Today is a day of glory
that nothing and no one will be able to erase
Speech delivered by Commander in Chief
Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Council of State and the Council of Ministers of the
Republic of Cuba, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the battles at the
Bay of Pigs and the first major defeat of imperialism in the Americas. Playa Girón, April
19, 2001.
Families of the fallen;
Veterans of Playa Girón;
Compatriots:
Three days ago we commemorated the proclamation
of the socialist nature of the Revolution, and paid tribute to the young artillerymen who
died in combat while repelling the cowardly surprise attack by U.S. government-owned
planes, disguised to look like they were from the Cuban Air Force. Today, we are
commemorating the overwhelming victory of the revolutionary forces and the first defeat
sustained by imperialism in the Americas.
The fact that the Bay of Pigs was back in our hands
66 hours after the invading forces’ scouts set foot on our coasts shows the intensity
of the devastating counterattack launched against the invaders. Our men fought
relentlessly, day and night, without a moment’s respite. Three miles off the coast, a
large U.S. squadron, including an aircraft carrier and marine infantry ready to intervene,
watched as the revolutionary counterstrike proceeded at such a pace that had they been
given the order to take action, there would no longer have been an invading force to back
up, nor a safe strip for a puppet government to land.
There is no need to dwell on details. At the
conference recently held in Havana, The Bay of Pigs: 40 Years Later, a rather elaborate
account of the events was given, and broadcast to the entire population during the Round
Table programming slot over the course of nine days. New books have been written and will
continue to be written. Two generations of Cubans needed to learn, in the most vivid and
realistic way possible, of the momentous events that their parents and grandparents
participated in or witnessed first-hand.
The eagerness to learn more grew over the last few
weeks, after the aforementioned conference and the forthcoming date of the 40th
anniversary. Undoubtedly, hearing about this moment in history straight from the mouths of
those who can retell the story with memories that are still fresh and the necessary
documents is quite different from learning about an episode through cold texts and ancient
engravings, such as the taking of Havana by the British or Napoleon’s defeat at
Waterloo, for example. After the triumph of the Revolution in 1959, no single event had
such an impact on the fate and the future of our people as the battle of the Bay of Pigs.
On Monday we talked about what socialism meant for
our country as a revolutionary process that has placed us at the top among Latin American
and Caribbean nations today. I feel the special need at this moment to recall and invoke
the words of José Martí. When he wrote his famous unfinished letter, he declared that
everything he had done up until that day, and everything he would do later, was aimed at
securing Cuba’s independence in order to prevent the United States from falling upon
the lands of the Americas with that added force.
When he wrote that letter, he could not have known
that within a few brief hours, he would be dead. And although he may have physically died,
he was reborn through his ideas, and was thus able to continue doing what he said he would
do. Not only was Cuba’s independence achieved in time to prevent it from adding to
the force that would fall upon the peoples of the Americas. More than that, Cuba became a
trench of ideas and impregnable strength in the face of the enemy of the Latin American
peoples, and its sons and daughters, in serving their other homeland, which Martí called
humanity, have also served the causes of many other peoples in the world. (Exclamations
and Applause)
Martí’s revolution was resumed the same year of
the centennial anniversary of his birth, by those of us who had the privilege of receiving
the inspiring light of his infinite patriotism. And after defeating countless setbacks and
mountains of seemingly insurmountable obstacles, time and time again, that revolution has
victoriously entered a new millennium.
By enduring 42 years of blockade and economic warfare
imposed by that power which could not subdue Cuba; by resolutely withstanding sabotage,
terrorism, attempts to assassinate its leaders, biological warfare, and even the threat of
nuclear war, without surrendering an iota of its principles; by suffering 10 inconceivably
hard years of a special period, when others failed to uphold the sacred duties they were
privileged to be granted by human history; by unwaveringly carrying onward when it found
itself alone before the empire foreseen by Martí, now turned into a hegemonic superpower
that has used all of its political, ideological and economic might to isolate the Cuban
people, to suffocate them, to bring them to their knees through hunger and disease; by
doing all of this, Cuba has remained undefeated by the powerful empire. (Applause and
shouts of "It will never be !")
The day we entered the new millennium, on January 1,
2001, at the exact time that each new year begins --which is also a time of indelible
memories and unsurpassed symbolism for the Cuban Revolution-- we dealt imperialism its
second major defeat before the eyes of the Americas and the world. (Applause.)
Homeland and Humanity have forever become inseparably
united by history in the hearts and minds of the Cuban people. (Applause)
Your ideas, Martí, which have been sown in us along
with those of the man who, like you told us, deserved to be honored for taking the side of
the poor, and those of another giant, who studied in depth and described with irrefutable
proof what you were the first to discover and call imperialism in the most modern sense of
the concept, have proven to be much stronger than all of the power of the greatest empire
that has ever existed. We dedicate to you this 40th anniversary of that first
victory. (Exclamations) We swear to you that we will fight up until our last drop of blood
for the Homeland and for Humanity. We swear to you that the sacrifices of those who have
fallen, from La Demajagua to the Bay of Pigs, and of those who have given their young,
generous and noble lives fighting in the mountains, plains and towns of every corner of
our little homeland, or in other lands of the world that have called out for the
contribution of their modest efforts, in distant reaches of our big homeland, have not and
never will be in vain. (Shouts of "We swear !" )
The sweat and sacrifice of millions of anonymous
heroes whose hard work and efforts have built and preserved the beautiful Cuba of today,
and will bequeath the even more beautiful Cuba of tomorrow to future generations, have not
and never will be in vain, either. (Exclamations)
Today, 11 comrades will be decorated with the high
honor of Heroes of the Republic of Cuba, for having served the Revolution, the Homeland
and Socialism for over 40 years. Some are veterans of the Bay of Pigs, some are not, but
they all carry within them some or many pieces of our history throughout almost half a
century, from the attack on the Moncada Garrison on July 26, 1953 until today, April 19,
2001. They never asked for it, perhaps they never even thought of it, and none of them
knows that they will be receiving such a high honor today.
But we want to decorate them here, on this 40th
anniversary of that great victory, as a tribute to all those who fought in those crucial
days, and those who died for the lives and destinies of the 11 million people living in
Cuba today, for the hundreds of millions of people in Latin America and the Caribbean, for
the billions of human beings presently exploited and plundered in countries that were
formerly colonies, sources of slaves, raw materials and gold, and today supply cheap labor
and non-renewable natural resources under the unbearable weight of the imperialist yoke.
We promised to talk about interesting things related
to the United States pyrrhic victory or moral defeat in Geneva. Yesterday, our people
heard the first news. On Friday, the in-depth analysis will begin. The empire and its
accomplices will have a lot to listen to.
Today is a day of glory that nothing and no one will
ever be able to erase from history. Remembering the feat achieved, remembering the fallen,
remembering the humble sons of the people who dealt a devastating blow to the pride and
arrogance of the empire in this sacred place, full of symbolism, this time we will not
say: "Homeland or Death" , "Socialism or Death"; instead, we will say,
from the bottom of our hearts:
Long live our Homeland! (Shouts of Long live!)
Long live Socialism! (Shouts of Long live!)
Long live Victory! (Shouts of Long live!)
(Shouts of "Long live Fidel" !)
• Translated by ESTI
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