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In
Miami and Washington they are now discussing where,
how and when Cuba will be attacked
Speech
given by the Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the
Republic of Cuba, at the May Day rally held in
Revolution Square. Havana, May 1, 2003
Distinguished
guests;
Dear fellow Cubans:
CUBA AND THE
NAZI-FASCISM
Our heroic people
have struggled for 44 years from this small
Caribbean island just a few miles away from the most
formidable imperial power ever known by mankind. In
so doing, they have written an unprecedented chapter
in history. Never has the world witnessed such an
unequal fight.
Some may have
believed that the rise of the empire to the status
of the sole superpower, with a military and
technological might with no balancing pole anywhere
in the world, would frighten or dishearten the Cuban
people. Yet, today they have no choice but to watch
in amazement the enhanced courage of this valiant
people. On a day like today, this glorious
international workers’ day, which commemorates the
death of the five martyrs of Chicago, I declare, on
behalf of the one million Cubans gathered here, that
we will face up to any threats, we will not yield to
any pressures, and that we are prepared to defend
our homeland and our Revolution with ideas and with
weapons to our last drop of blood.
What is Cuba’s
sin? What honest person has any reason to attack
her?
With their own
blood and the weapons seized from the enemy, the
Cuban people overthrew a cruel tyranny with 80,000
men under arms, imposed by the U.S. government.
Cuba was the first
territory free from imperialist domination in Latin
America and the Caribbean, and the only country in
the hemisphere, throughout post-colonial history,
where the torturers, murderers and war criminals
that took the lives of tens of thousands of people
were exemplarily punished.
All of the country’s
land was recovered and turned over to the peasants
and agricultural workers. The natural resources,
industries and basic services were placed in the
hands of their only true owner: the Cuban nation.
In less than 72
hours, fighting ceaselessly, day and night, Cuba
crushed the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion organized
by a U.S. administration, thereby preventing a
direct military intervention by this country and a
war of incalculable consequences. The Revolution
already had the Rebel Army, over 400,000 weapons and
hundreds of thousands of militia members.
In 1962, Cuba
confronted with honor, and without a single
concession, the risk of being attacked with dozens
of nuclear weapons.
It defeated the
dirty war that spread throughout the entire country,
at a cost in human lives even greater than that of
the war of liberation.
It stoically
endured thousands of acts of sabotage and terrorist
attacks organized by the U.S. government.
It thwarted
hundreds of assassination plots against the leaders
of the Revolution.
While under a
rigorous blockade and economic warfare that have
lasted for almost half a century, Cuba was able to
eradicate in just one year the illiteracy that has
still not been overcome in the course of more than
four decades by the rest of the countries of Latin
America, or the United States itself.
It has brought free
education to 100% of the country’s children.
It has the highest
school retention rate –over 99% between
kindergarten and ninth grade– of all of the
nations in the hemisphere.
Its elementary
school students rank first worldwide in the
knowledge of their mother language and mathematics.
The country also
ranks first worldwide with the highest number of
teachers per capita and the lowest number of
students per classroom.
All children with
physical or mental challenges are enrolled in
special schools.
Computer education
and the use of audiovisual methods now extend to all
of the country’s children, adolescents and youth,
in both the cities and the countryside.
For the first time
in the world, all young people between the ages of
17 and 30, who were previously neither in school nor
employed, have been given the opportunity to resume
their studies while receiving an allowance.
All citizens have
the possibility of undertaking studies that will
take them from kindergarten to a doctoral degree
without spending a penny.
Today, the country
has 30 university graduates, intellectuals and
professional artists for every one there was before
the Revolution.
The average Cuban
citizen today has at the very least a ninth-grade
level of education.
Not even functional
illiteracy exists in Cuba.
There are schools
for the training of artists and art instructors
throughout all of the country’s provinces, where
over 20,000 young people are currently studying and
developing their talent and vocation. Tens of
thousands more are doing the same at vocational
schools, and many of these then go on to undertake
professional studies.
University campuses
are progressively spreading to all of the country’s
municipalities. Never in any other part of the world
has such a colossal educational and cultural
revolution taken place as this that will turn Cuba,
by far, into the country with the highest degree of
knowledge and culture in the world, faithful to
Martí’s profound conviction that "no freedom
is possible without culture."
Infant mortality
has been reduced from 60 per 1000 live births to a
rate that fluctuates between 6 and 6.5, which is the
lowest in the hemisphere, from the United States to
Patagonia.
Life expectancy has
increased by 15 years.
Infectious and
contagious diseases like polio, malaria, neonatal
tetanus, diphtheria, measles, rubella, mumps,
whooping cough and dengue have been eradicated;
others like tetanus, meningococcal meningitis,
hepatitis B, leprosy, hemophilus meningitis and
tuberculosis are fully controlled.
Today, in our
country, people die of the same causes as in the
most highly developed countries: cardiovascular
diseases, cancer, accidents, and others, but with a
much lower incidence.
A profound
revolution is underway to bring medical services
closer to the population, in order to facilitate
access to health care centers, save lives and
alleviate suffering.
In-depth research
is being carried out to break the chain, mitigate or
reduce to a minimum the problems that result from
genetic, prenatal or childbirth-related causes.
Cuba is today the
country with the highest number of doctors per
capita in the world, with almost twice as many as
those that follow closer.
Our scientific
centers are working relentlessly to find preventive
or therapeutic solutions for the most serious
diseases.
Cubans will have
the best healthcare system in the world, and will
continue to receive all services absolutely free of
charge.
Social security
covers 100% of the country’s citizens.
In Cuba, 85% of the
people own their homes and they pay no property
taxes on them whatsoever. The remaining 15% pay a
wholly symbolic rent, which is only 10% of their
salary.
Illegal drug use
involves a negligible percentage of the population,
and is being resolutely combated.
Lottery and other
forms of gambling have been banned since the first
years of the Revolution to ensure that no one pins
their hopes of progress on luck.
There is no
commercial advertising on Cuban television and radio
or in our printed publications. Instead, these
feature public service announcements concerning
health, education, culture, physical education,
sports, recreation, environmental protection, and
the fight against drugs, accidents and other social
problems. Our media educate, they do not poison or
alienate. They do not worship or exalt the values of
decadent consumer societies.
There is no cult of
personality around any living revolutionary, in the
form of statues, official photographs, or the names
of streets or institutions. The leaders of this
country are human beings, not gods.
In our country
there are no paramilitary forces or death squads,
nor has violence ever been used against the people;
there are no extrajudicial executions or torture.
The people have always massively supported the
activities of the Revolution. This rally today is
proof of that.
Light years
separate our society from what has prevailed until
today in the rest of the world. We cultivate
brotherhood and solidarity among individuals and
peoples both in the country and abroad.
The new generations
and the entire people are being educated about the
need to protect the environment. The media are used
to build environmental awareness.
Our country
steadfastly defends its cultural identity,
assimilating the best of other cultures while
resolutely combating everything that distorts,
alienates and degrades.
The development of
wholesome, non-professional sports has raised our
people to the highest ranks worldwide in medals and
honors.
Scientific
research, at the service of our people and all
humanity, has increased several-hundredfold. As a
result of these efforts, important medications are
saving lives in Cuba and other countries.
Cuba has never
undertaken research or development of a single
biological weapon, because this would be in total
contradiction with the principles and philosophy
underlying the education of our scientific
personnel, past and present.
In no other people
has the spirit of international solidarity become so
deeply rooted.
Our country
supported the Algerian patriots in their struggle
against French colonialism, at the cost of damaging
political and economic relations with such an
important European country as France.
We sent weapons and
troops to defend Algeria from Moroccan expansionism,
when the king of this country sought to take control
of the iron mines of Gara Djebilet, near the city of
Tindouf, in southwest Algeria.
At the request of
the Arab nation of Syria, a full tank brigade stood
guard between 1973 and 1975 alongside the Golan
Heights, when this territory was unjustly seized
from that country.
The leader of the
Republic of Congo when it first achieved
independence, Patrice Lumumba, who was harassed from
abroad, received our political support. When he was
assassinated by the colonial powers in January of
1961, we lent assistance to his followers.
Four years later,
in 1965, Cuban blood was shed in the western region
of Lake Tanganyika, where Che Guevara and more than
100 Cuban instructors supported the Congolese rebels
who were fighting against white mercenaries in the
service of the man supported by the West, that is,
Mobutu whose 40 billion dollars, the same that he
stole, nobody knows what European banks they are
kept in, or in whose power.
The blood of Cuban
instructors was shed while training and supporting
the combatants of the African Party for the
Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde, who fought
under the command of Amilcar Cabral for the
liberation of these former Portuguese colonies.
The same was true
during the ten years that Cuba supported Agostinho
Neto’s MPLA in the struggle for the independence
of Angola. After independence was achieved, and over
the course of 15 years, hundreds of thousands of
Cuban volunteers participated in defending Angola
from the attacks of racist South African troops that
in complicity with the United States, and using
dirty war tactics, planted millions of mines, wiped
out entire villages, and murdered more than half a
million Angolan men, women and children.
In Cuito Cuanavale
and on the Namibian border, to the southwest of
Angola, Angolan and Namibian forces together with
40,000 Cuban troops dealt the final blow to the
South African troops. This resulted in the immediate
liberation of Namibia and speeded up the end of
apartheid by perhaps 20 to 25 years. At the time,
the South Africans had seven nuclear warheads that
Israel had supplied to them or helped them to
produce, with the full knowledge and complicity of
the U.S. government.
Throughout the
course of almost 15 years, Cuba had a place of honor
in its solidarity with the heroic people of Viet
Nam, caught up in a barbaric and brutal war with the
United States. That war killed four million
Vietnamese, in addition to all those left wounded
and mutilated, not to mention the fact that the
country was inundated with chemical compounds that
continue to cause incalculable damage. The pretext:
Viet Nam, a poor and underdeveloped country located
20,000 kilometers away, constituted a threat to the
national security of the United States.
Cuban blood was
shed together with that of citizens of numerous
Latin American countries, and together with the
Cuban and Latin American blood of Che Guevara,
murdered on instructions from U.S. agents in
Bolivia, when he was wounded and being held prisoner
after his weapon had been rendered useless by a shot
received in battle.
The blood of Cuban
construction workers, that were nearing completion
of an international airport vital for the economy of
a tiny island fully dependent on tourism, was shed
fighting in defense of Grenada, invaded by the
United States under cynical pretexts.
Cuban blood was
shed in Nicaragua, when instructors from our Armed
Forces were training the brave Nicaraguan soldiers
confronting the dirty war organized and armed by the
United States against the Sandinista revolution.
And there are even
more examples.
Over 2000 heroic
Cuban internationalist combatants gave their lives
fulfilling the sacred duty of supporting the
liberation struggles for the independence of other
sister nations. However, there is not one single
Cuban property in any of those countries. No other
country in our era has exhibited such sincere and
selfless solidarity.
Cuba has always
preached by example. It has never given in. It has
never sold out the cause of another people. It has
never made concessions. It has never betrayed its
principles. There must be some reason why, just 48
hours ago, it was reelected by acclamation in the
United Nations Economic and Social Council to
another three years in the Commission on Human
Rights, of which it has now been a member for 15
straight years.
More than half a
million Cubans have carried out internationalist
missions as combatants, as teachers, as technicians
or as doctors and health care workers. Tens of
thousands of the latter have provided their services
and saved millions of lives over the course of more
than 40 years. There are currently 3000 specialists
in Comprehensive General Medicine and other
healthcare personnel working in the most isolated
regions of 18 Third World countries. Through
preventive and therapeutic methods they save
hundreds of thousands of lives every year, and
maintain or restore the health of millions of
people, without charging a penny for their services.
Without the Cuban
doctors offered to the United Nations in the event
that the necessary funds are obtained –without
which entire nations and even whole regions of
sub-Saharan Africa face the risk of perishing– the
crucial programs urgently needed to fight AIDS would
be impossible to carry out.
The developed
capitalist world has created abundant financial
capital, but it has not in any way created the human
capital that the Third World desperately needs.
Cuba has developed
techniques to teach reading and writing by radio,
with accompanying texts now available in five
languages –Haitian Creole, Portuguese, French,
English and Spanish– that are already being used
in numerous countries. It is nearing completion of a
similar program in Spanish, of exceptionally high
quality, to teach literacy by television. These are
programs that were developed in Cuba and are
genuinely Cuban. We are not interested in patents
and exclusive copyrights. We are willing to offer
them to all of the countries of the Third World,
where most of the world’s illiterates are
concentrated, without charging a penny. In five
years, the 800 million illiterate people in the
world could be reduced by 80%, at a minimal cost.
After the demise of
the USSR and the socialist bloc, nobody would have
bet a dime on the survival of the Cuban Revolution.
The United States tightened the blockade. The
Torricelli and Helms-Burton Acts were adopted, the
latter extraterritorial in nature. We abruptly lost
our main markets and supplies sources. The
population’s average calorie and protein
consumption was reduced by almost half. But our
country withstood the pressures and even advanced
considerably in the social field.
Today, it has
largely recovered with regard to nutritional
requirements and is rapidly progressing in other
fields. Even in these conditions, the work
undertaken and the consciousness built throughout
the years succeeded in working miracles. Why have we
endured? Because the Revolution has always had, as
it still does and always will to an ever-greater
degree, the support of the people, an intelligent
people, increasingly united, educated and combative.
Cuba was the first
country to extend its solidarity to the people of
the United States on September 11, 2001. It was also
the first to warn of the neo-fascist nature of the
policy that the extreme right in the United States,
which fraudulently came to power in November of
2000, was planning to impose on the rest of the
world. This policy did not emerge as a response to
the atrocious terrorist attack perpetrated against
the people of the United States by members of a
fanatical organization that had served other U.S.
administrations in the past. It was coldly and
carefully conceived and developed, which explains
the country’s military build-up and enormous
spending on weapons at a time when the Cold War was
already over, and long before September 11, 2001.
The fateful events of that day served as an ideal
pretext for the implementation of such policy.
On September 20 of
that year, President Bush openly expressed this
before a Congress shaken by the tragic events of
nine days earlier. Using bizarre terminology, he
spoke of "infinite justice" as the goal of
a war that would apparently be infinite as well.
"Americans
should not expect one battle, but a lengthy
campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen."
"We will use
every necessary weapon of war."
"Every nation,
in every region, now has a decision to make. Either
you are with us, or you are with the
terrorists."
"I've called
the Armed Forces to alert, and there is a reason.
The hour is coming when America will act."
"This is
civilization's fight."
"…the great
achievement of our time, and the great hope of every
time --now depends on us."
"The course of
this conflict is not known, yet its outcome is
certain … and we know that God is not
neutral."
Did a statesman or
an unbridled fanatic speak these words?
Two days later, on
September 22, Cuba denounced this speech as the
blueprint for the idea of a global military
dictatorship imposed through brute force, without
international laws or institutions of any kind.
"The United
Nations Organization, simply ignored in the present
crisis, would fail to have any authority or
prerogative whatsoever. There would be only one
boss, only one judge, and only one law."
Several months
later, on the 200th anniversary of West
Point Military Academy, at the graduation exercise
for 958 cadets on June 3, 2002, President Bush
further elaborated on this line of thinking in a
fiery harangue to the young soldiers graduating that
day, in which he put forward his fundamental fixed
ideas:
"Our security
will require transforming the military you will lead
-- a military that must be ready to strike at a
moment's notice in any dark corner of the world. And
our security will require all Americans to be
forward-looking and resolute, to be ready for
preemptive action when necessary to defend our
liberty and to defend our lives."
"We must
uncover terror cells in 60 or more countries…"
"…we will
send you, our soldiers, where you're needed."
"We will not
leave the safety of America and the peace of the
planet at the mercy of a few mad terrorists and
tyrants. We will lift this dark threat from our
country and from the world."
"Some worry
that it is somehow undiplomatic or impolite to speak
the language of right and wrong. I disagree. … We
are in a conflict between good and evil, and America
will call evil by its name. By confronting evil and
lawless regimes, we do not create a problem, we
reveal a problem. And we will lead the world in
opposing it."
In the speech I
delivered at a rally held in General Antonio Maceo
Square in Santiago de Cuba, on June 8, 2002, before
half a million people of Santiago, I said:
"As you can
see, he doesn’t mention once in his speech (at
West Point) the United Nations Organization. Nor is
there a phrase about every people’s right to
safety and peace, or about the need for a world
ruled by principles and norms."
"Hardly two
thirds of a century has passed since humanity went
through the bitter experience of Nazism. Fear was
Hitler’s inseparable ally against his adversaries…
Later, his fearful military force [led to] the
outbreak of a war that would inflame the whole
world. The lack of vision and the cowardice of the
statesmen in the strongest European powers of the
time opened the way to a great tragedy.
"I don’t
think that a fascist regime can be established in
the United States. Serious mistakes have been made
and injustices committed in the framework of its
political system --many of them still persist-- but
the American people still have a number of
institutions and traditions, as well as educational,
cultural and ethical values that would hardly allow
that to happen. The risk exists in the international
arena. The power and prerogatives of that country’s
president are so extensive, and the economic,
technological and military power network in that
nation is so pervasive that due to circumstances
that fully escape the will of the American people,
the world is coming under the rule of Nazi concepts
and methods."
"The miserable
insects that live in 60 or more countries of the
world chosen by him and his closest assistants --and
in the case of Cuba by his Miami friends-- are
completely irrelevant. They are the ‘dark corners
of the world’ that may become the targets of their
unannounced and ‘preemptive’ attacks. Not only
is Cuba one of those countries, but it has also been
included among those that sponsor terror."
I mentioned the
idea of a world tyranny for the first time exactly
one year, three months and 19 days before the attack
on Iraq.
In the days prior
to the beginning of the war, President Bush repeated
once again that the United States would use, if
necessary, any means within its arsenal, in other
words, nuclear weapons, chemical weapons and
biological weapons.
The attack on and
occupation of Afghanistan had already taken place.
Today the so-called
"dissidents", actually mercenaries on the
payroll of the Bush’s Hitler-like government, are
betraying not only their homeland, but all of
humanity as well.
In the face of the
sinister plans against our country on the part of
the neo-fascist extreme right and its allies in the
Miami terrorist mob that ensured its victory through
electoral fraud, I wonder how many of those
individuals with supposedly leftist and humanistic
stances who have attacked our people over the legal
measures we were forced to adopt as a legitimate
defense against the aggressive plans of the
superpower, located just a few miles off our coasts
and with a military base on our own territory, have
been able to read these words. We wonder how many
have recognized, denounced and condemned the policy
announced in the speeches by Mr. Bush that I have
quoted, which reveal a sinister Nazi-fascist
international policy on the part of the leader of
the country with the most powerful military force
ever imagined, whose weapons could destroy the
defenseless humanity ten times over.
The entire world
has been mobilized by the terrifying images of
cities destroyed and burned by brutal bombing,
images of maimed children and the shattered corpses
of innocent people.
Leaving aside the
blatantly opportunistic, demagogic and petty
political groups we know all too well, I am now
going to refer fundamentally to those who were
friends of Cuba and respected fighters in the
struggle. We would not want those who have, in our
opinion, attacked Cuba unjustly, due to
disinformation or a lack of careful and profound
analysis, to have to suffer the infinite sorrow they
will feel if one day our cities are destroyed and
our children and mothers, women and men, young and
old, are torn apart by the bombs of Nazi-fascism,
and they realize that their declarations were
shamelessly manipulated by the aggressors to justify
a military attack on Cuba.
Solely the numbers
of children murdered and mutilated cannot be the
measure of the human damage but also the millions of
children and mothers, women and men, young and old,
who remain traumatized for the rest of their lives.
We fully respect
the opinions of those who oppose capital punishment
for religious, philosophical and humanitarian
reasons. We Cuban revolutionaries also abhor capital
punishment, for much more profound reasons than
those addressed by the social sciences with regard
to crime, currently under study in our country. The
day will come when we can accede to the wishes for
the abolition of such penalty so nobly expressed
here by Reverend Lucius Walker in his brilliant
speech. The special concern over this issue is
easily understood when you know that the majority of
the people executed in the United States are African
American and Hispanic, and not infrequently they are
innocent, especially in Texas, the champion of death
sentences, where President Bush was formerly the
governor, and not a single life has ever been
pardoned.
The Cuban
Revolution was placed in the dilemma of either
protecting the lives of millions of Cubans by using
the legally established death penalty to punish the
three main hijackers of a passenger ferry or sitting
back and doing nothing. The U.S. government, which
incites common criminals to assault boats or
airplanes with passengers on board, encourages these
people gravely endangering the lives of innocents
and creating the ideal conditions for an attack on
Cuba. A wave of hijackings had been unleashed and
was already in full development; it had to be
stopped.
We cannot ever
hesitate when it is a question of protecting the
lives of the sons and daughters of a people
determined to fight until the end, arresting the
mercenaries who serve the aggressors and applying
the most severe sanctions against terrorists who
hijack passenger boats or planes or commit similarly
serious acts, who will be punished by the courts in
accordance with the laws in force.
Not even Jesus
Christ, who drove the traders out of the temple with
a whip, would fail to opt for the defense of the
people.
I feel sincere and
profound respect for His Holiness Pope John Paul II.
I understand and admire his noble struggle for life
and peace. Nobody opposed the war in Iraq as much
and as tenaciously as he did. I am absolutely
certain that he would have never counseled the
Shiites and Sunni Muslims to let them be killed
without defending themselves. He would not counsel
the Cubans to do such a thing, either. He knows
perfectly well that this is not a problem between
Cubans. This is a problem between the people of Cuba
and the government of the United States.
The policy of the
U.S. government is so brazenly provocative that on
April 25, Mr. Kevin Whitaker, chief of the Cuban
Bureau at the State Department, informed the head of
our Interests Section in Washington that the
National Security Council’s Department of Homeland
Security considered the continued hijackings from
Cuba a serious threat to the national security of
the United States, and requested that the Cuban
government adopt all of the necessary measures to
prevent such acts.
He said this as if
they were not the ones who provoke and encourage
these hijackings, and as if we were not the ones who
adopt drastic measures to prevent them, in order to
protect the lives and safety of passengers, and
being fully aware for some time now of the criminal
plans of the fascist extreme right against Cuba.
When news of this contact on the 25 was leaked, it
stirred up the Miami terrorist mob. They still do
not understand that their direct or indirect threats
against Cuba do not frighten anyone in this country.
The hypocrisy of
Western politicians and a large group of mediocre
leaders is so huge that it would not fit in the
Atlantic Ocean. Any measure that Cuba adopts for the
purposes of its legitimate defense is reported among
the top stories in almost all of the media. On the
other hand, when we pointed out that during the term
in office of a Spanish head of government, dozens of
ETA members were executed without trial, without
anyone protesting or denouncing it before the United
Nations Commission on Human Rights, or that another
Spanish head of government, at a difficult moment in
the war in Kosovo, advised the U.S. president to
step up the war, increase the bombing and attack
civilian targets, thus causing the deaths of
hundreds of innocent people and tremendous suffering
for millions of people, the headlines merely stated,
"Castro attacks Felipe and Aznar". Not a
word was said about the real content.
In Miami and
Washington they are now discussing where, how and
when Cuba will be attacked or the problem of the
Revolution will be solved.
For the moment,
there is talk of economic measures that will further
intensify the brutal blockade, but they still do not
know which to choose, who they will resign
themselves to alienating, and how effective these
measures may be. There are very few left for them to
choose from. They have already used up almost all of
them.
A shameless
scoundrel with the poorly chosen first name Lincoln,
and the last name Díaz-Balart, an intimate friend
and advisor of President Bush, has made this
enigmatic statement to a Miami TV station: "I
can’t go into details, but we’re trying to break
this vicious cycle."
What methods are
they considering to deal with this vicious cycle?
Physically eliminating me with the sophisticated
modern means they have developed, as Mr. Bush
promised them in Texas before the elections? Or
attacking Cuba the way they attacked Iraq?
If it were the
former, it does not worry me in the least. The ideas
for which I have fought all my life will not die,
and they will live on for a long time.
If the solution
were to attack Cuba like Iraq, I would suffer
greatly because of the cost in lives and the
enormous destruction it would bring on Cuba. But, it
might turn out to be the last of this Administration’s
fascist attacks, because the struggle would last a
very long time.
The aggressors
would not merely be facing an army, but rather
thousands of armies that would constantly reproduce
themselves and make the enemy pay such a high cost
in casualties that it would far exceed the cost in
lives of its sons and daughters that the American
people would be willing to pay for the adventures
and ideas of President Bush. Today, he enjoys
majority support, but it is dropping, and tomorrow
it could be reduced to zero.
The American
people, the millions of highly cultivated
individuals who reason and think, their basic
ethical principles, the tens of millions of
computers with which to communicate, hundreds of
times more than at the end of the Viet Nam war, will
show that you cannot fool all of the people, and
perhaps not even part of the people, all of the
time. One day they will put a straightjacket on
those who need it before they manage to annihilate
life on the planet.
On behalf of the
one million people gathered here this May Day, I
want to convey a message to the world and the
American people:
We do not want the
blood of Cubans and Americans to be shed in a war.
We do not want a countless number of lives of people
who could be friends to be lost in an armed
conflict. But never has a people had such sacred
things to defend, or such profound convictions to
fight for, to such a degree that they would rather
be obliterated from the face of the Earth than
abandon the noble and generous work for which so
many generations of Cubans have paid the high cost
of the lives of many of their finest sons and
daughters.
We are sustained by
the deepest conviction that ideas are worth more
than weapons, no matter how sophisticated and
powerful those weapons may be.
Let us say like Che
Guevara when he bid us farewell:
Ever onward to
victory!
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