Fidel’s Message to the Cuban National Assembly

Comrades of the National Assembly:

You have no easy task on your hands. On January 1, 1959, surrounded by the accumulated and deepening grievances that our society inherited from our neo-colonial past under US domination, many of us dreamt of creating a fully independent nation where justice prevailed. In the arduous and uneven struggle, there came a moment when we were left completely alone.

Fifty Years since the triumph of the Revolution, we can justifiably feel proud of ourselves, as we have held our ground for almost a half a century in the struggle against the most powerful enemy ever to exist in history. In the Proclamation I signed on July 31, 2006, none of you saw any signs of nepotism or an attempt to usurp parliamentary powers. That year, at once difficult and promising for the Revolution, the unity of the people, the Party and State were essential to continue moving forward and to face the declared threat of a military action by the United States.

This past December 24, 2007, during his visit to the various districts of the municipality which honored me with the nomination as a candidate to parliament, Raul noted that all of the numerous candidates proposed by the people of a district famous for its combativeness, but with a low educational level, had completed their higher education. This, as he said on Cuban TV, made a profound impression on him.

Party, State and Government cadres and grassroots organizations face new problems in their work with an intelligent, watchful and educated people who detest any bureaucratic hurdles and inconsiderate justifications. Deep down, every citizen wages an individual battle against humanity’s innate tendency to stick to its survival instincts, a natural law which governs all life. Coming face to face with this instinct is rewarding because it leads us to a dialectical process and making us true communists.

What the international press has emphasized most in reports on Cuba in recent days is the statement that I made on December 17^th, 2007, in a letter to the director of Cuban television’s Round Table program, where I said that I am not clinging top power. I could add that for some time I did, due to my youth and lack of awareness, when, without guidance, I started to leave my political ignorance behind and became a utopian socialist. It was a stage in my life when I believed that I knew what had to be done and wanted to be in a position to do it!

What made me change? Life did, I dwelt more into Marti‘s ideas and those others of the classics of Socialism. The more deeply I became involved in the struggle, the stronger my identification with those aims and, well before our Revolution Victory, I was already convinced that it was my duty to fight for these aims or to die in combat for them.

We also face great risks that threaten the human species as a whole. This has become more and more evident to me since I predicted for the first time in Rio Janeiro – over 15 years ago – in June of 1992 – that our species was threatened with extinction as a result of the destruction of its natural habitat. Today, the number of people who understand the real danger of this grows every day.

A recent book by Joseph Stiglitz, former Vice President of the Word Bank and former President Clinton’s chief economic advisor until 2002, a Noble Prize laureate and best selling author in the USA, a country which did not sign the Kyoto Protocol – that the US is the largest producer of carbon dioxide in the world, with annual emissions of 6 billion tons of this gas which disturbs the atmosphere without which life is impossible. In addition to this, the US is the largest producer of other greenhouse gases.

Today, we know that life on Earth has been protected by the ozone layer, located in the atmosphere’s outer ring, at an altitude of between 15 - 60 kilometers, in the region known as stratosphere, which acts as the planet’s shield against the type of solar radiation which can prove harmful.

To have a clear sense of this phenomenon, suffice is to say that the world produces an average of 4.37 metric tons of carbon dioxide per capita. In the United States, the average is 20.14, nearly 5 -times as much. In Africa, it is 1.17, while in Asia and Oceania it is 2.87.

The ozone layer, in brief, protects humanity from ultraviolet and heat radiation, which affects our immune system, sight, skin and life of human beings. Under extreme conditions, the destruction of that layer by human  being would affect all forms of  life on the planet.

Other problems, foreign to our nation and many others under similar conditions, also threaten us. A victorious counterrevolution in Cuba would be a disaster for us, worse than Indonesia’s tragedy. Sukarno, who was overthrown in 1967, was a nationalist leader who, loyal to Indonesia, headed the guerrillas who fought the Japanese occupation.

General Suharto, that overthrew him, had been trained by the Japanese occupation forces. At the conclusion of World War II, Holland, a US ally re-established control over that distant extensive and populated territory. Suharto maneuvered He hoisted the banner of US imperialism. He committed an atrocious act of genocide. Today we know that, under the instructions of the CIA, he not only killed hundreds of thousands of people, but also imprisoned over a million Communists and deprived them and their families of all property and rights. He and his family amassed a great fortune of over hundreds of bill\ions of dollars by handing over all of the country’s natural resources and the sweat of Indonesians to foreign investors.

The dangers of events in Pakistan pose a great danger to the world. This is the consequence of the adventurous policies of and the wars aimed at securing the world’s natural resources unleashed by US imperialism.

The extraordinary circumstances faced by Pakistan had an immediate effect on the oil prices and stock exchanges. No country or region in the world can disassociate itself from the consequences. We must be prepared for anything.

I am certain that many young Cubans, in their struggles against the Giant in Seven-League Boots, would do everything to protect Cuba ad humanity. Money can buy everything save the soul of people who have not gone down on their knees.

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