Introduction by the author

Libro "El Diálogo de Civilizaciones"; Fidel Castro Ruz. Introducción por el autor. Discurso pronunciado en Río de Janeiro en la Conferencia de Naciones Unidas sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, el 12 de junio de 1992. Discurso pronunciado al clausurar la “Conferencia Mundial Diálogo de Civilizaciones. América Latina en el siglo XXI: Universalidad y Originalidad”, La Habana, 30 de marzo del 2005.

On August 3, under the title of A Reflection on Hard and Obvious Realities, I published a number of remarks on the prerogatives of power and its effect on human beings and quoted the arguments advanced by Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, Vice-President of the Russian Academy for Geopolitical Affairs and former Secretary of the Council of Defense Ministers of the Community of Independent States and Chief of the Military Cooperation Department of the Russian Federation’s Ministry of Defense. As I indicated on that occasion, Ivashov is a well-informed man whose views are deserving of our people's attention.

            General Ivashov’s analysis, which appeared in a note published by the Russian news agency Ria Novosti last July 24, began by identifying the United State’s economic, financial, technological and military dictatorship in today’s international arena as the chief political tool wielded by that country.

            I will not reiterate General Ivashov’s arguments, which lead him to the conclusion that, in order to neutralize the plans aimed at world hegemony, alternative poles of power must be created. In this connection, I wish only to draw attention to one of his main arguments:

            “Only an alliance of civilizations could oppose the United States’ empire: the Russian civilization whose orbit includes the Community of Independent States (CIS); the Chinese, the Indian, the Islamic and the Latin American civilizations.  It is an immense space where we could create more equitable markets, our own stable financial system, our collective security mechanisms and our philosophy, giving priority to the intellectual development of man in the face of western modern civilization, which emphasizes material goods and measures success by the number of mansions, yachts and restaurants people have.  Our mission is to redirect the world towards justice and intellectual and spiritual growth.”

            The concept of an “alliance of civilizations” where ideas would prevail took me back to an international gathering held in our country in March 2005, titled "Dialogue among Civilizations World Conference. Latin America in the 21st Century: Universalism and Originality".

            Nearly 300 scientists and intellectuals, representatives of social organizations and the media, politicians and religious figures from 29 countries participated in this conference, organized by the Founding Council of the Russian National Glory Centre and the Ministry of Culture and Union of Cuban Writers and Artists, with the purpose of challenging current theories on the clash of civilizations which are grounded in the exclusivist nature of neoliberal globalization, the advocate of a single model which can be confronted by encouraging dialogue among peoples, cultures, creeds and States in search of common responses to the key challenges facing today's world.

            I was invited to make the closing remarks at the conference and, at the event’s closing session, held in Havana's International Convention Centre on March 30, 2005, I delivered an address, or, better, took part in a dialogue with the participants, improvised on the basis of statements and questions they made that day. In my statement, I took up issues that had been addressed at the work sessions and others related to the aim of the conference.

            Because of its length, I did not revise the text of those remarks nor submit it to the press for publication at the time. However, inspired by General Ivashov’s arguments and his reference to an alliance of civilizations, I have reread that address, suppressed a number of paragraphs which did not contribute anything new in essence and touched up a number of details in terms of structure and style. On rereading the text, I was surprised at the extent to which many of my current ideas and concerns were already developed there.

            Because of this, I have asked that the text of that address be reproduced. It is important to stress that I delivered that address on March 30, 2005, nearly two and a half years ago. Over fifteen years ago, I spoke in Rio de Janeiro of man as a species endangered by the destruction of its natural living conditions; today the danger is greater. New and unprecedented problems created by science, technology and deeply-rooted wastefulness are multiplying the political, economic and military risks we face. The essential ideas advanced in the "Dialogue among Civilizations" had already been sown. That’s why I have requested that the speech I made in Rio de Janeiro be published as the first part of this material.

Fidel Castro Ruz

August 25, 2007

 

 

SPEECH GIVEN BY COMANDER IN CHIEF AT THE UNITED NATIONS CONFERENCE ON ENVIRONMENT AND DEVELOPMENT.

 RIO DE JANEIRO, JUNE 12, 1992

 

Mr. Fernando Collor de Mello, President of Brazil;

Mr. Boutros Ghali, Secretary General of the United Nations;

 

An important biological species is endangered due to the accelerated and progressive destruction of its natural living conditions: man.

We are becoming aware of this problem only now when it is almost too late to tackle it.

It is worthwhile indicating that the main responsibility for the brutal destruction of the environment lies with the consumer societies. They are the offspring of the old colonial metropolises and of imperialist policies that also begot the poverty and backwardness which are today the scourge of the overwhelming majority of humanity.

These societies, with only 20 percent of the world population, consume two thirds of the metals and three fourth of the energy produced in the world. They have poisoned oceans and rivers and contaminated the air; they have weakened and opened holes in the ozone layer and saturated the atmosphere with gases that impair climate conditions with catastrophic effects that we are starting to feel.

Forests are disappearing and deserts growing while billions of tons of fertile soil end up in the oceans every year. Numerous species face extinction. Overpopulation and poverty lead to desperate efforts for survival, even at the expense of Nature. The Third World nations cannot be held accountable for this, for only yesterday they were colonies and today they are still exploited and plundered by an unjust world economic order.

The solution cannot be to put off the development of those who need it most. The truth is that everything that today contributes to underdevelopment and poverty is tantamount to a flagrant attack on the ecology. As a result, tens of millions of men, women and children perish every year in the Third World, far more than in each of the two world wars.

The unequal terms of trade, protectionism and the foreign debt are also an assault on the ecology and facilitate the destruction of the environment.

A better distribution of wealth and of the technologies available in the world could spare humanity such devastation. Less luxury and waste in a few countries could bring about a reduction of poverty and hunger in a large part of the planet.

Let’s put an end to the transfer of lifestyles and consumer habits to the Third World that ruin the environment. Let human life be more rational. Let a just international economic order be implemented. Let science work toward a sustainable development without contamination. Let the ecologic debt be paid and not the foreign debt. Let hunger disappear and not man.

Now that the alleged threat of communism no longer exists, neither the pretexts for cold wars, the arms race nor military expenditures, what prevents the immediate use of those resources to foster development in the Third World and to thwart the planet’s ecologic destruction?

            Let selfishness and hegemonism cease, as well as callousness, recklessness and deceit. Tomorrow it will be too late to do what should have been done a long time ago.

            Thanks.

            (Ovation)   

 

 

Speech Given by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz at the closing ceremony of the “World Conference Dialogue among Civilizations. Latin America

in the 21^st Century: Universalism and Originality at the Havana Convention Center on March 30, 2005

 

Dear Friends:

 

     I refer to all the guests coming from other countries and from Cuba.

     I must confess to you that I do not like the word “foreigners”, because it is as if I were addressing you as “Dear Strangers”.

     It is not often that one has the possibility, and the challenge, to meet with a group such as this.  One would have to be, in the first place, a fortune teller to know what one should speak about here.  I have this reputation for talking at length, often going on far too long; such is not my intention this afternoon, even though often times intentions do not match up to results (Laughter); but, I understand, and not because I listened to all the presentation –something that I would have liked very much to do, but because I was fortunate to be provided a summary of the activities and of the various presentations.

     The first thing that occurs to me is to congratulate those who had the initiative of arranging an event such as this, and to give it such a suggestive name, like that of the Dialogue among Civilizations.

     Anyone who is not aware of some of the sessions or the content of your task could have thought that this was all about a group of amateurs exchanging philosophical ideas, or using their time to have interesting exchanges and reflections.

     Based on what I have read, I think that the content of this dialogue is much more lofty and profound than could be deduced from just the name.  It seems to me that you have really participated in a dialogue, although I'm not sure if it was a dialogue among civilizations or by civilizations.

     One must think of the concepts of civilization and wonder, what are civilizations?  From my boyhood and my school days, which was not so long ago (Laughter), it seems like it was just yesterday when I was listening to the first concepts about the world and about history. It was said that this world was civilized, and it was even said that the Europeans had come to this hemisphere to bring us civilization.

     It was also said that it was necessary go to Africa to civilize the Africans, and go all the way to the Pacific region, to what was then called the Indian Ocean to civilize the Indians, and the Indonesians;  a bit further yet and they arrived in China, to civilize China.

     For a long time now we have all heard about Marco Polo. As a boy I also heard of him, of his voyages to China. It is known that there had been a Chinese civilization for a long time, just as there had been an Indian civilization, a civilization there by the Euphrates, several civilizations over there in Mesopotamia, and the strange thing is that all of these happened before the Greek and the Roman civilizations and before European civilization.

     Once I was visiting Africa, and there in South Africa I was invited to a village where a statue had been built to honor a child who had died during one of the anti-apartheid protests. While I was in that place, I reflected on the fact that there was a civilization in Africa, in some places in Africa, when the barbarian tribes were roaming throughout Europe, from one region to another.

     We all know that in Julius Caesar’s day and age he won his glory fighting with his legions against the Barbarian Germanic tribes, and that after vanquishing the Barbaric Frankish tribes he moved on to conquer Gaul, that is, in the Gallic Wars, and he went as far as what today is Great Britain. He even had a wall built in those islands because apparently he was unable to totally dominate some of those peoples, and so they built a wall.  That same Europe –and I hold nothing against the Europeans, on the contrary, I am in favor of peace among them (Laughter), and respect for the dignity of all, and so why wouldn’t I respect the dignity of the Europeans. I look at history because I’m meditating on it. At that time, when fifteen centuries after Julius Caesar’s conquest of Gaul, the Spaniards –partly my kingship–arrived in Mexico, they found there a civilization, a city that was larger than any European city at that time, the city of Mexico, the capital of the Aztecs, Tenochtitlán, a city built on a lake, a masterpiece of engineering, with a prosperous and highly developed agriculture.  It was larger than Paris in both size and population, and possibly larger than Madrid, Lisbon and all those cities, and they went there to bring civilization, to conquer Mexico.

     Well, one of the pretexts that I read by one of the writers of that time, Bernal Díaz del Castillo, is that these people had to be civilized because they made human sacrifices.  And if the people who made human sacrifices had to be civilized, then I think that there are many in this world that still need civilizing.

     I think, for example, that those who bomb cities, terrorize millions of men, women and children and then say that there were civilian casualties need civilizing.  Apart from the civilian casualties which always occur during all bombings, and the Russians know about this better than anyone else, because the Russians lived through the bombings of Leningrad. The Russians endured preemptive attacks. The Russians remember that June 21st when the troops of Adolph Hitler, the armored divisions, bolstered by thousands and thousands of aircraft, hundreds of perfectly equipped divisions, tens of thousands of tanks and cannons, launched a preemptive attack, with no previous warning, on that dark corner of the world called the Soviet Union. The divisions penetrated the territory at full speed, some towards Leningrad, others straight to Moscow and others southwards directly towards Kiev.

     Those of us who have been able to know and admire the great feats of the Russian people know the terrible challenge they had to confront, suddenly, in a matter of hours, while the soldiers from that famous Brest-Litovsk fortress, which so gallantly and heroically defended itself, despite the surprise, were home on leave. And while studying those events we observed something that speaks volumes about the historic values of the Russian people. When everywhere else the news of enemy tanks in the rearguard were the signal to surrender and hoist the white flag, the Russians did not surrender, the Russians did not hoist the white flag.

     Sometimes, one reflects on what might have happened if that people had been mobilized, if the Russian Army and her allies had been in a state of combat alert.  We, an extremely small country, a tiny island here near the powerful neighbor, many times we have had to foresee the dangers and declare ourselves in a state of combat alert!  We are determined not to allow anyone ever to take us by surprise and to catch us off our guard. I am not going to rummage through history nor shall I speak of accountability. The truth is, however, that if the Russian people and her armed forces had been mobilized, I know very well where World War II would have ended; not in Berlin, but in Lisbon.  I dare say this here with every sense of responsibility. I have thought about this many times because I have read many history books about that war, written by people on both sides.  We all know that millions and millions of men and women died; the figure has been given of 15, later 20 and later 27 million people from that multinational Soviet state; then and now as well, of course, Russia is largely a multinational State, but tens of millions died, and I think it was mostly due to the surprise.

     In our country, a great many books were published, even, while great dangers threatened us. We resorted to heroic Russian literature.  And so, books were printed in the hundreds of thousands to instill in our people the idea that when the people fight and when the people resist they can face up to any difficulty.

     I mean that for us that heroism of the Russians is not something that we have read about like the heroism of, let’s say, those who fought in Numancia and Sagunto, against the Roman troops, until the very last man, until the extermination of a population. In this case we have lived together through a part of history, a difficult part. You had lived through it earlier and we have lived through it later, constantly threatened with an invasion. And we were not threatened by the Grand Cayman island lying south of Cuba, with an area of some square kilometers and perhaps 8,000 or 10,000 inhabitants; we have been threatened by a country which 8, 9 or 10 million square kilometers and a populations of almost 300 million, by the power which, from a technical, economic and military point of view, has prevailed over the last 60 years, the United States superpower.  It is a great danger.

     And we were inspired by the deeds of the Soviet people --I must say this, I should not hesitate to call them so--  for we know that the soul of that resistance, the axis of that resistance, the heart of that resistance, was the Russian people,  the heroism of other peoples who fought alongside the Russians notwithstanding.

     Retamar was speaking about the invasion of Russia by Napoleonic troops. Napoleon was a revolutionary, a representative of that great revolution, an undisputable military genius, but a military genius in the midst of a revolution. But, really, without the French Revolution there would have been no Napoleonic military genius. He would have lived his life on his small island of Corsica at that time and nobody would have even heard of Napoleon. But there was a great Revolution, and many leaders emerged from that great revolution, from the struggles, interventions and invasions that everybody knows about.  Leaders are born from the people and, above all, from great social crises.

  It is not men who make history, it is history that makes men or the great figures and personalities; men interpret events, in one way or another, but they are born from history.  We see here the Venezuelan ambassador, our friend Adán (Adam) who bears the name of the first human being who lived on this planet; he represents the country of Bolívar, but as I was saying, without those historical processes, the name Bolívar would be unknown today.

     It was the great crisis, Napoleon's occupation of Spain, the imposition of a French king in that country, a brother of the emperor –who I believe was a bit of a fool– that caused a rebellion, first as an act of loyalty, not by Bolívar but certainly by that society represented at the time by the wealthiest sectors, the ruling sectors.

     But those historical events, that revolution, made it possible that today we know about Bolívar. This would not have been the case if Bolívar had been born 30 years earlier or 30 years later.  The name of Martí would not be known, and we would not know the names of many of histories greatest figures whose reputation, more than their merits, sprang out of historical events. I say this about the great figures: Martí, the moment when he was born the son of a Spanish soldier, both mother and father were Spaniards, he was born with an enormous sensitivity, he was born on this soil at a time of crisis.  Therefore, the great historical events are a product of crises.

     I say this because, history –and there are many interpretations of history– is made up of a series of events and advances from one era to another.  The history of which we speak, the history of those civilizations which sprang up before the Greeks and the Romans, are teaching us many things.

     I think that the history of man is a history of wars, it’s a history of conquests, it’s a history of some peoples dominating other peoples, of some groups being dominated by other groups.  At a certain moment empires emerged, but the Roman Empire was not the first one, for there were other empires before the Romans.  There was an empire in China.  They had over there that famous terracotta army, which has been dug up by the Chinese. It is remarkable what that shows us, in terms of advances in art, culture, technique, civilization.

     There were empires in Asia.  The Persian Empire long preceded the Roman Empire, and even the famous Alexandrian Empire.  At a given moment, Alexander organized armies --well, it was his father who organized them-- and he was very young when he launched the invasion of Asia Minor and of all those countries.  He was fighting against the Persian emperor, I think he destroyed Persepolis. He is said to have taken Greek civilization there.  It is so strange, though, to hear that Greek civilization could have inspired the destruction of a city such as Persepolis.  Some remains of it are left and it must have certainly been marvelous. The Mesopotamian civilization was also destroyed, the famous hanging gardens [of Babylon] disappeared who-knows-where, and all that remains of them are some vague idea.  Invasion followed invasion.  Europe suffered through wave after wave of invasions by the barbarian tribes.  The Barbarians finally annihilated the Roman Empire, especially after the Roman legions ceased being Roman to be made up of soldiers coming from those barbarian tribes who eventually destroyed the Roman Empire.  Even though during each of these eras great values were being created, in all eras, from the one that preceded ours; the philosophers who preceded our era, the Greek philosophers, sprang up precisely before our era. It is said that Aristotle was Alexander the Great’s tutor. That has been recounted in the histories written by real pundits were familiar with the habits of those times and who explain how Aristotle was the tutor for the son of Philip of Macedonia.

     In other words, each one of these stages was creating values, each one of these stages was creating cultures that were accumulating; but, when we speak of civilization, we cannot forget about the Mayan civilization which had knowledge of space, or the Aztec civilization, or the Inca civilization or the Pre-Inca civilizations.

     I have spoken with eminent men such as [Thor] Heyerdahl, the famous author of the Kon-Tiki Expedition, who was an explorer.  He dedicated his life to the study of ancient civilizations.  He worked a lot in Peru and he told me how there were things and designs that could only be seen from an altitude of 2,000 or 3,000 meters, stretching over the plains, constructions that were feats of engineering such as had not existed in Europe when this hemisphere was conquered.  And so what did these civilizations bring to us?  Up to which point did they conquer us? Almost until today, and I say "almost", because many of us are still conquered and dominated by other civilizations that rule over the remnants of those that existed in this hemisphere, and this, keeping in mind the great values which the conquerors brought with them, because they all created values.  All civilizations created values, but values that have clashed against each other.

            When I hear this phrase, “Dialogue among Civilizations”, what crosses my mind is the idea of an accumulation of values, an amalgamation of the values of all civilizations. Just as when we speak of teaching people to read and write, I think of providing the unschooled with those values they have not been able to obtain, because they had no one to teach them or no school to go to. When one speaks of teaching people to read and write, one thinks of that, of passing on values. But we must also ask ourselves what values, exactly what values we are passing on?

            I was moved by the words that were spoken about saying goodbye to chauvinism, saying goodbye to narrow-minded nationalism, saying goodbye to hatred, saying goodbye to intolerance, saying goodbye to prejudice, by gathering all that is good in all cultures and all civilizations and all religions, by teaching everyone a universal ethic which is dearly needed in this neo-liberal and globalized world which began by globalizing egoism, globalizing vice, globalizing frantic consumerism, globalizing the attempts at stealing the resources of others, and making slaves of them.

            It is said that slavery dates back to primitive times and that, as soon as humanity became involved in production and learned that people could produce for themselves and for others, rather than murder its prisoners, it began to preserve them. This is what is said and it may be very true, but slavery would persist for thousands of years afterwards.

            It is said that the passage from Roman slavery to feudalism which took place in Europe in what was called the Middle Ages, was a great step forward, up until the very moment they discovered us here. I say “us” because, even though I share in the blood of the discoverers, I consider myself a son of this land and this island, and, above all else, a son of humanity. This land knew a great patriot, a great philosopher who once said —and not at the time of internationalism, this man was struggling for his homeland's independence against Spanish colonialism— but he said a phrase that ought to be remembered for all time: "Homeland is humanity". That man's name was, is and will always be José Martí. See this: "Homeland is humanity". Here, where the representatives of more than 25 countries, where scientists, intellectuals and religious leaders have gathered to hold this dialogue among civilizations, have you not been moved by the feeling, have you not had a sense that your homeland is humanity?

            I stress this point because I hate chauvinism; I revile chauvinism as I revile many other things that have characterized humanity in its long journey throughout its brief history…no one knows whether Homo Sapiens first appeared 50, 100 or several hundreds of thousands of years ago. Archaeologists spend their lives looking for skulls to determine at which point in the evolution of the species humanity arose. I mention this without fear of offending anyone, even if I know there are many religious people here, because the leader of the Catholic Church himself, some years ago, declared —courageously, in my opinion—that the theory of evolution is not irreconcilable with the doctrine of creation. I don't know, of course, how other religions view this issue. I respect them all, as I respect all points of view. I limit myself to offering you an example of how the Catholic Church interprets this knowledge. These are new phenomena, for churches have learned from experience and have attempted to broaden their points of view and their conceptions in their search for good.

     I was educated in religious schools; I was critical, and I can still be so, of the way in which they taught me religion, a very dogmatic way.  Everyone is not born the same and everyone has their own character, their own personality.  I reject those things that they tried to force on me, or that they forced me to believe without persuading me about, those things they wanted me to believe.  Thus, everyone has their own way of reacting.

     But I can say that the churches themselves have been making an effort.  The Catholic Church has criticized the crimes that were committed, the conquest of this hemisphere with great violence; they have criticized the Inquisition, they have criticized the condemnation of Galileo, they have condemned those horrible acts such as the burning of heretics at the stake. The first native to revolt in this country --he was a peaceful man, and he was not even a Cuban-- came from Santo Domingo where there was a much more combative population. His name was Hatuey and he was condemned to burn at the stake; and there a priest was sent to persuade him to be baptized so that he could go to heaven, and the story goes that he asked –whether it is true or not, I say it is a lovely story;  we have been taught this right from primary school –he is said to have been asked whether the Spaniards went to Heaven and when he was told that, yes, they did, that rebellious native said: “Then, I would rather die, I don’t want to go to such Heaven where Spaniards go."

     Look at that lesson, how every man who lives leaves us something.  That rebel died with those words on his lips, which may be true or not, but he at least inspired them. Consider that beautiful example of dignity, of heroism.

     And I was speaking about all the mistakes we have made and which we must overcome and the values we have created that we must bring together.  Thus I interpret what could be termed a dialogue among civilizations, whose spirit I share one hundred percent and which makes me happy.  I wish I could one day participate fully in a dialogue and not just in its closing ceremony and not have to find out about it from a summary of all that was discussed.

     Our distinguished visitor, whom we have received with much satisfaction, and we know that it is not his fault that he arrived late --we could call this a contradiction in views, a contradiction of civilizations—he was speaking about the satisfaction with which they were awaiting the next dialogue to be held in Greece, where all those who wanted to, could attend, I was reminded of a recent occurrence that I, sports lover that I am, that I always have been wanting to see one of the Olympic Games, which I have never attended, even when I could have gone; but I thought that I had the right to participate in the Olympics, if I wanted to, and there in Greece many people invited me, even people from the Greek Orthodox Church, and they promised that they would take me to see a famous monastery.  And truly, my mind is overflowing with ideas, memories, things they told me, the marvelous things they told me about the history of that church and what they have accomplished and what they have created. It was very interesting having the Patriarch of the Greek Orthodox Church visit me precisely on the day we were inaugurating the Orthodox Church building. And  we have also been talking about laying the first stone of a Russian Orthodox church; there will also be a cathedral here, to all of our satisfaction, in the same way that there is a mosque in our city, and in the same way all the religions are represented. We have this honor and we are pleased and honored that they are all represented here.  And I think that our country has been an example of how ecumenism can exist not just in the religious terrain but also in the respect of the sentiments of all.

     I could not be ecumenical with those who deny other people their right to think and their right to believe, because for us, we who are so often accused of violating human rights, I shall say nothing more other than that the first human right is the right to think, the right to believe, the right to live, the right to learn, the right to know dignity, the right to be treated like any other human being, the right to be independent, the right to sovereignty as a people, the right to dignity as a human being.

     We really think that to discuss human rights, a sort of Olympics would have to be organized, getting us all together, the accused with all the frauds and hypocrites in the world today, and assemble together in a room like this one to debate what human rights are, which ones we have violated and which ones we have defended for dozens of years, without ever abandoning our principles. You, many of whom are religious persons –and I am not a religious person in the traditional sense of the word– at the end of the road  could remember religious characters and God forbid, I am not comparing ourselves with any other character in history.  I am not just myself; I speak for the people of Cuba, I represent thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of human beings who live in this island. I don't assume to compare myself to anyone; but this island has been more slandered than the early Christians, it has been more slandered than those who were devoured by the lions in the Roman circuses, more slandered than those who were forced to live in the catacombs because of their faith.

     There are religious beliefs and there are political beliefs.  There are religious convictions and there are political convictions. And I mean it in the best sense of the word because everything political has been so discredited.  There are political ideas.  I conceive political ideas to be those that are truly worth the life of a man, of a man’s sacrifice, of a man’s life, of a man’s death; or that of many men, of an entire people if necessary, who would sacrifice themselves in defense of those values, whoever defends values and knows that without values there is no life.  And I say more, without values there is no civilization; even more, without values, this humanity cannot survive, because when we speak of civilizations –and we know there were many, and just as many have disappeared –we might also wonder how long these civilizations will last if we do not take the relevant steps just as you are trying to do here so that not just civilization but the species can survive. Because for the first time in the long march through a brief history, the survival of humanity is in jeopardy.  I would invite anyone to answer and tell me if there was ever any other time like today when the survival of the species was in danger.

In the past, it was the Roman Empire, before that Greek or Greco-Roman civilization; in earlier times it was the Egyptian, Persian and the already-mentioned Mesopotamian civilizations. That is to say, the two hemispheres have known civilizations, because man took civilization with him wherever he went. It has been shown that human beings on this side of the Atlantic had the same level of mind development and the same intelligence as those who remained in the Old World. And geophysicists, those who have studied the Earth know that, ages ago, the two hemispheres did not yet exist, that 350 million years ago there was only one continental landmass. These hemispheres are also the product of an evolution governed by the laws of physics, of geology. That compact mass began to split, this hemisphere split off from that mass, Antarctica split off, Australia split off, all continents began splitting off from it. We all know how the Himalayas came into being, the movements of the tectonic plates that created all manner of formations, and 350 million years ago there were no human beings around; not even 300 million years ago. Oil deposits were beginning to form around that time. That oil, apparently so marvelous and perhaps marvelous indeed, that civilized man has all but destroyed in barely 200 years.

This is now the year 2005, and I wonder just how much oil will remain in the world in 91 years. In 1896, the world spent 6 million tons of oil a year and today consumption amounts to 82 million barrels, that is, nearly 12 million tons of oil every day.

One hundred nine years ago, again, homo sapiens —and just how sapient humanity is, dear friends, is still to be established—109 years ago it spent 6 million tons of oil a year and today it is spending nearly 12 million every day, and consumption is increasing at a pace of 2 million barrels of oil per day each year. There is not enough oil to go around and it is becoming more and more expensive.

And I am limiting myself to but one problem, the energy problem. We could ask ourselves how long this easily-accessible energy is going to last our civilized neighbors, I don’t mean the people, I mean that very civilized government —and do forgive me for mentioning a government in particular, I don't want to mention any because I don’t want to offend anyone— but that policy, or whatever you wish to call it, that is so civilized and humanitarian, opposed to the Kyoto Protocol, a simple and modest attempt to contain atmospheric contamination, that policy deserves our repudiation.

That country is spending 25% of the world’s energy. Today, there is an oil crisis, and it will not go away. The latest, most serious one was in 1975. It is said that oil is expensive today. No, oil was truly expensive in 1975.

We're not in the oil business. Even if we were, I am not defending any one doctrine here, I am merely saying that, if oil becomes more expensive, so much the better; because, if they're going to contaminate the world, the more expensive oil is, the greater the hope of having it last a few more years before we are poisoned or intoxicated to death, before they finally change the world's climate completely, the greater the hope that we will see some rainfall.

We are facing the most severe drought that Cuba’s history has known. The other day, when I heard a clap of thunder, I felt as though I was in another country, not unlike what I experienced when I visited Russia and saw snow for the first time. When I suddenly came across the snow, which I had never seen before, well, just as astonished was I some weeks ago when I heard thunder. Thunder usually heralds the rain, and I discerned a light drizzle, some clouds, I felt I was in another country, for it's been months since this country has seen any rain. There was some rainfall recently but not in the country's eastern region. There, there is a terrible drought. Hundreds of thousands of homes are currently getting their water from trucks and millions of animals are getting it from water-tank trucks. Currently, we are constructing numerous emergency aqueducts, using PVC tubes that allow us to construct and set up these pipelines quickly and transport the water, now, when fuel prices are —I won't say high—on the rise. And there is more and more competition for control over that fuel.

Just calculate how many trucks are transporting water. Why do I mention this? We don't have to wait until hell freezes over —one can't help but talk about climate change, it seems— we are doing this now. A drought like this one obliges us, not to say farewell to arms, as Hemingway wrote —we can't say farewell to arms just yet— but farewell to the idea of depending on the sugar industry or sugarcane, for sugarcane plantations require water. We filled this country with water reservoirs; today, they are empty. There are some here and there that have some water. But we have not lost hope, we have confidence that it will rain.

I see, for instance, that Venezuela gets a lot of rain, Venezuela is a case in point: in one place, it rains too much, in another, too little. The world’s climate has been disturbed; it’s the least we can say, as a result of environmental pollution. This is the reason I said that, if the high price of oil is going to make the lunatics a little more sane, make the lunatics stop wasting natural resources and destroying the planet's natural habitats, so that civilizations can continue to exist and engage in dialogue —for, in order to engage in dialogue, one must, of necessity, be alive—then so much the better. Let us not forget that philosopher who said "I think, therefore I am". We could just as well say: in order to think, one must first exist, to engage in dialogue, one must survive, and to survive, one must struggle with resolve.

I am not exaggerating. I am firmly convinced that I am not exaggerating when I say that we must struggle and do it with the utmost determination, again, if we want civilizations to survive, if we want the species responsible for these civilizations, whatever its shortcomings and mistakes may be, to survive. It is through this lens that I have observed the dialogue you have had and the meeting you’ve held, and the gathering you are to hold next year in Greece, a gathering which, unfortunately, I will not be able to attend should you invite me, because, invitations aside, I was forbidden to go to the Olympics. They didn't tell me that this was forbidden me, though many explicit prohibitions apply to me in this world: it is forbidden for me to live; I am constantly avoiding death, surviving, more or less. I am involved in a constant struggle for survival, for there are those who wish that I do not survive and are constantly doing everything in their power to see to this. Now, they're a bit more relaxed because I am getting older, they think nature is going to do their work for them. But I also know how impatient they are (Laughter). You can't be too careful, you know what I mean?

In an article, I read something along the lines of: “Castro has not been invited” to the Olympics. This is false. Someone from a paper, a slanderer, said that Castro was going to attend the Olympics, and, immediately, the government spokespeople there reacted. I don't know which government they represented, I don't even know what party is in power there, nor am I hugely interested in knowing, forgive me if I am been disrespectful. I don't know if it’s a left-wing or right-wing party —you would know this better than I— I don’t know if they have a new government, if there’s been elections, if there’s been change. It‘s all the same to me but, well, it would be unfortunate if they invited me to a conference there and I was unable to attend, because of the many hurdles one has to skirt when one is being hunted down everywhere. I still face a number of restrictions. I am forced to use two planes to travel, even though, as you all know, I am one of the “wealthiest” men in the world. That's what was said in a two-penny US magazine which has not yet gotten its due from me, because I have been occupied with other matters these days. But they're going to get the answer that's coming to them, they've been singing that tune for years now and they've forced me to react. What can you do? I'll respond but I am in no rush, I have much more important things to do. Tomorrow I have to see to very important matters, matters I have been seeing to for some time and I don't want to waste a minute.

But I was saying that, as they say, I am one of the world's wealthiest men, according to them. This convention centre, where you have gathered, is mine, so don't forget to pay up. I don't know if the tour operators have charged you, but you should know that according to them this convention center is mine, just like all the country's research centers, schools and hospitals we are building, the tens of thousands of doctors and hundreds of thousands of university professionals that the Revolution has trained. From their point of view, I own this country, including the few fish that remain, that's all mine, get it, the birds that come and go, that fly over this country, they're mine. They even say that this convention center is mine, that it’s a business. One cannot but laugh, and, as they say, he who laughs last laughs loudest (Applause). I am going to strike back at that magazine, put them in check; they’re going to regret this. But I don’t want to talk about that now; I don't want to get sidetracked. It's just to warn you, since we're speaking of wealth, and they say that I am one of the wealthiest men in the world. I think they put me in the sixth place, I don't know which place you are in [pointing at somebody in the audience] but they've said that you are someone who, as a decent businessman, has had great success. Well, what about Bill Gates? They say he is one of the richest, though I believe some rivals are popping up here and there, in some fashion or other. What is by no means justifiable is that I should be rich, I say it in all honesty, it is unjustifiable, I have no right to be rich.

When I was a young man, my father had some money and they said I was rich. As rich as owning a large estate makes you, not as rich as Bill Gates is or anything close to that. But I am not a rich man, nor do I have the right to be so. And here I am, discussing these topics with you. But I have to use two planes to travel anywhere, as I said, because, if a ‘stinger’ is lying in wait to take down my plane, I have to have a card up my sleeve to confuse them. Sometimes, my plane lands first, then the other. There have been times when I have taken off from somewhere and I have said: “turn off all of the lights”, because I imagine someone pointing a ‘stinger’ at the plane. So, if you’re thinking of inviting me there, you should know I am putting my life at risk, a life I appreciate today more than ever. Do you know why? Oh, because I want to devote the little time I have left and the experience I have accumulated over the years to what we are doing now. I don't ask much, two or three short years will suffice, we are going to take the fullest advantage of nearly 50 years of experience in this field (Applause).

If I say I don’t want to place my life at risk, I don't mean to say I tremble at the prospect of dying tomorrow. No, not really; I am at ease, I have the utmost serenity and patience. But I am also hugely enthusiastic about what we are doing right now and, if you wish, if you are patient, and provided it's before, say, 8:00 pm, I can tell about other things that may prove of interest to you. I didn't come here to speak to you of things that interest me only, I have tried to discern what could be of interest to you, I have tried to follow some of your ideas, though I feel you have asked questions and discussed things here that are not exactly related to these matters. I began to philosophize a bit on civilizations and ended up talking about this.

I feel that the most significant thing I could say is that I am convinced that the survival of the species is at stake, that the species faces real dangers. If you have come from so far and have had the immense patience of waiting to hear me speak to you, if I owe you a statement of significance, the most significant thing I can say is this, that I have this feeling and that conviction, and that these are not based on fantasies but on facts, on calculations, mathematics, the conviction that humanity faces true risks, that we must not only achieve peace but save the species. And I believe the species can be saved. I would not speak about this if I were a pessimist, if I thought the problem could not be overcome. I believe it can and I am used to facing difficult problems. These are not the words of someone given to idle fancy: I believe the problem can be solved and that this is the most important thing. But I will move on to other issues.

What I was going to say is that he [meaning somebody in the audience] wasn’t allowed to travel because he was coming to Cuba. He was stopped there and he showed them his good will. I avail myself of the time, weigh this and that other option. No, I wasn't going to go to the Olympics, because we truly have important tasks ahead of us. I didn't even go to the ones held in Moscow. I attended the Olympics in Barcelona because I was participating in an international event and they took us there for the opening ceremonies. I do, however, keep track of the number of medals won by Cuban athletes. Cuba has the greatest number of gold medals per capita in sports, of Olympic medals of every kind. I don’t say this with a chauvinistic spirit, although we too can be chauvinistic when it comes to sports. I don't allow myself this, not even with respect to sports. It's true I am pleased when a Cuban team wins, as one would expect, but I am always capable of recognizing the merits and the talent of an adversary that beats us fair and square at a sporting event. This is not the case in boxing, innumerable gold metals have been stolen from us in boxing, because this sport is governed by a mafia. There are sports which are governed, not by an Olympic spirit, but by mafias.

What I mean to say is that, I value the Olympics, even though the Olympics are designed for rich countries. They always have to be held in the United States, Japan, Australia or any other highly developed country. Greece was given the right to host them almost by sheer chance; they gave Greece this right because it was the cradle of the Olympics, more than 2,000 years ago. The man who came, running, to announce the results of a battle...which, of the many wars that were waged, was that one? One of the many battles, the thousands of battles that there have been. War has been humanity’s almost exclusive vocation. (Someone says: “the battle of Marathon”). That was its name.

On the other hand, at the Thermopylae, a peasant announced the arrival of 2 million soldiers. The story of the 2 million soldiers is not true. When I read the story in primary school, I thought it was true, that that many men had passed through there. One day, when I was visiting Turkey for an international gathering, I crossed the Bosporus, where they say the vessels were when Xerxes’ army of two million came, and the Spartans were lying in wait at the Thermopylae with only 300 soldiers. Ask the US Chief of Staff how 2 million soldiers can be deployed. You need a whole merchant fleet, a whole air force to deploy 2 million men, and much more if they're accompanied by stocks of Coca Cola, ice cream and first-class food. I don't know how well-fed those Persian soldiers were.

But there was another battle, of the many waged by the Greeks, and then the marathon competitions came into being. And, since you were the founders of the Olympics, and with everyone’s support, including ours —because we had defended Greece’s right to host the Olympics— you will have your Olympics. Greece is the only country which is not rich that has had the privilege of hosting the Olympics, because, 2,000 years ago, it had the fortune of receiving the good news that it had won a battle against one of the empires of the time. What a pity! At the Bay of Pigs, we too could have sent a runner at full speed to take the news to Oriente that the mercenary forces had been defeated in less than 72 hours, in another small battle in which the Revolution proved victorious over some mercenary troops escorted by a US squadron. Not that it is devoid of merit, but the idea didn't cross our heads, because we had phones, the radio and all that, and there was no need for anyone to run anywhere. But here we faced an empire as powerful as that one. There was a small battle, the battle of Girón. Marathon, Girón, a poem could even be written, a rhyming verse. There are certainly enough poets in Cuba for this.

Well, that's why you got to be host of the Olympics. Now, they are already discussing the big investments. You have to be a multimillionaire. After a lot of work and becoming one of the motors of the world economy, China will finally host an Olympics. It will host the Olympic Games of 2008. I don’t know who’s going to beat the Chinese at organizing a spectacle like the Olympics.

Do excuse the bad habit of constantly speaking my mind, of saying things I believe to be true.

I have insisted on this issue to express my appreciation, to tell you how important I consider this gathering to be, to urge you to continue working hard and to continue to do what you did here.

Many important issues were taken up here: regional and international issues, issues related to peace. I hope the speeches delivered will be published and spread, that they become available to more than just a handful of people. The discussions struck me as very valuable and open. Everyone expressed their opinion without any kind of apprehension. Everyone expressed the truth as they saw it and I think it has been worth our time. I offer you all our support, all of the assistance that we can offer.

This is my objective assessment, and this is my mind speaking. We spoke from our hearts when Retamar spoke and said, among other things, how happy Cubans were to see so many representatives of Russia present at this conference.

I recalled the experiences we shared in the course of 30 years of history. Russia's cooperation was very valuable to us. At the time, it was Soviet cooperation, because there still existed a Soviet state. Today, it is the Russian state. The Russian state inherited practically all of the fundamental powers and responsibilities of the Soviet state, its membership at the United Nations, its prerogatives as a powerful country, and, today, Russians are duty-bound to defend it, because it faces the undeniable risk that an egotistical, imperialist policy, an irresponsible policy, a war-mongering policy could prevail. All of us face risks, not only Cubans, Koreans, Russians, Chinese, the whole world faces risks. Let no one be so deluded as to imagine that Europeans are exempt from these dangers, much less when economic and commercial competition, competition in the struggle to secure raw materials, energy and natural resources, is becoming fiercer and fierce among those who want to own it all. And I am not referring to the people of the United States. We feel sincere admiration for them, and this is not mere diplomacy.

            We have never sown hatred; we have never bred any type of chauvinism, fanaticism or fundamentalism. They are the true fundamentalists, advocates of war and of violence.

            When I spoke of that first of June when a surprise and pre-emptive attack was launched against the Soviet Union, I was taken back to words I heard recently, spoken at a US military academy, when the leader of that other powerful country told officials there that they had to be ready for a pre-emptive attack on any dark corner of the world. In the blink of an eye, he spoke of 60 or more countries and we, who were listening to him, know that we are one of the darkest corners of the world, due to their idiosyncrasy and fundamentalism, their technology and ignorance —yes, we mustn’t exclude ignorance. To be ignorant means to know absolutely nothing of the world, of the world’s problems, of world reality. Ignorance, the ignorance I am referring to, means being completely oblivious, and the world is in trouble when the most powerful superpower that has ever existed, capable of destroying the planet twenty or thirty times over, is led by people who are completely oblivious to it. We would all have heart attacks were we not strong at heart, were we not equipped with strong consciences.

            I was saying humanity must be saved. I believe consciousness is the tool with which humanity can be saved.

            I practice what I preach in this connection. I was speaking of humanity, of the long and, at the same time, short history of the species that, 200 years ago, was made up of 1 billion inhabitants; which took tens of thousands of years to become that numerous and that, 130 years later, reached the figure of 2 billion and which, in only 30 years, was 3 billion inhabitants large. In 10 years, it went from 5 to 6 billion inhabitants. Let us not forget that. There are currently 6.5 billion inhabitants in the world. Whoever has any idea of the poverty that exists in the world, the backwardness, the hunger, the diseases, the shortage of homes, the lack of hygiene, the poor health conditions which prevail in this world where there are African countries in which the life expectancy is 36 and may go down to 30 in ten years, cannot but be shocked.  I speak of a humanity that faces unprecedented problems.

            I spoke of wars. I could say to you what I have told many comrades that this species evolved, it produced man, and man is truly a marvelous creation worthy of survival. I have great confidence in man, in his creative capacity.

            Why has education been of the essence in our efforts to date? Because human beings are born as a bundle of instincts. Education is the process whereby values are instilled into this being moved by a plethora of instincts. Deprive that being of education, leave it in an incubator, at the mercy of a machine that cares for it and feeds it and you'll see what sort of education it has, if what US filmmakers dreamt of can actually result from that: Tarzan, the ape man, the man from the films of our childhood who was born who knows where in Africa, the Tarzan we were brought up with, the intelligent man surrounded by tribes whose pots were always boiling and who were ever ready to eat each other.

            Yes, that was the ideology they instilled in us when were children, that Africans were cannibals, that they ate each other. Yes, we saw many movies like that, it's a wonder we are not all racists and ultra reactionaries, given the movies we watched.

            Yes, we have been given lethal doses of barbarism, lethal doses of ignorance, and lethal doses of lies. That, however, has not destroyed our country’s ideas.

            It has to do with what I stress: education is passing on the positive values created by human beings, the values I said we had to bring together. For us, this has been of the essence: the creation and the accumulation of values.

            Will lies or values we have sown prevail? Will humanity make true values prevail over lies? Will we have to own the big television networks? Is it indispensable? No, let us become the owners of knowledge, even if we are only a minority. Let us be owners of information, let us avail ourselves of those same technical means to communicate with each other, because, while there are networks that spread lies, there can also be networks of computers through which someone can communicate with someone else who lives in Australia, in the United States or in any corner of the world and exchange ideas.

            I believe that humanity has also created the technology with which truth can be made to prevail.

            For instance, we have made use of television for this purpose. Until recently, there were only two television channels in our country. Today, there are four and 62% of televised programs are educational, that is, devoted to spreading educational, cultural and informational materials, aimed at cultivating a wholesome culture in people. There are recreational programs, but we try to make these an educational instrument, to make of culture a way to instill values in people; we strive to show any good film made in any part of the world, to multiply the values that underpin it and those who made it.

            We no longer use television to teach people to read and write. We use television for higher levels of education, to disseminate university courses and language classes. We use the media for this. Put to good use, the media, radio and television could put an end to the scourge of illiteracy in the world.

            Why are there still 800 million illiterate and billions of semi-illiterate people in the world? If there is radio, if there is television, why are there still billions of illiterate and semi-illiterate people? This is the question we should ask ourselves. We have the means to eradicate illiteracy in but a few years.

            Why has UNESCO been discussing the eradication of illiteracy for half a century, what for? It has been demonstrated that illiteracy can be even eradicated over the radio.

            Cuba had a radio-based literacy program in Haiti which was interrupted following the latest invasion. Now, nearly 500 Cuban doctors are working in this country which everyone knows how to invade but to which no one sends a single doctor. Cuba has never sent a soldier to Haiti, but hundreds of its doctors have been working there for years. There are, what's more, hundreds of young Haitians, who graduated in Cuba, working next to our doctors.

            Before the latest invasion of Haiti by UN forces, impelled by the United States, hundreds of thousands of Haitians were already learning to read and write in their language. Now, the program has been interrupted. Our doctors remain, in spite of the risks. Over the radio, they learn the local language, Creole.

            Here, more than a million Cubans have learned English over the television. French, Portuguese and other language courses have also been aired. We make exhaustive use of television and the media to offer these and other educational programs,

            Today, not only literacy in general but also political literacy must be cultivated and applied.

            You speak of a dialogue among civilizations. How do you expect people to understand each other? I ask myself if illiterate people will get your message, and where in the world it will be understood, with the millions of illiterate people in the Third World and the millions of illiterate and semi-illiterate people in the developed world. In the United States, for instance, there are many illiterate people and a great many functional illiterates. The reality is that developed countries have high indices of functional and even total illiteracy, in the United States more than in Europe.

            How do you expect people who are illiterate, both generally and politically, to understand your message? Do you believe that people who are fed the stories the media churns out day after day will understand the message? However, we must work to drive the message home.

            The message will not simply reach everyone because you elaborate it and convey it to people. I return here to the idea of crises, that the message will be spread and understood as a result of crises.

            Let no one believe that the Latin American volatility of which a number of Latin Americans here have spoken, about which the ambassador of Venezuela spoke, about which Villegas spoke...I haven't seen Villegas, he should be around here.

 

Vladimir Villegas. - Here I am.

Commander in Chief. - It's just that you look different on television than in person.

Vladimir Villegas. - I look younger.

Commander in Chief. - That's what you think, I'm the one who's young here (Laughter). I also believe I am younger, but you are actually, objectively younger, and my best wishes to you, you have a lot of time ahead of you, use it wisely, that is all I can ask of you.

            Don't you think that volatility is accidental, it stems from a crisis which shook the country with the most resources in Latin America, the country with possibly the largest oil reserves in the world, the country that saw a capital flight of 300 billion dollars, worth ten or fifteen times then what they are worth now. If you do the math from 1959 on, when that hypocritical oligarchy came to power under a democratic and progressive cloak —40 years have gone by, to date—you see that the capital flight is equivalent to a purchasing power of over 2 trillion dollars. That is the sum extracted from a single country. Use your imagination, if you wish, to do the math, for it's the only way to do it, not even computers could offer us precise figures, because, we are dealing with so many zeros that people already omit all of them, which is what one usually does when one multiplies mentally.

            How much did they take from Brazil? How much did they take from Mexico? How much did they take from Argentina? How much did they take from Colombia, Peru, from all Latin American countries? We have to do the math. We have people at our Central Bank doing the math, trying to get to the bottom of it, scrutinizing the enormous figures, the trillions of dollars, to see to what extent the Sucre was devalued in Ecuador or the Mexican peso at a given point in history, or the Bolivar at another point in time. We already know Venezuelans inherited a devalued Bolivar and, as for the Brazilian currency, at one point one dollar was equivalent to 1 followed by more than 5 zeros.

            This phenomenon which scourges the Third World is truly incredible, an extremely simple mechanism through which money is siphoned out of countries. No money in any Third World country is safe.

            They did this also in Russia. Money, ill-gotten or not, is siphoned out, because, we’re no longer talking about the gold you bury in a pot, we’re talking about paper, and that paper is devalued every day. If you want to hold on to it, you trade it in for hard currency. It must be what I did to amass the personal fortune they ridiculously say I have. Yes, you have to change it into convertible hard currency and deposit it in a bank. But only I know where I keep my money. I sent it to Mars, it’s in Mars, they can find it there, the CIA can find it there if it wants to. I’m going to reveal the secret, the truth is I don’t remember exactly where I hid it, really, I put it away either in Mars or the Moon, to keep it safe, so that, in my fourth, fifth or tenth reincarnation, I could rent a light place and go look for it.

            Since we are on the subject of currencies and we’re talking about money, they take away money, ill-gotten or not, and they have to take it because there is a world economic order, whose watchdog is an institution called the International Monetary Fund, which obliges states to deposit their reserves in foreign banks. When someone comes along with the required documents to say: "I am taking these funds with me", they are obliged to say where to. If they do not comply, they are condemned; they are not given one cent. These were the methods they used when they were super powerful. Fortunately, they are becoming less and less powerful. The system's growing inability to prevent recessions and the ever more feeble financial mechanisms behind it are becoming more and more noticeable. That order can only be maintained through the use of nuclear weapons, guided missiles, stealth bombers, weapons that can be launched from a distance of 5,000 kilometers and hit a baseball field, or the third base of a baseball field, perhaps. That is what sustains that order, what sustains that plunder, the attempts at taking possession of all the planet's wealth, wherever it may be, not only by stripping the environment of this wealth, as is being done in Alaska, where there may be no ice one day, just as we may live to see the day when Antarctica is no longer covered by ice and millions of square kilometers of water melt burying many islands. We may have to set up a small pier nearby, provisionally, for when the water melts. Those who have been there know that the ice is melting rapidly, they know this, that's a fact. Just as the icecap over Greenland is melting: this is neither fiction nor a tall tale.

            Nature is being stripped of its balance and nations are being stripped of their natural resources, their energy resources in the first place. And this order can only be maintained through the use of weapons, but weapons are becoming less and less effective as people grow in awareness and thanks to that extraordinary capacity human beings have: the ability to think, to reflect, to adapt to the concrete conditions of any given moment in history.

            You, Russians, what did you do when the Nazis invaded and when their armored columns were penetrating deep into Russian territory? The Russians did not surrender, they fought back, they struggled to rejoin their armies, or they fought in the jungles. Their attitude was not one of: "I surrender". I stress this again. They adapted, they went to Siberia and took lathes with them. And I know of roofless factories which were set up in Siberia, which worked, chilled by snowfall, to produce weapons, at a time when the country's industrial region had been occupied and devastated.

            You had to redeploy; you redeployed as much as you had to, until you struck a balance. And everyone knows what happened afterwards. I have thought much about those historical events. We have faced danger, true, but we have never been surprised by unforeseen attacks, we are always well-prepared, be it above or beneath the ground.

            I can assure you that no one can occupy this country. I hope we're never put in the position of having to demonstrate this, because we are well aware of the costs. But, let me underscore this, this city cannot be occupied. This is a city of hundreds of thousands of combatants who know how to defend it, where there is not one illiterate person. Allow me to stress this: the lowest level of schooling anyone has here is ninth grade; everyone knows how to handle a mortar, a cannon or any similar weapon.

            The Iraqi soldiers who fought in Fallujah, who held their ground against tanks and the most sophisticated armament deployed by the invaders for days and days, I wonder what level of schooling they had. I know only that they fought there for weeks, and, later, the US army occupied places, by the looks of it, they could neither stay in nor leave behind: they couldn't stay there because they were needed in other places and they couldn't leave because their adversaries kept returning.

            Human beings, as I tell you, adapt themselves, human beings find a way to survive. The imperialists have never had to confront a nation with the conditions that Cuba has today. There is no shortage of weapons in the country and we will continue to arm ourselves. We have accumulated so many weapons that I believe the island has sunk half an inch in recent years because of the number of tanks, cannons and weapons of all kinds that have reached our country.

            Any potential invader knows that it will meet with a people determined to fight and defend their homeland here. That is much more powerful than a nuclear weapon, than 1,000 chemical weapons. What need do we have of nuclear weapons? Being a small country, we have never entertained such a ridiculous idea which would spell our ruin, having a weapon that would be useful only to commit suicide. How would we transport it? We won't be playing that silly game which plays into the hands of imperialism.

            Since you’re interested in getting to know Cuba, I will tell you more.

            We have no need of weapons of mass destruction to defend ourselves. What we have modernized are our tactics, the role of people, of individual combatants, of coordinated groups of combatants, the methods, the tactics, the weapons with which the most powerful instrument an adversary can have are neutralized.

            Let me say this: our country has achieved what could be referred to as military invincibility, and at the moment, parallel its efforts to become stronger militarily, it is seeking to attain economic invincibility; two concepts. Military invincibility proved easier to secure than the latter.

            Humanity can be saved, for the empire is enduring a profound crisis. Without crises, no change is possible, without crises, no awareness can be built. A day of crisis can raise the awareness of people to a greater extent than 10 uneventful years, than 10 years without a crisis.

            Look at Venezuela, the country that, as I told you, they took billions of dollars from, that very rich country, the country where the gap between rich and poor is greatest. In that country, there are 17 million citizens who live in poor neighborhoods, in marginal neighborhoods. Without reference to this, we cannot explain the Bolivarian revolutionary process. Neither the ambassador nor the journalist could explain it precisely, and I am sure they can do a good job of explaining it. It has to do with accumulated injustices. Without reference to these accumulated injustices, we cannot explain the triumph of the left in Brazil, Lula's triumph. I know you discussed this also, that theses and opinions were advanced in this connection. We have had conferences here in which this matter has also been discussed, we expressed our opinion, President Chávez has expressed his opinion, and we are not pessimistic with respect to the process underway in Brazil.

            Today one senior member of a European government, the government of Spain, addressed the Venezuelan National Assembly. A meeting was held in Guyana yesterday, where Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, Brazilian President Lula Da Silva, the Colombian and Spanish Presidents were in attendance.

            The presence of the President of Colombia is a positive sign indeed, because there are those who want to impel the war between Colombia and Venezuela and many of us are aware that that is the last thing this hemisphere could want, the last thing these two countries could want. We know there are those who want to encourage those conflicts, but the two governments made the effort, they managed to get over the incident. And they met yesterday for a public debate, and the President of Spain was present. Then, the President of our neighbor to the North, I believe, made a statement...Even before the meeting, he was already mad, he said: "What business has Zapatero in Venezuela?” One could almost hear them say: “Zapatero, mind your own business”. They said: what is he doing in Venezuela, where there’s no democracy, where they’re against freedom of speech and all that?

            I went for a walk today and I was thinking of jogging, but I decided to do laps and using a loudspeaker I listened to Zapatero's speech to the Venezuelan Parliament. It caught my attention; I thought it was a good speech. It’s my opinion.

            I am going to reread it, because I missed a small part of it. His speech was one of peace, a courageous address.

            Now, he is being accused of being a warmonger, because he sold a few patrol boats to Venezuela so it could monitor its coasts and fight smuggling and drug-trafficking. They don't even want Venezuela to have motorboats, patrol boats or any kind of equipment.

            Venezuela has the right to defend itself. Does the North ask anyone‘s permission when it manufactures a nuclear super-weapon or a bomb that bores 30 meters into the ground to destroy a command post? They don't ask anyone's permission. Not to make anti-missile shields or to set them up anywhere, not even to set up weapons systems in outer space; no, they don't ask anyone's permission.

            Oh, but Venezuela, threatened by the United States —I mean the U.S. government— cannot purchase even a single rifle. No, it's not purchasing nuclear weapons, battleships or plane carriers. It's purchasing something as simple as rifles.

            So, they're saying that Venezuela is purchasing many rifles, 100,000. Actually, that's nothing when it comes to defending a country as large as Venezuela, with as many as 26 million inhabitants, a large, patriotic country, a country with the traditions Venezuela has. What it needs, in my opinion, are millions of rifles.

            In Russia it has purchased helicopters. What you need the most during a flood, a hurricane, an earthquake, are helicopters. They're also useful for monitoring the 2,400-kilometer-long border and preventing the trafficking of drugs and goods. Thirty or forty helicopters are truly nothing when it comes to undertaking such tasks.

            In Venezuela —and I am not saying this to attract tourism, you can go and see for yourselves— water is much more expensive than gasoline. A liter of water can cost a dollar and a liter of gasoline costs 9 cents. And, for a dollar, by the most recently updated rate of exchange, I believe you get 2,150 Bolivares, and for a few Bolivares you get your tank filled with gasoline. If you wish to go as tourists, be my guests, we have absolutely no rivalry with Venezuela on tourism.

            So, many people buy the inexpensive fuel and take it to Colombia, where they sell it at high prices. They witness many phenomena like that there.

            The enemy says: "Venezuela poses a danger for Latin America, countries must join the OAS to put an end to the Bolivarian process, led by these madmen who represent a danger to the hemisphere". These are maneuvers against that country, from which they took 300 billion dollars.

            Not one of them ever took the time to find out how many people were dying in Venezuela as a result of diseases and what the life expectancy was, what the infant mortality rate was, how many people were left blind.

            Do you know how many Venezuelans are going to undergo eye surgery this year, according to what our governments have discussed and what we have agreed? A hundred thousand.

            We have 24 ophthalmologic centers equipped with the most modern equipment, 600 surgeons who treat all sight disorders: glaucoma, diabetic retinopathy and many others which, if not diagnosed in time, can lead to blindness. I am speaking of a rich country, of Venezuela. Those who had money had no problems, they traveled to the United States or they traveled to Europe; we are talking about the humble people of the Barrio Adentro Mission, who didn't have the money to travel to a developed country to undergo such a surgery.

            Now, if you're interested, I will tell you that a conservative estimate reveals that 4 million Latin Americas require this kind of medical care every year and that, left unattended, they would all go blind. Of the 550 million inhabitants of Latin America and the Caribbean, 4 million would go blind! I am not speaking of bombs dropped on Baghdad, which kill women and children and destroy millennium-old structures, irreparable, irreplaceable treasures; I am speaking of bombs that traumatize. They tell us: “No civilians were killed". But what of the millions of children, women and old people who heard the bombs fall, the explosions, early in the morning, every minute of the day, will they not be traumatized for life, or is it that the brain does not matter, that mental stability does not matter, that mental health is of no consequence, that people's nerves don't count, or the equanimity of people, the sanity of people, the mental health of people, are they not also enshrined in the Human Rights Charter? Who is going to support these people, to feed them? They are not counted among the physical casualties, but they are casualties. They are perhaps the worst off, for they are left helpless, ill people deprived of medical care for life.

            Just now, I was speaking of blind people in Latin America, people who the established world order condemned to eternal blindness, I speak of 4 million people. Where shall we begin? In Cuba.  In Cuba, nearly 30,000 people a year must undergo surgery for cataracts. True, the effects of the illness are not cumulative; the patient does not become totally blind, because they undergo an operation in one eye first, then, in the other, if they develop cataracts there. But 30,000 people must be operated on nonetheless, and this includes diabetic retinopathy, a terrible disease. And diabetes is one of the scourges of humanity. In our country, people do not die from diabetes, simply because they are timely diagnosed and treated. It is estimated that some 50,000 people should be diagnosed with and treated for the related risks of diabetic retinopathy.

            Yesterday, as a matter of fact, we were conversing with a man who said to us: "My wife was extremely happy, very happy, she went to such and such a hospital” —she went for a check-up— "she went for a check-up because they told her she might be at risk of developing glaucoma". "And what did they tell her, did they examine her?” He said: “There's no danger, but, should one arise, it would suffice to operate using a laser beam which would give you a lifetime guarantee that you will never suffer from glaucoma". Just like that, with those words, that is the importance of an early diagnosis. You don't get diagnosed and then it's too late. You could have a sunspot, associated to age, a growing spot in your eye which be treated with laser surgery.

            By the end of this year, our country will have the capacity to operate on no less than 5,000 or 6,000 patients a day, in 24 centers that are already fully fitted with the most modern equipment. We are still in the training phase. If a blockaded country like Cuba can do this, why can't other countries? This is the question that must be asked. Because millions go blind and no one cares for them. Whoever goes blind in Cuba has at least the care afforded them by social security, and that is a matter I am going to discuss tonight at 9:00 with the Council of State, the Council of Ministers, the Party leadership, the country's leadership, grassroots organizations, the National Assembly commissions, tomorrow's discussion, in which we will tackle the issue of low pensions, in which we will raise the pensions of 1,800,000 people, who received the lowest ones.

            Some days ago, we revalued our currency and devalued the dollar in our country. Yes, because of the extreme privileges it enjoyed. I will give you one example, if you wish, to summarize this point.

            You know that electricity is indispensable and that a kilowatt is equivalent to 1,000 watts —I am sure you know this, most of you know this, because you pay an electricity bill. Generating a kilowatt of electricity costs no less than 10 cents today. The fuel needed to generate one kilowatt costs 9 cents. Well, because of the devaluation of currencies, because of this phenomenon, with one dollar you could, till recently, purchase 27 pesos. When, three weeks ago, we revalued our peso by 7 %, this ratio dropped to 1 to 25. This took place two weeks ago, this measure involving the peso.

            A week ago, it will be a week tomorrow, we revalued the convertible peso, and because the convertible peso is governed by an exchange rate, the Cuban peso was again revalued by 8%, for a total of 15%. With this stronger peso, tomorrow we are going to raise the retirement payments of all pensioners who receive less than 300 pesos, by categories: those who receive the least will get the highest raise. We are talking about generations of workers who have suffered the rigors of the blockade, who have endured many sacrifices. Yes, salaries were raised, but pensions remained the same, there were no resources to raise them. We are going to have a look at the lowest salaries as well.

            I said that, those who go blind in Cuba are not left to their own fate. They who have an accident, who are incapacitated, who were born with a disability or developed it later, because, sometimes, one is born with a given proclivity and later suffers a full-blown disability, all receive aid. And they will not only continue to receive it, they will receive more and more of it.

            Tomorrow, there will be a total raise in pensions of more than 80%, starting tomorrow, thanks to a revalued currency that will continue to gain in value. At least it's something.

            In other places, people go blind and, what state looks after them, what organization? Only charity organizations run by churches. How many blind people wander the streets, how many blind or disabled children are out there cleaning windshields or begging on the streets?

            We challenge anyone to try and find, in our country, children who are not at school, who are begging on the streets instead of at school. We have suffered poverty, and we faced harder times, yes. There were irresponsible parents who sent their children to ask tourists for money. These things will happen less and less, because we have calculated everything mathematically, goods, prices, costs, international costs, incomes, pensions, the needs of citizens.

            That is the reason I was saying that our Revolution has already acquired much experience and has created the conditions needed to do what we are doing.

            Our food has been rationed but that won't last forever. It was an unavoidable measure. We have been involved in a war that has lasted 46 years, defending ourselves against the empire's onslaughts. We have had to face crises, very difficult periods, and we still keep our weapons within arm's reach.

            Living in extreme conditions and enduring the crises to which we were led by the blockade did not make us turn our backs on the people of the United States. The people of the United States will stand up, because there are millions of cultivated and intelligent individuals there, who access the news over the Internet, who may be deceived following the impact of a dramatic event, like the destruction of the Twin Towers in New York City, during an intense emotional state of that nature. But, as Lincoln said, you cannot deceive all of the people all of the time.

            In the case of the United States, we could say: they can deceive all of the people every day, everyone could be deceived some of the time. But the people shall gain in awareness. Their mistakes are leading them straight to a crisis, from which the people of the United States will gain in awareness.

            That people is concerned about the environment. It does not like that Alaska is being destroyed, that the Kyoto Protocol is abandoned, that national parks are destroyed and submitted to mining or oil field exploitation.

     There are values which are held dear by the American people, and among them are health and peace, just like other peoples.

     Now, up to what point have the American people had a right to objective information?  Is that not a brutal violation of human rights, to prevent an entire nation from receiving objective information?

     Even today, the United States government would like to destroy the small opening towards Cuba that was produced when sales of foodstuffs were authorized by a law passed in Congress, where the majority of senators and representatives asked for an end to the blockade, and that law which had wider aspirations was sabotaged, it was overloaded with amendments, a procedure they use whenever they want. They tie an amendment to a fundamental law which must be passed and all the representatives see themselves forced into a vote; but the majority is already against that law and the farmers are opposed.  They are inventing things; they had invented payment in advance.  I was under the impression that paying in cash, without a second of delay, was a good thing, but no, that is not a good thing; you have to pay in advance, that is what they ask of us.  What for?  To tie up our funds and to destroy the sales of foodstuffs.

     Of course, we have all learned a bit and we realize what harm this has caused, we measured it, we calculated it, where the goods come from, the price of transportation, how much it costs, etc.  Truly we have become immune to all their inventions, and so what has been happening is that everything they invent turns out badly for them.  That’s how it is, I am not exaggerating.

     And now they want to find out what resources Cuba possesses.  They have no idea about what we have been able to save. They can’t imagine what we have learned about using funds wisely, the main part of those resources, savings. There were too many people making decisions about where currency would be invested, and of course, new resources, there are new resources; but basically, they are savings and by now there is nothing that can stop this.  Only a war that destroys us will stop this.

     We have some advantages in the new hemispheric situation, relations with other nations in the hemisphere.  We know very well the cost of a pound of black beans, red beans; corn, what the market value is; how much transportation costs, whether to spend on any of these; we know what we must do, and we have been spending, but I do not wish to speak of this.

     We have been taking measures.  I can tell you, for example, that we are buying 50% of Uruguay’s powdered milk production –and that must be arriving now. It is a government with which we have just established relations, a progressive government, a just government, a truly democratic government in a situation where it is so difficult to be democratic within the system, because they speak of democracy referring to the system.  It is practically impossible to be democratic within that system, only by virtue of miracles, and when they bombard candidates with all the mass media…  Vladimir knows this, your name is Vladimir, right?  I am reminded of a historical name, I think it is well known to the Russians, that’s where you got it from, no doubt about it; there are quite a few Russians named Vladimir; but he knows about being bombarded again and again, creating reflexes.  It is one thing to transmit opinions and it is something else to create reflexes.  The mechanism with which millions of people can be deceived is by the creation of reflexes. 

    There was an eminent Russian who studied reflexes, Pavlov, he knew how to make a bear dance and how to make monkeys almost talk, through reflexes, and it is through reflexes that the masses are dealt with, the modern techniques of commercial advertising, transmitting political ideas through the use of commercial advertising techniques by creating reflexes.

     If you want to create consciousness, you mu