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KEY ADDRESS BY ARMY GENERAL RAUL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE STATE
COUNCIL AND THE COUNCIL OF MINISTERS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE
COMMEMORATION OF THE 60th ANNIVERSARY OF THE ATTACKS ON THE MONCADA AND
CARLOS MANUEL DE CESPEDES BARRACKS. MARIANA GRAJALES SQUARE, SANTIAGO DE
CUBA, JULY 26TH, 2013 “YEAR 55 OF THE REVOLUTION”
(Stenographic Version - State Council)
Dear friends,
Do not be surprise if along with this olive green uniform and the ranks
of Army General I’m carrying a ‘mambí’ hat (Applauses), since this army
was born from the ‘mambí’ army; and dark glasses although I like to look
my interlocutors clearly in the eyes.
Distinguished guests,
Men and women from Santiago,
People from Oriente,
Cuban people,
We have listened attentively to the generous and fraternal words of the
heads of State and Government of the Bolivarian Alliance of the Peoples
of Our America, and also the President of Uruguay, who is in Cuba.
Actually, José Mujica had been here in the 1960s, when this fortress was
turned into a school. He was then a young dreamer, just like today but
without rheumatism. (Applauses and laughs)
We’d also like to express our appreciation to outstanding personalities
from other countries that are here with us today.
We salute the members of the 24th Caravan of U.S.-Cuba
Friendship (Applauses) organized by the interreligious group Pastors for
Peace (Applauses), which has persevered in the solidarity effort of the
unforgettable Reverend Lucius Walker.
The presence of all of these friends in this commemoration of the 60th
Anniversary of the attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes
Barracks is a clear expression of support to and solidarity with the
Cuban Revolution showing the changes Our America has gone through since
the challenging and bleak days of 1953.
At that time we, but mostly Fidel, had read about Bolívar’s exploits and
those of other national heroes of the struggle for independence in our
region, and we all realized the importance of a united and independent
Latin American and Caribbean region.
In his transcendental court appeal known as “History Will Absolve Me”,
Fidel anticipated, and I quote: “[...] the Cuban policy for the Americas
would be one of deep solidarity with the democratic peoples of the
continent, and those subjected to political persecution by the bloody
tyrannies that oppress our sister nations would find in Martí’s homeland
not persecution, hunger and treason but generous asylum, brotherhood and
bread. Cuba should be a beacon of freedom and not a disgraceful link to
despotism.”
Martí’s premature death in combat had thwarted his yearnings, expressed
in an unfinished letter to his Mexican friend Manuel Mercado, “[...] to
opportunely prevent with the independence of Cuba that the United States
expand throughout the Antilles and fall, with that additional force, on
our lands of America.”
The Cuban Revolution has been faithful to that legacy and offered its
solidarity, even during the hardest times, despite attempts at isolating
it and starving it into submission with a criminal blockade that has
been in place for over half a century, and efforts to destroy it through
all kinds of aggressions.
We shall never forget that after our release from prison Mexico gave us
shelter, and after the victory its government was the only one in Latin
America that refused to turn its back on us.
The support and solidarity of the peoples of every continent has never
failed us, particularly of the peoples in this region, which have always
perceived Cuba as an inseparable part of Our America, the same that
united in its diversity moves forward with determination towards its
second and final independence.
Twenty years after the triumph of January 1st, the Sandinista
Revolution attained its own victory. Just last week, Nicaragua, always
youthful, celebrated that event under the leadership of Commander Daniel
Ortega. (Applauses)
Two more decades would pass before our dearest brother Hugo Chávez
embodied Bolívar’s ideals, and today, multiplied in his people he moves
along with his Revolution under the steady guidance of comrade President
Nicolás Maduro. (Applauses)
The unstoppable processes of Bolivia’s Democratic and Cultural
Revolution advance headed by Evo Morales, a symbol of the vindication of
the original peoples (Applauses); like the victorious Citizens’
Revolution in Ecuador led by President Rafael Correa (Applauses),
represented here by his Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño, with wide
popular support, and the great social progress experienced in Uruguay
under the leadership of comrade José Mujica (Applauses), a Tupamaro
guerrilla incarcerated for fourteen years. Similar processes take place
in the Caribbean region, where nations strive for sustainable
development, justice and sovereign equality, and whose prominent
leaders, Prime Ministers Roosevelt Skerrit of Dominique, Baldwin Spencer
of Antigua and Barbuda, Ralph Gonsalves of Saint Vincent and the
Grenadines and Kenny Anthony of Saint Lucia are also here with us today.
(Applauses)
Despite attempts at causing divisions that facilitate plundering, the
integration of our nations keeps strengthening through such mechanisms
as Alba, Caricom, Mercosur, Unasur, and others. Likewise, the Community
of Latin American and Caribbean States, Celac, which Cuba is honored to
preside, moves onward with its consolidation.
I avail myself of this opportunity and, on behalf of all Cubans and
particularly of the victims of hurricane Sandy in the provinces of
Guantánamo, Holguín and Santiago de Cuba, express our deepest gratitude
to all the governments and peoples that have generously supported, and
are still supporting, our reconstruction works. (Applauses)
Nine months ago that hurricane hit land in this city, and for five hours
fierce winds of approximately 125 miles/hour lashed the provinces of
Santiago de Cuba, Holguín and Guantánamo causing the death of eleven
people. The effects of that meteorological phenomenon also impacted on
the central provinces with intensive rains and floods.
After a thorough study it was determined that total economic losses
amounted to nearly seven billion pesos, most of these due to devastation
of houses and public buildings although farming and crucial
infrastructure like utilities, communication and roads sustained
considerable damages.
The trajectory of hurricane Sandy brought the greatest damage to the
province of Santiago de Cuba, particularly to its capital, where 50
percent of houses were smashed and the power grids and telephone lines
collapsed. For days the trees fell by the winds and the debris stood in
the way of traffic in the streets of the second largest city in the
country, with one and a half million people.
In the province of Holguín, the northeastern municipalities were the
most severely damaged by Sandy’s assault. Coincidentally, these same
areas had endured the ravaging of the powerful hurricane Ike as it made
landfall in Cuba four years before, on September 2008. There, 19.3
percent of the houses sustained damages as well as a large part of the
crops, including sugarcane. Up until the present, 52 percent of the
housing problems have been solved.
The western municipalities of the Guantánamo province were also impacted
by the same hurricane but less severely, and have since then recovered.
In the case of Santiago de Cuba, first of all with the efforts of its
own people and with the resolute support of the rest of the country,
including the contribution of the combatants from the Revolutionary
Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, as well as brigades of
electricians and telephone workers from every province, minimal living
conditions were reestablished in a few days. The largest contribution to
palliate the situation in Santiago, and one of the first to arrive, was
sent personally by comrade Hugo Chávez. (Applauses)
In the months following the event, the recovery work has not ceased,
consequently, 42 percent of the housing problems have been resolved. At
the same time, a construction program is underway in the province
leading to the eventual relief of the tense situation in that area.
On the other hand, the government has subsidized 50 percent of the price
of the construction materials assigned to the repair of the damaged
houses, and with the same end it has offered bank credits at lower
interest rates and with a longer period for repayment. Likewise, in the
cases of full house collapse the State Budget has taken on the payment
of the interests and subsidized the lowest income families. Progress has
also been made in the recuperation of healthcare, education and culture
facilities, and of transportation.
Additionally, the investment process undertaken in 2004 has continued
with the rehabilitation and expansion of the provincial capital
aqueduct, allowing a steady and daily supply of water to 30 of the 32
hydrometric segments of the city, although this service is yet to be
ensured to the areas of Altamira and Litoral which are presently
receiving water every other day. It is the responsibility of the
provincial authorities and enterprises to secure the sustainability of
the system.
These works regularly monitored by the Central government have yet to be
completed. Let me assure the women and men of Santiago that, foremost
with their direct involvement, we shall build an ever more beautiful,
hygienic, orderly and disciplined city that will live up to its
condition of Heroic City and birthplace of the Revolution. May no one
forget that Santiago (Exclamations of “Santiago is still Santiago”) is
still Santiago.
It seems miraculous that 60 years after that 26 of July some of us
involved in those events are still alive, particularly when the
dictatorship unleashed its thirst for revenge on many combatants who
were tortured and murdered.
We also wanted to take heaven by assault. It was a dream, we tried and
couldn’t make it, but exactly five years, fives months and five days
later, on January 1st, 1959, we came through that main gate
to demand, on behalf of Fidel, the unconditional surrender of the city
garrison with its over 5000 troops. (Applauses)
Fidel’s determination and decorum, that turned him from accused into
accuser in the trial to which we were submitted, led to our first
victory, followed by a fruitful imprisonment and exile in Mexico; the
rearrangement of the revolutionary forces and the preparations for the
Granma expedition, whose delayed arrival in the Cuban coasts prevented
the synchronization with the heroic uprising in Santiago de Cuba
organized by that young leader Frank País, on November 30, 1956 −he was
not 22 years old yet, and the following year, before his 23rd
birthday, he was cowardly murdered by the tyranny’s henchmen.
There was the setback in Alegría de Pío and the reunion with Fidel in
Cinco Palmas two weeks later; the liberation war, first in the Sierra
Maestra and later in other mountainous regions; the decisive victory, in
74 days of ceaseless and intensive combats, against the great offensive
launched by Batista’s forces on the territory of the I Front in the
Sierra Maestra, where the Rebel Army’s General Staff was located. As Che
[Guevara] indicated, that victory “broke the backbone of the tyranny”
and marked the onset of the strategic counteroffensive of the
insurrectional Movement.
Thus came, in the summer of 1958, the irreversible turning point of the
war, that with the operations of the invading columns, which had
departed from the Sierra Maestra, and the actions of the combatants in
the underground movement led to the military collapse of the regime, the
assumption of power by the victorious Revolution and the establishment
of the first Revolutionary Government at the University of this city.
Then, the general strike −called by Fidel from Palma Soriano, before
entering Santiago− with the working class and the support of all of the
people, frustrated the U.S. embassy’s scheming to steal victory while
Fidel was on his way to Havana. This is brief summary of an intensive
story.
At that point, a much more challenging period started, one which shook
the foundations of the society as a whole. Four and a half months after
the victory, −in the Sierra Maestra itself and the headquarters used by
Fidel in the final days of the war− in compliance with the Moncada
Program, the first Land Reform Law was enacted. This action placed the
Revolution in a confrontational path with powerful foreign economic
interests and with the local bourgeoisie, which for several years would
fund and encourage the actions of armed gangs and the assassination of
young teachers, many of them only teenagers; the Playa Girón invasion in
April 1961, on the eve of which the Socialist nature of the Revolution
was proclaimed; the Missile Crisis in October 1962, when the United
States was preparing a direct invasion of Cuba with its troops, and the
incessant aggressions and crimes against our people carried out for
decades.
Many years have passed but this is still a revolution of the young, as
we were young that July 26, 1953, and also those who fought and died in
the streets of Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 1956. Most of those who
fought the bandits were young, too, −for five years, from 1960 until
approximately January 1965 they fought the bandits that in two occasions
during that period had managed to have active gangs of different sizes
in every province in the country, including south of the capital− as
were young the ones who defeated the mercenaries in Playa Girón, and
those youths who joined the literacy campaign −most of them students;
the young people incorporated in masse to the Militias, and to the newly
formed Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior.
Hundreds of thousands of our compatriots who discharged their duty with
internationalist missions in other lands of the world −most of them in
Angola, as one of guests just said− were young, the same as those who
are today offering healthcare and education services in various
countries −most of them young women; the scientists, intellectuals,
artists and sports people who have brought so much glory to the
homeland; those who do their military services, including girls who have
volunteered for this task; the middle level education students and our
university students who were the successful protagonists of the latest
population and housing census; the workers and farmers who in the areas
of production and services yield revenues for the economy; our teachers
and professors.
This shall continue as the Socialist Revolution of the humble, by the
humble and for the humble proclaimed by Fidel on April 16, 1961, at the
funeral of the victims of the bombings that preceded the Playa Girón
[Bay of Pigs] invasion. This Revolution −and I repeat it because it has
proven as much for 60 years− will keep on being a Revolution of the
young. (Applauses)
Today, over 70 percent of Cubans were born after the triumph of the
Revolution. It could be said that several generations are living in our
homeland, each with their own history and merits depending on their
times.
The historical generation is giving space to the “new trees”, at peace
and with calm confidence, aware of their proven capacity and preparation
to uphold the flags of the Revolution and of Socialism for which
countless patriots and revolutionaries have sacrificed their lives, from
the natives and slaves who rebelled against oppression until today.
As previously informed, the process is underway for the progressive and
orderly transference of the main leadership responsibilities of the
nation. To ensure the success of this undertaking, we will never lose
sight of the strategic importance of preserving, above all −and I repeat
it, preserving above all!− the unity of all worthy Cubans, just as Fidel
has taught us.
Comrades all,
This is a good occasion to pay homage to all those who fell through
centuries of redeeming struggle. And also to Fidel, the Commander in
Chief of the Cuban Revolution (Applauses), who with unwavering optimism
and alongside our people −capable of enduring so much sacrifice, and the
true protagonist of this epic− led us to victory and placed our tiny
island in the world map as a beacon of social justice and respect for
human dignity.
Let’s pay tribute to Cuban women (Applauses) in their roles of mothers,
combatants, comrades in sacrifices, struggles and joy (Applauses), and
to the new generations that will forever defend the revolutionary
ideals.
From this historical place we send a fraternal embrace to the courageous
antiterrorist fighters (Applauses) that for fifteen years have been kept
unjustly incarcerated in the United States. We will continue striving
restlessly for their return to our Homeland.
At this point, we cannot fail to pay a heartfelt tribute to the
unconquered Commander of the Bolivarian Revolution in our sister country
Venezuela, the dear comrade Hugo Chávez Frías, an advanced pupil of the
national heroes of Latin American and Caribbean independence.
(Applauses)
Eternal glory to the martyrs of our Homeland! (Exclamations of “Glory!”)
Long live the Socialist Revolution! (Exclamations of “Long live!”)
Long live free Cuba! (Exclamations of “Long live!”)
Long live Fidel! (Exclamations of “Long live!”)
Ever onward to Victory! (Exclamations of “Long live! Long live!”)
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