Fidel Castro Speech at the UN Page #9

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And all this social welfare work -- teachers, housing, and hospitals -- has been carried out without sacrificing the resources that we have earmarked for development. At this very moment the Revolutionary Government is carrying out a program of industrialization of the country, and the first plants are already being built.

We have utilized the resources of our country in a rational manner. Formerly, for instance, thirty-five million dollars worth of cars were imported into Cuba, and only five million dollars worth of tractors. A country which is mainly agricultural imported seven times more cars than tractors. We have changed this around, and we are now importing seven times more tractors than cars. *PG*

Close to five hundred million dollars was recovered from the politicians who had enriched themselves during the tyranny of Batista -- close to five hundred million dollars in cash and other assets was the total we were able to recover from the corrupt politicians who had been sucking the blood of our country for seven years. It is the correct investment of these assets which enables the Revolutionary Government, while at the same time developing plans for industrialization and for the development of agriculture, to build houses, schools, to send teachers to the farthest corners of the country, and to give medical assistance to everyone -- in other words, to carry out a true program of social development.

At the Bogota meeting, as you know, the Government of the United States proposed a plan. Was it a plan for economic development? No. It was a plan for social development. What is understood by this? Well, it was a plan for building houses, building schools, and building roads. But does this settle the problem at all? How can there be a solution to the social problems without a plan for economic development? Do they want to make fools of the Latin American countries? What are families going to live on when they inhabit those houses, if those houses are really built? What shoes, what clothes are they going to wear, and what food are children going toe at when they attend those school? Is it not known that, when a family does not have clothes or shoes for the children, the children are not sent to schools? With what means are they going to pay the teachers and the doctors? How are they going to pay for the medicine? Do you want a good way of saving medicine? Improve the nutrition of the people, and when they eat well you will not have to spend money on hospitals. Therefore, in view of the tremendous reality of undevelopment, the Government of the United States now comes out with a plan for social development. Of course, it is stimulating to observe the United States concerning itself with some of the problems of Latin America. Thus far they had not concerned themselves at all. What a coincidence that, they are not worried about those problems! And the fact that this concern emerged after the Cuban Revolution will probably be labelled by them as purely coincidental.

Thus far, the monopolies have certainly not cared very much, except about exploiting the underdeveloped countries. But comes the Cuban Revolution and suddenly the monopolists are worrying, and while they attack us economically trying to crush us, they offer aims to the countries of Latin America. The countries of Latin America are offered, not the resources for development that Latin America needs, but resources for social development--houses for men who have no work, schools where children will not go, and hospitals that would not be necessary if there were enough food to eat (APPLAUSE).

After all, although some of my Latin American colleagues may feel it their duty to be discreet at the United Nations, they should all welcome a revolution such as the Cuban Revolution which at any rate has forced the monopolists to return at least a small part of what they have been extracting from the natural resources and the sweat of the Latin American peoples (APPLAUSE).

Although we are not included in that aid we are not worried about that; we do not get angry about things like that, because we have been settling those same problems of schools and housing and so on for quite some time. But perhaps there may be some of you who feel we are using this rostrum to make propaganda, because the President of the United Nations has said that some come here for propaganda purposes. And, of course, all of my colleagues in the United Nations have a standing invitation to visit Cuba. We do not close, our doors to any one, now do we confine anyone. Any of my colleagues in this assembly can fision Cuba whenever he wishes, in order to see with his own eyes what is going on. You know the chapter in the Bible that speaks of St. Thomas, who had to see in order to believe I think it was St. Thomas.

And, after all, we can invite any newspapermen, and any member of any delegation, to visit Cuba and see what a nation is capable of doing with its own resources, when they are used with honesty and reason. But we are not only solving our housing and school problems, we are solving our development problems as well, because without the solution of the problems of development there can be no settlement of the social problems themselves.

Why is the United States Government unwilling to talk of development? It is very simple: because the Government of the United States does not want to oppose the monopolies, and the monopolies require natural resources and markets for the investment of their capital. That is where the great contradiction lies. That is why the real solution to this problem is not sought. That is why planning for the development of underdeveloped countries with public funds is not done.

It is good that this be stated frankly, because, after all, we the underdeveloped countries, are a majority in this Assembly -- in case anyone is unaware of this fact -- and we are witnesses to what is going on in the underdeveloped countries.

Yet, the true solution of the problem is not sought, and much is said about the participation of private capital. Of course, this means markets for the investment of surplus capital, like the investment that was amortized in five years.

The government of the United States cannot propose a plan for public investment, because this would divorce it from the very reason for being the Government of the United States, namely the American monopolies.

Let us not beat about the bush, the reason no real economic plan is being promoted is simply this: to preserve our lands in Latin America, Africa, and Asia for the investment of surplus capital.

Thus far we have referred to the problems of my own country and the reason why those problems have not been solved. Is it perhaps because we did not want to solve them? No. The Government of Cuba has always been ready to discuss its problems with the Government of the United States, but the Government of the United States has not been ready to discuss its problems with Cuba, and it must have its reasons for not doing so.

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