Mr. President; Distinguished delegates:

The delegation of Cuba to this assembly, first of all, is pleased to
fulfill the agreeable duty of welcoming the addition of three new
nations to the important number of those that discuss the problems of
the world here. We therefore greet, in the persons of their
presidents and prime ministers, the peoples of Zambia, Malawi, and
Malta, and express the hope that from the outset these countries will
be added to the group of Nonaligned countries that struggle against
imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonialism.

We also wish to convey our congratulations to the president of this
assembly [Alex Quaison-Sackey of Ghana], whose elevation to so high a
post is of special significance since it reflects this new historic
stage of resounding triumphs for the peoples of Africa, who up until
recently were subject to the colonial system of imperialism. Today,
in their immense majority these peoples have become sovereign states
through the legitimate exercise of their self-determination. The
final hour of colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of
Africa, Asia, and Latin America rise to meet a new life and demand
their unrestricted right to self-determination and to the independent
development of their nations.

We wish you, Mr. President, the greatest success in the tasks
entrusted to you by the member states.

Cuba comes here to state its position on the most important points of
controversy and will do so with the full sense of responsibility that
the use of this rostrum implies, while at the same time fulfilling
the unavoidable duty of speaking clearly and frankly. We would like
to see this assembly shake itself out of complacency and move
forward. We would like to see the committees begin their work and not
stop at the first confrontation. Imperialism wants to turn this
meeting into a pointless oratorical tournament, instead of solving
the serious problems of the world. We must prevent it from doing so.
This session of the assembly should not be remembered in the future
solely by the number nineteen that identifies it. Our efforts are
directed to that end.

We feel that we have the right and the obligation to do so, because
our country is one of the most constant points of friction. It is one
of the places where the principles upholding the right of small
countries to sovereignty are put to the test day by day, minute by
minute. At the same time our country is one of the trenches of
freedom in the world, situated a few steps away from United States
imperialism, showing by its actions, its daily example, that in the
present conditions of humanity the peoples can liberate themselves
and can keep themselves free.

Of course, there now exists a socialist camp that becomes stronger
day by day and has more powerful weapons of struggle. But additional
conditions are required for survival: the maintenance of internal
unity, faith in one’s own destiny, and the irrevocable decision to
fight to the death for the defense of one’s country and revolution.
These conditions, distinguished delegates, exist in Cuba.

Of all the burning problems to be dealt with by this assembly, one of
special significance for us, and one whose solution we feel must be
found first—so as to leave no doubt in the minds of anyone—is that
of peaceful coexistence among states with different economic and
social systems. Much progress has been made in the world in this
field. But imperialism, particularly U.S. imperialism, has attempted
to make the world believe that peaceful coexistence is the exclusive
right of the earth’s great powers. We say here what our president
said in Cairo, and what later was expressed in the declaration of the
Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Nonaligned
Countries: that peaceful coexistence cannot be limited to the
powerful countries if we want to ensure world peace.’ Peaceful
coexistence must be exercised among all states, regardless of size,
regardless of the previous historical relations that linked them, and
regardless of the problems that may arise among some of them at a
given moment.

At present, the type of peaceful coexistence to which we aspire is
often violated. Merely because the Kingdom of Cambodia maintained a
neutral attitude and did not bow to the machinations of United States
imperialism, it has been subjected to all kinds of treacherous and
brutal attacks from the Yankee bases in South Vietnam.

Laos, a divided country, has also been the object of imperialist
aggression of every kind. Its people have been massacred from the
air. The conventions concluded at Geneva have been violated, and part
of its territory is in constant danger of cowardly attacks by
imperialist forces.

The Democratic Republic of Vietnam knows all these histories of
aggression as do few nations on earth. It has once again seen its
frontier violated, has seen enemy bombers and fighter planes attack
its installations and U.S. warships, violating territorial waters,
attack its naval posts. At this time, the threat hangs over the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam that the U.S. war makers may openly
extend into its territory the war that for many years they have been
waging against the people of South Vietnam. The Soviet Union and the
People’s Republic of China have given serious warnings to the United
States. We are faced with a case in which world peace is in danger
and, moreover, the lives of millions of human beings in this part of
Asia are constantly threatened and subjected to the whim of the U.S.
invader.

Peaceful coexistence has also been brutally put to the test in
Cyprus, due to pressures from the Turkish government and NATO,
compelling the people and the government of Cyprus to make a heroic
and firm stand in defense of their sovereignty.

In all these parts of the world, imperialism attempts to impose its
version of what coexistence should be. It is the oppressed peoples in
alliance with the socialist camp that must show them what true
coexistence is, and it is the obligation of the United Nations to
support them.

We must also state that it is not only in relations among sovereign
states that the concept of peaceful coexistence needs to be precisely
defined. As Marxists we have maintained that peace, (1) coexistence
among nations does not encompass coexistence between the exploiters
and the exploited, between the oppressors and the oppressed.
Furthermore, the right to full independence from all forms of
colonial oppression is a fundamental principle of this organization.
That is why we express our solidarity with the colonial peoples of
socalled Portuguese Guinea, Angola, and Mozambique, who have been
massacred for the crime of demanding their freedom. And we are
prepared to help them to the extent of our ability in accordance with
the Cairo declaration.

We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their
great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, in another act of hypocrisy,
has been set free at the age of seventy-two, almost unable to speak,
paralyzed, after spending a lifetime in jail. Albizu Campos is a
symbol of the as yet unfree but indomitable Latin America. Years and
years of prison, almost unbearable pressures in jail, mental torture,
solitude, total isolation from his people and his family, the
insolence of the conqueror and its lackeys in the land of his
birth—nothing broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of
its people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot
who confers honor upon our America.

The United States for many years has tried to convert Puerto Rico
into a model of hybrid culture: the Spanish language with English
inflections, the Spanish language with hinges on its backbone—the
better to bow down before the Yankee soldier. Puerto Rican soldiers
have been used as cannon fodder in imperialist wars, as in Korea, and
have even been made to fire at their own brothers, as in the massacre
perpetrated by the U.S. army a few months ago against the unarmed
people of Panama—one of the most recent crimes carried out by Yankee
imperialism.(2) And yet, despite this assault on their will and their
historical destiny, the people of Puerto Rico have preserved their
culture, their Latin character, their national feelings, which in
themselves give proof of the implacable desire for independence lying
within the masses on that Latin American island.

We must also warn that the principle of peaceful coexistence does not
encompass the right to mock the will of the peoples, as is happening
in the case of so-called British Guiana. There the government of
Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan has been the victim of every kind of
pressure and maneuver, and independence has been delayed to gain time
to find ways to flout the people’s will and guarantee the docility of
a new government, placed in power by covert means, in order to grant
a castrated freedom to this country of the Americas.(3) Whatever
roads Guiana may be compelled to follow to obtain independence, the
moral and militant support of Cuba goes to its people.

Furthermore, we must point out that the islands of Guadaloupe and
Martinique have been fighting for a long time for self-government
without obtaining it. This state of affairs must not continue.

Once again we speak out to put the world on guard against what is
happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is applied
before the eyes of the nations of the world. The peoples of Africa
are compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent the
superiority of one race over another remains of ficial policy, and
that in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with
impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?

I would like to refer specifically to the painful case of the Congo,
unique in the history of the modern world, which shows how, with
absolute impunity, with the most insolent cynicism, the rights of
peoples can be flouted. The direct reason for all this is the
enormous wealth of the Congo, which the imperialist countries want to
keep under their control. In the speech he made during his first
visit to the United Nations, Companero Fidel Castro observed that the
whole problem of coexistence among peoples boils down to the wrongful
appropriation of other peoples’ wealth. He made the following
statement: "End the philosophy of plunder and the philosophy of war
will be ended as well."

But the philosophy of plunder has not only not been ended, it is
stronger than ever. And that is why those who used the name of the
United Nations to commit the murder of Lumumba are today, in the name
of the defense of the white race, murdering thousands of Congolese.
How can we forget the betrayal of the hope that Patrice Lumumba
placed in the United Nations? How can we forget the machinations and
maneuvers that followed in the wake of the occupation of that country
by United Nations troops, under whose auspices the assassins of this
great African patriot acted with impunity? How can we forget,
distinguished delegates, that the one who flouted the authority of
the UN in the Congo—and not exactly for patriotic reasons, but
rather by virtue of conflicts between imperialists—was Moise
Tshombe, who initiated the secession of Katanga with Belgian support?
And how can one justify, how can one explain, that at the end of all
the United Nations activities there, Tshombe, dislodged from Katanga,
should return as lord and master of the Congo? Who can deny the sad
role that the imperialists compelled the United Nations to play?

To sum up: dramatic mobilizations were carried out to avoid the
secession of Katanga, but today Tshombe is in power, the wealth of
the Congo is in imperialist hands—and the expenses have to be paid
by the honorable nations. The merchants of war certainly do good
business! That is why the government of Cuba supports the just stance
of the Soviet Union in refusing to pay the expenses for this come.

And as if this were not enough, we now have flung in our faces these
latest acts that have filled the world with indignation.(4) Who are
the perpetrators? Belgian paratroopers, carried by United States
planes, who took off from British bases. We remember as if it were
yesterday that we saw a small country in Europe, a civilized and
industrious country, the Kingdom of Belgium, invaded by Hitler’s
hordes. We were embittered by the knowledge that this small nation
was massacred by German imperialism, and we felt affection for its
people. But this other side of the imperialist coin was the one that
many of us did not see. Perhaps the sons of Belgian patriots who died
defending their country’s liberty are now murdering in cold blood
thousands of Congolese in the name of the white race, just as they
suffered under the German heel because their blood was not
sufficiently Aryan.

Our free eyes open now on new horizons and can see what yesterday, in
our condition as colonial slaves, we could not observe: that "Western
Civilization" disguises behind its showy facade a picture of hyenas
and jackals. That is the only name that can be applied to those who
have gone to fulfill such “humanitarian” tasks in the Congo. A
carnivorous animal that feeds on unarmed peoples. That is what
imperialism does to men. That is what distinguishes the imperial
“white man.”

All free men of the world must be prepared to avenge the crime of the
Congo. Perhaps many of those soldiers, who were turned into subhumans
by imperialist machinery, believe in good faith that they are
defending the rights of a superior race. In this assembly, however,
those peoples whose skins are darkened by a different sun, colored by
different pigments, constitute the majority. And they fully and
clearly understand that the difference between men does not lie in
the color of their skin, but in the forms of ownership of the means
of production, in the relations of production.

The Cuban delegation extends greetings to the peoples of Southern
Rhodesia and South-West Africa, oppressed by white colonialist
minorities; to the peoples of Basutoland, Bechuanaland, Swaziland,
French Somaliland, the Arabs of Palestine, Aden and the
Protectorates, Oman; and to all peoples in conflict with imperialism
and colonialism. We reaffirm our support to them.

I express also the hope that there will be a just solution to the
conflict facing our sister republic of Indonesia in its relations
with Malaysia.

Mr. President: One of the fundamental themes of this conference is
general and complete disarmament. We express our support for general
and complete disarmament. Furthermore, we advocate the complete
destruction of all thermonuclear devices and we support the holding
of a conference of all the nations of the world to make this
aspiration of all people a reality. In his statement before this
assembly, our prime minister warned that arms races have always led
to war. There are new nuclear powers in the world, and the
possibilities of a confrontation are growing.

We believe that such a conference is necessary to obtain the total
destruction of thermonuclear weapons and, as a first step, the total
prohibition of tests. At the same time, we have to establish clearly
the duty of all countries to respect the present borders of other
states and to refrain from engaging in any aggression, even with
conventional weapons.

In adding our voice to that of all the peoples of the world who ask
for general and complete disarmament, the destruction of all nuclear
arsenals, the complete halt to the building of new thermonuclear
devices and of nuclear tests of any kind, we believe it necessary to
also stress that the territorial integrity of nations must be
respected and the armed hand of imperialism held back, for it is no
less dangerous when it uses only conventional weapons. Those who
murdered thousands of defenseless citizens of the Congo did not use
the atomic bomb. They used conventional weapons. Conventional weapons
have also been used by imperialism, causing so many deaths.

Even if the measures advocated here were to become effective and make
it unnecessary to mention it, we must point out that we cannot adhere
to any regional pact for denuclearization so long as the United
States maintains aggressive bases on our own territory, in Puerto
Rico, Panama, and in other Latin American states where it feels it
has the right to place both conventional and nuclear weapons without
any restrictions. We feel that we must be able to provide for our own
defense in the light of the recent resolution of the Organization of
American States against Cuba, on the basis of which an attack may be
carried out invoking the Rio Treaty.(5)

If the conference to which we have just referred were to achieve all
these objectives—which, unfortunately, would be difficult—we
believe it would be the most important one in the history of
humanity. To ensure this it would be necessary for the People’s
Republic of China to be represented, and that is why a conference of
this type must be held. But it would be much simpler for the peoples
of the world to recognize the undeniable truth of the existence of
the People’s Republic of China, whose government is the sole
representative of its people, and to give it the seat it deserves,
which is, at present, usurped by the gang that controls the province
of Taiwan, with United States support.

The problem of the representation of China in the United Nations
cannot in any way be considered as a case of a new admission to the
organization, but rather as the restoration of the legitimate rights
of the People’s Republic of China.

We must repudiate energetically the “two Chinas” plot. The Chiang
Kai-shek gang of Taiwan cannot remain in the United Nations. What we
are dealing with, we repeat, is the expulsion of the usurper and the
installation of the legitimate representative of the Chinese people.

We also warn against the United States government’s insistence on
presenting the problem of the legitimate representation of China in
the UN as an “important question,” in order to impose a requirement
of a two-thirds majority of members present and voting. The admission
of the People’s Republic of China to the United Nations is, in fact,
an important question for the entire world, but not for the machinery
of the United Nations, where it must constitute a mere question of
procedure. In this way justice will be done. Almost as important as
attaining justice, however, would be the demonstration, once and for
all, that this august assembly has eyes to see, ears to hear, tongues
to speak with, and sound criteria for making its decisions.

The proliferation of nuclear weapons among the member states of NATO,
and especially the possession of these devices of mass destruction by
the Federal Republic of Germany, would make the possibility of an
agreement on disarmament even more remote, and linked to such an
agreement is the problem of the peaceful reunification of Germany. So
long as there is no clear understanding, the existence of two
Germanysmust be recognized: that of the German Democratic Republic
and the Federal Republic. The German problem can be solved only with
the direct participation in negotiations of the German Democratic
Republic with full rights.

We shall only touch on the questions of economic development and
international trade that are broadly represented in the agenda. In
this very year of 1964 the Geneva conference was held at which a
multitude of matters related to these aspects of international
relations were dealt with. The warnings and forecasts of our
delegation were fully confirmed, to the misfortune of the
economically dependent countries.

We wish only to point out that insofar as Cuba is concerned, the
United States of America has not implemented the explicit
recommendations of that conference, and recently the U.S. government
also prohibited the sale of medicines to Cuba. By doing so it
divested itself, once and for all, of the mask of humanitarianism
with which it attempted to disguise the aggressive nature of its
blockade against the people of Cuba.

Furthermore, we state once more that the scars left by colonialism
that impede the development of the peoples are expressed not only in
political relations. The so-called deterioration of the terms of
trade is nothing but the result of the unequal exchange between
countries producing raw materials and industrial countries, which
dominate markets and impose the illusory justice of equal exchange of
values.

So long as the economically dependent peoples do not free themselves
from the capitalist markets and, in a firm bloc with the socialist
countries, impose new relations between the exploited and the
exploiters, there will be no solid economic development. In certain
cases there will be retrogression, in which the weak countries will
fall under the political domination of the imperialists and
colonialists.

Finally, distinguished delegates, it must be made clear that in the
area of the Caribbean, maneuvers and preparations for aggression
against Cuba are taking place, on the coasts of Nicaragua above all,
in Costa Rica as well, in the Panama Canal Zone, on Vieques Island in
Puerto Rico, in Florida, and possibly in other parts of United States
territory and perhaps also in Honduras. In these places Cuban
mercenaries are training, as well as mercenaries of other
nationalities, with a purpose that cannot be the most peaceful one.

After a big scandal, the government of Costa Rica—it is said—has
ordered the elimination of all training camps of Cuban exiles in that
country. No one knows whether this position is sincere, or whether it
is a simple alibi because the mercenaries training there were about
to commit some misdeed. We hope that full cognizance will be taken of
the real existence of bases for aggression, which we denounced long
ago, and that the world will ponder the international responsibility
of the government of a country that authorizes and facilitates the
training of mercenaries to attack Cuba.

We should note that news of the training of mercenaries in different
parts in the Caribbean and the participation of the U.S. government
in such acts is presented as completely natural in the newspapers in
the United States. We know of no Latin American voice that has
officially protested this. This shows the cynicism with which the
United States government moves its pawns.

The sharp foreign ministers of the GAS had eyes to see Cuban emblems
and to find “irrefutable” proof in the weapons that the Yankees
exhibited in Venezuela, but they do not see the preparations for
aggression in the United States, just as they did not hear the voice
of President Kennedy, who explicitly declared himself the aggressor
against Cuba at Playa Giron. In some cases, it is a blindness
provoked by the hatred against our revolution by the ruling classes
of the Latin American countries. In others—and these are sadder and
more deplorable—it is the product of the dazzling glitter of mammon.

As is well known, after the tremendous commotion of the socalled
Caribbean crisis, the United States undertook certain commitments
with the Soviet Union. These culminated in the withdrawal of certain
types of weapons that the continued acts of aggression of the United
States—such as the mercenary attack at Playa Giron and threats of
invasion against our homeland—had compelled us to install in Cuba as
an act of legitimate and essential defense.

The United States, furthermore, tried to get the UN to inspect our
territory. But we emphatically refuse, since Cuba does not recognize
the right of the United States, or of anyone else in the world, to
determine the type of weapons Cuba may have within its borders.

In this connection, we would abide only by multilateral agreements,
with equal obligations for all the parties concerned. As Fidel Castro
has said: "So long as the concept of sovereignty exists as the
prerogative of nations and of independent peoples, as a right of all
peoples, we will not accept the exclusion of our people from that
right. So long as the world is governed by these principles, so long
as the world is governed by those concepts that have universal
validity because they are universally accepted and recognized by the
peoples, we will not accept the attempt to deprive us of any of those
rights, and we will renounce none of those rights."

The secretary-general of the United Nations, U Thant, understood our
reasons. Nevertheless, the United States attempted to establish a new
prerogative, an arbitrary and illegal one: that of violating the
airspace of a small country. Thus, we see flying over our country U-2
aircraft and other types of spy planes that, with complete impunity,
fly over our airspace. We have made all the necessary warnings for
the violations of our airspace to cease, as well as for a halt to the
provocations of the United States navy against our sentry posts in
the zone of Guantanamo, the buzzing by aircraft of our ships or the
ships of other nationalities in international waters, the pirate
attacks against ships sailing under different flags, and the
infiltration of spies, saboteurs, and weapons onto our island.

We want to build socialism. We have declared that we are supporters
of those who strive for peace. We have declared ourselves to be
within the group of Nonaligned countries, although we are
MarxistLeninists, because the Nonaligned countries, like ourselves,
fight imperialism. We want peace. We want to build a better life for
our people. That is why we avoid, insofar as possible, falling into
the provocations manufactured by the Yankees. But we know the
mentality of those who govern them. They want to make us pay a very
high price for that peace. We reply that the price cannot go beyond
the bounds of dignity.

And Cuba reaffirms once again the right to maintain on its territory
the weapons it deems appropriate, and its refusal to recognize the
right of any power on earth—no matter how powerful—to violate our
soil, our territorial waters, or our airspace.

If in any assembly Cuba assumes obligations of a collective nature,
it will fulfill them to the letter. So long as this does not happen,
Cuba maintains all its rights, just as any other nation. In the face
of the demands of imperialism, our prime minister laid out the five
points necessary for the existence of a secure peace in the
Caribbean. They are:

1. "A halt to the economic blockade and all economic and trade
pressures by the United States, in all parts of the world, against
our country;

2. A halt to all subversive activities, launching and landing of
weapons and explosives by air and sea, organization of mercenary
invasions, infiltration of spies and saboteurs, acts all carried out
from the territory of the United States and some accomplice
countries;

3. A halt to pirate attacks carried out from existing bases in the
United States and Puerto Rico;

4. A halt to all the violations of our airspace and our territorial
waters by United States aircraft and warships;

5. Withdrawal from the Guantanamo naval base and return of the Cuban
territory occupied by the United States."

None of these elementary demands has been met, and our forces are
still being provoked from the naval base at Guantanamo. That base has
become a nest of thieves and a launching pad for them into our
territory. We would tire this assembly were we to give a detailed
account of the large number of provocations of all kinds. Suffice it
to say that including the first days of December the number amounts
to 1,323 in 1964 alone. The list covers minor provocations such as
violation of the boundary line, launching of objects from the
territory controlled by the United States, the commission of acts of
sexual exhibitionism by U.S. personnel of both sexes, and verbal
insults. It includes others that are more serious, such as shooting
off smallcaliber weapons, aiming weapons at our territory, and
offenses against our national flag. Extremely serious provocations
include those of crossing the boundary line and starting fires in
installations on the Cuban side, as well as rifle fire. There have
been seventyeight rifle shots this year, with the sorrowful toll of
one death: that of Ramon Lopez Pena, a soldier, killed by two shots
fired from the United States post three and a half kilometers from
the coast on the northern boundary. This extremely grave provocation
took place at 7:07 p.m. on July 19, 1964, and the prime minister of
our government publicly stated on July 26 that if the event were to
recur he would give orders for our troops to repel the aggression. At
the same time orders were given for the withdrawal of the forward
line of Cuban forces to positions farther away from the boundary line
and construction of the necessary fortified positions.

One thousand three hundred and twenty-three provocations in 340 days
amount to approximately four per day. Only a perfectly disciplined
army with a morale such as ours could resist so many hostile acts
without losing its self-control.

Forty-seven countries meeting at the Second Conference of Heads of
State or Government of Nonaligned Countries in Cairo unanimously
agreed:

Noting with concern that foreign military bases are in practice a
means of bringing pressure on nations and retarding their
emancipation and development, based on their own ideological,
political, economic, and cultural ideas, the conference declares its
unreserved support to the countries that are seeking to secure the
elimination of foreign bases from their territory and calls upon all
states maintaining troops and bases in other countries to remove them
immediately.

The conference considers that the maintenance at Guantanamo (Cuba) of
a military base of the United States of America, in defiance of the
will of the government and people of Cuba and in defiance of the
provisions embodied in the declaration of the Belgrade conference,
constitutes a violation of Cuba’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity.

Noting that the Cuban government expresses its readiness to settle
its dispute over the base at Guantanamo with the United States of
America on an equal footing, the conference urges the United States
government to open negotiations with the Cuban government to evacuate
their base.

The government of the United States has not responded to this request
of the Cairo conference and is attempting to maintain indefinitely by
force its occupation of a piece of our territory, from which it
carries out acts of aggression such as those detailed earlier.

The Organization of American States—which the people also call the
United States Ministry of Colonies—condemned us “energetically,”
even though it had just excluded us from its midst, ordering its
members to break off diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba. The
OAS authorized aggression against our country at any time and under
any pretext, violating the most fundamental international laws,
completely disregarding the United Nations. Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile,
and Mexico opposed that measure, and the government of the United
States of Mexico refused to comply with the sanctions that had been
approved. Since then we have had no relations with any Latin American
countries except Mexico, and this fulfills one of the necessary
conditions for direct aggression by imperialism.

We want to make clear once again that our concern for Latin America
is based on the ties that unite us: the language we speak, the
culture we maintain, and the common master we had. We have no other
reason for desiring the liberation of Latin America from the U.S.
colonial yoke. If any of the Latin American countries here decide to
reestablish relations with Cuba, we would be willing to do so on the
basis of equality, and without viewing that recognition of Cuba as a
free country in the world to be a gift to our goverment. Because we
won that recognition with our blood in the days of the liberation
struggle. We acquired it with our blood in the defense of our shores
against the Yankee invasion.

Although we reject any accusations against us of interference in the
internal affairs of other countries, we cannot deny that we
sympathize with those people who strive for their freedom. We must
fulfill the obligation of our government and people to state clearly
and categorically to the world that we morally support and stand in
solidarity with peoples who struggle anywhere in the world to make a
reality of the rights of full sovereignty proclaimed in the United
Nations Charter.

It is the United States that intervenes. It has done so historically
in Latin America. Since the end of the last century Cuba has
experienced this truth; but it has been experienced, too, by
Venezuela, Nicaragua, Central America in general, Mexico, Haiti, and
the Dominican Republic. In recent years, apart from our people,
Panama has experienced direct aggression, where the marines in the
Canal Zone opened fire in cold blood against the defenseless people;
the Dominican Republic, whose coast was violated by the Yankee fleet
to avoid an outbreak of the just fury of the people after the death
of Trujillo; and Colombia, whose capital was taken by assault as a
result of a rebellion provoked by the assassination of Gaitan.(6)

Covert interventions are carried out through military missions that
participate in internal repression, organizing forces designed for
that purpose in many countries, and also in coupe d’etat, which have
been repeated so frequently on the Latin American continent during
recent years. Concretely, United States forces intervened in the
repression of the peoples of Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala, who
fought with weapons for their freedom. In Venezuela, not only do U.S.
forces advise the army and the police, but they also direct acts of
genocide carried out from the air against the peasant population in
vast insurgent areas. And the Yankee companies operating there exert
pressures of every kind to increase direct interference. The
imperialists are preparing to repress the peoples of the Americas and
are establishing an International of Crime.

The United States intervenes in Latin America invoking the defense of
free institutions. The time will come when this assembly will acquire
greater maturity and demand of the United States government
guarantees for the life of the Blacks and Latin Americans who live in
that country, most of them U.S. citizens by origin or adoption.

Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them
because of the color of their skin; those who let the murderers of
Blacks remain free, protecting them, and furthermore punishing the
Black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free
men—how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of
freedom? We understand that today the assembly is not in a position
to ask for explanations of these acts. It must be clearly
established, however, that the government of the United States is not
the champion of freedom, but rather the perpetuator of exploitation
and oppression against the peoples of the world and against a large
part of its own population.

To the ambiguous language with which some delegates have described
the case of Cuba and the OAS, we reply with clear-cut words and we
proclaim that the peoples of Latin America will make those servile,
sell-out governments pay for their treason.

Cuba, distinguished delegates, a free and sovereign state with no
chains binding it to anyone, with no foreign investments on its
territory, with no proconsuls directing its policy, can speak with
its head held high in this assembly and can demonstrate the justice
of the phrase by which it has been baptized: "Free Territory of the
Americas."

Our example will bear fruit in the continent, as it is already doing
to a certain extent in Guatemala, Colombia, and Venezuela.

There is no small enemy nor insignificant force, because no longer
are there isolated peoples. As the Second Declaration of Havana
states:

No nation in Latin America is weak—because each forms part of a
family of 200 million brothers, who suffer the same miseries, who
harbor the same sentiments, who have the same enemy, who dream about
the same better future, and who count upon the solidarity of all
honest men and women throughout the world....

This epic before us is going to be written by the hungry Indian
masses, the peasants without land, the exploited workers. It is going
to be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant
intellectuals, who so greatly abound in our suffering Latin American
lands. Struggles of masses and ideas. An epic that will be carried
forward by our peoples, mistreated and scorned by imperialism; our
people, unreckoned with until today, who are now beginning to shake
off their slumber. Imperialism considered us a weak and submissive
flock; and now it begins to be terrified of that flock; a gigantic
flock of 200 million Latin Americans in whom Yankee monopoly
capitalism now sees its gravediggers....

But now from one end of the continent to the other they are signaling
with clarity that the hour has come—the hour of their vindication.
Now this anonymous mass, this America of color, somber, taciturn
America, which all over the continent sings with the same sadness and
disillusionment, now this mass is beginning to enter definitively
into its own history, is beginning to write it with its own blood, is
beginning to suffer and die for it.

Because now in the mountains and fields of America, on its flatlands
and in its jungles, in the wilderness or in the traffic of cities, on
the banks of its great oceans or rivers, this world is beginning to
tremble. Anxious hands are stretched forth, ready to die for what is
theirs, to win those rights that were laughed at by one and all for
500 years. Yes, now history will have to take the poor of America
into account, the exploited and spurned of America, who have decided
to begin writing their history for themselves for all time. Already
they can be seen on the roads, on foot, day after day, in endless
march of hundreds of kilometers to the governmental “eminences,”
there to obtain their rights.

Already they can be seen armed with stones, sticks, machetes, in one
direction and another, each day, occupying lands, sinking hooks into
the land that belongs to them and defending it with their lives. They
can be seen carrying signs, slogans, flags; letting them flap in the
mountain or prairie winds. And the wave of anger, of demands for
justice, of claims for rights trampled underfoot, which is beginning
to sweep the lands of Latin America, will not stop. That wave will
swell with every passing day. For that wave is composed of the
greatest number, the majorities in every respect, those whose labor
amasses the wealth and turns the wheels of history. Now they are
awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been
subjected,

For this great mass of humanity has said, “Enough!” and has begun to
march. And their march of giants will not be halted until they
conquer true independence—for which they have vainly died more than
once. Today, however, those who die will die like the Cubans at Playa
Girdn. They will die for their own true and never-to-be-surrendered
independence.

All this, distinguished delegates, this new will of a whole
continent, of Latin America, is made manifest in the cry proclaimed
daily by our masses as the irrefutable expression of their decision
to fight and to paralyze the armed hand of the invader. It is a cry
that has the understanding and support of all the peoples of the
world and especially of the socialist camp, headed by the Soviet
Union. That cry is: Patria o muerte! [Homeland or death]

Notes

1. Cuban President Osvaldo Dorticos attended the October 1964
Nonaligned summit conference in Cairo.

2. In January 1964 U.S. forces opened fire on Panamanian students
demonstrating in the U.S.-occupied Canal Zone, sparking several days
of street fighting. More than twenty Panamanians were killed and 300
were wounded.

3. Cheddi Jagan had become prime minister of British Guiana after the
People’s Progressive Party won the 1953 elections; shortly thereafter
Britain suspended the constitution. Jagan was reelected in 1957 and
1961. In 1964 he was defeated in an election by Forbes Burnham. In
1966 Guyana won its independence.

4. In mid-1964, a revolt broke out in the Congo led by followers of
murdered Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba. In an effort to crush the
uprising, during November U.S. planes ferried Belgian troops and
mercenaries to rebel-held territory. These forces carried out a
massacre of thousands of Congolese.

5. An OAS conference in July 1964 called on all its members to break
diplomatic relations and suspend trade with Cuba. The meeting charged
Cuba with following a “policy of aggression” for allegedly smuggling
arms to Venezuelan guerrillas. The Rio Treaty, invoked as
justification for this action, was the OAS Inter-American Treaty of
Reciprocal Assistance, signed September 2, 1947, in Rio de Janeiro.
It declared that aggression against any treaty member state would be
considered an attack on all of them.

6. Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo was assassinated on May 30,
1961. In November 1961, in the context of a growing rebellion by the
Dominican people triggered by the return to Santo Domingo of halo of
Trujillo’s brothers, Washington sent warships off the Dominican
coast.

In April 1948 the assassination of Colombian Liberal Party leader
Jorge E. Gaitan sparked a rebellion that became known as the
Bogotazo.