As 1 million Cubans march
Fidel Castro stands up to Bush's threat
Following are excerpts from a talk by Cuban President
Fidel Castro Ruz at a protest of over 1 million people in
Havana on May 14:
Mr. George W. Bush: the million Cubans who are gathered here
today to march past your Interests Section is just a small part
of a valiant and heroic people who would like to be here with
us. ...
You completely ignore that no force in the world could drag
a dignified, proud people, which has withstood 45 years of
hostility, blockade and aggression from the most powerful
nation on earth, onto the streets like a flock of animals each
one with rope around their neck. ...
In the world that you seek to impose on us today there is
not the slightest notion of ethics, credibility, standards of
justice, humanitarian feelings, nor of the elementary
principles of solidarity and generosity.
Billions of human beings live in inhuman conditions
starving, without enough food, medicine, clothes, shoes or
shelter. ... You have only to ask your assistants for precise
data on the tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical and
biological weapons, bombers, smart long-range missiles,
battleships and aircraft carriers, conventional and
non-conventional weapons in your arsenals, which are enough to
wipe out all life of the planet. ...
Neither you nor anyone else would ever be able to sleep
again. Neither would your allies, who are trying to emulate
your military build-up. ...
You cannot speak of the environment because you are
completely ignorant of the fact that the human race is in
danger of disappearing.You label a tyranny the economic and
political system that has guided the Cuban people to higher
levels of literacy, knowledge and culture than those in the
most developed countries in the world. The same that has
reduced infant mortality to a rate lower than that of the
United States and whose population is provided with all health
care and education services and with other extremely important
social and human services free of charge.
This, Mr. Bush, is one of the few countries in this
hemisphere where not once in 45 years has there been a single
case of torture, a single death squad, a single extra judicial
execution or a single ruler who has become a millionaire
through having held power.
You lack the moral authority to speak of Cuba, a dignified
country, which has withstood 45 years of a brutal blockade,
economic war and terrorist attacks that have cost thousands of
lives and tens of billions of dollars in economic losses.
...
You lack the moral right to speak of terrorism because you
are surrounded by a bunch of murderers who have caused the
death of thousands of Cubans through terrorist methods. ...
You have no right whatsoever, except for that of brute
force, to intervene in Cuba's affairs and, whenever the fancy
takes you, to proclaim the transition from one system to
another and to take measures to make this happen.
This people can be exterminated -- it's as well you know
this -- or wiped off the face of the earth, but it cannot be
subjugated nor put once again into the humiliating position of
a United States neocolony.
Whereas you kill countless people with your indiscriminate,
preemptive surprise attacks, Cuba saves the lives of hundreds
of thousands of children, mothers, old and sick people all over
the world.
The only things you know about Cuba are the lies that spill
forth from the ravenous mouths of the corrupt and insatiable
mob of former Batista supporters and their descendants who are
experts in electoral fraud and capable of electing president of
the United States someone who did not obtain enough votes to
claim victory.
Human beings are not aware of nor can they be aware of
freedom in a regime of inequality like the one you represent.
No one is born equal in the United States. In the Black and
Latin ghettos, and on the reservations for the Natives who once
inhabited that land but were exterminated, there is no other
equality but that of being poor and excluded.
Our people, educated in solidarity and internationalism, do
not hate the Amer ican people nor do they want to see young
white, Black, Native American, mestizo or Latin soldiers from
that country die, young people driven by unemployment to enlist
in the military to be sent to any corner of the world in
traitorous, preemptive attacks or in wars of conquest.
The unbelievable torture applied to prisoners in Iraq has
rendered the world speechless. ...
Since you have decided that the die is cast ... my only
regret is that I would not even see your face because in that
case you would be thousands of miles away while I shall be in
the frontline to die fighting in defense of my homeland.
Reprinted from the May 27, 2004, issue of
Workers World newspaper
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