Message to Cuba’s university students

Typescript version – Council of State

Dear compañeros,

I have asked that we should meet here early today, before our sun becomes too hot.

This stairway, to which I never imagined I would return, retains indelible memories of the years when I began to have an awareness of our era and of our duty. People can acquire knowledge and awareness throughout their whole lives, but in no other era of their existence will they once again have the same purity and selflessness with which young people confront life. At that age, I discovered my true destiny.

And so, it is inevitable that, at this moment, I am accompanied by the memory of so many compañeros who I knew here exactly 65 years ago. It was in the first week of September that I entered this university, which was the only one in the country. It is better not to even try to ask about each one of them, and just to hold onto the memory of when they were all young and enthusiastic and, generally speaking, selfless and pure.

I feel very inspired to have present those of you who are students today, like us yesterday, although incomparably more free and more aware.

At that time, the power of brute force and the brutality of force, unawareness and corruption applied to our people fell upon this university hill.

Thanks to the example of those who had preceded us, the students shot on the demand of the hordes of the so-called Spanish ‘volunteers,’ many of them born in this land and who entered in the service of the Spanish dictatorship; thanks to José Martí, the apostle of our independence and to the blood spilled by tens of thousands of patriots in three wars of independence, we were really preceded by a history that inspired our struggles. We did not merit being the colony of a far more powerful empire, which seized our homeland and a large part of our national awareness, sowing fatalism with the idea that it was impossible to shake off such a powerful yoke.

Worse still, a powerful exploitative sector had emerged which, in the service of the interests of the empire, was plundering our people by extracting wealth, by maintaining them shackled and ignorant by means of force, and on more than a few occasions, utilizing others born in the country to act as torturers and killers of their brothers and sisters.

The Revolution brought those horrors to an end, and it is because of that that we can meet here on this September morning.

How far we were from thinking after the triumph that, on an occasion like this, we would meet again in an even greater effort and with higher objectives than those which, at one time, seemed to us to be the highest goals of the peoples, for the sake of justice and the happiness of human beings.

It does not seem possible that a country as small as Cuba would see itself obliged to assume the weight of the struggle against those who have globalized and subjected the world to an inconceivable plunder, and have imposed on it a system that is currently threatening the very survival of humanity.

I am not talking solely on behalf of the interests of our nation. It could be said that such objectives have been left behind, insofar as the existence and wellbeing of the peoples have ceased being our objectives for the sake of world interests, without which the life of nations is impossible. It is also a fact that, in our struggles for national and social emancipation, our country, a bastion of Spanish colonialism in this hemisphere, was the first to be occupied and the last to shake off that yoke after more than 400 years of domination.

Our struggle for national liberation was mixed in with the tenacious efforts of our country’s workers for their social liberation. It was not a labor of will; it was one of chance. The merit of the Cuban people is to have understood and to have strengthened the indissoluble links between the two. (Applause and exclamations of "Viva, Fidel!")

The time that humanity has to wage this battle is incredibly limited. In more than three months of incessant battling, I have modestly tried to divulge to a world unaware of them, the terrible dangers that are threatening human life on our planet. It is known, but I have no alternative than to recall the fact that we are not living in the era of cavalry charges and the steel of swords accompanied by harquebuses firing one shot, preceded for centuries by machines that demolished – or tried to demolish – walls, or horse-drawn chariots with knives fitted to their wheels; weapons, at the end of the day, always cruel, but of limited destructive power, which humans used for wars among themselves since clubs were invented, up until World War I and II, in which automatic weapons, tanks, fighter planes and flying fortresses, submarines, torpedoes, armor plating and aircraft carriers that raised human losses to tens of millions of dead and to hundreds of millions the victims of destruction, of injuries, disease and hunger, the inevitable consequences of wars.

Two nuclear devices were utilized at the end of the last world war. Never was such a terrible destruction and extermination conceived of by man. More than 60 years ago there was talk of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki; somewhere we have noted that that the destructive power of accumulated [nuclear] weapons is equal to more than 440,000 times the power of one of those two bombs. That is the case, that is what mathematics says. I will not add any more because I would have to use very harsh words in relation to the causes and to those responsible for that extremely sad reality.

But that was not enough. The pretension of economic and military domination of the first nations to utilize those terrifying instruments of destruction and death has led humanity to the real possibly of death that it is confronting today. I do not need to argue with you facts of which you are all too well aware. The problem of the peoples today, let’s say, that of more than seven billion human beings, is to prevent such a tragedy from happening.

I do not like stating the painful truth, which constitutes a shame for everything identified as politics and government. This reality has been deliberately concealed from the world and the hard task of warning humanity of the real danger that it is confronting has fallen to Cuba. We must not lose heart in that activity. I have used arguments that I do not want to repeat today. In the face of the skeptics, our inescapable duty is to continue waging the battle. I can confirm that a growing number of people in the world have become aware of the reality.

Commenting on the first part of the interview published on Monday, August 30 by the editor of La Jornada in that eminent Mexican press organ, a citizen of Our America, who found it on the CubaDebate website, expressed his opinion with such profound words that I decided to include his fundamental ideas in this message to Cuban university students:

"I am calling on all the countries that are currently involved in military conflicts. Please, always think of attaining a lasting peace, which is what is in the interest of all of us. Our sons and daughters, our grandchildren and human beings throughout the world, we are all going to be grateful to you. We need to live in peace and security on a planet that is less habitable every day. That is very easy to understand. Nuclear weapons must disappear, no country must possess them, atomic energy must only be used for the good. THE ONLY TRUE VICTORY IS IN WINNING PEACE.

"Today, we are confronting two great challenges: the consolidation of world peace and saving the planet from climate change. The first is to achieve a lasting peace on solid bases, the second is to reverse climate change. We have to be aware of these problems that we ourselves have created and that we are the protagonists of the changes that we have to achieve. The panorama of the last century was not the same as that of this century. Armaments, at this time, are more sophisticated and deadly and the planet weaker and more contaminated.

"The Cancún Summit on Climate Change [...] the only opportunity left to us [...] We are reaching a critical point where there is no going back. At that moment, out of fear, we would do anything to save our lives, but already everything would be in vain and too late. Opportunities in our lives pass before us just once and we have to know how to take advantage of them. Our Mother Nature is like a passive smoker who does not have the vice, but who we are making sick indiscriminately."

"Nobody has the right to use violence against any other human being, country or nation. Nobody can fell a tree without first planting three [...] We cannot turn our backs on nature. Completely the opposite, we must always remain in an embrace with her. For we ourselves are nature, we form part of this fan of colors, of sounds, balance and harmony. Nature is perfect.

"Kyoto signified a hope for all human beings…"

"If we do nothing, nobody will be saved, there will be no safe place on the earth, or in the air, or in the cosmos. The great energy that is daily accumulating due to the greenhouse effect, given that the solar rays are trapped and discharge more energy every day on the earth’s surface, will provoke natural disasters of unpredictable consequences. Would anyone on earth have a button capable of detaining such a disaster?"

"… we cannot waste time on anachronistic wars that weaken us and exhaust our energies. Enemies make wars. Let us eliminate all the causes that provoke humans into seeing other humans as their enemy. Not even those who confront each other in a war are aware that that is the solution to their problems, they react according to their emotions and do not pay attention to their conscience, by thinking erroneously that war is the road to peace. I am saying, without any possibility of error, that peace is attained with peace and: IF YOU WANT PEACE, GET READY TO CHANGE YOUR CONSCIENCE." (Applause)

That is the essence of his words, very clear and simple and within the reach of any citizen of the world.

On Wednesday, September 1, when I was drafting this message, a report published by the CubaDebate website brought us the following news: "A new wave of leaks concerning an attack on Iran’s nuclear targets that Israel is planning with the United States could have a real basis this time, according to George Friedman, executive director of the eminent Sratfor center, which has former CIA analysts among its collaborators." He is a well informed and prestigious person.

The information goes on to say:

"There have been numerous occasions on which different versions have been circulated regarding a possible attack on the Islamic Republic, allegedly leaked by the secret services. According to experts, this was an attempt to exercise psychological pressure on Tehran in order to force it to seek a consensus with the West."

"…this technique did not work and it is highly unlikely that it will be used again with the same objective, states Friedman…"

"‘Paradoxically, the very existence of another round of war talks could be intended to convince the Iranians that war is distant while covert war preparations take place…’"

"The analyst completely dismisses the idea that Tel Aviv would dare to embark on a military operation without the support of the Pentagon."

"At the same time, the expert warns that the most serious consequence of a possible attack on Iran would be if the Islamic Republic were to block the Strait of Hormuz between the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf, which would paralyze 45% of world oil supplies, forcing prices to rocket and hindering the recovery of the world economy after the recession."

Thus concludes the information.

I find it incredible that the fear of an attack is owed to the consequences it could have on the price of oil and on fighting the recession. For myself, I do not harbor the slightest doubt that Iran’s capacity for a conventional weapons’ response would cause a ferocious war, control of which would slip through the fingers of the warring parties and would irremediably be transformed into a global conflict. That is what I have been maintaining.

A significant dispatch from AFP affirms that "former British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned this Wednesday that the international community ‘might not have any alternative than military force if ‘if Iran continues to develop nuclear weapons.’" He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

He continues:

"‘I think there is no alternative to that if they continue to develop nuclear weapons. They need to get that message loud and clear,’ he added, echoing the threat that has been bandied about several times by the United States and Israel."

Of course, if they are manufacturing weapons, there is no evidence of that nor will there be, because what they are doing is using research centers, undertaking research; they do not have, nor will they within the next one or two years, as they themselves have stated, the necessary material to begin manufacturing a bomb. This, without taking into account that nuclear weapons’ manufacturers have 25,000 nuclear arms, not counting the unimaginable conventional ones that they possess. They have no evidence of this, it’s a research center. Is that any reason for attacking them? Having a plant that produces electrical energy, using uranium, is not a crime, but for them, it is evidence that they are manufacturing weapons. They’ve done it before, they did it in 1981 in relation to an Iraqi research center, and they did it in 2007 in relation to a Syrian research center; no one talks about that, it’s something of a mystery why no one talked about that. Because there are terrible things going on that are not talked about and nobody prints anything about them.

Well, that is the proof, because they are talking about attacking those reactors and those research centers. That is why we cannot allow ourselves to get confused by the little words: "if they try" to manufacture nuclear weapons.

A news dispatch from the ITAR-TASS agency reports that: "Sanctions against Iran will not produce the desired result; the Iranian problem must not be resolved by any method of force. Thus stated Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a speech today before students – what a coincidence – at the MGIMO International Affairs Institute."

And the cable goes on:

"We start from the premise that no world problem should be resolved by using force, he stated. Lavrov drew attention to U.S. President Barack Obama’s position on Iran and particularly Iran’s involvement in the negotiation process. ‘We would welcome a normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iran,’ he added."

I respect the fact that Russia is not only a member of the Security Council with the right to veto, but also a powerful country whose opinion cannot be ignored. Independent of the fact that in the June 9 Resolution, all those nations with the right to veto supported the Resolution. Turkey and Brazil did not support it and Lebanon abstained. That was a tremendously important moment because the Resolution was passed, the one authorizing the inspection of Iranian merchant ships, and moreover, they established a timeframe, they said 90 days, and some people are saying that it expires on the 9th, while others say the 7th. They also say that on that day, they have to report whether or not they attacked.

Now we have to sit back and wait to see what they’re going to do in this situation, how much they value world opinion, what effect it will have, whether or not they will dream up another time frame, or if they confirm what they are going to do. It might take a little longer but it can’t be for long.

I recommend that we remain attentive, that we ask our media to communicate, in order to closely follow the situation.

Thanks to the electronic media, there are people in the world – a growing number of people – who are informing themselves, because they cannot prevent that. Independent of whether the news agencies and mainstream media in the hands of the powerful capitalist corporations maintain their silence, the world is finding out about things. I am telling you this because of the number of messages that are arriving. I read you one opinion that I selected: that was at 4:52, one at 4:54, another at 4:55. The compañeros who are downloading them have explained that they are coming in from all over the world, not just from Latin America. It is impossible to download and comment on them all; we have an idea of the states of opinion, of the credibility that they are giving them or not, and I can tell you that they are giving them a lot of credibility, just like you are. People are seeing clearly and that is decisive. It is a new stage, never before has there been a situation like this.

Therefore, I suggest to you – and to all our compatriots who are trying to remain attentive – and to our media who are keeping them informed, because sometimes the international press maintains a strange silence and then, suddenly, a whole series of news items will appear. Those that are going to arrive successively are more interesting every day.

Nobody can say exactly what is going to happen, because these events are unraveling right now.

What will happen on the 7th, the 9th, the 15th, the 20th? We have to draw up our plans, work plans, each one in his or her things. As for me, I am going to concentrate; I have been concentrating on this for some time now, collecting as much information as possible.

But, with respect to this problem, we all have a part to play, some responsibility that doesn’t mean we have to stop what we are doing.

Aside from that, another very important country is the last one to be mentioned here because it was the last cable to arrive, yesterday afternoon.

A Reuters’ dispatch states: "The European Union is pressurizing China to comply with the sanctions against Iran."

Because, aside from the famous Resolution of June 9th – No. 1929 – establishing the sanctions that I’ve mentioned, these satellite powers from Europe and other places have imposed additional sanctions in order to strangle the country and, in this case, were complaining about China, also in relation to Russia and about what it would do, but the cable said:

"Catherine Ashton, the European Union’s high representative for foreign affairs and security policy, said on Thursday that China had been pressured to ensure that Chinese enterprises would not fill the void left by other companies that had left Iran because of the sanctions…" It does not say which sanctions, either the Council’s or theirs, they must be referring to all of them, of course.

Any honest person can understand the complexity of this serious problem that is threatening the world today.

Compañeros, university students, as in other times that seem far away but which to me seem like yesterday, I thank you for your presence and for the moral support that you are offering to this struggle for peace. (Applause) I urge you not to cease fighting for this. In this struggle, as in many others in years gone by, it is possible to overcome. (Applause)

May human life be preserved! May children and young people enjoy life in a world of justice! May parents and grandparents share with them the privilege of living!

The just distribution of material and spiritual wealth, which humankind is capable of creating through the fabulous development of its productive forces, is now the only possible alternative.

Thank you very much.

September 3, 2010