Address by Raul Castro Ruz
President of the Council of State and of Ministers, Republic of Cuba
Ninth Extraordinary Summit of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America – Trade Agreement of the Peoples (ALBA-TCP for its initials in Spanish)
Caracas, Venezuela
March 17, 2015.
March 17, 2015.
Translated by Charles McKelvey.
Translator´s note. ALBA was founded by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro on December 14, 2004. It was established as an alternative to the US proposal for a Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA), which Chávez and Fidel understood as a form of integration that would deepen dependency and foreign domination in the Latin American and Caribbean nations. ALBA was envisioned as an alternative form of integration based on cooperation, solidarity, sovereignty, and independence.
Member nations of ALBA today include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and several Caribbean nations.
The Extraordinary Summit of March 17, 2015 was called in response to the Executive Order of Barack Obama, in which Venezuela was declared as a threat to the national security of the United States.
Esteemed heads of State and of Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America;
Esteemed chiefs of delegations and invited guests;
Sisters, brothers, colleagues;
ALBA convokes us today to ratify our most firm backing of the Bolivarian government and people in the face of the latest interventionist actions and threats by the North American government against Venezuela.
The facts show that history cannot be ignored. The relations of the United States with Latin America and the Caribbean have been marked by the “Monroe Doctrine” and by the objective of exercising domination and hegemony over our nations.
Bolivar had anticipated that the United States “appears destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of Liberty;” and Martí had died in combat without finishing a letter in which he was explaining the “duty of preventing, through the timely the independence of Cuba, the United States from extending itself over the Antilles and falling upon, with this additional force, our lands of America.”
Later came military interventions, coups d’état, maneuvers to overthrow nationalist or progressive governments, the backing of bloody military dictatorships, covert operations, harboring of terrorism and subversion as well as the appropriation and ransacking of our resources in order to perpetuate dependency and underdevelopment.
The audacity of carrying forward a victorious Socialist Revolution only 90 miles from the United States has required immense sacrifices, suffering, human losses and material privations for the Cuban people, submitted since the triumph of the revolution, 56 years ago, to all kinds of hostility, including support and organization of armed bands in the mountains since the end of 1959—that is, since the year of the triumph of the revolution—, the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and the official legalization of the blockade in 1962. All this was done with the declared intention of overthrowing the Revolution and changing the political, economic and social order that we decided on freely, and that we later confirmed in constitutional referendum.
The policy has been a complete failure. It has resulted in damage to our people and the complete isolation of the United States in its objectives, as President Barack Obama recognized recently when announcing a new policy and proposing to open a new chapter. However, the spokespersons of his government insist in clarifying that the objectives persist, only the methods change.
The triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution was an extraordinary milestone in the history of Venezuela and the entire region, which began to awaken from the long neoliberal night. An epoch of changes was initiated in the continent, and other nations decided to undertake the road of full independence and integration and to take up again the flags of our national heroes.
ALBA, UNASUR, and CELAC were born, united, in their diversity, to previous groups and initiatives with a genuine Latin American and Caribbean mission, founded in the principles of solidarity, cooperation, social justice, and the defense of sovereignty.
PETROCARIBE was an extraordinary, generous and humanist contribution of President Hugo Chávez Frías. Now, it is intended to destroy PETROCARIBE in order to threaten its member states, submitting them to petroleum transnationals and separating them from Venezuela. It is not realized that our peoples have decided, irrevocably, to continue their unstoppable advance and to battle for a just and multipolar word, where those that were historically excluded have voice, hope and dignity.
US imperialism has tried, without success, virtually all the formulas of destabilization and subversion against the Bolivarian and Chavist revolution, in order to recuperate control of the greatest petroleum reserve of the planet and to deal a blow to the emancipatory process of integration that is taking place in our America.
The arbitrary, aggressive, and unfounded Executive Order emitted by the President of the United States against the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, characterizing it as a threat to national security, demonstrates that the United States is prepared to sacrifice peace and to change the direction of hemispheric relations for reasons of domination and domestic policy.
It is unsustainable the idea that Venezuela could be a threat to the most powerful state in history. Venezuela is a supportive country that has never invaded nor engaged in aggressions against another country, and it has contributed substantially and altruistically to the energy security and the economic stability of a considerable number of nations of the continent.
We support the dignified, courageous and constructive position of President Nicolás Maduro (Applause), who notwithstanding the seriousness of the threat, has extended his hand to the president of the United States in order to initiate a dialogue based in international law and mutual respect, that would lead to the unconditional repeal of the Executive Order of President Obama and to the normalization of relations (Applause). ALBA and CELAC ought to support that proposal.
Today Venezuela is not alone, nor is our region the same as twenty years ago. We will not tolerate that sovereignty be violated or that the peace of the region be broken with impunity. As we have affirmed, the threats against peace and stability in Venezuela represent also threats to the peace and stability of the region.
The peace that Venezuela today demands and that we all need, a “peace with justice, with equality, a peace standing and not a peace kneeling, is the peace with dignity and development,” as Maduro said. It is the peace to which we committed ourselves in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted at the Second Summit of CELAC in Havana.
The position of our country in these circumstances remains invariable. I reiterate the firm solidarity of the Cuban Revolution with the Bolivarian Revolution, with the constitutional president Nicolás Maduro and with the civilian-military union that he heads (Applause). I reiterate our absolute loyalty to the memory of Comandante Hugo Chávez Fríaz, the best friend of the Cuban Revolution (Applause).
As has been declared, we ratify “once more that that the Cuban (medical and educational workers and) collaborators present in the sister nation will continue fulfilling their duty under any circumstances, in support of the noble and supportive brother Venezuelan people.”
The United States ought to understand once and for all that it is impossible to seduce or buy Cuba or to intimidate Venezuela. Our unity is indestructible (Applause).
We will not give an inch in the defense of our sovereignty and independence, nor will we tolerate any form of interference nor the establishment of conditions with respect to our internal affairs.
We will not cease in the defense of the just causes in Our America and in the world, nor will we ever leave alone our brothers in struggle. We have come here to close ranks with Venezuela and with ALBA and to ratify that principles are not negotiable (Applause).
To defend these convictions, we will attend the Seventh Summit of the Americas. We will expound our positions, with firmness, clarity and respect. We will reject with determination all attempts to isolate and threaten Venezuela, and we will demand the definitive cessation of the blockade of Cuba.
The Cuban civil society will be the voice of those without voice, and it will expose the mercenaries, as well as their patrons, that will present themselves there as the civil society of Cuba.
We ought to convoke all the peoples and governments of Our America to mobilize and be on the alert in defense of Venezuela. Solidarity is the foundation of regional integration and unity.
Thank you very much (Applause).
Translator´s note. ALBA was founded by Hugo Chávez and Fidel Castro on December 14, 2004. It was established as an alternative to the US proposal for a Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA), which Chávez and Fidel understood as a form of integration that would deepen dependency and foreign domination in the Latin American and Caribbean nations. ALBA was envisioned as an alternative form of integration based on cooperation, solidarity, sovereignty, and independence.
Member nations of ALBA today include Venezuela, Cuba, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and several Caribbean nations.
The Extraordinary Summit of March 17, 2015 was called in response to the Executive Order of Barack Obama, in which Venezuela was declared as a threat to the national security of the United States.
Esteemed heads of State and of Government of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America;
Esteemed chiefs of delegations and invited guests;
Sisters, brothers, colleagues;
ALBA convokes us today to ratify our most firm backing of the Bolivarian government and people in the face of the latest interventionist actions and threats by the North American government against Venezuela.
The facts show that history cannot be ignored. The relations of the United States with Latin America and the Caribbean have been marked by the “Monroe Doctrine” and by the objective of exercising domination and hegemony over our nations.
Bolivar had anticipated that the United States “appears destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of Liberty;” and Martí had died in combat without finishing a letter in which he was explaining the “duty of preventing, through the timely the independence of Cuba, the United States from extending itself over the Antilles and falling upon, with this additional force, our lands of America.”
Later came military interventions, coups d’état, maneuvers to overthrow nationalist or progressive governments, the backing of bloody military dictatorships, covert operations, harboring of terrorism and subversion as well as the appropriation and ransacking of our resources in order to perpetuate dependency and underdevelopment.
The audacity of carrying forward a victorious Socialist Revolution only 90 miles from the United States has required immense sacrifices, suffering, human losses and material privations for the Cuban people, submitted since the triumph of the revolution, 56 years ago, to all kinds of hostility, including support and organization of armed bands in the mountains since the end of 1959—that is, since the year of the triumph of the revolution—, the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961, and the official legalization of the blockade in 1962. All this was done with the declared intention of overthrowing the Revolution and changing the political, economic and social order that we decided on freely, and that we later confirmed in constitutional referendum.
The policy has been a complete failure. It has resulted in damage to our people and the complete isolation of the United States in its objectives, as President Barack Obama recognized recently when announcing a new policy and proposing to open a new chapter. However, the spokespersons of his government insist in clarifying that the objectives persist, only the methods change.
The triumph of the Bolivarian Revolution was an extraordinary milestone in the history of Venezuela and the entire region, which began to awaken from the long neoliberal night. An epoch of changes was initiated in the continent, and other nations decided to undertake the road of full independence and integration and to take up again the flags of our national heroes.
ALBA, UNASUR, and CELAC were born, united, in their diversity, to previous groups and initiatives with a genuine Latin American and Caribbean mission, founded in the principles of solidarity, cooperation, social justice, and the defense of sovereignty.
PETROCARIBE was an extraordinary, generous and humanist contribution of President Hugo Chávez Frías. Now, it is intended to destroy PETROCARIBE in order to threaten its member states, submitting them to petroleum transnationals and separating them from Venezuela. It is not realized that our peoples have decided, irrevocably, to continue their unstoppable advance and to battle for a just and multipolar word, where those that were historically excluded have voice, hope and dignity.
US imperialism has tried, without success, virtually all the formulas of destabilization and subversion against the Bolivarian and Chavist revolution, in order to recuperate control of the greatest petroleum reserve of the planet and to deal a blow to the emancipatory process of integration that is taking place in our America.
The arbitrary, aggressive, and unfounded Executive Order emitted by the President of the United States against the Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, characterizing it as a threat to national security, demonstrates that the United States is prepared to sacrifice peace and to change the direction of hemispheric relations for reasons of domination and domestic policy.
It is unsustainable the idea that Venezuela could be a threat to the most powerful state in history. Venezuela is a supportive country that has never invaded nor engaged in aggressions against another country, and it has contributed substantially and altruistically to the energy security and the economic stability of a considerable number of nations of the continent.
We support the dignified, courageous and constructive position of President Nicolás Maduro (Applause), who notwithstanding the seriousness of the threat, has extended his hand to the president of the United States in order to initiate a dialogue based in international law and mutual respect, that would lead to the unconditional repeal of the Executive Order of President Obama and to the normalization of relations (Applause). ALBA and CELAC ought to support that proposal.
Today Venezuela is not alone, nor is our region the same as twenty years ago. We will not tolerate that sovereignty be violated or that the peace of the region be broken with impunity. As we have affirmed, the threats against peace and stability in Venezuela represent also threats to the peace and stability of the region.
The peace that Venezuela today demands and that we all need, a “peace with justice, with equality, a peace standing and not a peace kneeling, is the peace with dignity and development,” as Maduro said. It is the peace to which we committed ourselves in the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted at the Second Summit of CELAC in Havana.
The position of our country in these circumstances remains invariable. I reiterate the firm solidarity of the Cuban Revolution with the Bolivarian Revolution, with the constitutional president Nicolás Maduro and with the civilian-military union that he heads (Applause). I reiterate our absolute loyalty to the memory of Comandante Hugo Chávez Fríaz, the best friend of the Cuban Revolution (Applause).
As has been declared, we ratify “once more that that the Cuban (medical and educational workers and) collaborators present in the sister nation will continue fulfilling their duty under any circumstances, in support of the noble and supportive brother Venezuelan people.”
The United States ought to understand once and for all that it is impossible to seduce or buy Cuba or to intimidate Venezuela. Our unity is indestructible (Applause).
We will not give an inch in the defense of our sovereignty and independence, nor will we tolerate any form of interference nor the establishment of conditions with respect to our internal affairs.
We will not cease in the defense of the just causes in Our America and in the world, nor will we ever leave alone our brothers in struggle. We have come here to close ranks with Venezuela and with ALBA and to ratify that principles are not negotiable (Applause).
To defend these convictions, we will attend the Seventh Summit of the Americas. We will expound our positions, with firmness, clarity and respect. We will reject with determination all attempts to isolate and threaten Venezuela, and we will demand the definitive cessation of the blockade of Cuba.
The Cuban civil society will be the voice of those without voice, and it will expose the mercenaries, as well as their patrons, that will present themselves there as the civil society of Cuba.
We ought to convoke all the peoples and governments of Our America to mobilize and be on the alert in defense of Venezuela. Solidarity is the foundation of regional integration and unity.
Thank you very much (Applause).