arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

Delegates and invited guests:

RACISM, racial discrimination and xenophobia constitute a social, cultural and political phenomenon, not a natural human instinct: they are the direct offspring of wars, military conquest, enslavement and the individual or collective exploitation of the weakest by the most powerful throughout the length of the history of human societies.

Nobody has the right to sabotage this conference which, in some way, is attempting to alleviate the terrible suffering and enormous injustice that these deeds have signified and still signify for the overwhelming majority of humanity. Far less does anybody have the right to impose conditions, and demand that the issue of historical responsibility and just reparations are not even mentioned, or the way in which we decide to qualify the horrific genocide at this very minute being committed against our sister nation of Palestine (Applause) on the part of extreme-right leaders who, in alliance with the hegemonic superpower, are currently acting in the name of another people which, over close to 2000 years, was the victim of the greatest persecution, discrimination and injustice committed in history.

When Cuba talks of compensation and supports this idea as an ineludible moral duty to the victims of racism, it has an important precedent in the compensation being received by the descendents of those very Jewish peoples who, right in the heart of Europe, suffered an odious and brutal racist holocaust, rather than attempting the impossible search for direct family members or concrete countries of origin of the victims in terms of deeds that occurred over centuries. The real and irrefutable fact is that tens of millions of Africans were captured, sold like merchandise and dispatched to the other side of the Atlantic to work as slaves, and that 70 million native Indians died in the western hemisphere as a consequence of European conquest and colonization. (Applause)

The inhuman exploitation to which people of the three continents, including Asia, were subjected, has affected the destiny and present-day life of over 4.5 billion persons inhabiting the Third World nations, and whose indices of poverty, unemployment, infant mortality, life prospects and other disasters impossible to enumerate in a brief speech, are both shocking and horrifying. These are the current victims of that barbarity that lasted for centuries, and the unmistakable creditors of reparations for the horrendous crimes committed against their ancestors and peoples. (Applause)

Brutal exploitation did not terminate when many countries gained their independence, nor even after the formal abolition of slavery. From the early years of independence, the principal ideologists of the United States constituted by the 13 colonies that freed themselves from British dominion at the end of the 18th century created concepts and strategies unquestionably expansionist in nature. By virtue of those ideas, in their advance towards the West the former white colonists of European origin seized land occupied for thousands of years by its indigenous Indian inhabitants land and exterminated millions of them. They did not halt at the borders of lands that were formerly Spanish possessions, and Mexico, a Latin American country that attained its independence in 1821, was likewise stripped of millions of square kilometers and incalculable natural resources. The abominable and inhumane slavery system was maintained in the increasingly powerful and expansive nation that emerged in North America for nearly one hundred years after the famous 1776 Declaration of Independence, which proclaimed that all men are born free and equal.

After the merely formal abolition of slavery, for a further century African Americans were subjected to the cruelest racial discrimination, many of whose traits and consequences have continued in place for virtually four decades and to date, after the heroic battles and the advances gained in the '60s, which cost the lives of Martin Luther King, Malcolm X and other outstanding fighters. (Applause) For purely racist reasons, the worst and the longest prison sentences fall to the lot of African Americans, and within U.S. society it is they who suffer the greatest poverty and the worst living conditions (Applause). Equally terrible and even worse are the contempt for and discrimination against what remains of the indigenous populations that occupied a large part of current U.S. territory.

One does not have to mention data on the economic and social state of Africa. Entire countries and even complete regions of Sub-Saharan Africa are at risk of disappearing due to an extremely complex combination of economic backwardness, extreme poverty and serious diseases—old and new—which are scourging those nations. The situation in a large number of Asian countries is no less tragic. Add to that fabulous and irrecoverable debts, unequal terms of trade, ruinous prices for their basic products, a demographic explosion, neoliberal globalization and climatic changes, with their consequence of prolonged drought alternating with increasingly dramatic rains and flooding. It can be mathematically demonstrated that such a situation is unsustainable. (Applause)

The developed countries and their consumer societies, currently responsible for the accelerated and virtually unstoppable destruction of the environment, have been the largest beneficiaries of the conquest, enslavement, merciless exploitation and extermination of hundreds of millions of the sons and daughters of the peoples now constituting the Third World, for the economic order imposed on humanity after two monstrous and destructive wars for the re-division of the world and its markets, for the privileges conceded to the United States and its allies at Bretton Woods, for the International Monetary Fund and the international financial institutions created exclusively by them and for them. (Applause)

This rich and spendthrift world possesses the technical and financial resources to pay off its debt to humanity. The hegemonic superpower moreover, should pay off the particular debt it has with African Americans, with the American Indians herded into the reservations, and to tens of millions of Latin American, Caribbean immigrants and those from other poor countries, whether of Asian, African or mixed-racial origin, victims of discrimination and contempt.

The time has equally come to put an end to the dramatic situation of the indigenous communities in the rest of our hemisphere. Their awakening, their own struggle and universal acknowledgement of the monstrous crime committed against them make it impossible to postpone.

The funds needed to save the world from tragedy exist.

Finally call a complete halt to the arms race and weapons trading, which only generate desolation and death. (Applause)

Redirect to development the major part of the trillions of dollars annually spent on commercial publicity, the forger of consumer illusions and habits that are impossible to achieve, together with the poison that is destroying national identities and cultures.

Fulfil the promised hand over of the modest 0.7% of your Gross Domestic Product as aid to development.

Establish in a reasonable and effective form the taxation system on speculative operations proposed by Nobel Prize Winner James Tobin (Applause), which currently amount to trillions of dollars per day; and the United Nations, which cannot continue depending on miserable, insufficient monies, late donations and charity; make available one trillion dollars to save and develop the world. Did you hear that properly? One trillion dollars per year. There are more than a few of us in the world who know had to add, subtract, multiply and divide. I am not exaggerating. Given the gravity and urgency of current problems that are even threatening the life of our species on the planet, that is what is really needed before it is too late.

Put an immediate end the genocide of the Palestinian people (Applause) that is taking place before the shocked eyes of the world. Protect the elemental right to life of its citizens, its youth and its children. Respect its right to independence and peace, and you will have nothing to fear from UN documents.

I am well aware that, in the search to alleviate the terrible situation in which their countries find themselves, many African friends and those from other regions have suggested using the necessary prudence to obtain something from this conference. I understand them but I cannot renounce my conviction that the more frankly the truth is told, the greater the possibility of being heard and respected. (Applause) Centuries of deception are more than enough.

I have only three brief questions based on a truth that nobody can disregard.

The developed and rich capitalist countries are currently participating in the imperialist system and economic order imposed on the world, which is based on the philosophy of egotism and brutal competition among people, nations and blocs, which is completely removed from any sentiment of solidarity and international cooperation. They live within a deceitful, irresponsible and hallucinatory atmosphere of the consumer society. However sincere blind faith in such a system and the convictions of their most serious statesmen might be, are they capable of comprehending the gravity of the present-day world, ruled in its incoherent and unequal development by blind laws, the colossal superpower and the interest of the transnational companies, which are steadily growing larger, more uncontrollable and more independent? (Applause) Can they comprehend the approaching universal chaos and rebellion? Although they might wish to, can they put an end to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance, which are precisely all the others?

From my point of view, we are facing a major economic, social and political crisis of a global nature. Let us be aware of these realities. Alternatives will arise. History has demonstrated that great solutions have only emerged from great crisis. The right of the peoples to life and justice will inevitably impose itself.

I believe in the mobilization and struggle of the peoples! (Applause) I believe in just ideas! I believe in the truth! I believe in humanity!

Thank you.

(Ovation)