be unsustainable can be forcibly imposed is
really senseless.
As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons
piling up in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest
can kill the illiterate, the ill, the poor and the hungry but
they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses, poverty or hunger.
It should definitely be said: "Farewell to arms."
Something must be done to save humanity. A better world is
possible!
Reprinted from the April 4, 2002, issue of
Workers World newspaper
This article is copyright under a Creative
Commons License.
Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Subscribe wwnews-subscribe@workersworld.net
Support independent news http://www.workers.org/orders/donate.php)
HOME
:: U.S. NEWS ::
WORLD NEWS ::
EDITORIALS ::
SUBSCRIBE ::
DONATE
Email
this article
Printable
page