Dearest guests, dear comrades:

This is the 45th time we have celebrated a glorious Labor Day since the triumph of the Revolution.

Extremely important things are taking place both inside and outside our country.

The Revolution is following its triumphal course with more strength and success than ever. We have had proof of this recently: the Geneva meetings on April 15 and 22 will go down in the history of revolutionary diplomacy. They mark the moment when a crushing blow was dealt to the enormous hypocrisy, permanent falsehood and cynicism the masters of the world use to try to preserve the rotten system of political and economic domination they have imposed on the world.

Our country had been placed in the dock yet again. The new US administration and the states in the European Union made the mistake of forgetting that at the extreme eastern end of Cuba one of the most horrendous examples of human rights violations ever to take place in this world was underway at that very moment in a 117.6 square kilometer section of land occupied by force, where the Guantánamo naval base is located — which in itself is a gross violation of the sovereign rights of a small country and of international law.

We were never consulted beforehand. We were simply informed of the decision taken by the US government to transfer the prisoners to that base.

On January 11, 2002 the Cuban government published a statement in which it clearly set forth our country’s position.

The world knows that the horrible crime committed against the Twin Towers in New York was unanimously condemned by all conscientious people on the planet.

Nevertheless, the government of the most powerful nation on earth, showing contempt for all norms concerning what the world understands as the elementary principles of human rights, created this horrible prison where hundreds of citizens from many countries, including some from the United States’ own allies, are kept locked up, without having been tried, incommunicado, without having been identified, with no legal defense, no guarantees for their physical integrity, with no criminal, no procedural law and for an indefinite length of time. They could have used their own territory for such a bizarre contribution to civilization, but they did it on a stretch of land that they occupy illegally and forcibly in another country, Cuba, whom they accuse of human rights violations every year in Geneva.

It spite of that, admirable things do take place in the Commission on Human Rights.

In current world conditions, there is a generalized fear of the fierce empire, of its threats, pressure and reprisals of all kinds, especially those against the most vulnerable countries of the Third World. It is almost suicidal to vote in Geneva against a resolution drafted and imposed by the United States, especially if it is against Cuba, the country which for almost 50 years has defied its arrogance and imperiousness. Even the strongest and most independent states find themselves obliged to take into consideration the political and economic consequences of their decisions.

Still, as could be seen just a few days ago in Geneva, Cuba and 20 other countries —some acting out of principle and others showing amazing courage— opposed the resolution and 10 abstained, thus maintaining their dignity and self-respect. Only 22 of the 53 members of the Commission, including the United States, joined in this infamy.

There were seven from Latin America, four of which suffer from extreme economic and social poverty, are highly dependent and have governments obliged to be totally servile. Nobody would consider them independent states. Up to now they have been pure fiction.

Peru, the fifth Latin American government to vote with the United States against Cuba, provides an example of the degree of servility and dependence into which imperialism and its neo-liberal globalization have led many countries in Latin America, whom they ruin politically in the twinkling of an eye when they force them to do things which are like the kiss of death for them.

The Peruvian head of state has seen his popularity drop to only 8 per cent in just a few months. I think that the people who support him could fit in just a small part of this crowded square. It is absolutely impossible to tackle the colossal economic and social problems affecting that country with such insignificant support. In fact, he does not govern, nor can he govern anything; the transnationals and the oligarchies take care of that, until society explodes, as has already begun to happen in more than one country.

At this point in my speech, remembering our Venezuelan brother, I feel like crying out: Long live Venezuela! (Applause and shouts of "Long may she live"!) Long live the Bolivarian revolutionary process! (Applause and shouts of "Long may it live"!) Long live Chávez, the brave, brilliant leader of Bolívar’s people! (Applause and shouts of "Long may he live"!)

Then we have the Chilean and Mexican governments.

I am not going to judge the former. I prefer that the way the president of Chile behaved in Geneva be judged by Salvador Allende, (Applause) who went down fighting, a gun in his hand, and who now has a place of honor and glory in the history of this continent, by the millions of Chileans vanished, tortured and murdered by design of those who drafted and proposed this resolution to censure Cuba — where not a single act of that sort, nor anything similar had ever happened— and by those who in their name are the standard bearers of the noble ideals and aspirations to create a truly humane society.

In Mexico, a beloved sister country for all Cubans, the National Congress asked their president to abstain from voting for the resolution, although President Bush had demanded that he do so. It is truly painful to see the great prestige and influence Mexico earned in the eyes of Latin America and the world with its unimpeachable international policy, which stemmed from a genuine, far-reaching revolution, turn to ashes.

Latin America’s solidarity with and support for Mexico and Mexico’s for Latin America are crucial. More than half of Mexico’s territory was snatched from it by its northern neighbor and great danger threatens what is left. The US-Mexican border is to all intents and purposes no longer the Rio Bravo of which Martí spoke. The United States has gone much deeper into Mexico. That border is today the line of death, where about 500 Mexican die every year. And all because of a brutal, ruthless principle: free passage for capital and goods; persecution, exclusion and death for human beings. And yet, millions of Mexicans take that risk. Today, the country obtains more income from their remittances than from oil exports, in spite of the high price of the latter.

Will such an inequitable and unfair situation really be solved by voting for anti-Cuban resolutions in Geneva, by accusing her of violating human rights?

The worst and most humiliating part for Mexico was that the news about its vote in Geneva, both on April 15 and 22, was announced in Washington.

The European Union, as usual, voted as a bloc, like a Mafia mob allied with and subordinate to Washington.

These sempiternal dirty, immoral displays against the Cuban Revolution never had any success until the socialist bloc disappeared. A plague of renegades, anxious for the credits and goods of consumer society added their votes to those of the European Community mafia. Thus they completed those petty deliveries in the Commission on Human Rights: resolutions pulled out with forceps, in the hard-fought battle which Cuba has never ceased to wage against the loathsome comedy which the empire, its allies, followers and vassals push through in order to gain an advantage of one or two votes over the opposition and abstentions of 60 per cent of the Commission’s members. Once they lowered their guard and lost the vote. Since then, their efforts have tripled and the pressures and threats against countries which are totally dependent on the credits, the money and resources handed out by international bodies, all controlled by the United States, have been stepped up one hundred fold.

One day a statue will have to be raised to those countries which, under such difficult circumstances, risked all and voted against Yankee resolutions (Applause) This story of this battle should go down in history. As you can see, this year 60% of the Commission’s 53 members supported us. The empire calls these Pyrrhic victories successes and censures Cuba, in spite of the fact that the effort and political costs increase every year.

I can say here, just between ourselves, that an exhaustive examination of what occurs in the world, in every human society — excluding none, certainly not the European society, or the purest and most sacrosanct societies from some areas in Europe— would show that not one has a clean record when it comes to consideration and respect for human beings, such as the glorious Cuban revolution. (Applause)

The very system that diminishes one part of society to less than nothing while others live in great opulence, from an ethical point of view, is not worthy of being called a humane society.

These campaigns, run by the dominant superpower and backed up by the allies who join with the empire in exploiting the world, are nothing but a sham and a lie, a brazen political display resulting from the need to justify the enormous inequalities which shall remain insurmountable until the economic system imposed on the world has disappeared. We do know about true human rights.

I cannot understand how an opulent society like our neighbor’s dares to speak of human rights, while 44 million people there have no right to medical care, where millions of citizens live in ghettos and countless beggars live under bridges; a society where there are millions of illiterates and semi-illiterates, where there are millions and millions of unemployed and where prisons are filled with the children of the poorest and most deprived segments of the population.

On the other hand, no one can explain the brutal bombings against just any country, or how the empire’s boss can speak of human rights while proclaiming it his right to "launch pre-emptive attacks on 60 or more countries", oblivious of the innocent persons who will die.

Their hatred for Cuba stems from the unexpected resistance a small country has put up against this power and its allied powers, which have plundered the planet. Cuba’s presence is a pointing finger and proof that nations can fight, stand firm and win. Cuba’s very presence is a humiliation for those who have imposed the most repugnant system of exploitation that has ever existed on Earth.

There are many ways to explain it. Here our Venezuelan brother reminded us of something we do not usually talk about, of our people’s medical co-operation with other countries. None of this would have been possible without a revolution. As is well-known, when the Revolution triumphed 30% of our population was illiterate and 90% were illiterate and semi-illiterate combined, because in this world anyone who does not have at least a sixth grade education —and today we should talk of at least a ninth-grade education— can be considered a semi-illiterate.

They want to hide the fact that Cuba is first worldwide in educational matters, that its children are in first place in tests of knowledge, even above developed countries, (Applause) that the minimum education level, except in rare exceptions, is ninth grade and there is no other country in the world that has reached these minimum levels for most of the population.

They know that despite their criminal blockade and the obstacles they have placed in the way of our obtaining medicines and medical equipment and technology, infant mortality is lower in our country than in the United States (Applause). Perhaps they are unaware that we are going to reduce this infant mortality rate to even less that 6 and perhaps in the not too distant future, to less than 5. We are convinced —and this is something I have never spoken about— that in a period of no more than five or six years, life expectancy in our country will not be lower than 80 years (Applause) and that our country will become the most advanced center for healthcare services in the world.

If an analysis were made of the millions of children who die in Third World countries every year and who could be saved — in many countries the figures are as high as 150 deaths for every 1000 live births – and those who die among the populations of the majority of those same countries that voted against Cuba in Geneva, they would realize that a genocide is committed every year on this earth; that millions more people on this planet – children and adults who could be saved— die every year than died in the First World War and almost as many as died in the Second, people who could have been saved but do not survive because of a shortage of medical resources.

The arsenal of arguments that we have at our disposal to show that this system is the most atrociously cruel system that has ever existed is enormous. One has only to use simple mathematical calculations to prove the genocide that the United States and its European allies commit against the world every year.

They know that this is true, they do not dare to argue against it; they created underdevelopment and they have perpetuated backwardness through colonialization, looting of natural resources and even by enslaving millions and millions of human beings, thus giving rise to this world of extreme poverty with serious problems still to be solved. I won’t try to list them here, but they are almost insoluble problems which, when combined with others, place in jeopardy the very existence of our species.

Taking into account that events such as this rally should not be too long and mindful of the effort you have made to come and stay here for many hours, I shall limit myself to mentioning just a few facts. I shall put it like this: the capitalist system, which in its time played a somewhat progressive role against feudalism and which later became the imperialist system with the ways used today to plunder nations, wasting and destroying the planet’s natural resources, is the system most inconceivable and irreconcilable with an honest, sincere and objective notion of human rights.

There, in Geneva, the gangs of the owners of the world economy meet and it would be worthwhile asking them how many Third World countries they have collaborated with, what they did against apartheid in South Africa, how many teachers they have sent to the Third world and how many doctors. I have already said that I do not like to bring up these issues, but I do so today because on this May Day we are in fact speaking about what happened in Geneva a while ago.

One should ask each one of those gentlemen how many doctors they have working in Third World countries. There are some organizations like Doctors without Borders and some foundations that give some aid. But I say this to those gentlemen: I am sure that the United States and Europe together do not have as many doctors in Haiti as Cuba does, providing medical care to more than 7 million people under extremely difficult conditions (Applause)

They could be asked, one by one, because those societies that were not designed for justice and solidarity but educated in selfishness are incapable of making any sacrifice whatsoever for other human beings.

I have mentioned one country, Haiti, which they constantly intervene and invade, but where they never send a single doctor. I do not know how they would react if I said to them today that right now Cuba is developing a number of healthcare programs in Africa and in Latin America, and that a total of at least 17,000 Cuban doctors, dentists and healthcare technicians are serving in other countries (Applause) and that every year they save thousands of lives and give many tens of millions of human beings their health back or guarantee their health. And let no one think that we are left without doctors, because this effort is paralleled by a veritable revolution in the healthcare services in our country.

A while ago I was discussing with Sáez the major repairs of polyclinics and the new services they will provide, and they are working so that before the end of the year they will have completed repairs on Havana’s 82 outpatient clinics, and some that are newly built, and they will offer services they were never before provided. (Applause) And this is but one detail because many other programs are underway too, and not only in Havana but also throughout the country.

We have estimated the many millions or tens of millions of journeys that we will save our people who, with all the public transportation difficulties, have to go and visit their relatives in hospitals; meanwhile, many services which were previously only available in hospitals will, many of them, soon be available in polyclinics.

There is no doubt, and I mean no doubt, that our country will have the best healthcare services in the world. And if a few years ago we talked about tens of thousands of general medicine specialists, the day is not far off when we shall talk of tens of thousands of PhDs in Medical Sciences. To that end, and in addition to that, we are implementing programs in education, culture, sports and other areas which will be supported by a much more sound economic base than that with which our country’s development began when it was devoted to producing sugar cane and other similar commodities, as this was all that an illiterate and starving population could do to survive.

The bandits who accuse us of violating human rights would not dare to say that Cuba is the only country in the world — see how great our people’s feats are— in which there has not been a single disappeared person, not a single person tortured in all the 45 years of the Revolution. (Applause)

We have made a Revolution that is as clean as that war we waged in the Sierra Maestra, when not one prisoner was ever shot or beaten to obtain information. This is almost the only country in Latin America where death squads have never existed, nor extra-judicial executions, and 45 years have gone by. If those viper tongues of the empire and their followers could find one case, just one, we would be willing to give them our Republic of Cuba as a present, if they found just one case. (Applause)

These are realities; I am not exaggerating, far from it. We know what we have done throughout these 45 years and the unwavering straight line we have pursued in maintaining complete loyalty to our principles that allowed us to win the war and carry out a revolution that we have defended for 45 years. And what is our people today, what is its consciousness, its culture, its ideas, what degree of unity has it achieved? There is no other people with a higher cultural level, a higher level of political conscience than our people. And I would just add one more thing: we are only beginning. (Applause)

I saw it this morning on television, while I was waiting for sunrise, and it was obvious. They interviewed many people and you should have heard what they said. I could see a new world, students everywhere and from everywhere: university students, students from the University of Information Technology, students from the school for art instructors, (Shouts from the crowd) students from the school for social workers, students from the schools with accelerated training courses for teachers and nurses; schools that we share with thousands of —I am not going to say foreign – young people, young brothers and sisters from Latin America and from other parts of the world. (Applause)

One can’t help but feel proud that not only our doctors go there by the thousands but that we have also invited thousands and thousands of youth from Latin America and from other parts of the world to study medicine in Cuba.

We are, in fact, developing more and more efficient ways of transmitting knowledge, and who knows how long it will take the rest of the world to catch up with this efficiency and these methods and, even more importantly, to put them into practice.

I harbor not the slightest doubt, however, that Venezuela, which is implementing and will be implementing highly improved educational programs will, in a short period of time, lead that heroic and valiant people, the cradle of the Latin American independence struggle, to levels similar to those that Cuba has today.

I was saying that the political cost of their little game in Geneva is increasingly high but this year their actions backfired on them – they shot themselves in the foot, as the saying goes –and almost killing them.

When this year Cuba suggested sending a Commission representative to see what was going on in the Guantánamo naval base, panic spread through the herd of hypocrites, especially those from the European Community. Morale collapsed. Some European governments were truly ashamed, they had to confess their failure to act according to their principles and their hypocrisy, or to do the impossible: disobey the empire. This was too much for such venerable defenders of human rights, whose darts are only aimed at those whom for centuries were their colonies, where they wiped out tens of millions of natives and to which they brought countless human beings from Africa whom they made into slaves with less freedom than work horses.

And that is how they treat millions of people in the Third World, victims of the plunder, unequal terms of trade and the looting of their natural resources and all the hard currency reserves in their central banks, which are deposited in US or European banks, for the most part, and which are used to finance investments, trade and fiscal deficits and the military adventures of the empire and its allies.

As a result of the Cuban proposal in Geneva, Bush himself and his senior officials had to work frantically, personally calling presidents and heads of state. No one knew where he found the time, especially if one takes into account that he likes to sleep a lot — or so they say— (Laughter), nor how he could attend to Iraq, the financial problems of the government, fundraising banquets and matters related to the election campaign. Perhaps it is not fair to call him Fürher; perhaps he is a genius.

Why can Bush talk of a fiscal deficit of $512 billion and a similar trade deficit, a total of a trillion dollars in just one year? Because he manipulates and spends the hard currency of the immense majority of the world population in order to defend those and other privileges.

All the reserves of Third World central banks are kept in banks overseas, mostly in the United States. And all the money of anyone who has any money —earned and unearned money— is changed into dollars and deposited in US banks or in the banks of some developed country because of the fear of constant devaluations of their countries’ weak currencies. As per a provision of the International Monetary Fund, no central bank in these Third World countries can prevent people from changing their money into dollars or any other convertible currency.