78. The delegation of Cuba to this Assembly has pleasure in first of all performing the agreeable duty of welcoming three new nations to the already large number of those which discuss world problems in this forum. We welcome the peoples of Zambia, Malawi and Malta in the persons of their Presidents and Prime Ministers, and express the hope that these countries will from the outset join the group of non-aligned nations which are fighting against imperialism, colonialism and neo-colonialism.
79. We likewise extend our congratulations to the President of this Assembly. His elevation to this high post is particularly significant, since it reflects this new historic period of resounding triumphs for the peoples of Africa that were until yesterday subject to the colonial system of imperialism but have today, in their vast majority and in lawful exercise of their self-determination, become sovereign States. The hour of doom for colonialism has struck, and millions of inhabitants of Africa, Asia and Latin America are rising up to face a new life and making good their unrestricted right to self-determination and the independent development of their nations. We wish you, Mr. President, the greatest success in the task entrusted to you by the Member States.
80. Cuba comes here to state its position on the most important controversial issues. It will do so with a full sense of the responsibility which use of this rostrum implies, while at the same time performing its inescapable duty of speaking with all clarity and frankness.
81. We wish to see this Assembly stretch its limbs and march forward; we want the Committees to begin their work, which should not stop at the first confrontation. Imperialism seeks to convert this meeting into a pointless competition in oratory, to prevent it from solving the serious problems of the world; that design we must frustrate. This Assembly must be remembered, in the future, not merely by the number "nineteen" which serves to identify it. Such will be the purpose of our efforts.
82. We feel that we have the right and the duty to take this line, because our country constitutes a point of constant friction. It is one of the places where the principles buttressing the right of small countries to their sovereignty are put to the test day by day and minute by minute. At the same time our country is one of the trenches of the fighters for world freedom, situated only a stone's throw from United States imperialism and showing by the action issuing from it and by its daily example, that the peoples can in fact be liberated and remain free in the present circumstances of mankind. Of course, there is now a socialist camp that is daily growing stronger and equipping itself with ever more powerful weapons with which to make a response; but more is necessary for survival — internal unity, faith in one sown destiny, and unswerving resolution to fight to the death in defence of one's country and of the revolution. All this Cuba possesses.
83. Of all the burning problems to be dealt with by this Assembly, one which for us Cubans is particularly important and must, we feel, be posed in a way that leaves no doubt in anyone's mind is peaceful coexistence between States with different economic and social systems. Much progress has been made in this regard, but imperialism — particularly United States imperialism — has tried to make people believe that peaceful coexistence is reserved for the great Powers alone. We repeat here what was stated by our President at Cairo and was later embodied in the Declaration of the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries: there cannot be peaceful coexistence between powerful nations only, if world peace is to be insured; there must be peaceful coexistence between all States, regardless of their size, their previous historical relationship and the problems arising among some of them at any particular moment.
84. Today, the kind of peaceful coexistence to which we aspire has, in many instances, failed to materialize. The Kingdom of Cambodia has been subjected to every type of treacherous and brutal attack from United States bases in South Viet-Nam, simply because it has maintained a neutral attitude and refused to lend itself to the machinations of United States imperialism. Laos, a divided country, has also been the target of imperialist aggression of every kind. Its people have been attacked from the air; the agreements signed at Geneva have been violated, and part of its territory is in constant danger of being attacked with impunity by the imperialist forces. The Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam, which is more familiar than most other countries with this type of aggression, has once again seen its frontiers violated, its installations blasted by enemy bombers and fighter aircraft, and its naval stations attacked by United States warships violating its territorial waters. At this very moment the Democratic Republic of Viet-Nam is faced with the threat that United States warmongers may openly extend to its territory and people the war which they have been waging for several years now against the people of South Viet-Nam. The Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China have issued stern warnings to the United States. We are faced here with a case in which world peace is in danger; but in addition the lives of millions of human beings throughout this part of Asia are under constant menace, depending on the whim of the United States invaders.
85. Peaceful coexistence has also been put to a brutal test in Cyprus because of pressure from the Turkish Government and NATO, which has compelled the people and Government of Cyprus to make a vigorous and heroic effort in defence of their sovereignty.
86. In all these places, imperialism is trying to impose its version of what coexistence should be. It is the oppressed peoples, in alliance with the socialist camp, who should show what genuine coexistence is, and the United Nations has an obligation to support them.
87. We should also point out that the concept of peaceful coexistence is to be defined only in terms of relations between the sovereign States involved. As Marxists we have maintained that peaceful coexistence between nations does not include coexistence between exploiters and exploited, between oppressors and oppressed.
88. Moreover, a principle has been proclaimed in this Organization — namely, the right of a people to complete independence and freedom from all forms of colonial oppression. That is why we express our solidarity with the peoples — now colonial — of so-called Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Mozambique, who are attacked and massacred for the crime of asking for their freedom; we are prepared to help them, to the best of our ability, in accordance with the Cairo Declaration.
89. We express our solidarity with the people of Puerto Rico and their great leader, Pedro Albizu Campos, who, by another act of hypocrisy, has been released at the age of seventy-two, hardly able to speak and in a paralytic condition, after a lifetime spent in prison. Albizu Campos is a symbol of a still unredeemed but indomitable America. Years and years of imprisonment, almost intolerable pressure while in prison, mental torture, solitude, complete isolation from his people and his family, and the insolence of the conquerors and their lackeys in the land of his birth — none of these things broke his will. The delegation of Cuba, on behalf of the Cuban people, pays a tribute of admiration and gratitude to a patriot who lends dignity to our America.
90. For years the United States has tried to turn Puerto Rico into a mirror of hybrid culture — Spanish speaking but with English inflections, Spanish-speaking but with a hinged backbone to make it bow down before the American soldier. Puerto Rican soldiers have been used as cannon-fodder in imperialist wars, as in Korea, and have even been made to fire on their own brothers, as during the massacre perpetrated some months ago by the United States Army against the defenceless people of Panama — one of the most recent misdeeds of United States imperialism.
91. Nevertheless, despite such tremendous violence done to its will and historic destiny, the people of Puerto Rico has preserved its culture, Latin character and national feelings—which in itself is proof of the implacable determination of the mass of the population of this Latin American island to be, some day, independent.
92. We must also observe that the principle of peaceful coexistence does not imply the right to flout the people's will, as is the case in so-called British Guiana. There, the Government of Prime Minister Cheddi Jagan has been the victim of every kind of pressure and manoeuvre, and the date for his country's independence has been postponed while methods are devised to flout the people's wishes and secure the docility of a different Government, installed by devious manipulations, with a view to some sort of emasculated freedom being granted to this piece of American soil. The people of Guiana can count on Cuba's moral and militant support, whatever the course that Guiana is obliged to take in order to obtain its freedom. We must likewise mention the islands of Guadeloupe and Martinique, which have been fighting for independence for some time, without obtaining it; such a state of affairs must not continue.
93. Once again we raise our voice to warn the nations of what is happening in South Africa. The brutal policy of apartheid is being applied before the eyes of the entire world. The peoples of Africa are compelled to tolerate the continued application, in their continent, of an official doctrine of the superiority of one race over another, and murders, perpetrated with impunity in the name of that racial superiority. Will the United Nations do nothing to prevent it?
94. I would refer specifically to the tragic case of the Congo — a case which is without parallel in the modern world, and which shows how the rights of peoples can be flouted with absolute impunity and the most insolent cynicism. The direct cause of all this is the Congo's vast resources, which the imperialist nations wish to keep under their control. In the speech which he made on the occasion of his first visit to the United Nations, our comrade Fidel Castro pointed out in the General Assembly [872nd meeting] that the whole problem of coexistence between nations turned upon the misappropriation of other people's wealth. He made this observation: "When this philosophy of despoilment disappears, the philosophy of war will have disappeared." Yet not only has the philosophy of despoilment not disappeared, it is more widespread than ever — which explains why those who used the name of the United Nations in order to perpetrate the assassination of Lumumba are today murdering thousands of Congolese, in the name of the defence of the white race.
95. How can we forget the way in which Patrice Lumumba's hopes in the United Nations were betrayed? How can we forget the machinations and manoeuvres that followed the occupation of the Congo by United Nations troops, under whose auspices the assassins of the great African patriot acted with impunity? How can we forget that the man who flouted the authority of the United Nations in the Congo — and not precisely for patriotic reasons, but rather under cover of conflicts between imperialists — was none other than Moise Tshombé, who initiated the secession of Katanga with Belgian support? And how can one justify or explain the fact that, after the entire United Nations action had been completed, Tshombé, ousted from Katanga, was able to return as lord and master of the Congo? Who can deny the sorry role that the imperialists forced the United Nations to play?
96. In short, spectacular military movements were made to avert the secession of Katanga; yet today Katanga is in power, the riches of the Congo are in imperialist hands, and ... the costs of all this are to be paid by the decent nations. What good business is done by the merchants of war! For this reason the Government of Cuba supports the just attitude of the Soviet Union in refusing to pay the cost of crime.
97. And now, as a crowning insult, the recent actions that have filled the world with indignation are flung in our faces. Who are the perpetrators? Belgian paratroopers, transported by United States aircraft which took off from British bases. We remember, as if it were yesterday, seeing a small, industrious and civilized country of Europe, the Kingdom of Belgium, invaded by Hitler's hordes. We thought bitterly of that small nation being attacked and massacred by German imperialism, and our hearts went out to its people. But many of us did not see this other face of the imperialist coin.
98. It may be that sons of Belgium patriots who died in defence of their country's freedom murdered with impunity thousands of Congolese in the name of the white race, just as they had suffered under the German heel because their blood was not sufficiently Aryan.
99. Our eyes, looking today in freedom upon new horizons, can see what our status.as colonial slaves had prevented us from seeing — that "Western civilization" conceals behind its showy façade a picture of hyenas and jackals. For such are the only names merited by those who went out to fulfil these "humanitarian" tasks in the Congo. A carnivorous animal feeding on the helpless—that is what imperialism does to man, that is the distinguishing mark of the "white" imperialist. All free men throughout the world must make ready to avenge the Congo crime.
100. It may be that many of these soldiers, transformed into subhuman creatures by imperialist machinations, honestly believe that they are defending the rights of a superior race; but in this Assembly the peoples whose skins are tanned by a different sun and coloured by different pigments are in the majority, and they have completely grasped the fact that the difference between men resides, not in the colour of their skin, but in the forms of ownership of the means of production, the production relationships, in which they are involved.
101. The Cuban delegation sends its greetings to the peoples of Southern Rhodesia and South West Africa, oppressed by white colonialist minorities; to Basutoland, Bechuanaland and Swaziland, to French Somaliland, to the Arab people of Palestine, to Aden and the Protectorates, to Oman and to all the peoples struggling against imperialism and colonialism; it reaffirms its support for them. We also hope for a just solution of the conflict which faces our sister Republic of Indonesia in its relations with Malaysia.
102. One of the basic agenda items for this session is general and complete disarmament. We express our support for general and complete disarmament; we also advocate the complete destruction of thermonuclear devices, and favour the convening of a conference of all nations of the world to give effect to these aspirations of their peoples. In his statement before this Assembly [872nd meeting], our Prime Minister issued the warning that arms races have always led to war. New atomic Powers have appeared in the world, and the possibility of a confrontation is increasing.
103. We believe that such a conference is necessary in order to obtain the total destruction of thermonuclear weapons and, as a first step, the total prohibition of nuclear testing. At the same time, it must be clearly established that all States are under an obligation to respect the present frontiers of other States, and to refrain from all aggressive action, even with conventional weapons.
104. In adding our voice to the chorus of the world's peoples that demand general and complete disarmament, the destruction of all atomic weapons, and a complete ban on the production of new thermo-nuclear devices and on atomic tests of any kind, we believe it is necessary to stress that, in addition, the territorial integrity of nations must be respected and the mailed fist of imperialism restrained, for the latter is just as dangerous when it holds only conventional weapons. Those who murdered thousands of defenceless Congolese did not use atomic weapons; the deaths were caused by conventional weapons, wielded by imperialism.
105. Although implementation of the measures advocated here would render this statement unnecessary, it must be stressed that we cannot accede to any regional denuclearization agreement so long as the United States maintains aggressive bases in our own territory, in Puerto Rico, in Panama and in other American States where it feels it is entitled to have both conventional and nuclear weapons, without any restriction, at its disposal. Moreover, the latest resolutions of the Organization of American States directed against our country, according to which Cuba could be attacked on the basis of the Treaty of Rio de Janeiro, make it necessary for us to possess all the means of defence open to us.
106. We believe that if the conference of which we have spoken could attain all these objectives — a difficult task, unfortunately — it would represent one of the most important developments in the history of mankind. If this goal is to be reached, the People's Republic of China must be represented, and that is why a meeting of this type is imperative. But it would be much simpler for the peoples of the world to recognize the undeniable truth that the People's Republic of China exists and that its rulers are the only representatives of Its people, and to give it its rightful place, at present usurped by the clique which with United States support controls the province of Taiwan.
107. The problem of the representation of China in the United Nations can in no way be regarded as involving a new admission to the Organization; it is a case of restoring the lawful rights of the People's Republic of China. We must emphatically reject the "two Chinas" plot. The Chiang Kai-shek clique of Taiwan cannot remain in the United Nations. It is, we repeat, a question of expelling the usurper and installing the lawful representative of the Chinese people.
108. Furthermore, we issue a warning against the United States Government's insistence in presenting the question of the lawful representation of China in the United Nations as "an important question", with the aim of making it subject to the rule of the two- thirds majority of Members present and voting.
109. The entry of the People's Republic of China into the United Nations is certainly an important question for the world as a whole, but not for the purposes of the machinery of the United Nations, where it should constitute a simple question of procedure. In this way justice would be done, and — what is equally important — it would be demonstrated once and for all that this Assembly has eyes to see, ears to hear, its own tongue to speak with, and the right standards whereby to take decisions.
110. The proliferation of atomic weapons among the NATO countries, and especially the possession of these devices of mass destruction by the Federal Republic of Germany, would make the possibility of a disarmament agreement even more remote. And associated with such agreements is the problem of the peaceful reunification of Germany. So long as no clear understanding has been reached, the existence of two Germanies — the German Democratic Republic and the Federal Republic of Germany — must be recognized. The German problem cannot be solved unless the German Democratic Republic takes a direct part in the negotiations, with full rights.
111. We shall touch but lightly on the questions of economic development and international trade, which are amply represented in the Assembly's agenda. This year of 1964 witnessed the holding of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, at which very many points connected with these aspects of international relations were discussed. Unfortunately for the economically dependent countries, the warnings and predictions of our delegation were fully confirmed.
112. We merely wish to point out that, so far as Cuba is concerned, the United States has not complied with the explicit recommendations of this Conference. Recently, indeed, the United States Government prohibited the sale of medicaments to Cuba, thus throwing away once and for all the humanitarian mask behind which it was trying to conceal the aggressive nature of its blockade against the Cuban people.
113. Moreover, we would say once again that the faults of colonialism which impede the peoples' development are not confined to the political field. The so-called deterioration in the terms of trade is simply the result of the unequal exchange between primary producing countries and the industrialized countries which dominate the markets and impose the apparent justice of trade which is equal in value. So long as the economically dependent peoples do not free themselves from the capitalist markets and, in firm solidarity with the socialist countries, impose new trade relations between the exploiters and the exploited, there will be no sound economic development and in certain cases there will be retrogression, the weak countries falling once more under the political domination of the imperialists and the colonialists.
114. Finally, it must be clearly realized that manoeuvres and preparations for aggression against Cuba are taking place in the Caribbean area. Particularly on the littoral of Nicaragua, but also in Costa Rica, the Panama Canal Zone, the Puerto Rican island of Vieques, Florida, and probably other parts of United States territory, as well as possibly in Honduras, Cuban mercenaries and mercenaries of other nationalities are training, with a purpose that cannot be peaceful.
115. As the result of a notorious scandal, the Government of Costa Rica, is said to have ordered the closing of all training camps for Cuban exiles in that country. No one knows whether this attitude is sincere, or whether what we have here is merely a pretence dictated by the consideration that the mercenaries trained there are about to commit some villainy. We hope that there will be clear realization of the existence of bases for aggression, which we have long denounced, and that consideration will be given to the international responsibility of a Government which authorizes and facilitates the training of mercenaries for an attack against Cuba. We must point out that reports on the training of mercenaries at various places in the Caribbean and the participation of the United States Government In such acts appear openly in United States newspapers. We know of no official Latin American protest against this.
116. It reveals the cynicism with which the United States manipulates its pawns. The subtle Ministers for Foreign Affairs of OAS, who had eyes to see Cuban emblems and find "irrefutable" proof in the Yankee weapons exhibited by Venezuela, do not see the obvious preparations for aggression in the United States, just as they did not hear the voice of President Kennedy, who explicitly declared himself to be the aggressor against Cuba at Playa Girón. In some instances, it is a case of blindness provoked by the hatred felt by the ruling classes in Latin American countries for our revolution; in others, which are even sadder, it is a case of being dazzled by the glint of mammon.
117. As is well known, after the tremendous flurry of the so-called "Caribbean crisis", the United States reached with the Soviet Union certain agreements culminating in the withdrawal of a certain type of armament which continued acts of aggression by the United States — such as the mercenary attack at Playa Girón and the threats to invade our country — had compelled us to install in Cuba, in implementation of our inalienable right of self-defence. The United States also claimed that the United Nations should inspect our territory—a claim which we emphatically rejected, since Cuba does not recognize the right of the United States, or of any one else in the world, to determine what weapons Cuba should possess within its frontiers.
118. In this connexion, we would respect only multilateral agreements, containing equal obligations for all the parties. As Fidel Castro has said: so long as sovereignty is a prerogative of independent nations and peoples, and a right of all peoples, we shall not allow our own people to be deprived of that right; so long as the world is governed by these principles, so long as the world is governed by these concepts, which have universal validity because they are universally accepted and sanctioned by the peoples, we shall not allow ourselves to be deprived of any of those rights, we shall not renounce a single one of them.
119. The Secretary-General of the United Nations, U Thant, understood our reasons. Nevertheless, the United States sought to establish a new, arbitrary and illegal prerogative — that of violating the airspace of any small country. Thus, there have been streaking through our country's air space, with impunity, U-2 aircraft and other types of espionage apparatus. We have issued all the necessary warning that an end should be put to violations of air space, as well as to provocative actions by Yankee sailors against our sentry-posts in the Guantanamo area, to the "buzzing" of our ships and ships of other nationalities by aircraft in international waters, to piratical attacks upon ships sailing under various flags, and to the clandestine introduction of spies, saboteurs and arms into our island.
120. We want to build socialism; we have declared ourselves supporters of those who are fighting for peace; and although we are Marxist-Leninists, we have said that we belong to the group of non-aligned countries, because those countries, like ourselves, and struggling against imperialism. We want peace, we wish to build a better life for our people, and we therefore do our best not to respond to the provocations engineered by the Yankees; yet we know the mentality of their rulers — they hope to force us to pay a very high price for that peace. We reply that that price cannot exceed the limits dictated by honour,
121. And Cuba once again reaffirms both its right to maintain on its territory whatever arms it sees fit and its refusal to recognize the right of any Power on earth, no matter how mighty, to violate our soil, our territorial waters and our air space. If at any Assembly Cuba assumes obligations of a collective nature, it will fulfil them to the letter. Until that happens, it will maintain its rights to the full, just like any other nation.
122. In the face of imperialist demands, our Prime Minister laid down the five points essential to a well- established peace in the Caribbean. These are: "1. Cessation of the economic blockade and of all the measures of commercial and economic pressure brought to bear by the United States in every part of the world against our country. "2. Cessation of all subversive activities, the dropping and landing of weapons and explosives by air and sea, the organization of invasions by mercenaries, and the clandestine introduction of spies and saboteurs — all of which are actions carried out from the territory of the United States and of certain collaborating countries. "3. Cessation of the piratical attacks launched from bases in the United States and in Puerto Rico. "4. Cessation of all violations of our air space and territorial waters by aircraft and warships of the United States. ”5. Evacuation of the Guantanamo naval base, and return of Cuban territory occupied by the United States." None of these elementary requirements has been complied with, and our troops are still the object of harassment from the naval base of Guantanamo. This base has become a hide-out for malefactors and a spring-board for their introduction into our territory.
123. We should weary this Assembly if we gave an even moderately detailed account of all the provocations of this type which have been committed. Suffice it to say that in 1964 alone, including the first days of December, there have been 1,323 of these incidents. The list includes minor provocations such as violation of the boundary line, the throwing of objects from the territory controlled by the North Americans, acts of sexual exhibitionism by North Americans of both sexes, and oral insults. Others of a more serious nature are the firing of small arms, the aiming of weapons at our territory, and insults to our national flag. Much more serious provocations include: the crossing of the boundary line in order to start fires in installations on the Cuban side, and the firing of rifles — repeated seventy-eight times throughout the year and causing the sad death of Ramon Lopez Pena, a soldier killed as a result of two shots fired from a United States army post three and a half kilometres from the coast on the north-eastern sector of the boundary.
124. This last and extremely serious provocation took place at 7.7 p.m. on 19 July 1964; and our Prime Minister publicly declared, on 26 July, that if there was any repetition of such an incident, he would give orders for our troops to repel the aggression. At the same time Cuban troops were ordered to withdraw from their forward positions to positions further from the boundary line, and an order for the construction of adequate casemates was given.
125. A total of 1,323 provocations in 340 days means approximately four per day. Only a perfectly disciplined army with a high morale, such as ours, can resist such an accumulation of hostile acts without loss of calm.
126. Forty-seven countries, meeting at Cairo for the Second Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, unanimously agreed on the following: "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 full support to the countries which arb seeking to secure the evacuation of foreign bases on their territory and calls upon all States maintaining troops and bases in other countries to remove them forthwith. "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 of Guantanamo with the United States on an equal footing, the Conference urges the United States Government to negotiate the evacuation of this base with the Cuban Government." [A/5763, section VIII.] The United States Government has not responded to this request of the Cairo Conference, and proposes to maintain indefinitely its forcible occupation of a piece of our territory from which it carries out acts of aggression such as those I have already described.
127. The Organization of American States, also popularly known as the United States Ministry of the Colonies, "strongly" condemned us — although it had already excluded us from its membership — and ordered its member countries to break off diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba. The Organization authorized aggression against our country, at any time and on any pretext — thus violating the most elementary international laws and completely disregarding the United Nations.
128. Uruguay, Bolivia, Chile and Mexico voted against these measures, and the Government of the United Mexican States refused to comply with the sanctions when they were approved; since that time we have had no relations with any Latin American country except Mexico, and one of the preliminary steps towards direct imperialist aggression has thus been taken.
129. We would explain once more that our concern for the countries of Latin America is based on the ties which unite us: the language we speak, our culture, and the master we formerly shared. We have no other reason for desiring the liberation of Latin America from the colonial yoke of the United States. If any of the Latin American countries here today decided to re-establish relations with Cuba, we should be ready to act in that sense on a basis of equality and not on the assumption that recognition of Cuba as a free country was an act of generosity towards our Government, for we won that recognition with our blood during our struggle for liberation; we achieved it with our blood in defending our shores against the Yankee invasion.
130. Although we reject any attempt to charge us with interference in the domestic affairs of other countries, we cannot deny that we sympathize with the peoples which are fighting for their freedom; and we must conform with the obligation of our Government and people to proclaim aloud, to the world, our moral support of and solidarity with the peoples that are anywhere struggling to achieve the rights of sovereignty proclaimed in the United Nations Charter.
131. The United States, for its part, is certainly intervening; it has a long history of intervention in America. Cuba has been aware of it since the end of the last century; but Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Central America as a whole, Mexico, Haiti and Santo Domingo are also aware of it.
132. In recent years direct aggression has been experienced, not only by our own people, but by Panama, where marines stationed in the Canal opened fire with impunity on the defenceless population; by Santo Domingo, whose coasts were violated by the Yankee fleet with a view to preventing a justifiable outburst of popular fury after the murder of Trujillo; and by Colombia, whose capital was taken by storm immediately after the rebellion which the assassination of Gaitan had provoked. Underhand intervention is being carried out through military missions which take part in internal repression — by organizing armed forces for that purpose in a number of countries — and in all the coups d’état known as "gorilazos", which have occurred so frequently on the American continent in recent times.
133. Specifically, United States forces are intervening to aid in the repression of the peoples of Venezuela, Colombia, and Guatemala, that are carrying on an armed struggle for freedom. In the first-named country, they not only advise the army and the police, but carry out genocidal attacks from the air against the peasant population of large rebel-held areas, and the Yankee troops stationed there exert every kind of pressure with a view to increasing direct interference. The imperialists are preparing to repress the American peoples and are creating an "International" of crime.
134. The United States is intervening in America on the pretext of defending free institutions. The day will come when this Assembly will acquire even greater maturity and will demand from the United States Government guarantees for the lives of the negro and Latin American people living in this country, most of them native-born or naturalized United States citizens.
135. How can a country which murders its own children and discriminates between them daily because of the colour of their skins, a country that allows the murderers of Negroes to go free, actually protects them and punishes the Negroes for demanding respect for their lawful rights as free human beings, claim to be a guardian of liberty? We realize that today the Assembly is not in a position to demand explanations for these acts; yet it must be clearly established that the Government of the United States is not the guardian of liberty, but rather that it is perpetuating the exploitation and oppression of many of the world's peoples and of many of its own citizens.
136. Our reply to the ambiguous language with which certain representatives have described the case of Cuba and OAS is a forthright proclamation that the peoples of America will make the treacherous Governments pay for their treason.
137. Cuba, a free and sovereign country with no chains binding it to anyone, with no foreign investments in its territory, with no pro-consuls to "direct" its policy, can hold its head high in this Assembly and prove its title to the name "Free Territory of America" with which it will be baptized.
138. Our example will bear fruit on the continent, as it has already borne fruit to a certain extent in Guatemala, Colombia and Venezuela. There is no small enemy, nor any contemptible little army, because there are no longer any isolated peoples. As is set forth in the Second Declaration of Havana: "No one people of Latin America is weak, because all are part of a family of 200 million brothers who suffer the same miseries, harbour the same feelings and face the same enemy. All dream alike of a happier fate and can count on the solidarity of all honourable men and women throughout the world. "This epic which lies before us will be written by the hungry masses of Indians, of landless peasants, of exploited workers. It will be written by the progressive masses, the honest and brilliant intellectuals of whom there are so many in our suffering lands of Latin America. A struggle of masses and of ideas, this epic will be borne forward by our peoples who have been maltreated and despised by imperialism, by our peoples, who, slighted until today, are now beginning to awaken from their sleep. We were regarded as an impotent, submissive herd; but now they are beginning to fear that herd, a gigantic herd of 200 million Latin Americans who will dig the grave of Yankee monopoly capital, as that capital already senses. "... The hour of their vindication is striking, the hour they themselves have chosen. The bell is sounding clearly from one end of the continent to the other. This anonymous mass, this coloured America, sombre and taciturn, which is singing throughout the continent the same sad, disillusioned song, is now beginning to take its history into its own hands, to write it with its own blood, to suffer and to die. For now, in the fields and mountains of America, on the slopes of its "sierras", in its plains and in its forests, in solitude or amid the bustle of cities, on the shores of the ocean and the bank of the river, these valiant hearts are beginning to stir hot with the desire to die for what is theirs, to gain and hold their rights which have been flouted for nearly five hundred years. Yes, history must now reckon with the poor people of America, with the exploited and scorned of Latin America, who have decided that henceforth they will write their own history. Day after day they can be seen on the roads, on foot, marching endlessly, for hundreds of miles, to reach their 'Olympian' rulers and to secure their rights. Day after day they can be seen, here, there and everywhere, armed with stones, sticks and matchets, occupying the land, digging their hooks into the soil which is theirs and defending it with their lives. They can be seen bearing their banners, flags and slogans, letting them blow in the wind amid the mountains or across the plains. And this wave of shaking fury, of justice demanded, of rights withheld, which is beginning to engulf the countries of Latin America, will not recede. It will mount with every day that passes, because it consists of the masses, those who are in a majority in all things, those whose labour produces the wealth, who create the values, who turn the wheels of history and are now awakening from the long, benumbing sleep to which others had consigned them. "For this great mass of humanity has said 'Enough!' and has begun to move. And its march, its march of giants, will not stop until that true independence, for which lives have more than once been lost in vain, has been won. Now at least those who die will die as the Cubans did at Playa Girón—for their own, true and inalienable independence."
139. This new structure of a continent, of America, is rising and taking shape in the daily asseveration by our people of their irrevocable determination to fight and to paralyse the mailed fist of the invader. This proclaimed determination has the understanding and support of all peoples of the world, and especially of the socialist camp headed by the Soviet Union, The proclamation is: "Country or Death".