Conghaileach
7th July 2002, 21:21
A dignified, resolute and energetic response from the parliament of all Cubans
Speech given by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, president of the National
Assembly of People's Power, on June 24, 2002, at the opening of
that body's special session convened to debate the constitutional
modification bill proposed by the mass organizations and signed by more
than eight million Cubans.
=============================
Comrades:
In the presence of 535 deputies, which equals 92.56% of its members, I
declare this special session of the National Assembly opened.
Participating in this session, as specially invited guests, are members
of the national leadership of the mass organizations and other
compatriots fulfilling missions of special significance for our society
or expressing the most noble internationalist sentiments.
Also accompanying us are various representatives of sister peoples,
relatives of our five heroes imprisoned by the U.S. empire and Comrade
Juan Miguel [González] and his family.
The session's agenda appears in the call released by the Council of
State, signed by its president, Comrade Fidel Castro.
It is the National Assembly's responsibility to express itself on a
proposal put before us by the people, on behalf of whom we act.
The proposal is endorsed by 8,188,198 Cuban citizens living in Cuba,
and more than 10,000 compatriots currently overseas undertaking various
tasks have also communicated their support.
The country's main media are covering the session live.
We are going to work with the people and in plain view of the people.
We will be receiving their message directly, because this Assembly is
and always will be an instrument of their will and an expression of
their power.
We will demonstrate our political system's strength, creative capacity
and virtue.
We will pay tribute to genuine democracy, in a world in which an
ignorant and rapacious dictatorship is not only seriously threatening
Cuba, but is also steamrollering other nations and attempting to
abolish everywhere governments of the people, for the people and by the
people.
Before giving you the floor, allow me to offer a few of my personal
reflections that cover just one aspect of the issue that brings us
together.
Afterwards you will surely expand on and go deeper into the issue.
When it was announced that George W. Bush was going to read a couple of
speeches on May 20, one of them in Miami, it never occurred to anybody
that he was going to present a dissertation on democracy.
The entire world remembered what occurred in November 2000. Innumerable
citizens resident there, especially ten of thousands of African
Americans, complained of all sorts of violations of their rights -
including their arbitrary exclusion from electoral lists or the illegal
annulment of their votes and even being physically prevented access
to the polls - and had been waiting more than 19 months for justice to
be done.
On June 5, 2001, after an exhaustive investigation, the U.S. Civil
Rights Commission published a report containing irrefutable proof of
the abuses committed in Florida, during that election, against African
Americans, Haitians and other ethnic groups that suffer discrimination.
Mr. Bush had maintained a hermetic silence in the face of those public
charges and the legal efforts. Such discretion was understandable given
that, after all, it was precisely those violations and abuses, rather
than having a sufficient number of votes, that made it possible for him
to take over the White House.
Then came the atrocious crime of September 11, the so-called war on
terrorism and the incessant intimidating rhetoric, which served as
useful excuses for not responding to demands and protests.
It would be erroneous to suppose that timidity deprived Mr. Bush of a
magnificent opportunity to offer his apologies, or that verbal
incontinence simply stopped him from keeping his mouth shut.
In fact, it was all done deliberately. He went to meet up with his
buddies, to thank them for everything they had done and prepare the new
farce for the coming November. Moreover, he took his friends a present
that he would make public exactly one day later.
Indeed, on May 21 his attorney general announced the decision not to
proceed with the majority of the charges waiting so patiently for legal
action. The field has been cleared to repeat those shameful activities.
BUSH HAD THE EFFRONTERY TO CHALLENGE CUBA
While that mockery of legality was being cooked up, Mr. Bush had the
effrontery to challenge Cuba and pontificate on electoral questions.
Although he admitted, somewhat belatedly, with more than a quarter of a
century's delay, that we do hold elections in Cuba, he also displayed
supine ignorance and at the same time, in a single gesture, managed to
insult two peoples: those of Cuba and the United States.
He insulted the American people because the majority of them have never
participated in an election. Many have not done so because they know
that it is something alien to them, something that does not belong to
them, given that - with a few honorable exceptions - the parties and
their candidates are controlled by the big corporations that
finance campaigns that are increasingly more costly, that those elected
will act in the service of those who paid for their electoral victories
and will never be accountable to the people.
Others, also a large number, do not vote simply because they are not
allowed to vote, because the entire system - from the arbitrary and
complex procedure of acquiring and maintaining voter's status, right
down to the unjust and discriminatory practice of always holding
elections on a working day - is designed to exclude poor and low-
income people.
The most costly electoral system on the planet, which squanders
billions of dollars on demagogic propaganda and on sustaining corrupt
machines, does not devote one single cent to promoting voter
registration, making it easier to vote or assuring the honest and open
scrutiny of the votes cast.
That thousand-year-old concept, that ideal for which humanity has
fought throughout the centuries, has been hijacked by Washington, which
has emptied it of meaning and reduced it to a cheap propaganda exercise
for consumers whom it presumes are imbeciles.
The U.S. empire views democracy as solely and exclusively the kind
known as "representative" democracy, reduced only and exclusively to
holding periodic elections, which have to be "competitive" between two
machines that select the supposed competitors.
This Yankee dogma has found obliging followers within this continent's
bourgeois politicians, and has proven to be a successful export
commodity. However, it has a manufacturing flaw: it doesn't exist in
the United States itself. There, with few exceptions, there is no
competition.
The decisive factor in all elections is money, the financial backing of
the large interests concentrated on maintaining their representatives.
Hence, those running for reelection have a huge advantage over their
opponents because generally they are able to accumulate larger
financial resources.
In the 2000 elections, more than 90% of the members of Congress sought
reelection and more than 99% of them were reelected. In ordinary
language, these are the so-called closed elections in which, with very
few exceptions, it is known beforehand who will emerge the winner and
in which the other candidate almost always offers a purely
symbolic alternative.
That year, moreover, there were 64 seats for which the incumbent ran
unopposed. And let us not forget that the current president received
half a million votes less than his opponent.
The real competition in the U.S. elections is between political
machines and the people whom they fruitlessly try to attract. The
result is well known. Voters' abstention has been the victor for
decades. And the percentage of abstentions is in fact far higher than
that reflected in the statistics.
As it is known, official figures acknowledge that less than half the
voters go to the polls. But those figures are inflated by fraud. The
racist society that prevents many people from voting grants others the
opportunity to vote several times, in addition to those who continue to
vote after they have died.
JOSE MARTI HAD ALREADY UNMASKED THE ROTTENNESS OF AN ESSENTIALLY
FRAUDULENT SYSTEM
An investigation in 11 states published on June 13 revealed that, in
those states, at least 140,109 persons were registered voters in two or
more districts. For example, 7,475 New Jersey voters also appeared on
the Florida voters' list.
José Martí had already unmasked the rottenness of an essentially
fraudulent system when he affirmed to President Wilson almost a century
ago: "The government that was designed for the people has fallen into
the hands of the bosses and their employers, the big interests. An
invisible empire has been installed above the forms of democracy."
And at that time, nobody had even heard of Watergate or Enron, nor
about "butterfly ballots" and Florida's other diabolical inventions.
In Cuba, since 1976, we have developed a completely different system.
By calling our elections fraudulent, Mr. Bush has insulted the entire
Cuban people. He has insulted the 277,277 candidates to the municipal
assemblies who were nominated directly by their neighbors, in open and
public meetings in which millions of voters participated, and
among whom 127,894 delegates were elected, who have fulfilled their
mission honorably, in constant communication with their communities,
presenting periodic reports on their work and without charging them a
cent or gaining any advantage from their government posts. Of those
local delegates, 1,377 were also elected as deputies to the National
Assembly or delegates to the provincial assemblies, for a total
of 51.38% of the membership of both assemblies in this legislative
period.
In the most recent electoral process, there were 37,030 neighborhood
meetings attended by 6,646,264 persons, who nominated 31,003
candidates, from whom were elected the 14,686 delegates who today make
up our municipal assemblies, in free, clean elections without fraud.
These delegates, selected and elected directly by the population - and
not by camarillas that serve the rich - are the ones who have nominated
the candidates for national deputies and provincial delegates.
In the most recent election, after having carried out 1.3 million
consultations, 56,187 persons were considered as pre-candidates. All
those elected, for whatever post, have obtained more than 50% of the
votes. All of them make periodic reports on their work, all of them can
be recalled from office, none of them receives sinecures or privileges.
Practically our whole population has been involved in our electoral
process. More than 85% of the voters have participated in the
nomination of candidates, and the proportion of voters in the elections
has always surpassed 95%.
Millions of Cubans have taken part in clean and honest elections, as
voters or members of the electoral boards, or doing other support work.
Our children are the only ones who guard the ballot boxes.
More than two centuries ago, Jean Jacques Rousseau pointed out the
fiction of limiting citizen's freedom to depositing a ballot
periodically and delegating someone to represent the people's
sovereignty.
Like him, we feel that democracy can only emerge out of human equality,
and that it needs to be translated into the people's broadest and most
systematic participation in governing the society.
Since 1959, Cubans have been the main protagonists of their Revolution,
and their conscious and free efforts have sustained our immense
achievements, as well as the tenacious and heroic resistance we have
been obliged to maintain in the face of foreign aggression. It would be
impossible and unnecessary to summarize all of that here.
I should mention that our National Assembly and local assemblies have
never acted as elitist bodies separate from the people, claiming to
represent the people without consulting them. Our main decisions have
always been adopted following broad and open reflection with the most
diverse sectors, or have come out of initiatives taken by the
people themselves, as is the case with our session today.
That is how we discussed the serious economic problems we faced at the
start of the special period, we encouraged the workers' parliaments and
in every corner of the country we have analyzed the fundamental texts
that have helped us deal with a complex and difficult situation.
THE WORK METHODS AND STYLE OF A TRULY DEMOCRATIC ASSEMBLY SUPPORTED BY
THE PEOPLE
These have been the work methods and style of a truly democratic
assembly supported by the people.
We are applying them right now in the elaboration of a new bill on
agricultural cooperatives, which has been discussed by 212,779
cooperative members and their families in countless gatherings and
3,351 local meetings attended by our deputies.
This is how we function in our country, which according to Mr. Bush is
the only one in the hemisphere that is not democratic. Meanwhile, in
the supposedly democratic countries, decisions that affect the people's
most elemental rights are made every day, without anyone's opinion
being heard, and without them being analyzed even in
their legislatures.
In that manner, they were at the point of imposing on the world a
multilateral investment agreement. This is how the annexationist plan
known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which is essentially a
similar agreement for this continent, has advanced in the shadows.
Perhaps Mr. Bush recalls the hostile protestors he faced not long ago
in Quebec. Or did the double protection wall keep him from hearing the
cries of the people? It was precisely democracy that they were
demanding.
And democracy, heeding the opinions of workers, women, young people,
civil society is what the Social Forum in Porto Alegre called for, in
the face of a tyrannical globalization that is trying to annihilate our
nations without even assuring the appearance of "representative
democracy."
In the United States, Mr. Bush has already succeeded in getting
legislation passed that will allow him to draw up the FTAA completely,
without any congressional intervention. That illustrious and democratic
legislature has been left with the sole function of rubber stamping a
text that is still being hatched in secret.
I shall not attempt to convert Mr. Bush into a democrat. I shall not
ask him to advocate the people's right to nominate their candidates, or
to make them answerable to their constituents or to assure that they
can be recalled from office. I shall not try to convince him that a
majority vote is a requisite in any democratic election.
At this stage, I don't think I would be able to persuade him that merit
and virtue should prevail over money and bribery, much less try to
convince him that all the workers in his country should be able to
organize trade unions - to which only 13% of them belong today - to
demand fair wages, and to receive education and medical care free of
charge.
But now that he has capriciously availed himself of the capacity to
give lessons to others on subjects about which he is totally ignorant,
and out of consideration for the American people, who do deserve and
have our respect, it would be worthwhile to call on him to undertake
certain things that are within his scope and which correspond to
the will of that people.
Mr. Bush, revoke the arbitrary and unjust decision announced by your
attorney general on May 21 and allow an investigation into all the
complaints and charges presented by citizens whose rights were trampled
on during the 2000 elections.
Do you have some reason to be concerned about the application of
justice? Do you fear that somebody will remember the 14th and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution, enacted in 1868 and 1870, and the
Voting Rights Act, finally won in 1965 through the selfless struggle of
African Americans and presumably passed in order to implement
those amendments?
Mr. Bush, use your authority to achieve an in-depth reform of the
system of financing electoral campaigns that will place real limits on
spending and contributions and eliminate the bribery and influence
peddling by the large corporations. Establish automatic, universal and
free registration for all citizens of voting age and do away with all
the restrictions and obstacles that curtail this possibility for a
large number of U.S. citizens; declare election day a public holiday
and adopt other measures to facilitate access to the polls for millions
of workers who currently find voting almost impossible.
You do not need a revolution to promote these actions. They exist in
other developed capitalist countries. You can thus let millions of U.S.
citizens discover what it is to vote in an election.
Mr. Bush, restore to Congress the authority to be informed about and
debate the secret FTAA negotiations. Propose to your Congress that it
go further. Call on trade unions, ecologists and U.S. civil society,
give them a chance to discover the consequences of that agreement for
the workers, the environment and the future, listen to the
people's opinions with the same attention that you reserve for
the large corporations and your friends in the Miami terrorist mafia.
THE PLATT AMENDMENT'S SIGNIFICANCE ONE CENTURY AGO PALES ALONGSIDE
BUSH'S INSOLENCE
Mr. Bush has gravely offended the Cuban people. Let us leave aside his
picturesque falsifications of history or the thinking of Martí and
Varela. He has particularly offended them with his insolent ignorance
of the independence of the Cuban nation, with his promise to intensify
economic warfare and internal subversion - and now with the
announcement of direct financing for his domestic servants - and even
with threats of military aggression.
What the Platt Amendment signified one century ago pales in the face of
his insolence. While at that time the empire assumed the right to
intervene in our country's internal affairs, now the emperor has gone
further and is attempting to define how a future Cuba must be. What he
calls, with insuperable dimwittedness, the "new Cuba," is, according
to his words, the Cuba of 50 years ago, of almost half a century ago.
Nothing more and nothing less. In other words, Batista's Cuba, that of
the large landowners and evicted campesinos, that of unemployment,
abject poverty and abandonment, that of illiteracy and poor health,
that of racism and racial discrimination and corruption, of murder and
torture.
He did not say that in just any speech. Mr. Bush proffered such an
insult precisely surrounded by Batista supporters, landowners and
criminals, to the cheers and applause of his terrorist buddies of
yesterday and today.
He went to promise that contemptible mob that he would give them back
that Cuba. What was that country like, according to the January 1953
census? What did the figures supplied by the Batista regime itself
reflect?
A country where only 36.8% of the labor force had regular work, and, in
contrast to 90,982 women employed as domestics, there were only 13
scientists. There were more than one million illiterate people and
1,619,535 children and young people - two thirds of the total - did not
attend any school. More than 91% of rural homes lacked electricity, 70%
of them were made of palm thatch and mud, there was no drinking water
in 92.7% of rural homes and in 45.4% of urban housing, 96.5% of rural
homes and 62.5% of urban homes had no refrigerator or icebox, nor was
there a bath or shower in 90.5% of rural homes and 35.1% of urban ones.
These are just a few figures from the census carried out by the Batista
dictatorship with data collected at a point of economic boom, in the
midst of the sugar harvest. Some years later, between 1956 and 1957, a
Catholic agency that could never be accused of radicalism undertook a
survey among rural campesinos and workers.
Let's see what it found: 36% suffered from intestinal parasites, 31%
had malaria, 14% had tuberculosis and 13% suffered from typhoid; only
11.22% drank milk, 7% ate cornmeal, 4% ate meat, 3.36% ate bread, 2.12%
ate eggs and less than 1% ate fish; and finally, 73.46% were
without work.
Does Mr. Bush really believe that he can once again submerge us in that
hell of injustice? Does he imagine for one second that we are going to
hand over our land, our houses, our factories, our schools and
hospitals, our research and cultural centers, our day-care centers and
our homes for the elderly to that corrupt and criminal mafia?
Does he suppose that the Cuban people will renounce the
work undertaken, that they will hand over their sovereignty, betray
their history and their homeland?
The vigorous and unanimous response has already been given by the
people, from one end of the Cuban archipelago to the other. A
dignified, resolute and energetic response will now be given by this
parliament of all Cubans. .
Speech given by Ricardo Alarcón de Quesada, president of the National
Assembly of People's Power, on June 24, 2002, at the opening of
that body's special session convened to debate the constitutional
modification bill proposed by the mass organizations and signed by more
than eight million Cubans.
=============================
Comrades:
In the presence of 535 deputies, which equals 92.56% of its members, I
declare this special session of the National Assembly opened.
Participating in this session, as specially invited guests, are members
of the national leadership of the mass organizations and other
compatriots fulfilling missions of special significance for our society
or expressing the most noble internationalist sentiments.
Also accompanying us are various representatives of sister peoples,
relatives of our five heroes imprisoned by the U.S. empire and Comrade
Juan Miguel [González] and his family.
The session's agenda appears in the call released by the Council of
State, signed by its president, Comrade Fidel Castro.
It is the National Assembly's responsibility to express itself on a
proposal put before us by the people, on behalf of whom we act.
The proposal is endorsed by 8,188,198 Cuban citizens living in Cuba,
and more than 10,000 compatriots currently overseas undertaking various
tasks have also communicated their support.
The country's main media are covering the session live.
We are going to work with the people and in plain view of the people.
We will be receiving their message directly, because this Assembly is
and always will be an instrument of their will and an expression of
their power.
We will demonstrate our political system's strength, creative capacity
and virtue.
We will pay tribute to genuine democracy, in a world in which an
ignorant and rapacious dictatorship is not only seriously threatening
Cuba, but is also steamrollering other nations and attempting to
abolish everywhere governments of the people, for the people and by the
people.
Before giving you the floor, allow me to offer a few of my personal
reflections that cover just one aspect of the issue that brings us
together.
Afterwards you will surely expand on and go deeper into the issue.
When it was announced that George W. Bush was going to read a couple of
speeches on May 20, one of them in Miami, it never occurred to anybody
that he was going to present a dissertation on democracy.
The entire world remembered what occurred in November 2000. Innumerable
citizens resident there, especially ten of thousands of African
Americans, complained of all sorts of violations of their rights -
including their arbitrary exclusion from electoral lists or the illegal
annulment of their votes and even being physically prevented access
to the polls - and had been waiting more than 19 months for justice to
be done.
On June 5, 2001, after an exhaustive investigation, the U.S. Civil
Rights Commission published a report containing irrefutable proof of
the abuses committed in Florida, during that election, against African
Americans, Haitians and other ethnic groups that suffer discrimination.
Mr. Bush had maintained a hermetic silence in the face of those public
charges and the legal efforts. Such discretion was understandable given
that, after all, it was precisely those violations and abuses, rather
than having a sufficient number of votes, that made it possible for him
to take over the White House.
Then came the atrocious crime of September 11, the so-called war on
terrorism and the incessant intimidating rhetoric, which served as
useful excuses for not responding to demands and protests.
It would be erroneous to suppose that timidity deprived Mr. Bush of a
magnificent opportunity to offer his apologies, or that verbal
incontinence simply stopped him from keeping his mouth shut.
In fact, it was all done deliberately. He went to meet up with his
buddies, to thank them for everything they had done and prepare the new
farce for the coming November. Moreover, he took his friends a present
that he would make public exactly one day later.
Indeed, on May 21 his attorney general announced the decision not to
proceed with the majority of the charges waiting so patiently for legal
action. The field has been cleared to repeat those shameful activities.
BUSH HAD THE EFFRONTERY TO CHALLENGE CUBA
While that mockery of legality was being cooked up, Mr. Bush had the
effrontery to challenge Cuba and pontificate on electoral questions.
Although he admitted, somewhat belatedly, with more than a quarter of a
century's delay, that we do hold elections in Cuba, he also displayed
supine ignorance and at the same time, in a single gesture, managed to
insult two peoples: those of Cuba and the United States.
He insulted the American people because the majority of them have never
participated in an election. Many have not done so because they know
that it is something alien to them, something that does not belong to
them, given that - with a few honorable exceptions - the parties and
their candidates are controlled by the big corporations that
finance campaigns that are increasingly more costly, that those elected
will act in the service of those who paid for their electoral victories
and will never be accountable to the people.
Others, also a large number, do not vote simply because they are not
allowed to vote, because the entire system - from the arbitrary and
complex procedure of acquiring and maintaining voter's status, right
down to the unjust and discriminatory practice of always holding
elections on a working day - is designed to exclude poor and low-
income people.
The most costly electoral system on the planet, which squanders
billions of dollars on demagogic propaganda and on sustaining corrupt
machines, does not devote one single cent to promoting voter
registration, making it easier to vote or assuring the honest and open
scrutiny of the votes cast.
That thousand-year-old concept, that ideal for which humanity has
fought throughout the centuries, has been hijacked by Washington, which
has emptied it of meaning and reduced it to a cheap propaganda exercise
for consumers whom it presumes are imbeciles.
The U.S. empire views democracy as solely and exclusively the kind
known as "representative" democracy, reduced only and exclusively to
holding periodic elections, which have to be "competitive" between two
machines that select the supposed competitors.
This Yankee dogma has found obliging followers within this continent's
bourgeois politicians, and has proven to be a successful export
commodity. However, it has a manufacturing flaw: it doesn't exist in
the United States itself. There, with few exceptions, there is no
competition.
The decisive factor in all elections is money, the financial backing of
the large interests concentrated on maintaining their representatives.
Hence, those running for reelection have a huge advantage over their
opponents because generally they are able to accumulate larger
financial resources.
In the 2000 elections, more than 90% of the members of Congress sought
reelection and more than 99% of them were reelected. In ordinary
language, these are the so-called closed elections in which, with very
few exceptions, it is known beforehand who will emerge the winner and
in which the other candidate almost always offers a purely
symbolic alternative.
That year, moreover, there were 64 seats for which the incumbent ran
unopposed. And let us not forget that the current president received
half a million votes less than his opponent.
The real competition in the U.S. elections is between political
machines and the people whom they fruitlessly try to attract. The
result is well known. Voters' abstention has been the victor for
decades. And the percentage of abstentions is in fact far higher than
that reflected in the statistics.
As it is known, official figures acknowledge that less than half the
voters go to the polls. But those figures are inflated by fraud. The
racist society that prevents many people from voting grants others the
opportunity to vote several times, in addition to those who continue to
vote after they have died.
JOSE MARTI HAD ALREADY UNMASKED THE ROTTENNESS OF AN ESSENTIALLY
FRAUDULENT SYSTEM
An investigation in 11 states published on June 13 revealed that, in
those states, at least 140,109 persons were registered voters in two or
more districts. For example, 7,475 New Jersey voters also appeared on
the Florida voters' list.
José Martí had already unmasked the rottenness of an essentially
fraudulent system when he affirmed to President Wilson almost a century
ago: "The government that was designed for the people has fallen into
the hands of the bosses and their employers, the big interests. An
invisible empire has been installed above the forms of democracy."
And at that time, nobody had even heard of Watergate or Enron, nor
about "butterfly ballots" and Florida's other diabolical inventions.
In Cuba, since 1976, we have developed a completely different system.
By calling our elections fraudulent, Mr. Bush has insulted the entire
Cuban people. He has insulted the 277,277 candidates to the municipal
assemblies who were nominated directly by their neighbors, in open and
public meetings in which millions of voters participated, and
among whom 127,894 delegates were elected, who have fulfilled their
mission honorably, in constant communication with their communities,
presenting periodic reports on their work and without charging them a
cent or gaining any advantage from their government posts. Of those
local delegates, 1,377 were also elected as deputies to the National
Assembly or delegates to the provincial assemblies, for a total
of 51.38% of the membership of both assemblies in this legislative
period.
In the most recent electoral process, there were 37,030 neighborhood
meetings attended by 6,646,264 persons, who nominated 31,003
candidates, from whom were elected the 14,686 delegates who today make
up our municipal assemblies, in free, clean elections without fraud.
These delegates, selected and elected directly by the population - and
not by camarillas that serve the rich - are the ones who have nominated
the candidates for national deputies and provincial delegates.
In the most recent election, after having carried out 1.3 million
consultations, 56,187 persons were considered as pre-candidates. All
those elected, for whatever post, have obtained more than 50% of the
votes. All of them make periodic reports on their work, all of them can
be recalled from office, none of them receives sinecures or privileges.
Practically our whole population has been involved in our electoral
process. More than 85% of the voters have participated in the
nomination of candidates, and the proportion of voters in the elections
has always surpassed 95%.
Millions of Cubans have taken part in clean and honest elections, as
voters or members of the electoral boards, or doing other support work.
Our children are the only ones who guard the ballot boxes.
More than two centuries ago, Jean Jacques Rousseau pointed out the
fiction of limiting citizen's freedom to depositing a ballot
periodically and delegating someone to represent the people's
sovereignty.
Like him, we feel that democracy can only emerge out of human equality,
and that it needs to be translated into the people's broadest and most
systematic participation in governing the society.
Since 1959, Cubans have been the main protagonists of their Revolution,
and their conscious and free efforts have sustained our immense
achievements, as well as the tenacious and heroic resistance we have
been obliged to maintain in the face of foreign aggression. It would be
impossible and unnecessary to summarize all of that here.
I should mention that our National Assembly and local assemblies have
never acted as elitist bodies separate from the people, claiming to
represent the people without consulting them. Our main decisions have
always been adopted following broad and open reflection with the most
diverse sectors, or have come out of initiatives taken by the
people themselves, as is the case with our session today.
That is how we discussed the serious economic problems we faced at the
start of the special period, we encouraged the workers' parliaments and
in every corner of the country we have analyzed the fundamental texts
that have helped us deal with a complex and difficult situation.
THE WORK METHODS AND STYLE OF A TRULY DEMOCRATIC ASSEMBLY SUPPORTED BY
THE PEOPLE
These have been the work methods and style of a truly democratic
assembly supported by the people.
We are applying them right now in the elaboration of a new bill on
agricultural cooperatives, which has been discussed by 212,779
cooperative members and their families in countless gatherings and
3,351 local meetings attended by our deputies.
This is how we function in our country, which according to Mr. Bush is
the only one in the hemisphere that is not democratic. Meanwhile, in
the supposedly democratic countries, decisions that affect the people's
most elemental rights are made every day, without anyone's opinion
being heard, and without them being analyzed even in
their legislatures.
In that manner, they were at the point of imposing on the world a
multilateral investment agreement. This is how the annexationist plan
known as the Free Trade Area of the Americas, which is essentially a
similar agreement for this continent, has advanced in the shadows.
Perhaps Mr. Bush recalls the hostile protestors he faced not long ago
in Quebec. Or did the double protection wall keep him from hearing the
cries of the people? It was precisely democracy that they were
demanding.
And democracy, heeding the opinions of workers, women, young people,
civil society is what the Social Forum in Porto Alegre called for, in
the face of a tyrannical globalization that is trying to annihilate our
nations without even assuring the appearance of "representative
democracy."
In the United States, Mr. Bush has already succeeded in getting
legislation passed that will allow him to draw up the FTAA completely,
without any congressional intervention. That illustrious and democratic
legislature has been left with the sole function of rubber stamping a
text that is still being hatched in secret.
I shall not attempt to convert Mr. Bush into a democrat. I shall not
ask him to advocate the people's right to nominate their candidates, or
to make them answerable to their constituents or to assure that they
can be recalled from office. I shall not try to convince him that a
majority vote is a requisite in any democratic election.
At this stage, I don't think I would be able to persuade him that merit
and virtue should prevail over money and bribery, much less try to
convince him that all the workers in his country should be able to
organize trade unions - to which only 13% of them belong today - to
demand fair wages, and to receive education and medical care free of
charge.
But now that he has capriciously availed himself of the capacity to
give lessons to others on subjects about which he is totally ignorant,
and out of consideration for the American people, who do deserve and
have our respect, it would be worthwhile to call on him to undertake
certain things that are within his scope and which correspond to
the will of that people.
Mr. Bush, revoke the arbitrary and unjust decision announced by your
attorney general on May 21 and allow an investigation into all the
complaints and charges presented by citizens whose rights were trampled
on during the 2000 elections.
Do you have some reason to be concerned about the application of
justice? Do you fear that somebody will remember the 14th and 15th
Amendments to the Constitution, enacted in 1868 and 1870, and the
Voting Rights Act, finally won in 1965 through the selfless struggle of
African Americans and presumably passed in order to implement
those amendments?
Mr. Bush, use your authority to achieve an in-depth reform of the
system of financing electoral campaigns that will place real limits on
spending and contributions and eliminate the bribery and influence
peddling by the large corporations. Establish automatic, universal and
free registration for all citizens of voting age and do away with all
the restrictions and obstacles that curtail this possibility for a
large number of U.S. citizens; declare election day a public holiday
and adopt other measures to facilitate access to the polls for millions
of workers who currently find voting almost impossible.
You do not need a revolution to promote these actions. They exist in
other developed capitalist countries. You can thus let millions of U.S.
citizens discover what it is to vote in an election.
Mr. Bush, restore to Congress the authority to be informed about and
debate the secret FTAA negotiations. Propose to your Congress that it
go further. Call on trade unions, ecologists and U.S. civil society,
give them a chance to discover the consequences of that agreement for
the workers, the environment and the future, listen to the
people's opinions with the same attention that you reserve for
the large corporations and your friends in the Miami terrorist mafia.
THE PLATT AMENDMENT'S SIGNIFICANCE ONE CENTURY AGO PALES ALONGSIDE
BUSH'S INSOLENCE
Mr. Bush has gravely offended the Cuban people. Let us leave aside his
picturesque falsifications of history or the thinking of Martí and
Varela. He has particularly offended them with his insolent ignorance
of the independence of the Cuban nation, with his promise to intensify
economic warfare and internal subversion - and now with the
announcement of direct financing for his domestic servants - and even
with threats of military aggression.
What the Platt Amendment signified one century ago pales in the face of
his insolence. While at that time the empire assumed the right to
intervene in our country's internal affairs, now the emperor has gone
further and is attempting to define how a future Cuba must be. What he
calls, with insuperable dimwittedness, the "new Cuba," is, according
to his words, the Cuba of 50 years ago, of almost half a century ago.
Nothing more and nothing less. In other words, Batista's Cuba, that of
the large landowners and evicted campesinos, that of unemployment,
abject poverty and abandonment, that of illiteracy and poor health,
that of racism and racial discrimination and corruption, of murder and
torture.
He did not say that in just any speech. Mr. Bush proffered such an
insult precisely surrounded by Batista supporters, landowners and
criminals, to the cheers and applause of his terrorist buddies of
yesterday and today.
He went to promise that contemptible mob that he would give them back
that Cuba. What was that country like, according to the January 1953
census? What did the figures supplied by the Batista regime itself
reflect?
A country where only 36.8% of the labor force had regular work, and, in
contrast to 90,982 women employed as domestics, there were only 13
scientists. There were more than one million illiterate people and
1,619,535 children and young people - two thirds of the total - did not
attend any school. More than 91% of rural homes lacked electricity, 70%
of them were made of palm thatch and mud, there was no drinking water
in 92.7% of rural homes and in 45.4% of urban housing, 96.5% of rural
homes and 62.5% of urban homes had no refrigerator or icebox, nor was
there a bath or shower in 90.5% of rural homes and 35.1% of urban ones.
These are just a few figures from the census carried out by the Batista
dictatorship with data collected at a point of economic boom, in the
midst of the sugar harvest. Some years later, between 1956 and 1957, a
Catholic agency that could never be accused of radicalism undertook a
survey among rural campesinos and workers.
Let's see what it found: 36% suffered from intestinal parasites, 31%
had malaria, 14% had tuberculosis and 13% suffered from typhoid; only
11.22% drank milk, 7% ate cornmeal, 4% ate meat, 3.36% ate bread, 2.12%
ate eggs and less than 1% ate fish; and finally, 73.46% were
without work.
Does Mr. Bush really believe that he can once again submerge us in that
hell of injustice? Does he imagine for one second that we are going to
hand over our land, our houses, our factories, our schools and
hospitals, our research and cultural centers, our day-care centers and
our homes for the elderly to that corrupt and criminal mafia?
Does he suppose that the Cuban people will renounce the
work undertaken, that they will hand over their sovereignty, betray
their history and their homeland?
The vigorous and unanimous response has already been given by the
people, from one end of the Cuban archipelago to the other. A
dignified, resolute and energetic response will now be given by this
parliament of all Cubans. .