Socialist Action /April 2002
Fidel's Speech in Monterrey, Mexico
(This English translation, from the March 22 issue of Granma, differs
slightly from the translated paragraphs in Jaime Gonzalez's article above.)
Excellencies: Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still,
I will respectfully say what I think. The existing world economic order
constitutes a system of plundering and exploitation like no other in history.
Thus, the peoples believe less and less in statements and promises.
The prestige of the international financial institutions rates less than
zero. The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses indicate
that for every dollar that goes into trade, over 100 end up in speculative
operations completely disconnected from the real economy.
As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the world population
lives in underdevelopment, and extreme poverty has already reached 1.2 billion
people in the Third World. So, far from narrowing, the gap is widening.
The revenue of the richest nations, that in 1960 was 37 times larger
than that of the poorest, is now 74 times larger. The situation has reached
such extremes that the assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world
amount to the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.
The number of people actually starving was 826 million in the year 2001.
There are at the moment 854 million illiterate adults while 325 million
children do not attend school.
There are 2 billion people who have no access to low cost medications,
and 2.4 billion lack the basic sanitation conditions. No less than 11 million
children under the age of 5 perish every year from preventable causes while
half a million go blind for lack of vitamin A.
The life span of the population in the developed world is 30 years higher
than that of people living in sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!
The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy. They neither
conquered nor plundered entire continents for centuries; they did not establish
colonialism, or re-establish slavery; and modern imperialism is not of their
making. Actually, they have been its victims.
Therefore, the main responsibility for financing their development lies
with those states that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today the
benefits of those atrocities.
The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant them fresh
soft credits to finance their development. The traditional offers of assistance,
always scant and often ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.
For a true and sustainable economic and social development to take place,
much more is required than is usually admitted. Measures like those suggested
by the late James Tobin to curtail the irrepressible flow of currency speculation-albeit
it was not his idea to foster development-would perhaps be the only ones
capable of generating enough funds, which in the hands of the UN agencies
and not of awful institutions like the IMF, could supply direct development
assistance with a democratic participation of all countries and without
the need to sacrifice the independence and sovereignty of the peoples.
The Consensus draft, which the masters of the world are imposing on this
conference, intends that we accept humiliating, conditioned, and interfering
alms.
Everything created since Bretton Woods until today should be reconsidered.
A farsighted vision was then missing, thus, the privileges and interests
of the most powerful prevailed.
In the face of the deep present crisis, a still worse future is offered
where the economic, social and ecological tragedy of an increasingly ungovernable
world would never be resolved and where the number of the poor and the starving
would grow higher, as if a large part of humanity were doomed.
It is high time for statesmen and politicians to calmly reflect on this.
The belief that a social and economic order that has proven to be unsustainable
can be forcibly imposed is really senseless.
As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up
in the arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate,
the ill, the poor, and the hungry, but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses,
poverty, or hunger.
It should definitively be said: "Farewell to arms." Something
must be done to save humanity! A better world is possible! Thank you.
Socialist Action /April 2002 |