ADDRESS OF COMMANDER IN CHIEF FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA AND PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATES AND MINISTERS TO THE VII SUMMIT CONFERENCE OF THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT AT THE PALACE OF CULTURE IN NEW DELHI, INDIA, ON MARCH 13TH 1983, “YEAR OF THE XXX ANNIVERSARY OF MONCADA” (NON-OFFICIAL TRANSLATION)
Esteemed First Minister Indira Gandhi; Distinguished Heads of State or Government;
Distinguished guests In the morning of September 9 th, 1979, in the closing of the VI Summit in Havana, after interesting hours of work together with the Heads of State or Government that integrate the Movement, and after long and not always serene discussions that at some points seemed to threaten our cohesion, I finished my closing speech with these convinced words: “We can proclaim that our Movement is more united than ever, that our Movement is stronger than ever, that our Movement is more independent than ever, that our Movement is more ours than ever” Today, on transferring, after more than three years of exercise, the Presidency of the Movement of Non- Aligned Countries, to our admired Indira Gandhi and to India, country she is historically entitled to represent, we can assert, as a testimony of our accomplished duty, that we hold a Movement whose integrity was not weakened, whose vitally has increased, whose independence has been kept saved from all the attacks that intended to harm it. A Movement that fully belongs to a community of countries that, for 22 years of united effort have integrated it as an instrument of peace, national liberation and economic development. It has not been, as we all know, an easy endeavor. Never before the Movement had been our Movement submitted to such external pressure, nor there had existed before the serious internal problems that lately threatened to weakened our unity. During the very VI Summit, the contradictory interpretation of the deeds in Kampuchea, prevented unanimity. The fairness of the consensus reached at that time agreeing the seat corresponding to that country to be empty, was not accepted as legitimate by all the countries members. It has taken there years and in a less polemic environment, to ratify that consensus, so that the decision then stated by Cuba, from the Presidency of the Political Commission were completely vindicated as fair. (Applauses)
The announced positions of Kampuchea and Viet Nam after the meeting of the three countries of the former Indochina give, as we see it, the perspective of an acceptable solution for all to the created differendum. That is what we sincerely hope for, though it is well known and I must honestly say it, the solidarity of Cuba with the heroic Viet Nam, Lao and the new Kampuchea. Short after the Conference of Havana, the deeds in Afghanistan produced a new commotion in our ranks. What for some it was just the expression of the right of the Afghan people to request solidarity aid to defend itself from external aggressions that stirred and used the internal conflict, for others it was an unacceptable intervention. Almost in the same area and at the same time, in spite of the efforts that together with other Heads of State we made to prevent it, the Iran-Iraq conflict began. Confronting in a so far irreconcilable battle, two important and respectable members of the Movement what shook the very bases of our necessary cohesion. Recently, the Organization of the African Unity, which has coordinated the efforts of Africa after the defeat of colonialism, began having some difficulties that, for a number of reasons, have prevented them from holding their meetings lately and, which only until recently seem to begin to be overcome. This brief summary of events that have served imperialism to continue trying to disperse and destroy this Movement that contest its policy and questions its hegemony comes to show, distinguished President and esteemed Heads of State and Government, that if confronting the forces that threaten peace and the remnants of colonialism and the not yet defeated power of imperialism is never easy, that battle is even more difficult and harder if it has to be waged when our forces are breaking apart with disunion. That is the reason why it was necessary for us, without diminishing our endeavor to attain peace, and our permanent struggle for independence and development during these three years, more than once, to claim for the attention of the Movement towards the urgent task of reconstructing our unity and heal our own wounds. It has not been our intention to tire the attention of the Heads of State and Government by making a detailed recount of our work during this period. They and their delegations have a detailed written report in which we render our accountability. In this address I will just refer to fundamental issues. Before the events of December 1979, when we saw the contradictions between the Afghan Revolution and some of its neighbors threatened to interfere our unity, we made the necessary efforts with all the parts involved in this situation in order to prevent the exacerbation of the conflict and future complications. However our efforts focused on Afghanistan and Pakistan. During the celebration of the VI Summit in Havana, we managed to arrange a meeting between the two illustrious statesmen who presided both states, understanding that if an agreement between them was attained, the necessary conditions allowing for the return to the necessary political stability in the area would be achieved as well as the friendly relations of Afghanistan with its neighboring countries.
Similar efforts were made with representatives of other countries in the area. We were striving for these goals in spite of the sympathy and solidarity of Cuba towards the Afghan Revolution which we have not ceased to express and have never hidden. We did not attain the necessary success. That is why, when the event related with the presence of Soviet troops in Afghanistan, we decided to continue the efforts in the search of an honorable and acceptable solution for all the parts involved in the event. Through the Ministry of Foreign Relations of Cuba and other officials, we engaged in the necessary contacts and formalized the efforts. However the conditions for a successful solution were not ripe at that moment. When later we saw that the mediating activity of the Secretary General of the United Nations, by means of the Undersecretary Diego CordovĂŠs, were able to advance in more favorable conditions, we stopped our mediating activity and devoted to support those efforts of the UN of which we expect promising results which will eventually proof useful for the integration and cohesion of our Movement. As for the Iran- Iraq conflict, in which we also try to act from its beginning, we have kept the members of the Movement informed about the efforts of the group that was especially created for it under the mandate of the Meeting of Delhi which, under the presidency of Cuba is integrated by: India, Zambia and the Organization for the Liberation of Palestine. It has not only been the Non-Aligned the one in this endeavor. The work of Olof Palme as a result of a request by the United Nations, and that of the representatives of the Islamic states, integrated by Heads of State and Government, concurred with the Movement in this effort. The activity of the commission of the Non-Aligned Movement and Cuba has been described in the document we endorsed. The fact that so far a satisfactory agreement for the parts has not been attained is a sad sign of the bitterness of that confrontation. But that must not discourage us. I am certain that the Conference will use the presence among us of representatives of Iraq and Iran to take new steps in the way to the necessary reconciliation. The persistence of the war with the participation of the country which on an unanimous agreement during the VI Summit, had been assigned the task of organizing the VII Summit, put the continuation of these meetings in danger. When it was evident that the confrontation would not end before the date expected for the celebration of the VII Summit, I decided, with the support and encouragement of other Heads of State and Government, to take actions that facilitated an honorable and fair solution to this inconvenient. The constructive attitude assumed by Iraq, and particularly by its president, Saddam Hussein, to assume with great understanding and sense of responsibility the proposed solution, allowed us to show the world a prove of our unity, solidarity and intrinsic strength of the Movement of the Non-Aligned Countries. We also have to thank Iraq and its President for the careful preparation they had made to host the VII Summit. No wonder the answer to the consultation we made as for the change of venue to the Heads of State and Government, on approving India as the new host nation, most of them, acknowledging the
selfless attitude of Iraq, approved of giving priority to Bagdad as the possible venue to host the VIII Summit, what should be agreed in this magnum meeting. I also want to express a common feeling of the Heads of State or Government, to also reaffirm here our gratitude to the Government of India and its Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for the prompt and resolute answer she gave when requested by the Movement to assume, in strict time limits, the activities to organize the VII Summit. India has opened its arms with hospitality and affection, confirming this way the disposition it has kept since the days Jawaharlal Nehru contributed with his creative thinking to the foundation of our Movement. The great traditions of India, its struggle against colonialism and imperialism, for independence, development and peace, have granted it a prestige in the international policy that, at the service of our Movement today, increases its strength. The names of Gandhi and Nehru inspire admiration and respect all around the world. The maturity of India, its perseverance and wisdom in the search of rational and peaceful solutions for the problems of our times, its unrestricted adhesion to the principles that support the Movement of the Non-Aligned Countries, give us the confidence that, under the leadership of Indira Gandhi, the Non-Aligned countries will continue to advance in their indispensable role as a bastion of peace, national independence and development, strengthen their cohesion and unity, and will honorably continue to accomplish the duty imposed by the dramatic times we are living. On summarizing before you our efforts in this period, I cannot fail to express our gratitude to the Heads of state or Government. I have been able to find in them all the necessary support. I was able to act, in each case with the consensus, not to say unanimity. The answer in the case of the change of venue could not be faster and total. That proves that the differences of the system or the political conception are compatible among us with full awareness of the principles that guide our action. That unity is each day more necessary. If, when we met in Havana, we were aware about the risks that threatened peace and the attacks the vulnerable economies of the underdeveloped countries were suffering, we were hardly imagined that a few months later the world’s scenario would turn even worse, and that the political and economic perspectives would become even riskier and bitter. It is not an apocalyptical vocation that leads us to consider that as never before has the world been closer a catastrophe that, due to its nuclear character, is meant to be definitive and that, as never before, famine, underdevelopment, ignorance and disease has extended over millions of human beings. The dangers of war that already existed when we met in 1979 rapidly increased when, the new President of the United States decide to impose, as a condition for peace, the acceptance of the military supremacy of his country and the alliance its heads. The breaking of distension – threat we all stood against during the VI Summit, became a disastrous in the new conditions of world politics. The ongoing armamentism we rejected in Havana abruptly reemerged, increasing in 1982, to unprecedented figures of annual
military expenses. The threat of covering Europe with missiles and turn it into a local scenario for the beginning of a new world drama, has gained a new impulse. I am certain that we all understand that for us in this Delhi meeting there is not a more urgent task than that of putting at the service of peace all the force we represent in world politics since we constitute most of the countries of the international community. We have to commit the big nuclear powers not to be the first to use such devastating weapons. We have to urge the main protagonists of a possible nuclear engagement, the representatives of the powerful military pacts that antagonize at a planetary scale, to quit any idea of supremacy, to immediately begin the negotiations humanity is requesting, to accept military balance at the lower levels possible as a threshold of the universal and total disarmament, which is the only and definite guarantee against war. The danger of war threatens us, as for citizens of the world, but it also concerns us, peoples who aspire to affirm or conquer as the case may be, our national independence and to develop our battered economies. Because the policy that is based on thoughtless pretences of military supremacy is the same that originates in the Middle East, in the south of Africa, in Central America, situations against which the Movement has raised its voice during this year I am reporting to the Summit Meeting. We were all horrified and shocked by the horrendous military invasion to the south of Lebanon and the treasonous invasion to Syria, the genocidal attack on Beirut and the cruel slaughtering at Sabra and Satilla. The heroic behavior of the Palestinian combatants and the Lebanese patriots admired the world for their insurmountable bravery. Never before the Palestinian cause seemed more just than in contrast with the repulsive brutality of its adversaries. Humanity will forget neither the heroism of the victims nor the barbarity of the aggressors. It is dramatic that the Hebrew people, who arose compassion and sympathy in the world when Hitler threatened to exterminate them has been led by Zionism to engage in this insane genocide. That is the reason why in Israel itself there is a claim for peace and punishment to those responsible of those murders. But all that would not have been possible if from an imperialist world center, we all identify, the Israeli aggressors had not received the weapons that made that crime possible. The despicable irresponsibility of the Beguin and the Sharon can only exist as a result of such a reproachable and confessed strategic alliance between Israel and the United States. The Movement could not have, in the eyes of such a tragic massacre, the attitude of an impassible spectator. With the support of all the Heads of State or Governments, we appealed to the international public opinion, and on its behalf Cuba spoke before the Security Council of the United Nations and the General Assembly. Accomplishing my instructions as President of the Movement, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, comrade Isidoro Malmierca, carried the solidarity message of the Non-Aligned Counties to the under- siege city of Beirut. The Palestinian tragedy has served to confirmed in every corner of the world, the support, not only of the Non-Aligned Movement, but of other important forces of the international
community to the Palestinian cause represented by the OLP, to the right of the Palestinians to return to their land, to the exercise of full self-determination, to the creation of an independent state and to the recognition of the OLP as the only and legitimate representative of its people. I am certain that the Conference will reaffirm with all the necessary strength, that universal demand. Also in the south of Africa, as we expected, it was necessary to exercise the permanent solidarity with the people of Namibia and the organization that represents it, the SWAPO. The government of Pretoria emulates that of Israel to outstand as one of the most ominous in the international politics. It not only exploits, discriminates and oppresses the 20 million Africans in the so called South African Republic. It not only stubbornly opposed to give Namibia its independence, but also to preserve its dominance in Southern Africa, threatens, pressures, blackmails and attacks the countries in the Front Line and other neighboring countries, pretending through terror, to prevent them from supporting the South African patriots and the Namibians who so heroically fight for their rights and liberation. Along with supporting UNITA in Angola and the counterrevolutionaries that armed by them act in Mozambique, they moved on to shamelessly attack Angola and Mozambique and the reprisal raids against the small and defenseless country of Lesotho. The South African Nazi-racists reached out their hand to Seychelles in an adventure in which its mercenaries and soldiers intended to overthrow the progressive Government of that sovereign and Non-Aligned country. Namibia did not miss the growing support of the Movement in this triennial period we are analyzing. We also gave our militant solidarity to Angola, Mozambique, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Zambia. But on condemning the leaders of South Africa, we all knew that their action would not be possible without the support if it were not for the protection, aid and encouragement they receive from the United States. The Movement condemned the North American vetoes that allowed South Africa to escape from international sanctions. And we are sure that the VII Summit will also condemn the United States’ pretence to establish a linkage between the necessary and undelayable retreat of the South African troops from Namibia where they are opposing the decisions and principles of the international community, and the permanence in Angola of the internationalist Cuban troops that were summoned there by its legitimate Government with the support and approval of the V Summit Conference of Colombo to defend the territorial integrity of the Angolan nation. The government of the United States has systematically pretended, by means of different high level missions, to pressure Angola and the countries in the Front Line that supports it, to accept the false thesis of the so called “linkage�. In all cases they have receive a total rejection. Angola and Cuba through the declaration of their respective Ministers of Foreign Relations, in February 1982, have stated that the full independence of Namibia, along with the total and unconditional withdrawal of the South African troops and the termination of all the aggressions and threatens against Angola, would create the conditions, so that by means of its sovereign right, Angola decided with Cuba the progressive withdrawal of the Cuban troops in the times agreed by both sides. Needless to say that Cuba - on whose
behalf allow me to talk in this moment - will always accept without any hesitation, the sovereign decision of Angola. The Non-Aligned Movement can be pleased, because in these three years of test for the peoples of Southern Africa, of persistent pressure against Namibia and of brutal actions from South Africa, the SWAPO, the countries of the Front Line, the African National Congress that leads the struggle of millions of oppressed and discriminated blacks in South Africa against Apartheid have not missed the active solidarity of the Non-Aligned Movement. On condemning South Africa, not for one moment we have forgotten their government counts on the support from the United States which considers it as a strategic factor in the policy they intend to impose. Neither have we forgotten that South Africa benefits from a privilege economic, technological and military collaboration it receives, not only from North America, but also from other western countries. We are certain that the VII Summit will reaffirm this traditional policy of the Movement. The North American aggressiveness against Lybia, that leads the United States to commit true acts of war against that member country, creates a new dangerous zone in Africa and provokes our strongest protest. At the moment of examining these problems of Africa in the Summit, we will not have with us the representatives of the Arabian Saharawi Democratic Republic. Their absence is one of the results of the discrepancies within the OAU. It is another point on which I am aware there are differences of criteria, but as far as Cuba concerns, I cannot fail to express that the Arabian Saharawi Democratic Republic and the POLISARIO Front can count on or sympathy and solidarity and we hope for their incorporation to the Movement as soon as possible since we consider their cause to be just. These three years we are discussing here, Central America has also become a dangerous point for world peace and a center of death and eventual military aggressions. In the VI Summit we welcomed the Sandinistas defeaters of Somoza as brothers who gladly joined our task. But the wrong and senseless policies of those who have made the universal peril of war get even worse, intend to turn Central America and the Caribbean into a scenario derived from the East – West confrontation. They want the world to believe that what happened in Nicaragua and what is still happening in El Salvador and Guatemala is not the result of decades of increasing protest and of never interrupted struggles that the starved peoples, the pejoratively called banana- republics, tired of so much tyranny , exploitation and humiliation, the peasants without land, the hungry and jobless men and women, and even the adolescent without schools, raising for justice, but the result of the mean stalking of Moscow, by means of Cuba, to manipulate those peoples. In this way the North American interventionism in Central America, which began and persists since way before the October Revolution of 1917 and that preceded by some decades the Cuban Revolution, the Yankee support to genocide in El Salvador, the
collaboration with the sinister Rios Montt’s tyranny, similar to the one they always gave to Somoza’s tyranny, the efforts to use Honduras as a front of a North American intervention led to crush the Nicaraguan Revolution, pretend to be justified with pretexts extracted from the arsenals of McCarthyism, already rejected by the declaration of Mexico, Panamá, Venezuela and Colombia. The Movement of the Non-Aligned Countries has just condemned in the Ministerial Meeting of the Bureau of Coordination, in Managua, all those mendacious interpretations and clearly pointed out who is to assume the responsibility for the explosive situation that persists today in Central America and the Caribbean. The Central American and the Caribbean peoples stand for peace and for a negotiated solution that allows them to have access to full independence in democratic conditions. The negotiated solution to the constant blood shedding in El Salvador was proposed by Mexico and France in an irrefutable project. The peaceful solution to the regional problems was advanced by the presidents of Mexico and Venezuela and reaffirmed by their chancellors together with those from Panamá and Colombia at the recent meeting in the island of Contadora. That is why the meeting of the movement in Managua, far from all signs of partiality and sectarianism pointed at the United States as the responsible for the situation in that area and for not to finding a peaceful solution. Cuba, on the other hand, has had to reinforce its defenses and train another half million citizens as a complement of the Revolutionary Armed Forces, due to the continue and provocative threats of the President of the United States against our country with the successive Secretaries of States Haig and Shultz and the Secretary of Defense Weinberger in the chorus. The terms have been so precise and threatening that leave no room for doubt. The decision of the present Yankee administration to appeal to any means to punish Cuba is openly proclaimed. ¿Why punishing it? ¿Maybe because our country, with modest resources, but with a deep sense of social justice has dignified men as never before and met their needs for education, health, culture, employment and wellbeing ?¿Or because Cuba remains invariably faithful to the revolutionary movement , to the principle of solidarity among the peoples, to the decisive and firm struggle against colonialism, fascism and racism? ¿Maybe because our country has been able to practice an unyielding policy of cooperation with the Third World countries coming to even shedding its blood for the just causes of other peoples?¿Maybe because we do not have a price? ¿Maybe because we do not give up our principles? ¿or maybe because we do not kneel nor will we ever do, before the modern barbarians of our times? The imperialist show a feeling of hatred and impotency before a small industrious people who leads a modest and honorable life like the Cuban people ¿How to kill an example? ¿How to destroy a moral power? ¿How to lower a flag that has already withstood the hostility of seven North American administrations?
Twenty three years has lasted the illegal and criminal economic blockade of the Yankee imperialism against Cuba, and unprecedented fact in the world. The North American naval base in Guantanamo is still there with the only purpose of humiliating our people. Spy airplanes of the United States fly permanently around Cuba and, in some occasions, shamelessly violate our air space. Even worse, we have known through diverse reliable sources, that the new Administration of the United States has instructed the CIA to renew the plans to eliminate the leaders of the Cuban revolution physically, especially its President ¿What else could be expected from such unscrupulous government? ¿And what is new about these cynical imperialist practices?¿Was it not already practiced in the past and even tried to carry it out in a number of occasions other presidents, as confirmed by the United States Senate itself? Any attempt however, will be useless; our revolution do not depend on individuals, it depends on ideas, and ideas cannot be assassinated. (Applauses) Though we want peace in the region and work for it, we will not yield before threats of any kind. We can assure this VII Summit that the Salvadorian revolutionaries will not be militarily defeated; we can express our conviction that Nicaragua will not be bowed, we can categorically reassure that Cuba could be exterminated, but never intimidated of defeated. As we said 30 years ago: “¡First our island will sink in the sea before we consent to be slaves to anyone”! (Applauses) Dozens of members of the United States Senate have criticized the policy of threat and the interventionist intentions that were also rejected in the successive consultations to the US citizens. The Movement, for sure will continue, in the VII Summit, the assumed position about these problems during the period we informed. Our solidarity action should also be extended to the small but courageous Grenada, a permanent object of the pressures and actions of the imperialists; to the new and revolutionary Republic of Suriname today a victim of mercenary threats and economic blockades, defamatory campaigns and maneuvers to isolate it; to the just claims of the Panamanian people and Government so that the agreements that give back the Canal Zone to Panama be respected; to the efforts of Belize to consolidate its independence and its territorial integrity; and to the historic demand of Puerto Rico that is and will be a Latin American country due to its history, its culture, its language and its geography which they pretend to bind permanently to the colonial government of the United states. Accomplishing the mandate of different Summit conferences, we have defended at the United Nations the right of the Puertorrican people to self-determination and the independence they have been denied by the United States. We have no doubt the Movement approves of these positions. Unfortunately there is a problem that confronts two Third World countries in our region. One of them Guyana, a distinguished member of the Movement, and the other, Venezuela, that has expressed its wish to join its ranks. We fervently hope and expect that this
differendum be solved by means of negotiations abiding by the principles that the NonAligned Movement holds. It must be our firmest purpose to work in that direction. The colonial war of Mrs. Thatcher and her Government against the right of Argentina to exercise its territorial sovereignty on the Malvinas Islands, right acknowledge by the Movement since its very foundation, motivated the Non-Aligned countries with the attacked country. Cuba, in spite of the political and ideological differences that distinguish it from the Argentinean government did not hesitate to support the just demand of that noble people. We could inform the member countries that the events in the Malvinas constituted a relevant moment in the development of a Latin American consciousness, in the consolidation of the unity of that which Martí called “Our America”, as opposite to “the other America” as he called the “brutal and turbulent North that despises us”. (Applauses) The colonial war in the South Atlantic has constituted an indelible lesson to all Latin Americans. It brought to light the true face of the US imperialism, its despise for the interests of Latin America and the colonial content it attributes to the Treaty they hypocritically they call of Mutual Assistance on which the supposed security of the hemisphere is sustained. That treaty meant the obligation of the United States to join the countries of Latin America in the defense of the sovereign rights of Argentina. Disregarding it, the United States joined the European aggressors to Latin America. In response to that identification with the colonizers, the event of the Malvinas served to join the Latin American peoples among them. (Applauses) The increasing awareness with which the governments and the political forces in the region join together in the defense of their common interests, the search of Latin American solutions for the problems of Latin America and the increasing tendency of the countries in the region to join the Non-Aligned Movement, abandoning the imperial orbit that kept them bound before, mean hope for the future struggle and the best homage to the continental Liberator Simón Bolívar and the Cuban National Hero José Martí, whose respective bicentennial and 130 anniversaries we will be celebrating this year 1983, as a great common remembrance in our lands. The reincorporation of Bolivia to the democratic process is also an expression of the positive changes that are taking place in Latin America. There are other risk areas. In the atmosphere of growing tension and the increase of military forces, the Indian Ocean, to which the North American strategists have assigned a decisive value considering that its relation with an important oil region turns it into their own and inalienable zone, has witnessed the concentration of naval and military forces in its waters and neighboring territories. The strategic base in Diego García Island, taken over from the Mauritius Islands is being widening as a Naval Base of the United States, which also agrees the setting up of new military bases in countries that, as they belong to our Movement, should have refused to give up their territories for those uses.
The Movement of the Non-Aligned Countries has systematically demanded the Indian Ocean to be declared as a peace zone. It has claimed for all naval forces not belonging to the neighboring countries to abandon those waters. The conference of the coastal states on the Indian Ocean should have been held already and has been postponed for 1984 due to the obstacle the United States represent. The Movement has pronounced and should continue to pronounce for the realization of that conference as soon as possible and also support the valuable initiative of the President of Madagascar, Didier Ratsiraka, oriented to proposing the meeting of the presidents of the areas with the same purpose. In this summary of our activities, we want to mention that the Movement in all the international meetings and in every one of its meetings during these three years, has reiterated its support to the Democratic Republic of Korea in the face of the threatens its subjected to and its support to the necessary reunification of the Korean nation which has been divided just to please imperial interests. In the same we have expressed our permanent solidarity with a small country, also divided and occupied. Cyprus. The respect for the unity, territorial integrity and condition of nonAligned country, continues to be a position held by the Non-Aligned Movement. We have been able to see, distinguished President, esteemed Heads of State or Governments, in what way the regional situations that threaten a number of developing countries, most of them part of our Movement turn to be involved, sometimes in an ostensible contradictory way to situations that relate with the warmongering policy and the perils of conflict at a global scale. The same ones who make the military superiority a precondition to negotiate, the same ones who pretend to transform Europe, thousands of times devastated by was, into a new territory planted with atomic missiles : which increase their military budgets at the expense of social security, education, medical assistance for their own people, and of the international aid for development, are the ones who make strategic alliances with Israel, strengthen it and make it more arrogant and assertive; the ones that ally with South Africa, to project in the continent their economic interests and their military strategy: those who, in order to keep their exploitation and control of Central America and the Caribbean, on purpose distort the drama originated by the poverty and backwardness of those peoples blaming for it the East-west conflict. That is why we have said that combating war means for us, members of the Non-aligned Movement, not only opposing the universal holocaust, but defending our immediate political interests, as well. There is and additional cause as important as that one that calls concrete and immediate struggle for peace and distension. Without peace - and we are all aware of that – development is not possible, in the same way that without development, peace could not be possible. While 650 000 million dollars are invested on armaments each year, and those expenses increase at a rate that will take them to 1 500 000 million dollars by the year 1990, to sum up 15 millions of millions in the next 20 years, according the conservative calculations we have made the international financial requirements of development will not be able to be met. The warmongering policy leads to consider our wealth as part of the strategic reserves, to see our coast as elements of the international geopolitics to demand from our governments by flattering or imposition their acquiescence
to their policies at international meetings. The danger of war pervades everything and corrodes everything: national independence, economic sovereignty and the perspectives of development. For that reason, if the survival of humanity, now in jeopardy, did not lead us to wield the motto of peace as the very center of the positions of the Non- Aligned Movement, our urgent economic needs would also lead us to defend peace, as the first and most immediate of our demands. Because, Mrs. President, distinguished Heads of State or Government, the present economic situation of the world has contributed to worsen poverty and the backwardness of the so called Third world countries and so making their aspirations for development more unreachable. In my address, representing the Movement, before the XXXV Period of Sessions of the General Assembly of the United Nations and in other international events as those of the InterParliamentary Union and the World Federation of Trade Unions, in general terms, I have referred to the serious economic and social problems that affect the Third World, their causes and possible solutions. It would be impossible to draw in details before the VII Summit, the dramatic panorama that a scientific study of the world economy shows. However I have considered it necessary to complete those concerns, meditations and ideas stated by me during recent years, making, with the aid of a valuable group of Cuban economists, a systematic exposition of the economic and social crisis of the world and their deep repercussions in the underdeveloped countries. The book which is the result of that effort, constitute a compendium and analysis of thousands of data disperse in publications of the most prestigious international organisms and specialized magazines, which in my opinion can become a useful tool for our immediate work. It is with that spirit and with all modest that I am putting it to the consideration of the Heads of State or Governments and the people who attend this conference. From its pages stems a diagnosis that maybe we all know, but that not always we have been able to fundament in the cold and serene statistics. I am certain that many will find in this book the exact portray of the distressing difficulties they face every day. It is unquestionable the world is going through one of the worst economic crisis in its history. This crisis has struck the underdeveloped countries with a particular severe force. And in fact its effect has been worse for them than for anyone else in the world. This assertion results particularly valid for the underdeveloped oil- importing countries, whose growth rates that had averaged 5,6% between 1970 and 1980 came down to 1,4% in 1981 and probably lower in 1982. A determining factor of that evolution was the fall that the basic products suffered since the end of 1980.
The prices have notably fallen in what concerns sugar, coffee, cocoa, tea, palm oil, coconut oil, sisal, cotton, aluminum and practically all basic products. Even the prices of oil that began to fall at the end of 1981, as a result of the crisis, have decreased even more in the last few weeks as a consequence, among other factors, of the policies of the national oil enterprises of England and Norway that have unleashed a true war of prices. Some calculations reveal that comparing the value reached in 1980, the loses experienced by the underdeveloped oil – importing countries in only two years – 1982, 1982 – sum 29 000 million dollars. With the prices of the basic products falling and those of the manufactures and oil staying high, the inevitable outcome has been a worsening of the conditions of unequal exchange that affect the most of the Third World. In order to illustrate this growing and unequal exchange between developed and underdeveloped countries, including the incidence of the oil prices, here are some examples: In 1960 with the sale of a ton of sugar, 6,3 tons of oil could be bought. In 1982, with the same amount of sugar only 0.7 tons of oil could be purchased. In 1960 with a ton of coffee, 37,3 tons of fertilizers could be bought, in 1982, with the same amount of coffee, only 15,8 tons of fertilizers could be obtained. In 1959 with the income from the sale of 6 tons of jute fiber, a 7-8 tons truck could be bought. By the end of 1982, 26 tons of jute fiber was necessary to by the same truck. In 1959 with the sale of a ton of copper wire, you could buy 39 X –Ray tubes for medical use. By the end of 1982, with the same ton only three X- Ray tubes could be obtained. This relation of exchange is the same for all the basic products we export. We must add to that the increasing protection of the Western markets against the products coming from the Third World. In addition to the traditional trade barriers, there is a wide array of other non trade barriers. In these conditions the, extraordinary increase of the foreign debt of the underdeveloped world cannot surprise us for in 1982 it went over 600 000 million dollars, and at the present pace, according to some econometric projections, in 1990 it would reach the incredible figure of 1 473 000 million dollars. But the amortization problems have also worsened with the service of the debt. The setting up of high rates of interests by the United States in an irresponsible and without consultation way seeking selfish national economic interests, had its direct impact on the Third World whose service of the foreign debt reached, by the end of 1982, the incredible figure of 131 000 million dollars.
This has come to e point in which the underdeveloped countries have to acquire new debts with the only purpose of accomplishing the obligations of the debt itself. This gigantic debt that absorbs what the underdeveloped countries get from their exports, without having as a counterpart a flow of real resources that contribute to development, represents by itself a denounce and a conclusive evidence of the irrationality and inequity of the present world economic order. Agriculture in the underdeveloped world also faces a serious crisis. The fast increase of the population together with the deterioration of the fertility of the soils, and the loses as a result of erosion, desertification and other forms of degradation, allow us to envision even worse difficulties by the end of this century. If the present average of less than 0.4 hectares of arable land per inhabitant in the Third World is insufficient, in the year 2000 this average will be less than 0.2. Between 1975 and 1980 the per capita of the production of food reached a minimum growth of 0.3% per year. That of the developed capitalist countries grew 8% per capita in ten years. On the other hand a gross decrease in the production of food per inhabitant has occurred in 70 underdeveloped countries. In order to keep the above-mentioned minimum availability of food, the underdeveloped countries have had to increase their imports. Only in 1980, the value of those imports reached 52 300 million dollars. More than eight year have passed ( 1974) since the celebration in Rome of the World Food Summit, summoned urgently before the massive famine and the alarming decrease of the food reserves registered in those years. On that occasion, the Summit postulated solemnly that in 10 years famine and undernourishment should be eradicated from the face of the earth and called nations to collaborate in a great endeavor of international alimentary security. Today the failure of that effort to reach those objectives which are so primary and essential, to get every human being to have enough food so he can develop his potentialities for the leading of a healthy and full life, is more evident than ever. Industrialization is a decisive process for the economic development of the Third World. No doubt it means in strategic terms the creation of the main material and technological basis to have access to development. The classic scheme that regards agriculture and the primary products as an adequate specialization for underdeveloped countries and leaves the industrial production in the hands of the developed countries, is nothing but an attempt to eternalize a pattern that, due to its irrationality, inequality and unfairness is firmly rejected by our countries. The very ONUDI forecasts, that if the present tendencies keep, the underdeveloped countries with more than 80% of the world’s population, would reach by the year 2000 only 13,5% of the industrial production of the world.
The statements concerning the supposedly positive contribution the transnational companies can make to the development of the Third World are not new. The Third World countries are being proposed a transnationalized model of development, consisting of turning them into “exporting platforms” of manufactured products for the world market. An evidence of the results of this kind of transnational model of development is shown in the following data: In the decade of 1970 for each new dollar invested in the underdeveloped countries, the transnational companies sent approximately 2, 2 dollars to their countries of origin. As refer to the US transnational companies, between 1970 and 1979, invested 11 446 million dollars and repatriated as profit 48 663 million dollars, what means 4, 25 dollars extracted from the Third World per each new dollar invested during that period. It is obvious that the industrialization of the Third World cannot be a sad byproduct left by the transnational companies in exchange for the brutal exploitation of the human resources of the underdeveloped countries, the depleting of their natural resources and the contamination of their territorial spaces. It has been rightfully said Mrs. President, distinguished Heads of State or Government, that more than for the growth indexes, the true development should be measured by how much can be called “quality of life”. But when we try to measure the factors that indicate the quality of life, considering not only their dramatic present, the image we obtain of what the underdeveloped countries will become in the future seems even more impressing. In 1980 three out of four inhabitant of our planet lived in an underdeveloped country. With the present rate of growth, from 1990 on, 95 million inhabitants will add each year to the population of the underdeveloped countries. From now and until the year 2000, the population of the Third World countries will grow at a rate three times that of the developed countries. In other words more than 95% of the population growth in the years to come until the year 2000 will take place in our countries. Some years ago, the year 2000 seemed the indicator of a far future of unpredictable events, but two thirds of the world population by the year 2000 is already living in today’s world. The children that are born every day in our countries will be the overwhelming majority of the adults by that time; the children that by the year 2000 will be less than 15 years old will be born in two year’s time. The effort we make today to protect them, to prevent their death and disease, to give them food, shelter, medicine, clothing and education, will conform the basic human qualities of that decisive percentages of the future population of the planet. However, according to the present tendencies ¿What kind of world will we give those children? ¿What kind of life expects those 5 000 million of human beings who will have to feed in our underdeveloped world and who will also need to wear shoes, to dress, to protect from the cold, get an education and strive to get a decent life at least worthy of the human condition?
By the year 2000, in the developed countries, the annual average income rate per capita will be 8 500 dollars, while in the underdeveloped countries it will stay at less than 980 dollars. The values of the gross production per capita that in 1975 were for the underdeveloped world 11 times less than that of the developed world, by the year 2000 will increase its relation of inferiority more than 14 times. We will be poorer countries. At its present rate of growth, the poorer countries will need between 2000 and 4000 year to fill the gap that separates them from the most developed capitalist countries. The alimentary situation is another index of quality of life that has a negative impact in the underdeveloped countries. According to recent data from FAO, about 40 million people, half of them children, died each year due to undernourishment and famine. If we decided to keep a minute of silence for each of the persons that in 1982 died of famine- related causes, we would not be able to welcome the arrival of the XXI century because we would still be silent. In 1985, 80 underdeveloped countries, more than 10% of the population was undernourished. In 49 of them the number was more than 15%. While as we have said each year dozens of millions of people literally die of hunger in the poorer countries, the sanitary statistics of the capitalist developed countries reveal a progressive growth of the higher income layers of the population, of the incidence of diseases derived, at least partially, from the excessive consumption of food. The future prospects, though they do not always coincide, are equally frightful. FAO for example considers that in 10 years, 150 million people will add up to those who at present duffer from famine and malnutrition. The World Bank on the other hand, considers that the figure of the undernourished will rise from the 600 million by the mid of the decade of the 1970’s to the impressing figure of 1 300 million by the year 2000. UNICEF estimates that one out of five children in the world will be undernourished. While in the developed countries life expectancy is between 72 to 74 years, in the underdeveloped world that figures do not go over 55 years. In the countries of western and eastern Africa, life expectancy is between 43 and 45 years. When in a developed country a man at 45 years has reached the plenitude of life, that age is the oldest their citizens can expect to life. According to data from the World Health Organization, infant mortality, which in 1980 fluctuated between 10 to 20 dead children out of every one thousand for the developed countries as a whole, in the group of the poorer countries that figure was ten times bigger. UNICEF has expressed that reality in a graphic and dramatic way: Out of the 120 million children who were born in 1980, year that was proclaimed by the international community as the “International Day of Children�, 12 million, one out every ten, died before the end of 1981, and 95% of the deaths happened in underdeveloped countries.
Nine out of ten children in the underdeveloped countries never receive in their first year of life the most elementary health service not to mention the immunization against the most common diseases that affect children. The Executive Director of UNICEF said that in 1981 the cost of life of a child did not go over 100 dollars a year. This sum, wisely spent, on each of them, would cover the basic sanitary assistance, the elementary education, prenatal assistance and the improvement of the diet of the poorest children in the world and would guarantee hygienic conditions and water supply for them. For the international community it meant a high price to pay. That is why in 1981 every two seconds a child paid that price with his life. Malaria kills a million children each year in the African continent, however it is estimated that the total cost of the campaign against malaria would be of 2000 million dollars that is, a sum humanity spends on weapons every 36 hours. Unemployment and underemployment are two serious problems that characterize the social situation of the underdeveloped countries. According to recent estimations by the ILO, the chronically unemployed and underemployed workers in the Third World are 500 million, figure that means 50% of the economically active population. It is kind of a paradox that in a world where poverty exists and where millions of human beings cannot meet their most elementary needs, the productive capacity of men cannot be fully employed. In addition, in these countries forced by poverty, concentrate 98% of the children under 15 years of age who work usually in extreme conditions of exploitation and lack of rights. If children in our countries die of famine, if their health lacks protection, if they do not have a place to shelter, if when reaching youth they cannot find a job ¿What can we imagine would be the educational level they reach during their precarious existence? UNESCO estimates that in 1980 there were in the world 814 million illiterate adults, most of them in underdeveloped countries. In the decade of the 60’s a period that witnessed a fast development of science and knowledge, the number of those who could not read or write increased by 100 million. According to data from UNESCO, 48% of the adults living at present in underdeveloped countries are illiterate. Ten of those countries concentrate 425 million. In 23 of the poorer, than 70% of their adults cannot read or write. We do not mean, Mrs. President and esteemed Heads of States or Government to tire you with the insistence on this drama. To resume it we have included a chart in our book that could offer a I sinister but realistic image of the underdeveloped world. In the Third World there are: Hungry people …………………………………………………….. more than 500 million
With a life expectancy under 60 years of age……… 1 700 million Having no opportunity of receiving any medical assistance ……………………………………….. 1 500 million Living in conditions of extreme poverty …………….. more than 1000 million Unemployed and underemployed in the underdeveloped world……..more than 500 million With a year income of less than 150 dollars ……………… 800 million Illiterate adults………………………………….. 814 million Children with no schools or the possibility of attending one…………….. more than 200 million Lacking access to safe and stable sources of water…………………………… 2000 million
This is a drama whose solution corresponds to us all. The proof that most of all these l this elementary health problems of education and other of social character can be solved is the case of our country. If along with deep structural changes, we are able to have fair economic relations among developed and underdeveloped countries as the ones we have in that field with the socialist community. Cuba, in spite of underdevelopment, and the brutal economic blockade imposed to us by the United States for more than 20 years, and the relations of unequal exchange that part of its foreign trades suffers that adds to the problems that affect the part of our economy that depends on the relations with the developed capitalist world, has achieved in the course of a few year, extraordinary an progress in the field of health, education, culture and other essential areas of the life of our people. At present our country has 17026 physicians to reach an average of 1 per 576 inhabitants; it has 48 hospital beds per 10 000 inhabitants; has reduced infant mortality to 17,3 for every 1 000 born alive, a similar average to that of some developed countries and above some of them and life expectancy is already 73,5 years. The immunization programs against the main infectious diseases cover 100% of the infant population. Diseases such as malaria and poliomyelitis have been eradicated. The cases of tuberculosis, leper, tetanus, diphtheria, pertussis, typhodea fever and others have been controlled of significantly reduced, and the possible death by acute diarrhea have been reduced to minimum. The Hemorrhagic dengue fever, which was deliberately introduced in our country just like other diseases by Yankee imperialism, was also eradicated. Illiteracy that affected 30% of the people was eradicated in record time. A 6 th grade level has been reached as the minimum for the whole population, being the average even higher and at present, we are working to raise that minimum to 9th grade.
One hundred percent of children attend schools, more than 90% complete 9 th grade; 425 000 youth have graduated of technical and professional education, another 257 000 as teachers, and 155 000 at universities. Our higher education enrolment is 200 000 students in a population smaller than 10 million inhabitants. Unemployment, racial discrimination, women discrimination, begging, prostitution, gambling, drugs and slums have been eradicated. At present more than 14 000 Cuban civilians, which includes doctors, health personnel, professors, teachers, economists, engineers, technician from other specialties and qualified workers offer their service in more than 30 Third World countries, for free in most of the cases (Applauses). More than 150 000 Cubans has accomplished internationalist service in the last 10 years. On the other hand more than 19 000 youth from 80 Third World countries study in our country, for an average of foreign students per inhabitant higher than in any other country of the world. This comes to show how much can be achieved in the vast and almost unexplored field of collaboration among countries of the underdeveloped world. In my address to the General Assembly of the United Nations, in 1979, to report about the VI Summit, I presented what could be considered a number of demands of the Third World in the face of a situation that by then began to get worse. I also stated there the need to reorient to the Third World a flow of additional resources of no less than 300 000 million dollars at the real value in 1977 for the next 10 years. In the light of the present situation all those demands became insufficient. Whenever I reflect on the present economic crisis that affects the Third World in its devastating projection towards the future and I relate it with the arm race unleashed by imperialism, I sometimes wonder. Why does the United States arm beyond any limit, beyond any rational need of all apparent logic? Why do they not only produce new carriers of nuclear weapons, neutron bombs, new systems of mass destruction, new chemical and bacteriological weapons, but also new aircraft carriers, new armored ships, new destroyers, new and sophisticated naval, aerial, and terrestrial conventional weapons? Why do they create new rapid deployment forces? Why do they seek and establish new military bases in all continents? Why do they create deposits of weapons everywhere possible? Why do they pressure their allies in the capitalist developed countries who share the exploitation of the Third World so that they invest much more on military expenses and arm up to their teeth? Would it be only to fight their adversaries in the Warsaw Treaty? ÂżOr would it be that imperialism, maybe aware of the economic and social realities of the Third World shaken by poverty and a limitless exploitation and crisis that have been imposed, is preparing militarily to impose the Yankee order and peace, fighting underdevelopment, hunger, ignorance, lack of health services and elementary means of life and the subsequent rebellion and social disorder it brings about, with the bayonets of their soldiers, the cannons of their armored ships and the bombs of their planes that guarantee for them oil, and the indispensable raw materials?
Those extraordinary military preparations of conventional kind aim directly at the Third World. On the contrary, what is the use of most of those means of war in the present times? As we said at the United Nations, bombs can kill the hungry, the sick, the ignorant, but they cannot kill hungriness, disease and ignorance. As can be seen, there is a dramatic link between peace and development. With only a third of the 650 000 million dollars spent in military expenses in one year and of the 15 millions of millions that will be spent in the next decades at the present rate of those expenses, the financial resources would be more than enough to solve the problems of economic and social underdevelopment in the world. This would contribute on the other hand to alleviate considerably the problems of the developed capitalist countries themselves. In the face of the nuclear tragedy that threatens us, the drama of the underdevelopment and poverty that oppresses us and the economic and social crisis that whips us, the only way out worthy of men is fighting. And that is the message I convey at finishing my condition of President of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries. Fighting! (Applauses) To fight for peace without resting, to improve international relations, to stop the arms race, to reduce dramatically military expenses, and to demand that a part of those numerous resources be destined to the development of the Third World. To fight without rest to stop the unequal exchange, which depletes the real income of exports puts on our economies the payload of the inflation generated by the capitalist developed countries and ruins our peoples. To fight against protectionism since it multiplies the trade and the non-trade barriers and prevents the access of our basic products and manufactures to the markets. To fight so that the foreign debt be eliminated for the great number of countries that has no possibilities of paying it and that the load of its service be drastically reduce for those who under new conditions could meet its obligations. To fight for urgent measures to stop or compensate for the deterioration of the export incomes of the underdeveloped countries and others of direct assistance for the balance of their BALANZA DE PAGO. To fight for the establishment of a new equitable, stable and universal international financial and monetary system that reflects in its credits and voting the different categories of countries, and not the economic power of some of its members; able to act with a truly multilateral sense and not as a response to pressures of the transnational bank and a group of capitalist powers; and that it can respond consequently to the magnitude and,
structural character of the problems with the balance of payments of the underdeveloped countries. To fight for the development, with international aid, of plans so that each country can selfprovide with food to a maximum possible; for seeking immediate solution to the acute deficit of food in certain regions of the world by means of an important flow coming from the world’s surplus transferred in the form of donations, soft credits, and sell at special prices; for creating an awareness of the inevitable need – if we want to defeat hunger and rural unemployment and underemployment – of deep socioeconomic and structural changes, like the agrarian reform, that allow for the implementation of superior ways of agricultural production and for encouraging also with the international cooperation programs to prevent the erosion of soil, desertification, deforestation and other form of soil degradation, protecting the water sources in each country. To fight for an industrialization that responds to our interests and be able to integrate to the rest of the economy setting up the basis of development; to prevent the transnational enterprises and the foreign private investment from controlling, and in fact execute, a deforming industrialization process of the Third World. To fight in every one of our countries, for the adoption of measures of control and limitation of the activities of the transnational enterprises by having full sovereignty over our natural resources, including the right of nationalization. To fight for a stable and definite solution of the energetic needs of the Third World, taking into account, besides oil, the joint use of other sources of renewable energy and the indispensable international cooperation for its development. To fight for guaranteeing, together with the indispensable flow of substantial resources derived from the reduction of military expenses and from other sources, a contribution of financial, technological and human resources that contribute to the solution of the complex problems above analyzed. Many countries that do not have enough financial means – among them a group of underdeveloped countries – could participate by giving other resources according to their possibilities as is the assistance by sending doctors, engineers, projectists, professors and other technicians for free or under favorable paying conditions. To fight consequently for a solid and coherent movement of cooperation among underdeveloped countries. To fight for the rescue and implementation of the most positive aspects of our demand for a New International Economic Order fighting those who pretend to negatively influence, and to continuing demanding a process of global negotiation that really serves as a frame for the discussion and search for solutions to our most difficult problems. To fight to raise awareness among all the countries of the Third world of the need to promote indispensable internal structural changes and take the measures leading to raise the living conditions of the people which form part of any genuine process of development,
especially those related to the redistribution of income, the generation of employment, health, housing and education. To fight with no delay to face the present critical situation of health in the Third World by means of a massive mobilization of national and international financial and human resources for such endeavor. To strongly fight and with the indispensable international aid to develop programs against illiteracy, for the schooling of all our children, to raise the educational levels, for the massive training of technical and qualified personnel, for the access of our peoples to university education and for the development of the rich and centenary potentialities of the cultures of our peoples fighting all forms of cultural dependence, cultural colonialism or other deformations of our cultures. To fight for increasing the prestige, the authority of the United Nations and its specialized agencies; to give it our full support in the fight for peace and security for all the peoples, for a fair international order and for the solution of the tragic problem of underdevelopment that affects the overwhelming majority of the countries. The existence of an organization such as the United Nations with a solid influence and growing power is each time more indispensable for the future of the world. To fight steadfastly for the closest unity of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and all the states in the Third World (Applauses). Not to allow anything or anyone to divide us. To salve by means on negotiations and political ways the problems that occasionally put some of our countries to fight. Let us conform an indestructible sheaf of peoples to demand our noble aspirations, our legitimated interests, our irrenunciable right to survive as countries of the Third World and as inseparable part of humanity, Submission and pessimism before difficulties have never been our characteristic. We have been able to face difficult and complex situations in these last years with an unitary sense, firmness and decision. Together we have strived, together we have fought and together we have attained victory. With that same spirit and determination, we must be ready to wage the most colossal, just, honorable and necessary battle for the life and future of our peoples. Thank you very much (Ovation)