Y vaya si les ganó de nuevo. Apenas una semana antes de cumplir los 96 años de nacido, y cuando ya lleva más de un lustro ausente, su nombre volvió a levantarse como el monumento que expresamente prohibió que se le hiciera.

Cubanos de todas las edades que salieron a batirse con una catástrofe accidental sin pensar en los riesgos, llevaban su nombre en los labios y lo citaban como si estuviera de cuerpo presente.

Se le ha querido culpar de todo lo que nos falta (tecnología, insumos, mercadería, lujo…), es decir, cosas, muchas, infinitas cosas, que de tanto faltarnos casi nos matan. Pero su nombre no suena entonces sino cuando se habla de todo lo que nos lega (salud, educación, cultura, ciencia, conciencia, coraje, unidad), que es casi todo lo que nos salva.

Atrapados en la enfermiza obsesión de matar y vencer a un enemigo con el que no pueden ni después de muerto –y muerto cuando él quiso y no cuando ellos quisieron–, los creadores de aquel lapidario designio para una era, sin ellos saberlo, también levantan monumentos a la memoria de Fidel, constantemente.

Lo hacen cada vez que hablan del régimen Castro-Canel, como si no pudieran decir Cuba sin zafarse del apellido de los dos hermanos que derrotaron la leyenda bíblica de Abel y Caín, hasta convertirse en símbolo de su reverso.

O como si reconocieran el espíritu de los Castro en todo lo que el nuevo liderazgo del país hace con más pasión que recursos, casi milagrosamente.

Ay, nuestros adversarios de afuera, ignorantes y prepotentes, fatal mezcla que no los deja ver. Ay, nuestros adversarios de adentro, ignorantes y sometidos, ridícula mezcla que no los deja ser.

Lo mejor de la era pos-Castro es que lleva muchos apellidos y una diversidad tremenda de genes. Blancos, mulatos y negros, mujeres y hombres, jóvenes y viejos. Profesionales, obreros, intelectuales, artistas, deportistas, campesinos, empresarios, cuentapropistas, inversionistas extranjeros y hasta ¡emigrados! de todas las épocas.

Fidel solía decir también que la política era un juego de ajedrez de 500 piezas. No tengo la menor duda de que su jugada más brillante fue plantar la unidad como destino ineluctable en “la era pos-Castro”. Jaque Mate.

His trajectory since the 1960s was one of admirable personal integrity and fidelity to the principles that made him one of the most respected personalities of the American progressive movement.

Attorney General of the United States during the administration of Lyndon B. Johnson, he played a key role in the approval and application of the Civil Rights Act, a decisive step in eliminating discrimination against African-Americans in electoral matters. He also accompanied Johnson in his efforts to ensure affordable health care for all. Both issues were flags that “liberals” raised but with increasingly hesitant hands while their elimination has become a priority for Trump and his supporters.

Ramsey for his part became a point of reference for those who did not abandon the ideals of freedom and true democracy.

He opposed the war against the Vietnamese people to the point that the President excluded him from the National Security Council despite the fact that his participation in that body derived from the high office he held.

Outside the government, Ramsey waged a tireless battle to stop this aggression, which generated a growing mobilization not only in his country but throughout the world, and to which he contributed as few others did. Not only with speeches and declarations. Of special significance was his physical, personal presence on Vietnamese soil in open violation of Washington’s official prohibition.

He had an exceptional capacity for work and delivering solidarity was for him a mission to which he gave his all. No cause was alien to him.

We Cubans owe him a great debt. Our cause was also his. His voice was raised time and again to denounce the blockade and the war that the Empire is waging against us in all fields.

His participation in the campaign to free Elián González and in the hard, complex and prolonged struggle for the liberation of our Five Heroes was decisive. Personally, as long as I live I will thank him for his help and from the bottom of my heart I say Thank you for everything dear friend, brother, compañero.

Fellow countrymen,

Speaking here tonight, I’m presented with perhaps one of the most difficult tasks in this long struggle, which began on November 30, 1956, in Santiago de Cuba.

The people are listening, the revolutionary fighters are listening, and the regular troops – whose fate is in our hands – are listening also.

I believe this to be a turning point in our history: the tyranny has been overthrown. The rejoicing is immense. But there is still much to be done. We mustn’t fool ourselves into believing that the future will be easy; everything may be more difficult in the future.

Telling the truth is the first duty of all revolutionaries. Deceiving the people, raising false hopes, always brings the worst consequences, and I feel it’s necessary to warn everyone against over-optimism.

How did the Rebel Army win the war? Telling the truth. How did the tyranny lose the war? Deceiving the troops.

When we suffered a setback, we announced it over Radio Rebelde, criticizing the mistakes any officer may have made, and warning all the comrades to make sure they didn’t let the same thing happen to any other unit. That was not the way with the army units. Many of them repeated the same mistakes, because the officers and troops were never told the truth.

That’s why I mean to start – or rather continue – with the same system: that of always telling the people the truth.

We have made headway, maybe taken a big step forward. Here we are in the capital, here we are in Columbia: the revolutionary forces have apparently prevailed; a government has been formed and recognized by several countries in the world; it seems the peace has been won. Nevertheless, we mustn’t be complacent. While the people were laughing today, while the people were cheering, we were worrying; and the bigger the crowds that came to welcome us, and the greater the jubilation of the people, the more we worried, because also the greater was our obligation to history and to the people of Cuba.
The Revolution is still being led by an army in battle order. Who, now and in the future, may be the enemies of the Revolution? Who, standing before this victorious people, could be the future enemies of the Revolution? The worst enemies which the Cuban Revolution could face in the future are us, the revolutionaries.

This is what I always told the rebel fighters: when we no longer have the enemy before us, when the war is over, we ourselves are potentially the only enemies of the Revolution; that is why we said, and I repeat, that we will be tougher on the rebel soldiers than on anyone else, more demanding than with anyone else, because the triumph or failure of the Revolution will depend on them.

There are many kinds of revolutionaries. We have been hearing talk about revolution for a long time: up to 10th March, they were saying that a revolution was under way, “revolution” was on everyone’s lips, and everything was “revolutionary”. The soldiers were assembled here and were told about the “10th March Revolution” (LAUGHTER).

We’ve been hearing talk about revolutionaries for a long time. I remember my first notions of the revolutionary, before study and a certain maturity made me aware of what a revolution really was, and what a revolutionary really was. Our first impressions of revolutionaries were gained as children, and we were told: so-and-so was a revolutionary, fought in this or that engagement, or this or that operation, or placed bombs; or some other Joe was a revolutionary. “Revolutionary” even became a class. At that time there were revolutionaries who saw revolution as a living, who wanted a living based on having been a revolutionary, on having placed a bomb, or two bombs. And maybe those that talked the most were the ones who’d done least. But the fact is that they applied to the ministries for jobs, so as to live parasitic existences, to reap the rewards for what they had done at that time, for a revolution which sadly never got off the ground. It seems to me that the first revolution with a real chance of succeeding is this one, so long as we don’t let it slip through our fingers… (SHOUTS OF “No!” AND APPLAUSE).

The revolutionary of my childhood went about with a .45-calibre gun in his belt and wanted to live on the respect it commanded. He was to be feared: he was capable of killing anyone. He would arrive at the office of high officials with the air of a man who must be listened to. In reality, we wondered: where is the revolution these people fought? Because there was no revolution, and very few revolutionaries.

The first thing that we, the protagonists of this Revolution, must ask ourselves, is what did we expect to achieve? Whether in any of us lurked ambition, a desire to command, some ignoble purpose; whether there was an idealist in each of those who fought in this revolution, or was it someone who was using idealism as a pretext for pursuing other ends; whether we undertook this revolution thinking that as soon as the tyranny was defeated, we would take over the reins of power; whether we were all going to drive around in limousines; whether we were all going to live like kings, whether we would all have mansions, and that life for us would be a stroll in the park, on the strength of having been revolutionaries and having vanquished the tyranny; whether what we were planning was to oust certain politicians; whether what we were planning was simply to remove certain men and put others in their place; or whether we were all truly disinterested, whether we all acted out of a spirit of self-sacrifice, whether all of us were willing to give our all and receive nothing in return, and whether, beforehand, we were ready to give up everything and continue on the austere path of the genuine revolutionary (PROLONGED APPLAUSE). We must address that question, because such soul-searching could have far-reaching implications for the future destiny of Cuba, of ourselves and of the people.

When I hear mention of columns, when I hear mention of battle fronts, when I hear mention of more-or-less heavy troop concentrations, I always think: I have our strongest column right here, our best troops – the only troops able to win the war alone – right here. Those troops are the people! (APPLAUSE).

No general is a greater asset than the people; no army is a greater force than the people. If you asked me what troops I prefer to lead, I would say I prefer to command the people (APPLAUSE), because the people are invincible. And it was the people who won this war, because we had no tanks, we had no planes, we had no heavy artillery, we had no military academies, we had no recruitment and training camps, we had no divisions, or regiments, or companies, or platoons, or even squads (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).

Well then. Who won the war? The people, the people won the war. This war wasn’t won by anyone except the people – I say that in case anyone thinks he won it, or if some troop unit thinks they won it (APPLAUSE). And so the victor’s crown goes to the people.

But there’s another thing: the Revolution doesn’t affect me as a person, or any other commander as a person; or any captain, or any column, or any company. Who the Revolution affects is the people (APPLAUSE)

It’s the people who gain or lose with the Revolution. If it was the people who suffered the horrors of these seven years, it is the people who must now consider whether in 10, 15 or 20 years they, and their children, and their grandchildren, are going to go on suffering the horrors the Republic of Cuba has suffered from its inception, crowned with dictatorships like those of Machado and those of Batista (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).

The people are greatly affected by whether we’re going to make a good job of this revolution, or if we’re going to make the same mistakes as in the last revolution, or the one before that, or the one before that. And so we’ll suffer the consequences of our mistakes, since there are no mistakes which do not affect the people, no political mistake which does not have to be paid for, sooner or later.

Circumstances alter cases. For instance, I think the present opportunity offers more chances than ever before for the Revolution to fully meet its aims. Perhaps that’s why the people are so jubilant, forgetting somewhat the toil and sweat that still lie ahead.

One of the nation’s main desires, a reflection of the past horrors of the repression and the war, is the yearning for peace, for peace with freedom, for peace with justice, for peace with rights. Nobody wants peace on other terms: Batista talked about peace, about order, but no-one wanted that peace, because its price was subjugation.

Now the people have the sort of peace they wanted: peace without dictatorship, peace without censorship, peace without persecution (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).

Perhaps the greatest joy at this moment is felt by Cuban mothers. Mothers of soldiers, mothers of revolutionaries, mothers of any citizen, are now basking in the knowledge that their sons are finally out of danger (APPLAUSE).

The worst crime that could be committed now in Cuba, would be a crime against the peace. The thing that nobody in Cuba could forgive now would be if someone conspired against the peace (APPLAUSE).

Anyone who acts now against the nation’s peace, anyone who threatens the peace of mind and happiness of millions of Cuban mothers, is a criminal and a traitor (APPLAUSE). Anybody who is unwilling to give up something for the sake of peace, who is unwilling to give up everything for the sake of the nation’s peace at this juncture, is a criminal and a traitor (APPLAUSE).
Since that’s how I see things, I say and I swear before my compatriots that if any of my comrades, or our movement, or I myself, prove to be the slightest obstacle to the nation’s peace, from this very moment the people may do with all of us what they will, and tell us what we must do (APPLAUSE). Because I’m a man capable of self-sacrifice, as I have demonstrated more than once in my life, and have passed on to my comrades; I believe I have earned the moral right and have the standing and authority to speak at such a moment as this (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF “Long live Fidel Castro!”)

And those to whom I should speak first are the revolutionaries, in case of the need – or rather, because of the need – to get the message across early.

The decade following the Machado’s fall is not far behind us. Perhaps one of the greatest evils of that struggle was the spawning of bands of revolutionaries, which promptly started shooting at each other (APPLAUSE). And as a result, what happened was the arrival of Batista, who stayed in power for 11 years.

When the 26th July Movement was organized, also when we started this war, I thought that although the sacrifices we were making were great, although the conflict would be long – and it has been: over two years, two years that were no picnic for us, two years of hard struggle, from when we restarted the campaign with a handful of men, until we arrived at the capital of the Republic. Despite the sacrifices that awaited us, we were comforted by an idea: it was clear that that the 26th July Movement had the overwhelming support and sympathy of the people (APPLAUSE); it was clear that the 26th July Movement had the almost unanimous support of Cuba’s youth (APPLAUSE). It seemed that, this time, a large, powerful organization would be able to calm the anxieties of our people, and would forestall the terrible consequences of the proliferation of revolutionary organizations.

I think we should all have belonged to a single revolutionary organization from the outset, either ours or someone else’s – the 26th, the 27th or the 50th or whatever. If in the last analysis we were all the same, whether we fought in the Sierra Maestra or in the Escambray or in Pinar del Río, and were young men, and men with the same ideals, what was the point of having half a dozen revolutionary organizations?

Ours was simply the first; our was simply the one which fought the first battle at the Moncada barracks, the one which landed from the ‘Granma’ on 2nd December (APPLAUSE), and which fought alone against the tyranny’s entire force for over a year (APPLAUSE); which had a mere 12 men, kept the rebel flag flying, showed the people that it was possible to fight and to win; which put paid to all the false notions in the country about revolution. Because here everyone was conspiring with the corporal, with the sergeant, or bringing weapons into Havana, which were seized by the police (APPLAUSE), until we arrived and showed that that wasn’t the way to fight, that a different approach was needed, that new tactics and strategies had to be invented, that it was the strategies and tactics which we had put into practice which led to the most remarkable victory in the history of the Cuban people (APPLAUSE).

And I want the Cuban people to tell me honestly whether or not this is true (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF “Yes!”)

And another question: the 26th July Movement had a clear majority of the people’s support – is that true or not? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”). And how did the struggle end? I’ll tell you: the Rebel Army (which is what our army is called), from what was started in the Sierra Maestra, by time of the fall of the tyranny, had taken the whole of Oriente, the whole of Camagüey province, part of Las Villas, the whole of Matanzas, La Cabaña, Columbia, the police prefecture and Pinar del Río (APPLAUSE).

The end of the conflict was determined by the coordination of our forces: not for nothing our columns crossed the Camagüey plains – pursued by thousands of troops with air support – and reached Las Villas; and because the Rebel Army had Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) at Las Villas, and because it had Comandante Ernesto Guevara at Las Villas (PROLONGED APPLAUSE) on 1st January, following Cantillo’s treachery (SHOUTS OF “Down with traitors!”)… Because it had them there, on the 1st , I was able to order Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos to advance with 500 men on the capital and attack Columbia (APPLAUSE); because it had Comandante Ernesto Guevara at Las Villas, I was able to tell him to advance on the capital and take La Cabaña (APPLAUSE).

All the regiments, all the significant military strongholds, were in the hands of the Rebel Army. And nobody gave them to us; nobody said to us:”Go there, go there, go there”. It was our efforts and our sacrifice, our experience and our organization, which led to those results (APPLAUSE).

Does this mean the others didn’t fight? No. Does this mean that the others deserve no credit? No. Because we all of us fought, because the whole people fought. There was no Sierra in Havana, but there are hundreds of dead comrades, murdered for doing their revolutionary duty. There was no Sierra in Havana, but even so the general strike was a decisive factor in the completeness of the Revolutionary victory (APPLAUSE).
In saying this, all I’m doing is putting things in context: the role of the 26th July Movement in this struggle, how it guided the people in those moments when elections and electioneering were talked about here. Once I had to write an article from Mexico entitled “Frente a Todos”, because we were at odds with the general opinion, defending our revolutionary manifesto, the strategy of this revolution, which was drawn up by the Movement; and the culmination of this revolution, which was the crushing defeat of the tyranny, with its key strongholds in the hands of the Rebel Army, organized by the 26th July Movement.

The 26th July Movement not only devised the guidelines for war but also established how the enemy was to be treated during the hostilities. This has been perhaps the first revolution in history in which not a single prisoner of war has been murdered (PROLONGED APPLAUSE); in which no wounded have been abandoned, in which no-one has been tortured (APPLAUSE); because that was the standing order established by the rebel Army. And another thing: this is the only revolution in the world which has not produced a general (APPLAUSE) or even a colonel, because the rank I took or my comrades assigned to me was that of comandante [major], and I haven’t changed it, despite our having won numerous battles and having won the war; I’m still a comandante, and I don’t want any other rank (APPLAUSE).

And the moral effect, the fact that we who started this war chose a particular rank within the military hierarchy, was that no-one dared to rank themselves above the level of comandante – although by the look of things, this has resulted in a surfeit of comandantes.

I think the people agree with my not mincing words, because having fought as I have for the rights of every citizen at least gives me the right to tell the truth out loud (APPLAUSE). And also because the interests of the homeland are in play: I won’t countenance the slightest compromise with risks threatening the Cuban Revolution (APPLAUSE).

Does everyone have the same moral right to speak? I say that those to whom more credit is due have more right to speak than those less meritorious. I think that men who seek equality of moral prerogatives should first earn equality of merit. I believe the Revolution has culminated as it should, with Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos – veteran of two years and one month of fighting – (APPLAUSE), as the chief of Columbia; with comandante Efigenio Ameijeiras, who lost three brothers in this war and is a veteran of the ‘Granma’ and comandante by virtue of the battles he has waged (APPLAUSE), as the Republic’s Chief of Police; and with Ernesto Guevara – true hero, member of the ‘Granma’ expedition and veteran of two years and one month of fighting in Cuba’s highest and toughest mountain terrain – as chief of La Cabaña (APPLAUSE); and with each regiment in the various provinces commanded by the men who have sacrificed most and fought hardest for this revolution. And if that’s the way things are, no-one has the right to object.

First and foremost, merit must be recognized; those who do not recognize merit are mere upstarts (APPLAUSE), lacking the merits of others but seeking the same prerogatives.

The Republic, or the Revolution, is entering a new stage. Would it be right for ambition or the cult of personality to emerge and threaten the destiny of the Revolution? (SHOUTS OF “No!”). What is it that interests the people, because it is the people who have the last word here? (SHOUTS OF “Freedom! Freedom!”). They are interested first and foremost in freedoms, in the rights they were deprived of, and in peace. And they’ve got them, because they now have all the freedoms, all the rights that the tyranny took from them, and they have peace (APPLAUSE).

What do the people want? An honest government. An honest government: isn’t that what the people want? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”). They have it here: an upright judge as President of the Republic (APPLAUSE). What do they want – young and honest men as ministers in the revolutionary government? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”). They have them here: examine the ministers of the revolutionary government one by one, and tell me whether there’s a thief or a criminal or a scoundrel among them (SHOUTS OF “No!”).

There are many men eligible to be ministers in Cuba by virtue of their integrity and ability, but they can’t all be ministers, because there can be only 14, 15 or 16. And the people don’t care who so-and-so is, but that whoever he is, that he is young and honest (APPLAUSE). And here the important thing is that those who’ve been appointed have those qualities, and not whether so-and-so is in or out, because the so-and-so’s don’t matter a damn at this juncture, to the Revolution or to the Republic (APPLAUSE).

Can anyone, aspiring to be a minister, seek to shed blood in this country? (SHOUTS OF “No!”). Can any group, having been denied three or four ministries, shed blood in this country or undermine the peace? (SHOUTS OF “No!”). If the governing team which the Cuban people have now is no good, the people will have the opportunity of throwing it out – not voting for it at the polls, but ousting it in an election (APPLAUSE). This isn’t a case where the way to get rid of a mediocre government team is for someone start a revolution or carry out a coup d’état, since everybody knows that elections will be held and if the administration is no good, the people will have the last word, without let or hindrance. Not doing what Batista did, 80 days before an election, saying that he was fighting the government and making a series of accusations against that government, saying that it was his mission to get rid of it and that this was the patriotic thing to do. Coups d’état and attacks on the constitution and rule of law are gone forever from here (APPLAUSE).

These things need to be said, to prevent the emergence of demagoguery and misinformation and attempts to divide us; to ensure that the first sign of vaunting ambition by anyone is recognized at once by the people (APPLAUSE). And for my part, I say that since who I want to command is the people, because they are the best troops, and that I prefer the people to all the armed columns put together; I say that the first thing I will always do when I see a threat to the Revolution, is to call on the people (APPLAUSE). Because by talking to the people, we can avoid bloodshed. Because here, we should call on the people a thousand times before firing a shot, and talk to the people so that the people, without shoot-outs, solve the problems. I have faith in the people, and I know what the people can do and I believe I have demonstrated it; and I say that if the people so choose, there will never be another shot fired in this country (APPLAUSE). Because public opinion has tremendous strength and has tremendous influence, especially when there’s no dictatorship. Under dictatorship, public opinion is nothing; in times of freedom, public opinion is everything, and the guns must yield and kneel before public opinion (APPLAUSE). How am I doing, Camilo? (SHOUTS OF “Long live Camilo!”)

I am speaking to the people in this way because I have always liked to look ahead, and I think that talking to the people ahead of events can protect the Revolution from the only remaining future threats; while these are not great, I want to make sure that the Revolution can take root without the shedding of another drop of Cuban blood (APPLAUSE).

My main concern is that abroad, where the Revolution has caught the imagination of the whole world, it must not be said that, within three weeks, or four weeks, or a month, or one week, more Cuban blood has been shed to consolidate this Revolution, because in that case this Revolution would not be an example (APPLAUSE).

I would not have talked like this when we were a group of 12 men, because when we were a group of 12 men all we had to look forward to was fighting, fighting, fighting. And in those circumstances, fighting was right. But now, when we’ve got the planes, the tanks, the artillery and the immense majority of men under arms, and a navy, several army companies and enormous military power (SHOUTS OF “And the people!” “And the people!”) People … What I’m saying is: now that we have all that, I’m alarmed by the idea of fighting, because now there’s no merit in fighting. I’d rather go back to the Sierra Maestra, with 12 men, to fight all the tanks, than come with all the tanks to shoot at anyone here (APPLAUSE).

And those I ask to give us much help, those I beg to help me, are the people (APPLAUSE), public opinion, so as to disarm the power-hungry, to denounce immediately those who are now beginning to show their true colors (APPLAUSE).

I’m not today going to embark on personal or specific attacks, because it’s early days, too soon to start public controversies – although when the time comes, I don’t mind, because I have no inhibitions about plain speaking when it’s necessary – and because the people are rejoicing, and because among the body of fighters – I’m not saying among all their leaders, but certainly most of their leaders – and there’s Carlos Prío Socarrás, for example, who came to Cuba with the aim of helping the Revolution with no strings attached, as he says, absolutely without any ulterior motive (APPLAUSE); he has made no protest about what’s happened, not the slighted protest, has not made the least complaint, or expressed the least disagreement regarding the cabinet; he knows the cabinet is composed of honest men and of young men, who well deserve a vote of confidence in their work.

And then there are the leaders of other organizations, equally prepared. And there’s another thing: the bodies of fighting men, the men who fought and who were motivated solely by ideals, the men who fought, in all the organizations: they are figures of high patriotism, with strongly revolutionary, noble sentiments, who will always think the way the people think; I’m sure that whoever commits the lunacy of trying to spark a civil war will incur the condemnation of the entire people (APPLAUSE) and will lose the support of the rank-and-file fighters, who will not follow him. And it would be lunacy indeed, to challenge not only our forces in their present condition, but also to defy reason, the law of the land and the entire Cuban people (APPLAUSE).

And I’m saying all this because I want to ask the people a question: I want to ask the people a question that interests me greatly, and interests the people greatly; so tell me: To what end, at this juncture, are clandestine weapons being stockpiled? Why are weapons being hidden in various parts of Havana? What are weapons being smuggled in for, at this juncture? What for? I’m telling you there are elements of a certain revolutionary organization who are hiding weapons (SHOUTS OF “Let’s find them!”), who are stockpiling arms and are smuggling arms. All the arms captured by the Rebel Army are in the barracks, where not a single weapon has been touched, nobody has taken any home, or hidden any. They are in the barracks under lock and key. It’s the same in Pinar del Río, in La Cabaña, in Columbia, in Matanzas, in Santa Clara, in Camagüey, and in Oriente. Nobody has loaded up trucks with weapons to hide them anywhere: these weapons are in the barracks.

I’m going to ask you a question, because speaking frankly and analyzing problems is how you solve them, and I’m ready to do everything in my power to solve them as they should be solved: with reasoning and intelligence, and with the influence of public opinion, which is in charge, and not with force. Because if one believes in force, if problems had to be solved by the use of force, there would be no need to talk to the people, or to put this problem to them, but to go and look for those arms (APPLAUSE).

And what we must try to do here is persuade the revolutionary fighters, the idealists, who could be misled by such machinations, to turn their backs on the treacherous honchos who are involved in these activities, and align themselves with those they serve first and foremost – the people.

I’m going to ask you a question: Weapons for what purpose? To fight whom? To fight the revolutionary government, which has the support of the entire people? (SHOUTS OF “No!”). Is the Republic’s present Urrutia administration the same as the Batista administration? (SHOUTS OF “No!”). Weapons for what purpose? Is there a dictatorship here? (SHOUTS OF “No!”) Are they going to attack a free government that respects the rights of the people? (SHOUTS OF “No!”) Now, when there’s no censorship, when the press is completely free, freer than it’s ever been, and has the certainty of knowing that it will always be free, that censorship is gone forever? (APPLAUSE). Now, when the whole people can assemble freely? Now, when there’s no torture, no political prisoners, no murders, no terror? Now, when there’s nothing but joy, when all the traitorous union leaders have been sacked and we’re on the point of holding elections in all the unions? (APPLAUSE). When all the citizen’s rights have been restored, when elections are to be called as soon as possible – arms for what? Hiding arms to what end? To blackmail the President of the Republic? To threaten the peace? To set up gangster organizations? Are we to go back to daily shoot-outs in the streets of Havana? Arms for what?

Well, I can tell you that two days ago, elements of a certain organization went to a barracks – the San Antonio barracks which were under the jurisdiction of Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos and under my jurisdiction as Commander-In-Chief of all the forces – and made off with the arms stored there; they took 500 small arms, 6 machine guns and 80,000 cartridges (SHOUTS OF “Let’s find them!”).

And I tell you frankly there could not have been a worse provocation. Because to do this to men who’ve been fighting for this country for years, to men who are now tasked with keeping the nation’s peace and are trying to do things properly, is a shameful act and an unjustifiable provocation.

And what we’ve done is not to go looking for those guns, exactly because – as I said earlier – what we want is to talk to the people, use the influence of public opinion, so that the honchos behind these criminal operations find themselves without men. So that the idealistic fighters – they’re true idealists, the men who fought in all the organizations here – know about it, so they can demand accountability for these acts.

And that’s why we haven’t even allowed ourselves to be provoked, why we have kept our cool despite this stealing of weapons – an unjustifiable theft because here there is no dictatorship; no-one is afraid that we’re going to turn into dictators – and I’ll tell you why: those who become dictators are those who don’t have the support of the people, who have to resort to force because they don’t get votes at election time (APPLAUSE). We couldn’t become dictators, we who have evoked such affection – universal, total and absolute affection – among the people. Not to mention our principles, which would never allow us the effrontery of holding onto a position by force, because that disgusts us – it’s not for nothing that we have been the standard bearers in a struggle against an ugly, repellent tyranny (APPLAUSE).

We will never need to use force, because the people are with us, and also because the day the people frown on us will be the last day they do so: we’ll quit (APPLAUSE). Because we see this as duty, not as a pleasure; we see this as work, which may mean that we go without sleep, without rest, without food, traveling around the island and working honestly to serve our country. It means something that we have nothing, and that we will always be men who have nothing (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF: “You have the people!”). And the people will never see us commit acts of immorality or grant privileges to anybody or tolerate an injustice or steal or make ourselves rich or anything of the kind. Because we see power as self-sacrifice, and believe me, if it were not so, after all the show of affection I’ve had from the people, all this tremendous demonstration today, if one were not committed to performing a duty, one should depart, or retire, or die, because after so much affection and so much trust, not doing one’s duty to this people is simply unthinkable! (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).
And if it weren’t for this duty, if it weren’t for this duty – I’m telling you – what I would do now is take my leave of the people and keep with me always the affection I’ve received today, and have people address me with same terms of encouragement with which they have addressed me today.

However, I know that power is a burdensome, a complicated affair, that our missions and tasks are difficult, like this very problem which has confronted us, which is a really difficult one, a hard nut to crack, and one tackles it because the one thing one is not going to say to the people at this juncture is “I’m leaving”. (SHOUTS OF “Long live the father of the homeland!” FOLLOWED BY AN OVATION).

There is another reason we’re not interested in using force: on the day anyone takes up arms here, I would go so far as to call on my worst enemy, on the person who was the most inimical to me and, assuming he was prepared to do the will of the people, I would tell him: “Look, take all these forces, all these troops and all these arms” and I would be so easy in my mind, because I know that the day there’s an armed uprising, I’ll head straight back to the Sierra Maestra and we’d see how long the new dictatorship stayed in power (APPLAUSE).

I think there are more than enough reasons for everyone to see that we have no interest in exercising power by the use of force.

The President of the Republic has entrusted me with the thorniest of tasks, that of reorganizing the Republic’s armed institutions, and has assigned to me the post of Commander-In-Chief of all the nation’s air, sea and land-based forces (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTS OF “You deserve it!”). No, I don’t deserve it, because it’s a sacrifice for me, and it’s absolutely no reason for pride, no reason for vanity; for me, it’s a sacrifice. But I want the people to tell me whether they think I should take the job (PROLONGED APPLAUSE AND (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”).

I think that if we created an army with 12 men, and those 12 men are now in positions of command, I think that if we taught our army that no prisoner can be murdered, that the wounded can never be abandoned, that no prisoner can ever be beaten, we are the men who can teach the Republic’s armed institutions the same things that we taught that army (APPLAUSE). To have armed institutions in which not a single one of their men ever again beats a prisoner, or tortures one or kills one (APPLAUSE). And also because we can serve as a bridge between the revolutionaries and the decent soldiers, the ones who have not stolen or murdered, because those soldiers, the ones who have not stolen or murdered, have the right to remain in the armed forces (APPLAUSE); by the same token, there’ll be no escape from the firing squad for those who have committed murder (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).

Moreover, all the revolutionary fighters who want to belong to the Republic’s regular forces have the right, whatever organization they belong to, to keep their existing ranks … The doors are open to all the revolutionary fighting men who want to pitch in, who want to do something useful for the country. And if that’s the case, if there are freedoms, if there is government by honest young men, if the country is satisfied, if it trusts that government and the men in command of the armed forces, if there are going to be elections, if the doors are open to everyone, why stockpile weapons?

I want you to tell me whether what the people want is that we make peace, or whether they want a guy with a gun on every street corner; I want you to tell me if the people are in agreement with or believe it to be right that everyone here who wants a private army can have one, and can stop following his superior’s orders (SHOUTS OF “No!”); and whether that’s the way to get order and peace in the Republic of Cuba (SHOUTS OF “No!”).

(SOMEONE SHOUTS: “Purging of the armed forces!”)

‘Super-purging’, not purging (APPLAUSE).

(SHOUTS OF: “Tell us about Raúl”!). Raúl is at the Moncada barracks, which is where he should be now.

And these are the issues I wanted to raise with the people today. As soon as possible the guns must leave the streets, the guns must disappear from the streets (APPLAUSE). Because there is no longer an enemy confronting us, because there’s no longer any reason to fight anybody. And if one day it becomes necessary to fight a foreign enemy or a movement that attacks the Revolution, it won’t be some limited engagement, it’ll be the entire people that fight (PROLONGED APPLAUSE).

The weapons belong in the barracks. Nobody has the right to a private army here (APPLAUSE).

The elements carrying on these suspicious operations have maybe found an excuse for these in the fact that I’ve been appointed, together with my comrades, to do a job assigned to us by the President, and have suggested the existence of a political army. A political army? As I’ve been saying, the entire people are with us; does that really make ours a political army?

I want the people to know, I want Cuban mothers to know, that I will always do whatever is in our power to solve the country’s problems without shedding a drop of blood (APPLAUSE). I want Cuban mothers to know that not another shot will be fired here on our account; and I want to ask the people, and to ask the press, and to ask every sane, reasonable man in the country, to help us solve these problems with the support of public opinion; not with horse-trading, because when people arm themselves and make threats in order to get something, that is immoral and I’ll never have truck with it (APPLAUSE). Now that certain elements have started stockpiling weapons, I can assure you that I won’t accept the slightest concession, because that would be debasing the ideals of the Revolution (APPLAUSE). And what needs to be done is to get those who don’t belong to the Republic’s regular forces – to which every revolutionary fighting man has the right to belong – to return the weapons to the barracks, because weapons are superfluous here, now there’s no tyranny, and it’s been demonstrated that arms are only appropriate when there’s a good reason for having them and the people are behind you; otherwise, all they’re good for is murder and kidnapping (APPLAUSE).

I want to tell the people also that they can be sure that the law of the land with be respected, that there’ll be no gangsterism here, nor street gangs, nor banditry, simply because there will be zero tolerance. The Republic’s weaponry is now in the hands of the revolutionaries. I hope those arms will never have to be used, but on the day when the people orders their deployment to ensure peace, law and order, or the exercise of their rights, when the people so order, when the people so desire, in the presence of a real need, then the arms will do their job, will do their duty, simply (APPLAUSE).

Let no-one think that we’re going to respond to provocation; because we’re too level-headed to respond to provocation, because we have responsibilities too important for us ever to take hasty measures or engage in saber-rattling or anything of that kind, and because I’m acutely aware of the need to exhaust – and I will always exhaust – every means of persuasion, every reasonable means, every human means to avoid the shedding of another drop of blood in Cuba. So as far as provocations are concerned, no-one needs to worry that I’m going to go off the deep end; because when the patience of all of us has run out, we’ll get some more patience, and when that runs out, we’ll get even more. That will be our rule (APPLAUSE). And that must be among the standing orders of every man bearing arms and of those wielding power: never tire of forbearance, never tire of accepting abuse and provocations of all kinds, except in cases threatening the most sacrosanct interests of the people. But then only when the case is clear-cut, only when demanded by the whole nation, the press, the civic institutions, the workers’ organizations, and the people as a whole; when they call for action, and only then. And what I will always do in these circumstances, is come to the people and explain: “Look, this has happened”.

On this occasion, I’ve avoided naming names, because I don’t want to poison the atmosphere, and because I don’t want to add to the tension; all I want is, simply, to avoid these dangers to the people, because it would be very sad if this Revolution, bought at the price of so much sacrifice – not that it’s going to be thwarted, because there’s no way this Revolution could be thwarted, because it’s known that the people are behind it, and given everything it offers to the people, there’s not the slightest risk – but it would be very sad if after the example we have shown Latin America, another shot was fired here.

It’s true that in almost every revolution, after the conflict ends, comes another, and another. Consider the history of all revolutions, in Mexico and everywhere. However, it seem that this one is going to be an exception, as it has been an exception in every other respect. It has been extraordinary in every other respect, and we would be gratified if it were extraordinary in the sense that not another shot was fired here. And I think that will be the case, I think the Revolution will triumph without another shot being fired. Do you know why? Because it is truly laudable, the degree of integrity which has evolved in this country, the civic-mindedness of this people, the discipline of this people, the spirit of this people; really, I’m proud of the entire people, I have tremendous faith in the people of Cuba (APPLAUSE). It’s worthwhile, making sacrifices for this people.

Today I had the satisfaction of giving an example in front of the entire press. There was a crowd in front of the presidential palace, and they were telling me it would take 1,000 men to be able to get away from there. So I stopped, and I asked the people to form two ranks. There was no need for even one man, I said, and that I was going to get there by myself. And in a few minutes, the people formed two ranks, and we passed through without the slightest difficulty. That’s the people of Cuba, and that demonstration was performed in front of the entire press corps (APPLAUSE).

From now on, no more bouquets and ovations. From now on, for us: work. Tomorrow will be a day like any other, as will all the rest, and we’ll get used to freedom. Now we are content, because we were without freedom for a long time, but within a week we’ll be worrying about other things: whether we’ve got enough money to pay the rent, the electricity, to buy food. These are the problems the revolutionary government should really be solving, the million problems of the people of Cuba, and to that end it has a council of ministers composed of young men I know to be fired with enthusiasm, who I’m certain are going to change the Republic of Cuba – I’m certain (PROLONGED APPLAUSE). Also because there’s a president who is securely installed in office, who is free of any danger, because the dangers I was talking about were not such as to overthrow the regime – nothing remotely of the kind – but the danger that another single drop of blood might be shed. But the President of the Republic is secure, already recognized by all the nations – well, not all, but he is quickly being recognized by all the countries in the world – and has the support of the people, and our support, the support of the revolutionary forces; and real support – support with no strings attached, support without asking for or claiming anything, because we have fought here for the foundations of civil power, and we are going to show that for us, principles take precedence over every other consideration and that we were not fighting out of personal ambition.

I think we’ve given enough proof of having fought without personal ambition. I don’t think a single Cuban has the slightest doubt on that score.

So now we’ve got a lot of work to do. For my part, I’m ready to do everything I can for the benefit of my country, as I know all my comrades are, as I know are the President of the Republic and all the ministers, who will work tirelessly. And I can assure you that anyone who leaves Cuba today and comes back in two years’ time, won’t recognize this Republic.

I see a tremendous spirit of cooperation all over the country. I see the press, the journalists, all sectors of the nation, eager to help; and that’s what’s needed. The Cuban people have learned a lot: in these seven years, they’ve learned as if seventy years have gone by. It was said that the coup d’état set the country back 25 years; if that was the case – and it was indeed a setback of that magnitude – we’ve now brought about an advance of fifty. The Republic is unrecognizable: no politicking, no vice, no gambling, no stealing. We began just a few days ago, and already the Republic is virtually unrecognizable.

Now there remains a major job to be done. All the problems concerning the armed forces are issues with implications for our future activities, but, moreover, we will always do whatever is in our power for the entire people. I’m not a professional soldier, or a career soldier, or anything of that nature. I’ll be here for the minimum time, and when I’ve finished here I’ll move on to other things because, frankly, I won’t be needed here for this (EXCLAMATIONS). I mean that I won’t be needed within military-type operations, and that I have other aspirations of different kinds. And exactly that, among other things: the day I feel the urge to start shooting, fight, pursue a new interest, there’s plenty of space here for doing stuff (APPLAUSE).

(SHOUTS OF: “We need to create jobs!”). If we don’t solve these problems, this is no Revolution, comrades, because I think the basic problem of the Republic at this juncture, which will soon be a necessity for the people, when the euphoria of victory has faded, is work – a decent means of earning a living (APPLAUSE).

But that’s not all, comrades: there are a thousand other things which I’ve been discussing throughout these days, which I assume you, to varying degrees, have heard about through the radio and the press and otherwise, because we’re not going to deal with all the issues in a single evening.

Let’s confine ourselves to thinking about the problems I’ve talked about today, and wind up a long day – I may not be tired, but I know you have to get back to homes that are a long way away (SHOUTS OF:” It doesn’t matter, carry on!”).

I had a date to appear on the Ante la Prensa ["Face the Press"] program tonight at 10.30 or whatever time it was, and now it’s 1.30 (SHOUTS OF: “Tomorrow!”). OK, I’ll leave it till tomorrow.

You will get the opportunity to hear the ministers, through the press, the radio and all the media possible.

All the friends of mine of such a long time, wherever they’ve come from: from the school, from the neighborhood. I can almost say I know every Cuban …

I was saying you’ll have the opportunity to hear the ministers, each of whom has his plans and will set out his program; all the men on the Council of Ministers have a close rapport with all the revolutionary elements.

The President of the Republic, with the rights attaching to his post – because he was elected without conditions – has filled most of the ministerial posts from the 26th July Movement. He exercised his right, and having asked for our cooperation, he received it fully, and we accepted responsibility for this revolutionary government.

Something I’ve said elsewhere: nobody should imagine that the issues will be resolved overnight. The war wasn’t won in a day, or in two or in three days, and it was an uphill struggle; nor are we going to do everything that needs to be done in a day. Also, I’ve told the people on earlier occasions not to run away with the idea that these ministers are sages. For a start, none – or hardly any of them – has been a minister before. So none of them know how to be a minister – it’s something new for them. What they are is full of good intentions. And in this I say the same as I say of the rebel commanders: look, Comandante Camilo Cienfuegos knew nothing about war, or how to handle a gun – absolutely nothing. Che Guevara knew nothing; when I met him in Mexico, his occupation was dissecting rabbits and doing medical research. Raúl didn’t know anything either. Neither did Efigenio Ameijeiras. At the beginning, they knew nothing of war; at the end, I could say to them, as I in fact said, “Comrade, advance on Columbia, and take it”, “Comrade, advance on La Cabaña, and take it, “Advance on Santiago, and take it”, and I knew that they would succeed … (PROLONGED APPLAUSE). Why? Because they’d learned.

Perhaps the ministers will not be able to do great things now, but I’m sure that within a few months they’ll know how to solve the problems posed to them by the people, because they have what counts most: the desire to get things right and to help the people. And above all, I’m sure that not one of them will ever commit one of the classic offenses of ministers. You know which, don’t you? (SHOUTS OF “Stealing!”, “Stealing!”). Aha! How did you know?

Well, above all, this: the morality, the integrity of these comrades. They may not be sages, because no-one here is a sage, but I can assure you there’s no shortage of men of integrity, which is what the situation calls for. Isn’t that what the people have always called for, an honest government? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”). So then, let’s give them a vote of confidence, let’s do that and let’s wait (SHOUTING). Yes, most of them are from the “26th” , but if they’re no good, they’ll be replaced by others from the 27th or the 28th. We know that there are a lot of qualified people in Cuba, but they can’t all be ministers. Or maybe the 26th July Movement doesn’t have the right to try its hand at governing the Republic? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”).

So that’s all for today. Really, there’s just one other thing … If you knew, that when I meet with the people, I lose the need for sleep, for food. You lose the need for sleep too, don’t you? (SHOUTS OF “Yes!”)

The important thing, or what I need to tell you, is my belief that what the people of Havana have done today, today’s huge concentrations, this gathering stretching for miles – because this has been amazing, you saw it, it appeared in the films, in the photographs – I think, frankly, that the people have gone too far, because this is much more than we deserve (SHOUTS OF “No!”).

I also know that never again in our lives will we see such a gathering, except on another occasion – on which I’m sure the crowds will mass again – and that’s the day we die, because when the time comes to bury us, on that day, as many people as today will be here, because we will never disappoint our people!

(OVATION)

Translation of the stenographic version, filed at the Prime Minister’s offices.

Compatriots of Cuba, all:

We have finally reached Santiago. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) The road has been long and tough, but we have arrived. (APPLAUSE)

It was being said that today at 2 o’clock in the afternoon we were being expected in the capital of the Republic and I was the first person to be amazed (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) because I was one of the first people to have been surprised by that traitorous and confabulated coup this morning in the capital of the Republic.

Furthermore, I was going to be in the capital of the Republic, I mean in the new capital of the Republic (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE), because Santiago de Cuba will be the capital, according to the wishes of the provisional president, according to the wishes of the Rebel Army and according to the wishes of the people of Santiago de Cuba who so highly deserve it. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) Santiago de Cuba will be the provisional capital of the Republic! (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

Perhaps the measure is a surprise for some; it is a new measure, but for that reason the Revolution must be precisely characterized for doing things that have never been done before. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) When we make Santiago de Cuba the provisional capital of the Republic, we know why we are doing it. It isn’t a matter of flattering a certain town in demagogic fashion; it’s simply a matter of the fact that Santiago has been the most steadfast bastion of the Revolution. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

The Revolution begins here and now. The Revolution won’t be an easy task. The Revolution will be a tough undertaking and full of dangers, especially during this initial period. What better place to establish the government of the Republic than in this fortress of the Revolution, (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) so that it may be known that this is going to be a government which is firmly backed by the people in the Heroic City and in the foothills of the Sierra Maestra, because Santiago is in the Sierra Maestra. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) In Santiago de Cuba and in the Sierra Maestra, the Revolution will have its two greatest strengths. (APPLAUSE)

But there are others as well… (INTERRUPTION)…Naturally we have never… (INTERRUPTION) …refused any collaboration… (INTERRUPTION)… “Are you promising me that you won’t?” And he says: “I promise I won’t.” I say: “Do you swear you won’t?” And he told me: I swear I won’t” (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

I believe that the first thing a soldier should have is honor; the first thing a soldier must do is keep his word, and that man has not only demonstrated a lack of honor and a lack of keeping his word, he also lacks brains, because a movement could have been done right from the start, with the complete support of the people and with triumph assured right from the start, but what it did instead was to somersault into a vacuum. He thought it would be much too easy to fool the people and to fool the Revolution.

He knew something. He knew that when it was said that Batista had grabbed the plane, the people would throng into the streets, crazy with happiness, and they thought that the people were not mature enough to see the difference between Batista’s flight and the Revolution. Because if Batista leaves and Cantillos’ friends take possession of the tanks, it might very well happen that Dr. Urrutia would also have to leave within three months; because whatever betrays us now, will betray us later on, and the great truth is that Mr. Cantillo betrayed us before the Revolution. He demonstrated it very well and I am going to show it.

An agreement was struck with General Cantillo that the uprising would take place on the 31st at 3 in the afternoon. It was made clear that the armed forces would give their unconditional backing to the Revolutionary movement, the President who appointed the revolutionary leaders and the positions that were assigned to the military by the revolutionary leaders; what was offered, meant unconditional backing. The plan was agreed to in all its details: on the 31st, at 3 pm, the Santiago de Cuba Garrison would revolt. Immediately, several rebel columns would penetrate the city and the people would immediately fraternize with the soldiers and the rebels and a revolutionary proclamation would be launched in the country to invite all honorable soldiers to join the movement.

It was agreed that the tanks in the city would be placed at our disposition and I personally offered to move towards the capital with an armored column preceded by the tanks. The tanks would be handed over to me at 3 pm, not because it was believed that we would have to fight, but to be forewarned in case the movement would fail in Havana and we would have to position our vanguard as close as possible to the capital. Besides, it was also to foresee that no excessive events would be taking place in Havana.

It was logical that with all the hatred aroused there with the public force, because of the indescribable horrors committed by Ventura and Pilar Garcia, Batista’s fall was going to produce disorganization among the citizenry and that, moreover, those police were going to feel like they had no moral force to contain the people; and effectively that’s just how it took place. A series of excessive occurrences took place in the capital such as looting, shooting and fires. All the responsibility for that falls on the shoulders of Gen. Cantillo since he had betrayed his word and because he hadn’t followed the plan that had been agreed. He thought that he could solve the problem by appointing police captains and chiefs, many of whom had already left by the time he appointed them, proof of the fact that their consciences were not so clear.

Of course how different it all was in Santiago de Cuba. What great order and civic mindedness! What great discipline the people demonstrated! Not one single case of looting, not one single case of personal vengeance, not one single man dragged through the streets, not one single fire was set. Santiago de Cuba’s behavior has been admirable and exemplary, in spite of two things. In spite of the fact that this has been a city that had suffered the most and had seen the most terror, thereby having more right to feeling outraged, (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) and also in spite of our declarations this morning saying that we were not agreeing to the coup.

Santiago de Cuba’s behavior was very exemplary and I think that this is a reason for which the people of Santiago de Cuba, the revolutionaries and the military in the Plaza de Santiago de Cuba can feel very proud. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) And it cannot be said that the Revolution is anarchical and disorganized; that happened in Havana, due to a treacherous act, but it didn’t happen in Santiago de Cuba and we can set it up as a model whenever they try to accuse the Revolution of being anarchy and disorder. (APPLAUSE)

It’s a good idea for the people to know about the communications between Gen. Cantillo and myself, if the people are not too tired, (SHOUTING AND CRIES OF “No!”) I can read the letter.

After the agreements made, when we had already suspended our operations on Santiago de Cuba, because on the 28th our troops were by then very close to the city and we had carried out all the preparations for the attack on the Plaza in accordance with the interview we had had, we had to undergo a series of changes, to abandon the operations on Santiago de Cuba and to direct our troops towards other locations where we presumed that the movement had not been assured right from the very start. When all our movements had been made and the columns were prepared to march on the capital, I got this note from General Cantillo, a few hours before; it stated verbatim:

“Circumstances have changed considerably in a sense that is favorable for a national solution”… in the sense that he wanted for Cuba. It was odd because after analyzing the factors we had on hand, the circumstances couldn’t have been more favorable. Triumph was assured and so it was odd that he would say: Circumstances have produced very favorable changes.” They were the circumstances agreed to by Batista and Tabernilla, circumstances ensuring the coup.

“I recommend that you do nothing right now and wait for events during the next few weeks, prior to the 6th.” Of course, it was the indefinitely prolonged truce, while they were getting all the conditions ready in Havana.

My immediate answer was: “The contents of the note are completely different from the agreements made; it is ambiguous and we cannot understand it and it has made me lose my confidence in the seriousness of the agreements. Hostilities cease as of 3 pm tomorrow, that being the day and the time agreed by the Movement.”

And then a very strange thing occurred. Besides that very brief note, I also sent a message to the chief at Plaza de Santiago de Cuba via the same messenger, saying that if hostilities were ceasing because the agreement terms were not being fulfilled and we were being forced to attack Plaza de Santiago de Cuba, then there would be no other solution other than for the Plaza to surrender, that we would demand that the Plaza surrenders if hostilities ceased and the attack was initiated by us. But as it happened, the messenger did not correctly interpret my words and he told Col. Rego Rubido that I had said that I was demanding the surrender of the Plaza as a condition for any agreement. He didn’t say what I had declared to him about the attack being initiated, but not that I had presented Gen. Cantillo with the condition that the Plaza should surrender.

As a result of the message, the Colonel in Chief of the Plaza de Santiago de Cuba sent me a very conceptual and honorable letter which I will also read. Naturally he was offended by that proposal that had been presented to him erroneously and he said: “The solution found is not a coup d’état or military junta and, nevertheless, we think that is the best thing for Dr. Fidel Castro in accordance with his ideas and it would put the fate of the nation into his hands in 48 hours. It is not a local solution but a national one and any advance indiscretion could compromise it or destroy it and create chaos. We would like you to trust our dealings and you will have the solution before the 6th.”

“As for Santiago, because of the note and the messenger’s words, we have to change the plan and not enter; those words have caused ill will amongst the staff…and we shall never hand over the weapons without a fight. Weapons are not surrendered to an ally and they are not handed over without honor”… lovely phrasing from the chief of the Plaza de Santiago de Cuba.

“If you do not trust us or if you attack Santiago, the agreements will be considered as broken and the dealings for the offered solution will be paralyzed; we shall formally relinquish all commitments. Due to the time needed to act in one way or another, we hope the answer arrives in time so that it can be sent to Havana in the afternoon.”

I responded to that note written by Colonel José Rego Rubido as follows:

“Free Territory of Cuba, 31 December 1958

“Sir:

“An unfortunate error has occurred in the transmission of my words to you, perhaps due to the haste with which I answered your note and the hurried nature of the conversation I had with the messenger. I did not tell him that the condition we proposed in the agreements made was the surrender of Plaza de Santiago de Cuba to our forces; that would have been a discourtesy to our visitor and an unworthy and offensive proposal for the soldiers who have approached us in such a fraternal manner.

“The matter is quite something else. An agreement had been reached and a plan was adopted between the leader of the military movement and ourselves; it was to start being effective on the 31st at 3 pm. Even the details were agreed after carefully analyzing the problems that had to be dealt with; we would start with the removal of the Santiago de Cuba Garrison, I persuaded the general…of the advantages of starting in Oriente and not at Columbia, in order to largely spare the people from any coup at the barracks in the capital of the Republic and how difficult it was going to be in that case to associate the citizenry with the Movement. He fully went along with my points of view, he was only concerned about order in the capital and we agreed to measures that would avert danger. The measure was precisely the advance of our column on Santiago de Cuba. It was a matter of a united action between the military, the people and us, a type of revolutionary movement that from the very beginning would have the trust of the entire nation.

“Immediately, and in accordance with what we had put together, we suspended the operations that were being undertaken and we took on the task of carrying out new movements of forces towards other points such as Holguín where the presence of well-known henchmen was making resistance to the revolutionary military movement an almost sure thing.

“When all our preparations were ready, I received the note yesterday, where I was informed that the agreed action would not be carried out. It seemed there were different plans but I was not informed what they were or why. Indeed the matter was now not our business, we simply had to wait. Everything changed unilaterally and our forces were placed at risk; according to what had been assured, they would have been sent to undertake difficult operations; we were subjected to threats, to all kinds of imponderable elements… (INTERRUPTION) …any risk of the general…in his frequent trips to Havana would militarily become a disaster for us. You can recognize that right now everything is very confusing and that Batista is a skillful and crafty individual who knows how to manoeuver. Any risk… (INTERRUPTION) …How could they ask us to forego all the advantages obtained in the last few weeks of operations, to have us wait patiently for events to happen?

“I clearly stated that it couldn’t be an action with just the military, for that reason we really didn’t have to await the horrors of two years of warfare. To have our hands tied at a decisive moment is not something we can be asked to do, we who have not rested in our fight against oppression for the last seven years.

“Even though you intend to hand over power to the revolutionaries, it is not power per se that interests us; what interests us is that the Revolution fulfills its destiny. I am even concerned that the military, because of an unjustified excess of scruples, would facilitate the flight of the important guilty parties who would go abroad with their great fortunes to make all kinds of trouble for our homeland from over there.

“I can personally add that power holds no interest for me, nor do I intend to occupy it; I shall only be vigilant that the sacrifices of so many compatriots are not wasted, whatever my subsequent fate may be. I hope that these honorable reasons which I explain to you, with all respect for your dignity as a soldier, are understood. You may rest assured that you are dealing with neither an ambitious nor an insolent man…”

Stop the tanks for me over there, please. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

ANNOUNCER- Please keep those tanks quiet. Please; it is an order of the Commander in Chief that you silence the tanks and stop them right there so that the people can go on listening to the words of the supreme leader of the Cuban Revolution, Dr. Fidel Castro. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

DR. FIDEL CASTRO- When we finish our declarations and the proclamation of the provisional president, the tanks will render honors to the Civil Power of the Republic, parading in front of our balconies. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

He continued to read the letter of the 31st, written by the Colonel in Chief of the Plaza de Santiago de Cuba.

“I can personally add that power holds no interest for me, nor do I intend to occupy it. I shall only be vigilant that the sacrifices of so many compatriots are not wasted, whatever my subsequent fate may be. I hope that these honorable reasons which I explain to you, with all respect for your dignity as a soldier, are understood. You may rest assured that you are dealing with neither an ambitious nor an insolent man…

“I have always acted with loyalty and frankness in everything I do; one can never call something that has been achieved with deceitfulness and deception a triumph; the language of honor, which you understand, is the only language I know how to speak.

“The word “surrender” was never mentioned at the meeting with the general; what I said yesterday and what I reiterate today is that as of 3:00 pm of the 31st, the date and time we agreed upon, we could not prolong the truce in regards to Santiago de Cuba because it would be extraordinarily detrimental to our union… (INTERRUPTION)…Never a conspiracy…Last night the rumor reached us here that the general…had been arrested in Havana, that several youths had turned up murdered in the Santiago de Cuba Cemetery. I had the feeling that we had miserably wasted our time, even though fortunately today it appears to be proven that the general…can be found at his post; what need do we have to run such risks?

“What I told the messenger in terms of surrender, which was not transmitted literally and seemed to motivate the words of his note today, was as follows: ‘if hostilities were broken because of noncompliance with the agreed terms, we would see ourselves forced to attack Plaza de Santiago de Cuba, something that is inevitable given the manner in which we have directed our efforts in the last few months, in which case, once the operation was initiated, we would demand the surrender of the forces defending it’. This does not mean that we think they will surrender without a fight because I know, even without a reason to fight, Cuban soldiers defend their positions with stubbornness and it has cost us many lives. I only wanted to say that after the blood of our men has been spilt to conquer an objective, any other solution could not be acceptable, since even though it is a steep price for us to pay, given the current conditions of the forces defending the regime which were unable to provide backing for that city, the city would inexorably fall into our hands. That has been the basic objective of all of our operations during the past few months and a plan of this magnitude cannot be suspended for some weeks without serious consequences, in the case that the military movement is thwarted, losing, moreover, the opportune moment, which is this one, when the dictatorship is suffering huge setbacks in the Oriente and La Villas provinces.

“We are placed in the dilemma of giving up the advantages of our victory or attacking, a sure triumph in exchange for a probable triumph. Do you think that with yesterday’s note, so ambiguous and laconic a note, containing a unilateral decision, I could incur in the responsibility of keeping the plans suspended? As a military man, you can surely recognize that we are being asked the impossible. You have not for one moment stopped digging trenches; those trenches can be used against us by Pedraza, Pilar García, or Cañizares, if the general…is relieved of his command and along with him his trusted men. We cannot be asked to stand idly by; see how… (INTERRUPTION)…even though they bravely defend their weapons, we are left with no other option than to attack, because we also have very sacred obligations to fulfill.

“More than allies, I wish that we and your honorable soldiers could be comrades in one single cause, the cause of Cuba. Above all else I wish that you and your comrades don’t get the erroneous idea that my attitude and my feelings, that (INTERRUPTION)… they are mistaken for…(INTERRUPTION)… I respect the tacit ceasefire in the zone of Santiago de Cuba, to avoid any doubts, I ratify that even though at any minute before combat starts we can take up operations again; as of today, it should be taken under consideration that the attack is going to happen at any time and for no reason whatsoever shall we suspend our plans again, since our … (INTERRUPTION) …may sow the seeds of confusion among the people and harm the morale of our combatants.

“Sincerely,

“Fidel Castro Ruz” (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

Col. Rego answered me with an honorable letter which is also worthy of honor and it sreads as follows:

“Sir:

“I received your kind letter dated today and please believe me when I say that I deeply thank you for the clarification on the previous note, even though I should tell you that I always thought that it was a matter of poor interpretation since over time I have observed your style of behavior and I am convinced that you are a man of principle.

“I didn’t know about the details of the original plan since I was only informed about the part that affected me, nor do I know anything about some of the small details of the current plan. I would guess that in part you are right when you analyze the original plan; but I think that we still need a few days to see its consummation and we would never be able to avoid that many of the guilty individuals, the big, medium and small guilty individuals, would escape.

“I am one of those who think that it is absolutely necessary to provide an example in Cuba for those who, taking advantage of their positions of power, commit all kinds of punishable acts. But unfortunately history is infested with similar cases and very rarely the guilty parties have been placed at the disposition of the competent authorities, because very rarely do revolutions do what has to be done… (INTERRUPTION)…

I perfectly comprehend your concerns in this case, although I, bearing less of the historical responsibility, rather accept it.

“As for the unilateral actions of which you speak, I repeat to you that…in both cases I was only informed of the part affecting me, considering that what happened was that the general…rendered the idea of what you wanted according to his norms and principles, thereby acting accordingly.

“I have no reason to suppose that anybody is trying to abet the flight of the guilty person and, personally, I am opposed to such a thing,” said Col.Rego Rubido (APPLAUSE) — “but in case this should happen, the historic responsibility for such occurrences would fall on the shoulders of those making it possible and never on the others.

“I sincerely believe that everything should take place in harmony with your ideas and that, in general, it is…inspired by the best wishes for Cuba’s welfare and that of the Revolution you are starting.

“I learned about a young dead student found in the cemetery and just today I made sure that exhaustive investigations would be carried out in order to determine who was the killer and under what circumstances it occurred, just as in days past I placed the suspected persons responsible for the event at the disposition of the corresponding judicial authorities.

“Finally I must inform you that I sent a dispatch to the general about a plane to send him your letter full of ideas, and don’t get impatient; maybe before the date set as the maximum limit, you will be in Havana.

“When the general left, I asked him to leave me the helicopter with the pilot if it should occur to you to take a trip on Sunday afternoon over Santiago. (APPLAUSE)

“Well, Doctor, please receive assurances of my highest consideration and my fervent wish for a happy New Year.

“Signed: Colonel Rego Rubido” (APPLAUSE)

Talks were at this stage when the chief of Plaza Santiago de Cuba, Colonel Rego, and I were surprised by the coup at Columbia which was completely out of the range of the agreements. And the first thing that was done, the most criminal thing that was done, was to let Batista get away, along with Tabernilla and the major guilty parties. (APPLAUSE) They were allowed to escape with their millions of pesos; they were allowed to escape with the 300 or 400 million pesos that they had stolen. It’s going to cost us a lot, because now from Santo Domingo and other countries they are going to be creating propaganda against the Revolution, cooking up everything they can to hurt our cause; and we are going to have them there, threatening our people, putting us into a constant state of alertness because they are going to be paying for and cooking up conspiracies against us. (SHOUTING)

As soon as we heard about the coup, what did we do? As soon as we learned about it on Radio Progresso. And even at that time, guessing what they were cooking up, I was making some declarations when I found out that Batista had fled to Santo Domingo. And I thought: could this be a mistake? And I sent someone to find out about it when I hear that, effectively, Mr. Batista and his posse have escaped, and the loveliest thing about it was that Gen. Cantillo was saying that the movement had happened thanks to Batista’s patriotic proposals. Batista’s patriotic proposals! That he resigned in order to avoid a bloodbath. What do you think about that? (SHOUTING)

And there is still more. For you to have some idea about the kind of coup that was prepared; it’s enough to say that they had appointed Pedraza as a member of the Junta and he left. (SHOUTING) I don’t think we need to add anything else to see what intentions the perpetrators of the coup had. And they didn’t appoint President Urrutia, the man proclaimed as the president by the Movement and by all the revolutionary organizations. (APPLAUSE) They called up a man who is nothing but the oldest man among all the Supreme Court judges, and they are all quite old, especially a man who has been Presiding Judge, until today, of the Supreme Court, where there was no justice whatsoever.

What was the result of all that going to be? A half-baked revolution, a shady deal, the caricature of a revolution. That Mr. Perico de los Palotes, it’s the same whatever you call him, whatever you call this Mr. Piedra who, by now, if he hasn’t resigned should be preparing himself for us to make him resign when we get to Havana. (APPLAUSE) I don’t think he’s going to last 24 hours. He’ll break a record. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

Appointing this man, really nice: Cantillo, a national hero, the champion of Cuban liberties, the lord and master of Cuba, and that Mr. Piedra over there. Quite simply we would have overthrown one dictator and installed another one. By all accounts, the Columbia Movement was a counter-revolutionary movement; by all accounts it was far from the peoples’ proposal; by all accounts it was suspicious and immediately Mr. Piedra said he was going to convoke the rebels and a peace commission. And we would calmly dispose of our weapons, leaving everything and we would go there to show respect to Mr. Piedra and Mr. Cantillo.

It was clear that both Cantillo and Piedra were living on another planet. They were somewhere on the moon because I think that the Cuban people have learned a lot and we, the rebels have learned something.

That was the state of affairs this morning; it isn’t the same situation as it was during the night because a lot has changed. (APPLAUSE) Faced with this event, faced with this treachery, we ordered all rebel commanders to continue with their military operations and to continue marching to their objectives; consequently we immediately ordered all the columns destined for the Santiago de Cuba operation to advance to the city.

I want you all to know that our forces had very seriously decided to take Santiago de Cuba by storm. That would have been very unfortunate because it would have cost a lot of blood and tonight would not have been such a night of joy as it is, nor would there have been peace like we have now, nor would there have been such a spirit of fraternity as we have now. (APPLAUSE)

I must confess that if no bloody battle was waged in Santiago de Cuba this is due to a great degree to the patriotic attitude of Army Colonel José Rego Rubido (APPLAUSE); to the commanders of the frigates “Máximo Gómez” and “Maceo”, to the chief of the Santiago de Cuba Naval District (APPLAUSE) and to the officer who was in charge of police headquarters (APPLAUSE). All of them, and that’s exactly what we are acknowledging and grateful for here, contributed in avoiding a bloody battle and they turned the counterrevolutionary movement that morning into a revolutionary movement this afternoon.

We were left with no other alternative than to attack because we couldn’t allow the Columbia coup to consolidate and so we had to attack without delay. And when the troops were already moving out towards their objectives, Col. Rego went out in the helicopter to find me; the frigate commanders got in touch with us and unconditionally followed the orders of the Revolution. (APPLAUSE)

By that time, counting on the support of the two frigates which have great fire power, with the support of the naval district and with the support of the police, I called for a meeting of all army officers at Plaza Santiago de Cuba, over 100 of them. When I invited them to meet with me, I told those soldiers that I didn’t have the slightest concern about talking with them because I knew I was right; because I knew they would understand my arguments and that an agreement would come out of this meeting. In fact, by nightfall, early that night, we met at El Escandel, almost all the army officers in Santiago de Cuba, many of them young men who look like they are eager to fight for the good of their country.
I assembled those soldiers and I told them about our revolutionary feeling; I talked to them about the aim for our country; I talked to them about what we wanted for the country, what our conduct with the military had always been, about all the harm the tyranny had done to the army and about how it wasn’t fair they should think of themselves as being the same as all soldiers, that the criminals were only an insignificant minority and that there were many honorable soldiers in the army, and that I know how they hate crime, abuses and injustice.

It wasn’t easy for the soldiers to develop a determinate type of action; it was logical since the higher ranks in the army were in Tabernilla’s hands, in the hands of Pilar García, in the hands of Batista’s family and his unconditional followers, and that the army was overrun with a great sense of terror. Once couldn’t expect any isolated officer to shoulder the responsibility.

There were two types of soldiers, and we know about them very well: soldiers like Sosa Blanco, Cañizares, Sánchez Mosquera, Chaviano (SHOUTING), who are characterized by crime and the point blank murders of unfortunate peasants. But there were soldiers who were very honorable in their campaign; there were soldiers who never killed anyone or burned down any houses, such as Major Quevedo who was our prisoner after putting up heroic resistance at the battle of El Jigüe, and who today is still a major in the army (APPLAUSE). There was Major Sierra, and many other soldiers who never burned down any houses. Those soldiers were never promoted. It was the criminals who were promoted because Batista always made sure he rewarded crime. For example we have the case of Col. Rego Rubido who doesn’t owe any of his stripes to the dictatorship; he was already a colonel when the events of the 10th of March occurred. (APPLAUSE)

It is quite true that I asked for the support of the army officers at Santiago de Cuba and that the army officers of Santiago de Cuba gave their unconditional support to the Cuban Revolution. (APPLAUSE) Bringing together the officers of the navy, the police and the army, we were able to bring down the coup rigged up in Columbia and to support the legal government of the republic, because it had the majority of our people, which is Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó. Thanks to such an attitude we were able to avoid a lot of bloodshed; thanks to that attitude we have given birth to the truth, on this afternoon today, to a true revolutionary military movement.

I understand that among the people there are many justified passions; I understand our people’s yearning for justice and we must have justice. (APPLAUSE) But I would like to ask our people here…we are at a time when we must consolidate power, first and foremost. And nobody would be against that! Because the army and the armed forces are among those who most want to see that the guilt of a few is not paid by the entire corps, and that it shouldn’t be shameful to wear a uniform; that the guilty should be punished so that the innocent do not have to bear the load of disrepute. (APPLAUSE)

Trust us! That’s what we are asking of the people because we know how to do our duty. (APPLAUSE)

In those circumstances, this afternoon a true revolutionary movement of the people took place, a revolutionary movement of the military and of the rebels, in the city of Santiago de Cuba. The enthusiasm of the military is indescribable! And here are all the army officers! There are the tanks at the beck and call of the Revolution! There is all the artillery at the beck and call of the Revolution! There are the frigates at the beck and call of the Revolution! (APPLAUSE)

I am not going to say that the Revolution has people; that cannot be said because everyone knows it. I was saying that people, who had shotguns before, now have artillery, tanks and frigates and there are many trained technicians in the army who are going to help us handle them. (APPLAUSE) Now it is really the people who are armed! I can assure you that when we only numbered 12 men, all on our own, we didn’t lose hope; now that we have 12 tanks over there, how are we going to lose hope?

I would like to clear up that today, tonight, during the dawn hours, because it is almost morning, that illustrious magistrate Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó shall take possession of the Presidency of the Republic. (APPLAUSE) Does Dr.Urrutia have the support of the people or not? (APPLAUSE AND SHOUTING) Because I mean that the President of the Republic, the legal president, that is what counts for the people and that man is Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó.

Who wants Mr. Piedra to be the president? (BOOING) If nobody wants Mr. Piedra as president, why are we going to be saddled with Mr. Piedra? (BOOING)

If that is the command of the people of Santiago de Cuba, which is the sentiment of all the people of Cuba, as soon as this function ends I will be marching with the veteran troops from the Sierra Maestra, the tanks and the artillery, towards the capital, so that the will of the people is fulfilled. (APPLAUSE)

Here we stand, very simply, at the command of the people. What is legal at this moment is the mandate of the people; the president is elected by the people and not by a coterie at Columbia at 4 o’clock in the morning (APPLAUSE). None of the positions, none of the ranks that have been awarded by the Military Junta during the small hours of this morning have any validity whatsoever; all the appointments for army positions are null and void; I refer to all those appointments made this morning. Whoever accepts a position designated by the Junta will be a traitor this morning, they will be assuming a counterrevolutionary stand, call it what you will, and consequently they will be outlaws.

I am completely sure that all the military positions in the Republic will have accepted the provisions of the President of the Republic. (APPLAUSE)

The President will immediately proceed to appoint the chiefs of the army, navy and police. For his excellent service afforded at this time to the Revolution and for having places thousands of his men at the disposition of the Revolution, we recommend Col. Rego Rubido as the Chief of the aArmy; he is a man…(APPLAUSE) Likewise, as Chief of the Navy we will appoint one of the two commanders of the frigate that was the first one to join the Revolution (APPLAUSE) and I have recommended to the President of the Republic that he designate Major Efigenio Ameijeiras as the head of the National Police Force; he has lost two brothers, he was one of the members of the Granma expeditionary force and he is one of the most capable men in the revolutionary army. (APPLAUSE) Ameijeiras is conducting operations in Guantánamo but he will soon be with us here. (APPLAUSE)

I only ask for time for us and for the Civil Power of the Republic in order to carry out things as the people ask, but little by little. (SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE SAYS SOMETHING) I am just asking one thing of the people, and that is to be calm (FROM THE AUDIENCE SOMEONE SAYS: “Oriente federal, Oriente capital!”) No, no! The republic must be united above all else. What you have to ask for is justice for Oriente. (APPLAUSE) In short, time is an important factor. The Revolution cannot…rest assured that the revolution will do it; rest assured that for the very first time the Republic will be entirely free, and the people will have…(APPLAUSE)

Power has not been the result of politics; it has been the result of the sacrifice of hundreds and thousands of our comrades. There is no other commitment with the people and with the Cuban nation. A man has come to power who has no commitments with anybody, only with the people, exclusively. (APPLAUSE)

Che Guevara received orders to advance on the non-provisional capital of the Republic and Major Camilo Cienfuegos, Chief of the Antonio Maceo Column 2 has received orders to march on greater Havana and to assume the command of the military headquarters of Columbia. Simply, the orders of the President of the Republic and the mandate of the Revolution will be followed. (APPLAUSE)

Don’t blame us for the excesses that were committed in Havana; we were not in Havana. Blame Gen. Cantillos for the disturbances occurring in Havana and the individuals who put together the dawn coup; they thought they were going to dominate the situation over there. (APPLAUSE) In Santiago de Cuba, where a true revolution occurred, there has been complete law and order; in Santiago de Cuba the people have united, the military and the revolutionaries are together, and that is indestructible. The head of the government, the head of the army and the head of the navy will be in Santiago de Cuba; their orders must be fulfilled by all the command posts in the Republic. We would hope that all honorable soldiers bide by these provisions because soldiers, above all else, are at the service of the law and of authority, not constituted authority, because often this is a poorly constituted authority, but authority which has been legally constituted.

No honorable soldier has anything to fear from the Revolution. Here in this struggle there are no vanquished persons, because only the people have been the victors. (APPLAUSE) Some have fallen on one side and some on the other side, but we have all come together to give the nation its victory. We have given the fraternal embrace, the good soldiers and the revolutionaries. (APPLAUSE) Now there will be no more blood spilt; I hope that no nucleus will put up any resistance because besides being useless resistance, it would be resistance that would be crushed in a few moments, it would be resistance against the law and against the Republic, and against all the sentiment of the Cuban nation. (APPLAUSE)

It has been necessary to organize today’s Movement so that no other war will take place in the next six months. What happened during the machadato? Well, one of Machado’s generals staged a coup and removed Machado and a president was installed that lasted for 15 days; the sergeants arrived and said that those officers were responsible for the Machado dictatorship and that they didn’t respect them, revolutionary effervescence grew and they kicked out the officers. Now that couldn’t happen in this way; now these officers are backed by the people, and they have the backing of the troops and they have the prestige which is given them after they have joined the true revolutionary movement. (APPLAUSE)

These soldiers will be respected and well-regarded by the people and we won’t have to use force and we won’t have to go on the streets armed with guns, inspiring fear in everyone; because true law and order is that which is based on freedom, on respect for justice, and not on force. From now on the people shall be completely free and the people will know how to behave correctly, just as they have demonstrated today. (APPLAUSE)

The peace our country needs has been achieved; Santiago de Cuba has moved on to freedom, without having to spill any blood. That’s why there is so much joy and that’s why the soldiers who disregarded and disapproved of the coup at Columbia so that they could unconditionally join the Revolution deserve our recognition, our gratitude and our respect. (APPLAUSE)

The armed institutions of the Republic will be model institutions in the future, due to their capacity, their education and the way they identify with the cause of the people because from now on, rifles will only be at the service of the people. There will be no more coups d’état, no more wars because we have looked after that so that the same thing that happened with Machado happens here and now. Those gentlemen who would like to have the occurrence at dawn resemble the Machado case… that time they installed Carlos Manuel and now they have installed another Carlos Manuel. (BOOS)

What we won’t have this time is a Batista, because we don’t need another 4th of September that destroyed the discipline of the armed forces, because what happened with Batista was that he installed indiscipline here in the army, because his policy consisted of praising the parties in order to diminish the authority of the officers. Officers will have authority; there will be discipline in the army, there will be a military criminal code where the crimes against human rights and against honor will be duly punished and there will be an obligatory sense of morals for every soldier. (APPLAUSE) There will be no privileges for anyone; soldiers with capacity and merit will be promoted, not the relatives or friends, something that went on until today when the ladder of ascension had not been respected.

All of those mandatory obligations will cease for soldiers and for all workers; for workers union dues will cease (APPLAUSE) and for soldiers it’s the “peso for the First Lady” that will disappear; two pesos here and two pesos there, and so the entire salary disappears.

Naturally the people have everything to expect from us, and they shall receive it. But I have talked to the military so that they also know they will receive everything from the Revolution, all the improvements they never had because when the state budget is not being pilfered the military will be much better off than they are today. Soldiers won’t have to serve as police; soldiers will be at their training sessions, in their barracks and they won’t have to act as a police force. (APPLAUSE)

(SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE SAYS SOMETHING) Nothing about microwaves, although I’d like to clarify that at this moment the rebels have microwaves, because we need them, but the microwaves now do not come with the henchmen, none of that, no murderers, no more screeching brakes in front of your homes and no more midnight knocks at the door. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

I am sure that just as soon as the President of the Republic takes office he will decree the reestablishing of guarantees, and the absolute freedom of the press and all individual rights in the country (APPLAUSE), all labor union rights and all the rights and demands of our peasants and our people. We shall not forget our peasants in the Sierra Maestra and in Santiago de Cuba. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) We won’t go to live in Havana and forget about all of you; where I want to live is in the Sierra Maestra. At least, in the part that belongs to me, because of my very deep feelings of gratitude; I shall not forget those peasants and as soon as I have some free time I will go to see where we will put up the first school-city that can hold 20,000 children. (APPLAUSE) and we will set it up with the help of the people; the rebels are going to work there and we are going to ask every citizen for a bag of cement and one steel rod and I know we will get the help of our citizens.

We shall never forget any sector of our country (SOMEONE IN THE AUDIENCE SAYS: Viva Crescencio Pérez!) Long live Crescencio Pérez who lost a child in the days after the war!

The country’s economy will be immediately reestablished. This year we will be the ones to look after the sugar cane so that it doesn’t burn, so that this year the sugar tax won’t serve to buy murdering weapons and bombs, and the planes to bomb our people. (APPLAUSE)

We will look after communications and now, from Jiguaní to Palma Soriano, telephone lines have been reestablished and the rail lines have been reestablished. There will be a sugar cane harvest throughout the country and there will be good salaries because I know that that is the goal of the President of the Republic. And there will be good prices because, precisely, the fears of there not being a sugar harvest raised the prices in the world market; and the peasants can get their coffee out and the ranchers can sell their fat cows in Havana because fortunately the triumph has arrived in good time so that there won’t be any sort of disaster.

It is not my place to speak of these things. You all know we are men who keep our word and that we fulfill our promises and we like to promise less than we can deliver, not more, but less than what we are going to deliver and to do more of what we offer to the people of Cuba. (APPLAUSE)

We don’t think that all the problems are going to get solved easily; we know that the road is strewn with obstacles, but we are men of faith and that we always face great difficulties. (APPALUSE); the people maybe sure of one thing and that is that we may make mistakes over and over, but the only thing they can never say about us is that we steal, that we betray, that we are involved in dirty business. And I know the people will forgive the mistakes but won’t forgive the scoundrels. And those individuals we have had up to now have been scoundrels.

Upon taking office as president, as of that moment, when he takes the presidential oath before the people, Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó will be the supreme authority in our country. (APPLAUSE) Nobody thinks that I would like to take on powers here that go above the authority of the President of the Republic; I would be the first man to abide by the orders of the Civil Power of the Republic and the first man to provide an example (APPLAUSE); we shall simply follow his orders and, within the powers he grants us, we shall try to do as much as we can for our people, without any personal ambitions, because fortunately we are immune to ambition and vanity! What greater glory can there be than the love of our people! What greater prize is there that those millions of arms waving, full of hope, faith and love for us! (APPLAUSE)

Never will we allow ourselves to be dragged down by vanity and ambition because as our Apostle once said: “All the glory of the world fits into a single kernel of corn”, and there is no satisfaction or prize greater than fulfilling one’s duty, as we have been doing until today and as we shall always do. And I do not speak of this on my behalf; I speak on behalf of the thousands and thousands of combatants who have made victory for the people possible. (APPLAUSE) I speak of the profound feeling of respect and devotion for our dead who shall not be forgotten. The fallen shall have in us their most faithful comrades. This time it won’t be possible to say as at other times that the memory of the dead has been betrayed, because the dead will continue to command. Physically Frank País and Josué País are no longer with us, nor are the others; but morally they are here with us, they are here spiritually, and only the satisfaction of knowing that the sacrifice has not been in vain compensates for the immense emptiness they left along the way. (APPLAUSE) Their graves will go on having fresh flowers! Their sons will not be forgotten because the relatives of the fallen will be helped! (APPLAUSE) We, the rebels, will not get paid a salary for the years we fought and we are proud that we aren’t getting a salary for the services we have provided for the Revolution. But it is possible that we will continue fulfilling our obligations without being paid any salaries because if there is no money, it doesn’t matter, what we have is the will, and we will do whatever is necessary. (APPLAUSE)

But I also want to repeat here what I said in “History Will Absolve Me”: we will be making sure that the means of support, the assistance, the education of the children of the soldiers fallen fighting against us will not be lacking, because they are not to blame for the horrors of the war. (APPLAUSE) We will be generous with everyone because, I repeat, there are no vanquished here, only victors. Only the war criminals will be punished because that is the inevitable duty we have with justice, and the people can be sure that we are going to perform that duty. (APPLAUSE) And when justice is meted out, there will be no vengeance. We must have justice today so that in future days there will be no attacks on anyone. Since there will be justice, there will be no vengeance. There will be no hatred. We have eliminated hatred from the Republic, like a damned shadow left to us by ambition and ….

It is sad that the most guilty parties have escaped; there were thousands of men ready to look for them, but we have to respect the laws of other countries. It would have been easy for us, because we have more than enough volunteers ready to risk their lives to go looking for those criminals; but we don’t want to seem to be a people which violate the laws of others. We shall respect them while they respect ours, but it is certain that in Santo Domingo they are getting ready to conspire against us…(INTERRUPTION)

I had thought, at one time, that Trujillo would have harmed us by selling arms to Batista, and the damage he occasioned was not because he sold the arms but because he sold such bad arms so that when they fell into our hands they were good for nothing. (LAUGHTER) Nevertheless he sold bombs and with these bombs many peasants were killed. We don’t even have any wish to return the carbines because they are no good, but we should return something better…

Yes; it’s logical in the first instance that the politically persecuted of Santo Domingo will have here their better home and their better asylum and the politically persecuted of every dictatorship will have here their best home and the best understanding because we ourselves have been politically persecuted.

If Santo Domingo becomes an arsenal for counterrevolution, if Santo Domingo becomes a base for conspiracies against the Cuban Revolution, if those gentlemen dedicate themselves to engage in conspiracies from there, they’d be better off leaving Santo Domingo soon because they won’t be safe there either. (APPLAUSE) And it won’t be us, because we have no business getting mixed up in Santo Domingo’s problems; it’s just that the Dominicans have learned from Cuba’s example and things are going to get very serious over there. The Dominicans have learned that it is possible to fight against tyranny and defeat it, and this example is what the dictators fear most; a heartening example for the Americas has just taken place in our country. (APPLAUSE)

The Americas must look after the course and the future of this Revolution; the Americas are looking at us, the Americas accompany us with their best wishes for triumph, the Americas will support us in our difficult moments, and just as we have rejoiced when some dictator falls in Latin America, the Americas too will be glad for the Cubans.

I must conclude, even though the load of feelings and ideas that with the disorder, hubbub and emotions of today bring to mind is great. I was saying, and I still haven’t finished that idea, that there will be justice and that it was unfortunate that the guiltiest parties have escaped, the fault of people we know because the people realize who is to blame for their escape. And that they left behind, I won’t say the most unfortunate but yes, the most dim-witted persons, those who didn’t have the money, the men in the rank and file who obeyed the orders of the guiltiest parties; they let the guiltiest parties escape so that the people could satisfy their anger and indignation with those who held less responsibility. It is right for them to be punished this time, so that they learn (APPLAUSE).

The same thing always happens; the people warn them that the big fish are getting away and they stay. But the same thing always happens; the big fish leave and the little ones stay behind; well, they should also be punished. (APPALAUSE) The big ones leave, and they too will be punished; it’s tough, very tough having to live far away from your homeland for the rest of your life, at the least they will be condemned to ostracism for their entire lives, all those criminals and thieves who have suddenly fled.

If only we could spy on Mr. Batista right now! That punk, that arrogant man who made speeches only to call upon cowards, scoundrels, bandits and the like! Here nobody has called anybody a bandit; here hatred does not reign; we do not breathe in the hatred, arrogance or disdain which filled the dictatorship’s speeches. They say that man had a bullet in his pistol when he entered Columbia and he left early in the dawn in a plane with one bullet in his pistol. It was demonstrated how dictators are neither so feared nor so suicidal, and that when all is lost, they flee like cowards. What is really unfortunate is that he escaped when he could have been taken prisoner, and if we had imprisoned Batista we would have taken away the 200 million pesos he stole. We would reclaim the money, no matter where he had stashed it, because those kinds of men are not political criminals. They are common criminals! And we shall see who shows up in the embassies, and we shall see if Mr. Cantillo has given them their safe-conducts. We will differentiate between political criminals and common criminals; asylum for political criminals and nothing for common criminals. They will have to show up at court and show that they are political criminals and if it is proven that they are common criminals they will be handed over to the authorities.

And Mujal, in spite of the fact that he is big and fat…we don’t know where he is right now. (SHOUTING) See how they run away! (SOMEONE SAYS SOMETHING FROM THE AUDIENCE)

I don’t understand how you all still remember these wretches! The people have finally gotten rid of all those bastards.

Now anyone who wants to can speak, for good or for bad, but anyone can speak. It’s not like it used to be here when only those people talked and they spoke badly; there will be freedom…because of that…freedom so that they can criticize and attack us; it will always be a pleasure to speak when they fight us with the freedom we have helped everyone to attain. (APPLAUSE) We will never offend them; we will always defend ourselves and we will follow only one rule, the rule of respect for the law and respect for how other people think.

This names that have been mentioned here, those people who are in who knows which embassy, on which beach, on which ship, wherever they have ended up…(UNINTELLIGIBLE)…we have gotten rid of them, and if they have some little home, some little estate or some little cows somewhere, we will simply have to confiscate them.

But I have to point out that the tyranny’s officials, the representatives, the senators, those who haven’t especially been stealing, but those who have been paid their salaries, they will have to return every last cent they have been paid in these last four years because they have been paid illegally and they will have to reimburse the Republic for the money those senators and representatives earned. And if they don’t return it, we will confiscate the assets they have. (SHOUTING) That, besides what they stole, because those men who stole have nothing left that is a product of the theft, because that is the first law of the Revolution. It isn’t fair to send a man to prison for stealing a chicken or a turkey and then those men who stole millions of pesos are set for life somewhere over there. (APPLAUSE)

And they should be careful! The thieves of today and yesterday should be careful; they should be careful because revolutionary laws can come down over all the guilty persons of all times, because the Revolution arrives at its triumph without any commitments to anyone at all. There only commitment is with the people because the people are the only ones to whom they owe their victory. (APPLAUSE)

I shall finish now, (SHOUTING OF: “No!”) I shall finish for today. Don’t forget that I have to immediately march out, this is my obligation, and you have been on your feet for many hours. (SHOUTING)

I see so many red and black flags pinned to the dresses of our female comrades and so it is really tough to leave this podium where we have experienced, all of us here today, the greatest emotions of our lives. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

We cannot help but remember Santiago de Cuba with overwhelming love. The times we have met here, a meeting over there in the Alameda, a meeting over here in an avenue, Trocha, where one day I said that if they took away our rights by force, we would make a change…and take up guns. (APPLAUSE) And they blamed Luis Orlando for those statements, I kept my mouth closed, in the newspaper they wrote that it was Luis Orlando who had said that. I was the one who had said that but I wasn’t sure if the statements were well made because in those days there weren’t… (LAUGHTER) and it turned out we had to exchange everything, the students, their books and pencils, for guns; the peasants would exchange their work implements for guns and we would all have to exchange everything for guns. For the time being the gun matter has ceased. Guns will be kept where they can be accessed by men who have the duty to defend our sovereignty and our rights.

But when our people are threatened, it won’t be just the 30,000 or 40,000 members of the Armed Forces who will fight; instead it will be 300,000 or 400,000 or 500,000 Cubans who will be fighting, men and women here who are able to fight. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE) We will have the necessary weapons to arm everyone who wants to fight when the time comes to defend our sovereignty. (APPLAUSE) Because it has been demonstrated that it isn’t just the men who fight, but the women also fight in Cuba, (APPLAUSE) and the best proof of this is the Mariana Grajales Battalion which distinguished itself so highly in a number of battles. (APPLAUSE) And the women soldiers are as excellent as our best male soldiers.

I wanted to show how women could be such good soldiers. At first I had to get over my problems with the idea because there were many prejudices and there were men who would wonder how a gun could be given to some woman when there was a man with a rifle around. But why not?

I wanted to show how women could be such good soldiers, and that there were many prejudices…about women, and that the female sector of our country also needs to be remedied, because women are victims of discrimination in jobs and in many other aspects of life.

We organized female units, and they demonstrated that women can fight. And when men and women fight in a country, that country becomes invincible.

We shall keep the militias or the female reserve troops organized and we shall keep all the women volunteers trained. (APPLAUSE) And all these young women I see here today wearing the red and black dresses, the colors of the July 26th Movement, I hope they too will learn how to handle weapons. (SHOUTING AND APPLAUSE)

And this Revolution, my compatriots, that has been accomplished with so much sacrifice, our Revolution, the Revolution of the people, is now a beautiful and indestructible reality! What a reason for well-founded pride, what a reason for sincere joy and for the hopes of all our people! I know it’s not just here in Santiago de Cuba; it goes from Point Maisi to the Cape of San Antonio.

I fervently hope to see the people all along the route to the capital because I know that it is the same hope, the same faith of all the people who have risen up, that have patiently withstood all the sacrifice, who haven’t complained about the hunger; that when we gave permission, three days for setting up communications again, so that they wouldn’t be hungry, everyone protested (APPLAUSE) because what they wanted was to achieve victory, whatever the cost. And our people really deserve a better future, they really deserve to have the happiness that they haven’t achieved in their 50 years of Republic; they really deserve to become one of the top-ranking countries in the world, because of their intelligence, their courage and their spirit (APPALAUSE).

Nobody can think that I speak like a demagogue. Nobody can think that I want to bamboozle the people. I have demonstrated my faith in the people enough because when I arrived with 82 men on the beaches of Cuba and people were saying that we were crazy and they were asking us why we thought we were going to win the war, I told them” “Because we have the people.” (APPLAUSE) And when we suffered our first defeat, and only a handful of men remained and we kept on fighting, we knew that this would become reality, because we believed in the people. When they broke us up five times in 45 days and we got together again and took up the battle again, it was because we had faith in the people. And today we have the most tangible demonstration that the faith had a firm basis (APPLAUSE).

I have the satisfaction of having profoundly believed in the people of Cuba and that I have instilled that faith in my comrades; that faith which, more than faith, is the complete security in our men. And that same faith we have in all of you is the faith we want you to have in us, always (APPLAUSE).

The Republic wasn’t free in 1995 and the hopes and dreams of the Mambises were thwarted at the last moment. The Revolution didn’t take place in 1933 and it was thwarted by its enemies. This time the Revolution has all the people; it has all the revolutionaries, it has the honorable militants. Its strength is so great and so irrepressible that this time triumph is assured!

We can jubilantly say that in the four centuries since our nation was founded, for the first time we will be completely free and the work of the Mambises will be fulfilled (APPALUSE).

Just a few short days ago, on the 24th of February, I couldn’t resist the temptation to visit my mother. I hadn’t seen her for several years. When I was returning along the road crossing the Mangos of Baraguá, during the dark hours of night, a feeling of deep devotion made us stop there. Those of us travelling by car stopped there at that spot where they have erected a monument commemorating the Protest of Baraguá and the start of the invasion. At that time, in the presence of those sites, thinking about the exploits of our wars of independence, the idea that those men had fought for 30 years and never saw their dreams made reality because the Republic had been thwarted, and the foreboding that very soon the Revolution they dreamed of, the homeland they dreamed of, would become real. It made us feel the most exciting sensations that could ever be imagined.

I saw those men with their sacrifices come to life again, those same sacrifices we have also come to know at first hand; I was thinking of their hopes and dreams, the same as our hopes and dreams, and I thought about how this generation of Cubans has to pay and how they have now paid the most fervent tribute of acknowledgement and loyalty to the heroes of our independence.

The men who have fallen in our three wars of independence today join forces with the men who have fallen in this war. And we can say to all those who have fallen in our struggles for freedom that at last the time has come for their dreams to be fulfilled. The time has come for all of you, finally, our people, our good and noble people which are total enthusiasm and faith, our people which freely love and freely trust, that fears men with affection above and beyond what they offer, they will have everything they need (APPLAUSE). I only have to say to them here, modestly, sincerely, with profound emotion, that they will always have us, their revolutionary combatants as their loyal servants; they will only have to serve them in return (APPLAUSE).

Today, upon assuming the presidency of the Republic, Dr. Manuel Urrutia Lleó, the judge who said that the Revolution was just… (INTERRUPTION) … liberated territory now takes up the entire country; I shall simply take on the functions he assigns me, all the authority of the Republic is in his hands. (APPLAUSE) Our arms bow down respectfully to the Civilian Power in the civilian Republic of Cuba. (APPLAUSE) I don’t have to tell you that we are hoping he will fulfill his duty, because we are simply sure that he knows how to fulfill it. The provisional president of the Republic of Cuba…and the authority, and I give him the podium so that he may address the people.

(OVATION)
SHORTHAND VERSIONS – COUNCIL OF STATE

1. Take over the Democratic Party and return it to the people. They have failed us miserably.

2. Fire all pundits, predictors, pollsters and anyone else in the media who had a narrative they wouldn’t let go of and refused to listen to or acknowledge what was really going on. Those same bloviators will now tell us we must “heal the divide” and “come together.” They will pull more hooey like that out of their ass in the days to come. Turn them off.

3. Any Democratic member of Congress who didn’t wake up this morning ready to fight, resist and obstruct in the way Republicans did against President Obama every day for eight full years must step out of the way and let those of us who know the score lead the way in stopping the meanness and the madness that’s about to begin.

4. Everyone must stop saying they are “stunned” and “shocked”. What you mean to say is that you were in a bubble and weren’t paying attention to your fellow Americans and their despair. YEARS of being neglected by both parties, the anger and the need for revenge against the system only grew. Along came a TV star they liked whose plan was to destroy both parties and tell them all “You’re fired!” Trump’s victory is no surprise. He was never a joke. Treating him as one only strengthened him. He is both a creature and a creation of the media and the media will never own that.

5. You must say this sentence to everyone you meet today: “HILLARY CLINTON WON THE POPULAR VOTE!” The MAJORITY of our fellow Americans preferred Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump. Period. Fact. If you woke up this morning thinking you live in an effed-up country, you don’t. The majority of your fellow Americans wanted Hillary, not Trump. The only reason he’s president is because of an arcane, insane 18th-century idea called the Electoral College. Until we change that, we’ll continue to have presidents we didn’t elect and didn’t want. You live in a country where a majority of its citizens have said they believe there’s climate change, they believe women should be paid the same as men, they want a debt-free college education, they don’t want us invading countries, they want a raise in the minimum wage and they want a single-payer true universal health care system. None of that has changed. We live in a country where the majority agree with the “liberal” position. We just lack the liberal leadership to make that happen (see: #1 above).

Let’s try to get this all done by noon today.

I met her again in 1970 in the Tiradentes prison in Sao Paulo. She was in the women´s wing known as the Maidens´ Tower and I was in the men´s. On Sundays I was allowed to go through the gate dividing the two wings in order to celebrate the liturgy with the women. In jail, even atheists did not refuse divine blessings.

Our paths crossed a third time in the presidential palace in Brasilia in 2003. She as Minister for Energy and Mines and I as special adviser for the Zero Hunger programme.

Dilma has a strong character and a short fuse. During her first term in office I suggested she learn to meditate. She once tried phoning me but our agendas did not coincide.

She is an administrator, a manageress, lacking shrewdness in politics. She wants to decide, not negotiate. She wants to resolve things, not consult about them. This impetuousness hinders her political performance.

Our last encounter was on November 26 2014 shortly after her re-election, when she defeated the opposition. She talked for over an hour in her presidential office with Leonardo Boff, Marcia Miranda, Maria Helena Arrochellas, Luiz Carlos Susin, Rosileny Schwantes and me, all of us linked to Liberation Theology. We offered her suggestions for profound structural reforms.

Early in 2015 it became evident that Dilma could not comply with the items on our agenda. I felt foreboding for her government. What she proposed to do, as the sorcerer´s apprentice, is dominated by conservative forces, for they are the very sorcerer.

Associated to what is most physiological in Brazilian politics, Michel Temer approved the parliamentary coup, opening a dangerous precedent: from now on in Brazil, opposition not only rhymes with deposition. It is a trick to usurp political power which, with its back to the people, takes over the State machine.

The raising of the flags at the embassies on the 20th of July is much anticipated. But what does this all really mean? After more than 56 years of trying to destroy the Cuban Revolution through US sponsored terrorism, an invasion organized and launched by the CIA, biological warfare, an economic and commercial blockade, clandestine infiltrations and a permanent propaganda campaign against Cuba, what would constitute “normal” relations between Washington and La Habana?

The word normal derives from the Latin normalis. In the context of US-Cuba relations it refers to civilized diplomatic behavior, according to historically established philosophical precepts: norms or rules of peaceful conduct between nations.

What rules of peaceful conduct by the United States towards Cuba may we expect from now on? Which normative rules could be considered normal and which abnormal?

It’s normal for two neighboring countries, separated by a mere 90 miles of water, to have diplomatic relations. It’s not normal for the United States to impose an economic, financial and commercial blockade against Cuba.

It’s normal for the US to have an embassy in Havana and for Cuba an embassy in Washington. It’s not normal for the US embassy in Cuba to function without an ambassador, simply because some in the Senate oppose it.

It’s normal for US citizens to travel to Cuba, but it´s not normal to prohibit tourists from the US to travel to the island.

It’s normal for US citizens to travel to Cuba and engage in “people to people” contact, but it’s not normal that the Office of Finance and Assets Control (OFAC) limit it to only group-travel through licensed organizations, thus making travel to Cuba prohibitively expensive and inconvenient for many Americans.

It’s normal for Washington to permit businesses in the US to engage in commerce with private individuals in Cuba, but it’s not normal to make it illegal to do business with state enterprises on the island.

It’s normal for the United States to want a second consulate in Cuba to better serve the public, but it’s not normal that it uses its diplomats to intervene in Cuba’s internal affairs.

It’s normal for the United States to support a process of legal and orderly immigration from Cuba, but it’s not normal for Washington to maintain a Cuban Adjustment Act as a tool to stimulate an illegal, dangerous and disorderly immigration of Cubans to the United States.

It’s normal for the United States Embassy in Havana to provide an open-door policy for Cubans. It’s not normal for its diplomats to organize, direct and employ as salaried dissidents a few Cubans of their choosing.

It’s normal for Washington to contribute to the entertainment of the Cuban people with radio and television programs. It’s not normal for it to maintain a multi-million dollar budget to fund Radio and TV Marti as propaganda instruments.

It’s normal for Washington to want a reputation as a great defender of human rights. It’s not normal for the United States to imprison without due process or civil rights dozens of persons in Guantánamo, as well as torturing them in Cuba.

It’s normal for the United States to have an embassy in Cuba, even a large one, located in prime real estate on the famous Malecón overlooking the bay in Havana. It’s not normal for the United States to occupy, against the wishes of the Cuban people, a large swath of Cuban territory in the province of Guantánamo.

It’s normal for the Pentagon not to invade or send military drones to Cuba. It’s not normal that Washington earmarks a $30 million budget for fiscal year 2016 for a project whose declared purpose is to remove the government of Cuba from power.

It’s normal for Mississippi to be one of the 50 states of the US. It’s not normal for Washington to assume that it has jurisdiction in Cuba as well.

It’s normal for the US to do business with Cuba, but it’s not normal for the US to intervene in her internal affairs.

It’s normal for Washington to condemn terrorism. It’s not normal that it protect in Miami dozens of terrorists, including Luis Posada Carriles, who have committed heinous crimes against civilians in Cuba.

The US blockade against Cuba is a relic of the Cold War whose days are numbered. President Obama’s new Cuba policy, announced on the 17th of December, is a chronicle of the blockade’s death foretold. And it unleashed a torrent of enthusiasm from American businessmen who want to make money by investing there. Businessmen will pressure the Congress to lift the Helms-Burton law that codified parts of the blockade.

But let’s not be naïve. In order to truly say that relations between the US and Cuba are normal, Washington must understand that Cuba does not belong to it, that it is a violation of international law for the US to try and foment regime change in a foreign country and that Cuba must and ought be respected for what it is: a sovereign nation.

President Obama’s Cuba policy is a seismic shift in strategy for the United States. “The old policy did not work. It is long past its expiration date”, said Obama, in his most recent State of the Union speech before Congress. “When what you’re doing doesn’t work for fifty years, it’s time to try something new.”

What is the end game for the United States regarding Cuba? What it is it that US Presidents wished had worked? Clearly, the major premise of Washington’s Cuba policy was always regime change. It failed, and the Cuban Revolution remains strong. That is why President Obama said, that Washington should “try something new”.

Perhaps business can do what isolation could not. Engagement is the new strategy to try and topple the Cuban Revolution.

Cuba is ready for Washington’s policy of engagement. Just as she learned to build trenches to defend the island from invasion, terrorism, biological warfare and a brutal blockade, Cuba will now help the bridges that American businesses will cross to invest there. But Cuba will also be wary. To be sure, Cuba knows that Washington’s end game remains regime change. Cuban laws have always regulated foreign business ventures, and American investment in Cuba will be no different.

Cuba welcomes better relations with the United States and hopes to advance toward normalization. But unless and until the government of the United States has a political metanoia and cancels its desire to dominate Cuba, as it she were its vassal state, normal relations in the true sense of the word will not come to pass.

Article printed from www.counterpunch.org: http://www.counterpunch.org

As has been announced in the media, tomorrow, Tuesday, March 17, an ALBA Summit will take place in Caracas to discuss the weird US government policy against Venezuela and ALBA.

It was Chávez himself who came across the idea of creating that organization, for he was willing to share with his Caribbean brothers and sisters the abundant economic resources with which Nature had endowed his home country and which had ended up in the hands of powerful US companies and a handful of Venezuelan millionaires.

Corruption and squander were the main incentives of the first fascist-like oligarchy which was addicted to violence and crime.  Violence and crime then became so intolerable for the heroic people of Venezuela that they could hardly ever forget about it and they will never consent to going back to the shameful past of the pre-revolutionary era that led to the storming of shopping centers and the murder of thousands of persons whose numbers no one has been able to accurately estimate even today.

Simón Bolívar fully devoted himself to the colossal task of liberating the continent.  More than a half of the best sons and daughters of his people fought and died throughout many years of ceaseless struggle.  With less than one per cent of the planet surface, Venezuela has the biggest reserves of hydrocarbons in the world.  For an entire century, it was forced to produce all the fuel that the European powers and the United States needed.  Even today, when the hydrocarbons that were formed after millions of years would be consumed in no more than a century, and we, the human beings, who are today 7.2 billion will double that figure within a hundred years time and will total 21 billion within two hundred years time, only the prodigies of the most advanced technologies could perhaps allow the human species to survive for a little longer.

Why isn’t the fabulous media being used to inform and educate peoples on these realities, that should be known to every person in his or her right mind, and it is being used instead to promote deception?

An ALBA Summit can not ignore these realities that are so close to us.

The Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela has unmistakably declared that it has always been ready to hold discussions, in a peaceful and civilized way, with the US government, but it will never accept threats or impositions from that country.

I should add that I have been able to observe not only the attitude adopted by the heroic people of Bolívar and Chávez, but also the existence of a special circumstance: the exemplary discipline and spirit of the National Bolivarian Armed Forces.  No matter what the US imperialism intends to do, it will never be able to count on their support to do what it did for so many years.  Today, Venezuela has the best equipped soldiers and officers of Latin America.

Recently, when you met with the army officers, it was obvious that they were ready to give their last drop of blood for their Homeland.

A fraternal hug to all Venezuelans, to the ALBA peoples and to you.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 16, 2015

11:14 p.m.

My main concern was the time required to exchange ideas and revolutionary experiences, which is the essence of our lives.

Other issues delayed to a certain extent our meeting.  The three comrades who were still in prison arrived to our Homeland on December 17.   

On January 11, Maradona spoke about the letter I had sent him and showed the document that had aroused curiosity but he didn’t mention the details.  Last week-end he again mentioned the letter in Telesur.  To set things clear, I include the full texts of my exchange with Maradona.

Fidel Castro Ruz

March 2, 2015

9:53 p.m.

Dear Maradona:

I was very happy to learn that you would be in Cuba during the first weeks of January 2015 with the brilliant comrade that has shared with you the adventure of a fascinating sport.

I have at hand a list of oil producing and exporting countries according to their production capacity and their export policy, at a time when the latter seriously threatens the future of Mankind.  Others do it for different reasons. 

Saudi Arabia 11,730,000 barrels per day

United States  11,110.000

Russia 10,440,000

China 4,155,000

Canada 3,856,000

Iran 3,594,000

United Arab Emirates 3,213,000

The rest –up to number 20 in the list, the UK—extract over one million barrels per day in their respective territories.

These are the leading countries in terms of production and not in terms of their proven reserves.  

I was very happy to learn about your visit to Cuba.  Thanks to my conversations with you during the most brilliant years of our unforgettable friend Hugo Chavez, I gathered that the meeting in Mar del Plata could not be forgotten.  Hugo reminded the United States that there was another America. 

As to me, I was just watching for the second time the interview with Gerardo, Antonio, and Ramon.  You know, I haven’t yet had the chance of greeting them, though I did send flowers to little Gema.  What a beautiful name!

I heard you would be in the plane at 5:30 p.m. Is that certain?

At the recent Central American and Caribbean Championship, a judge imposed us an arbitrary penalty in such an important sport as football.  It wasn’t fair.  Money for the rich, penalties for the poor.  

As you can see, I want to be impartial, but I can assure you I find it quite difficult. 

Best wishes Maestro!

Fidel Castro Ruz

January 11, 2015

7:25 p.m.   

 …………………………..

Dubai, January 16, 2015 

Dear Fidel,

Last January 11, I left Havana with the happiness of knowing that you were well and the pride of being, once again, the bearer of your message, your eternal friendship and your concern for the problems of the world.

It was the happiness I needed to begin the second season of De Zurda, broadcasted by the Telesur, which had its special first program in Havana setting off for the America Cup to be held in Chile. 

As I am an exceptional witness to your efforts for Venezuela to carry on the victorious path outlined by that other giant and mutual friend, the unforgettable Commander Hugo Chavez, I inform you that next February 28 and March 1, the “De Zurda Viajero” will be broadcasted from Caracas, Venezuela.  Most certainly, these will be two very touching programs in which football will not be the only topic.  

Fidel, if I learned something throughout all these years of sincere and beautiful friendship with you, it was that there is no price for loyalty, that a friend is more valuable than all the world’s gold and that ideas are not negotiable. That is why De Zurda pays homage to our friendship. 

Used to your “historical” goals, I want to thank you for your letter that made me the bearer of your happy existence.  Over a month has elapsed and many persons wish to know the content of that letter.  With your usual kindness you assured me that it would only be made public if I decided so.  I not only want to make its content known, but also want to share with everybody my reply. 

With my best wishes my Commander friend,

Diego Armando Maradona

Since the year 2006, for health reasons that were incompatible with the time and the efforts required to fulfill my duties –which I imposed upon myself when I entered this University on September 4, 1945, seventy years ago-, I renounced all my positions.

I was not the son of a worker, nor did I lack the material or social resources required for a relatively comfortable existence.  I can say that I miraculously escaped wealth.  Many years later, the wealthiest American, who was no doubt a very capable man, with almost 100 billion dollars, stated –as was published by a news agency last Thursday, January 22-, that the system of production and distribution of wealth that favored the privileged will make poor people rich from one generation to the next.

From the times of ancient Greece, during almost three thousand   years, the Greeks, without going much farther, excelled in almost all areas of human knowledge: Physics, Mathematics, Philosophy, Architecture, Arts, Science, Politics, Astronomy and others. However, Greece was a country of slaves who did the hardest works both in the countryside and in the cities, while the oligarchy   devoted itself to writing and philosophizing. The first utopia was written precisely by them.

Have a close look at the realities of this well-known, globalized and very unfairly distributed planet Earth, where, as is known,  every single vital resource is deposited by virtue of historical factors:  some have much less resources than they need; others have so many that they do not know what to do with them.  Now, in the face of serious war threats and risks, chaos reigns in the distribution of financial resources and social production.  The world’s population has grown, between 1800 and 2015, from one billion to seven billion inhabitants. ¿Would this be the right way to cope with the population growth during the next 100 years as well as with the food, health, water and housing needs that the world’s population will face, regardless of whatever scientific advances are made?

All right, but setting aside these enigmatic problems, it is astonishing to think that the University of Havana, at the time when I entered that beloved and prestigious institution, almost three quarters of a century ago, was the only one that existed in Cuba.

By the way, comrade students and professors, we should remember that today we not only have one, but more than fifty higher education centers scattered throughout the entire country.

When you invited me to participate in the launching of the campaign to celebrate the seventieth anniversary of my entering the University, a news that caught me by surprise, during very hectic days for me, for I was dealing with several issues in which I can perhaps still be relatively useful, I decided to have some rest and devote myself for some hours to remember those years.

I feel overwhelmed when I realize that seventy years have passed already. In fact, comrades, if I were to register again at the University at that age, as some have asked me, I would respond, without hesitating, that I would have pursued a scientific career.  And after graduating, I would have said just like Guayasamín: Leave a little light on for me.

In those years, I was already influenced by Marx and I managed to have a broader and better understanding of the strange and complex world in we all have had to live in.  I was able to dispense with the bourgeois illusions whose tentacles succeeded in confusing many students when they were least experienced and most passionate.  This would be a subject for a long and endless discussion.

Lenin, the founder of the Communist Party, was another genius of revolutionary action.  That is why I did not hesitate for a single second when, at the trial after the attack on the Moncada, which I was allowed to attend just one time, I stated before the judges and dozens of high-ranking officers of the Batista regime that we were readers of Lenin’s works.

We did not talk about Mao Zedong because the Socialist Revolution in China, inspired by identical purposes, had not yet concluded.

But I should note, however, that revolutionary ideas are to be always on the alert as humanity is able to multiply its knowledge.

Nature has taught us that tens of billions of light-years may have passed by, but life, in any of its forms, will always be subject to the most incredible combinations of matter and radiations.

The personal greeting between the Presidents of Cuba and the United States took place at the funeral of Nelson Mandela, a notable and exemplary fighter against Apartheid, who was a friend of Obama’s.

Suffice it to say that, already by that moment, several years had elapsed since the Cuban troops had dealt a devastating defeat to the racist army of South Africa, led by a rich bourgeoisie that was the owner of huge economic resources.  That is the history of a struggle that is still to be written.  South Africa, the government with the most financial resources in that continent, had nuclear weapons that had been supplied by the racist State of Israel, by virtue of an agreement between the latter and President Ronald Reagan, who authorized it to deliver the devices required for the use of such weapons with which South Africa could attack the Cuban and Angolan forces that were defending the People’s Republic of Angola against the occupation of that country by the racist, thus excluding every possibility of negotiating peace, while Angola was being attacked by the Apartheid forces, with the best trained and equipped army in the African continent.

Under such circumstances, there was no possibility whatsoever for a peaceful solution.  The ceaseless efforts made to crush and systematically bleed out the People’s Republic of Angola with the power of that well trained and equipped army, was the determining factor behind Cuba’s decision to deal an overwhelming blow against the racists in Cuito Cuanavale, a former NATO base, which South Africa was attempting to occupy at all costs.

That arrogant country was forced to negotiate a peace agreement which put an end to the military occupation of Angola and to the Apartheid regime in Africa.

The African continent was then free from nuclear weapons. Cuba had to face, for the second time, the risk of a nuclear attack.

The Cuban internationalist troops withdrew from Africa with honor.  And then came the Special Period in times of peace, which has already lasted for more than 20 years, without hoisting the white flag, something we never did nor we will ever do.

Many friends of Cuba have known the exemplary behavior of our people, and it is to them that I will explain, in a few words, my essential position.

I do not trust the US policy, nor have I ever exchanged a single word with them, something that in no way means a rejection to a peaceful settlement of conflicts or war dangers. Defending peace is a duty of all.  Any peaceful and negotiated solution to the problems between the United States and peoples, or any people of Latin America, which does not involve force or the use of force, should be addressed according to international standards and principles.  We will always advocate cooperation and friendship with all peoples of the world, among them, the peoples of our political adversaries.  That is what we are demanding for all.

The President of Cuba has taken relevant steps in accordance with his prerogatives and the faculties vested upon him by the National Assembly and the Communist Party of Cuba.

The grave dangers that threaten humanity today will have to give way to the norms that are compatible with human dignity.  No country can be denied those rights.

It is in that spirit that I have struggled and I will continue to struggle to my last breath.

Fidel Castro Ruz

January 26, 2015

12:35 pm