Pres. Correa's Terrific Speech in Havana

[magbana]

Distributed by the Cuba News List. List editor, Walter Lippmann's introductory comment appears directly below in parentheses.

(This the most inspired and inspiring political speech I've seen or heard
in a very, very, very long time. Read it all the way through. Here we see
one of the children of the Cuban Revolution, now grown up, putting what he
has learned into practice, at home and internationally. Fabulous!)
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GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. January 9, 2009

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2009/enero/vier9/Speech-Rafael-Correa.html

This marvelous people, the Cuban people, a heroic people, has taught the
world that Revolution has a destiny

Speech by His Excellency Mr. Rafael Correa Delgado, president of the
Republic of Ecuador, at the commemoration event for the 50th anniversary of
the entry of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro into Havana, at Ciudad
Libertad, January 8, 2009

Dear Comandante,

President Raúl Castro Ruz, I expect that compañero Fidel is watching us and
so an immense Latin American and solidarity-filled embrace for him
(Applause)

Dear commanders, combatants of this heroic gesture: the Cuban Revolution,
the liberation of Cuba, the most significant milestone in the history of
Latin America in the 20th century and an example for the entire world;

Dear officials of the Cuban government;

Ministers and officials from the Ecuadorian government who are accompanying
me on this visit;

Representatives of the media;

Dear sisters and brothers from Cuba, Ecuador, Latin America and the rest of
the world, for each and every one of you, a warm embrace (Applause):

Today, January 8, 2009, when – at the invitation of the Cuban Revolution –
we are here representing the Ecuadorian people and their Citizen’s
Revolution, it is worth asking the question: When did the Cuban Revolution
begin?

Perhaps on July 26, 1953, when Fidel, leading the Centenary Generation,
etched the name of the Moncada Garrison into history?

Maybe it was on November 25, 1956 when the Granma set sail from Veracruz
carrying 82 guerrillas?

Or perhaps it was long before that, in the early hours of April 11, 1895,
when José Martí and his group of compatriots disembarked at Playitas de
Cajobabo in order to begin the Necessary War and bring the yoke of Spanish
colonialism to an end?

Perhaps it would be better to think that this Revolution, the hope and fate
of Our America, began in the struggles against colonialism, alongside the
major reference of our emancipatory vocation, symbolized by the Liberator
Simón Bolívar.

Because Manuela Sáenz and Antonio José de Sucre; José Martí and Emiliano
Zapata; Eloy Alfaro and Augusto César Sandino; Manuel Rodríguez and José
Carlos Mariátegui; Antonio Maceo and Máximo Gómez, and all the compatriots
of the continent devoted their lives to the liberation of our Great Homeland
harbored by the image and flag of Bolívar.

We should acknowledge then, that the Revolution began when Fidel…Raúl, Che,
Haydée, Camilo, and the Cuban revolutionaries followed the path and the
profound footprints of a historic struggle.

Following in these footprints meant and continues to mean, at whatever
moment in time, being honest, being transparent and always telling the
truth, just as the Liberator did when he said:

"Blessed is he who, running between the obstacles of war, politics and
public misfortunes, preserves his honor intact."

Fifty years ago, in this very same place, Fidel said:

"I believe that this is a decisive moment in our history: the dictatorship
has been defeated. The joy is immense. But there is still much to be done.
Let us not deceive ourselves by believing that everything will be much
easier from now on; the future will perhaps be much more difficult."

"Telling the truth is the first duty of every revolutionary," stated Fidel.
"Deceiving the people, stirring up deceptive illusions will always bring the
worst consequences, and I believe that we have to warn people against
excessive optimism.

"How did the Rebel Army win the war? By speaking the truth. How did the
dictatorship lose it? By lying to the soldiers.

(…) "And for this reason, I want to begin – or rather, continue – with the
same system: always telling the truth to the people," stated Fidel, in this
very same place, exactly fifty years ago.

This ethical torch, and the greatest devotion to the legitimate aspirations
of the peoples of Cuba and Latin America has permitted this Revolution to
remain in force, with pride and dignity, in the defense of the most prized
assets pursued by the people: freedom and sovereignty.

This marvelous people, the Cuban people, a heroic people, has taught the
world that Revolution has a destiny. That it is a process of the spirit,
that it is forged by human spirit and that, once underway, there is no power
that is capable of stopping it, however powerful it believes itself to be.

Today, fifty years later, that distant January 1, 1959, or that January 8
half a century ago, are already glorious dates for every revolutionary
movement around the world. But they would not be if the movement that
culminated in it had been conceived simply as the climax of the insurrection
against injustice, despotism and corruption.

The fight against that injustice, that despotism and against corruption is
an eternal one, and will never end.

It is for this reason that the January 1st and 8th of 50 years ago are
glorious…And they are majestic, because from that moment onward, the Cuban
people have taught the world that a revolution is constructed from the dawn
of every day, and also, based on the teaching left to us by every error
made.

This process is exemplary because it was capable of achieving real national
independence, freedom, sovereignty and the self-determination of the Cuban
people.

This process is extraordinary because it secured the reestablishment of
human rights for all Cuban men and women. It is the recognition that the
first constitutional right of all human beings is their full dignity. The
Cuban Revolution made real the declaration of its leaders: the Cuban people
know that no compatriot will be left to his or her own fate under any
circumstance whatsoever.

The Cuban Revolution has no skeletons hidden in the closet of its history,
and has never practiced torture or "disappearances."

The Cuban Revolution has eliminated racial and gender discrimination, and at
the same time has defended the rights of children and the widespread
protection of the rights of the Cuban family.

Cuba’s declaration in 1961 as the First Illiteracy-Free Territory in America
continues to be an example for our peoples, and that same conviction
transformed garrisons into schools, and told the Cuban people: "Read, don’t
just believe", thus democratizing access to the world of the written word
and its phantoms.

Cuba increased by more than eleven times the number of doctors it possessed.
From the 6,286 doctors in 1958, the country came to have 72,416 in 2007; in
other words, one for every 155 inhabitants. Cuba is the country with the
highest number of doctors per capita in the world, and Latin America has
been the beneficiary of a responsible policy, deeply-rooted in humanism and
solidarity.

We have witnessed, with Latin American pride, the practice of a principled
foreign policy, based on the pillars of international law: equality among
nations, self-determination and mutual respect, as well as on the defense of
social justice and the dignity of all human beings on the planet,
particularly with respect to the rights of the peoples of the Third World.

From this Latin American territory, we come to express our most profound
solidarity with the Cuban revolutionary process.

From the Equator, from this territory that harbored the Bolivarian
struggles, we have come to the Ciudad Libertad to express our jubilation at
these past fifty years. And we do so with the same conviction that led us to
establish, in our own land, one of the most advanced constitutions in Latin
America.

We have come from this continent reinforced and revived by the social memory
that is permitting us to settle the scores of history.

This settling of scores begins with the genuine vindication of the
indigenous population, pillaged, exploited, humiliated, offended and,
paradoxically, also used and manipulated. For that reason, today, the
Ecuadorian state is pluri-national, it is intercultural, and pursues
equality in its diversity; in other words, the most authentic execution of
true democracy…In the same way, with the African-Ecuadorian people which,
like the Cuban people, are the drum and the flag of our homeland.

Many years ago, two of my people’s democrats, Eloy Alfaro and Federico
Proaño, were the subject of a tribute by José Martí.

Alfaro, according to the Cuban national hero, was one of the few Americans
by creation and, his combatants from the coast, the guerrillas, brothers of
the Mambises, founded this Ecuadorian land which today is emerging and
rising up.

With respect to our insurgent fighter Federico Proaño, Martí said:

"For the enemies of human’s free will, and for his clear occupation in
America, Proaño had nothing more than tooth and nail. And his pen, refined
and fierce, outlined with one stroke, illuminated from an uproar, hammered
from a pillory,

opened up like two wings, before the majesties of humans and nature."

And history continues. The Cuban Revolution had an Ecuadorian martyr,
journalist and patriot Carlos Bastidas Argüello, murdered in May 1958 by
Batista’s henchmen…

We pay tribute to Carlos Bastidas today, for being the dignified
representative of the pride and sacrifice of our peoples (Applause).

And, in tribute to this Revolution, cemented in the most noble principles
deposited throughout the history of humanity: solidarity, universality,
unity, independence and, above all, dignity, today we are calling for and
demanding…an end to the criminal blockade, premeditated ethnocide by the
same powers as always (Applause); those same powers which have subjected to
the most perverse injustice René González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón
Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, patriots who, perhaps as a
form of consolation, and as Silvio Rodríguez has said: "We must understand
what they are suffering, they are the cruel swipes of a beast against an
unbearable light" (Applause).

Fortunately, today Latin America does not belong to any empire. We, the
heirs of José Artigas, José de San Martín, Rosa Campuzano, Miguel de
Hidalgo, and also Rigoberta Menchú, Camilo Torres, Leonidas Proaño, Hebe de
Bonafini and Chico Mendes, do not believe in one sole form of thinking,
because our identity has the face of each and every one of us.

We honor the essence of the Cuban Revolution, considering it transcendental
to the evolution of humanity.

Because we believe that its principles are fundamental in order to secure
the well-being of our peoples.

On honoring this Revolution, we reiterate the words spoken fifty years ago
by Comandante Fidel Castro, words that, today, we make our own:

"From this moment, the lavish receptions and ovations are over; from now
on…it’s work. Tomorrow will be a day the same as any other, and every other
one like it, and we will become used to freedom."

We, from our Andean Ecuador, from Guayas to Chimborazo, from the homeland of
Alfaro and Manuelita, join these festivities for justice and dignity.

We, in the greatest execution of sovereignty, denounce as you do, an
illegitimate, illegal and immoral foreign debt (Applause).

For us…socialists of both the mind and the heart, revolution will never be
sorrowful, it will always be a fiesta, because it will be a celebration of
equality between men and women; because it will be an exercise of solidarity
between human beings and the earth.

And so, we will celebrate the Cuban Revolution with the words of poet Fayad
Jamís:

"For this freedom

of song in the rain,

we will have to give everything,

until our shadows

and it will never be enough."

With the protective shadow of Bolívar and Martí…

With this renascent entry of Fidel into the Ciudad Libertad…

And with the memory of Che, we say, with dignity and with all our heart…

¡Hasta la victoria siempre!

¡Viva Cuba! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

¡Viva Ecuador! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

¡Viva América Latina! (Cries of: "¡Viva!")

(Applause.)

Translated by Granma International

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WALTER LIPPMANN, CubaNews
Los Angeles, California
http://www.walterlippmann.com
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/
"Cuba - Un Paraiso bajo el bloqueo"
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[Judi Lynn]

1. Tremendous speech, great spirit. May they all win a permanent break from foreign domination.

http://farm1.static.flickr.com.nyud.net:8090/105/309260869_bf0e31355b_o.jpg http://www.cbc.ca.nyud.net:8090/gfx/images/news/photos/2007/04/15/ecuador-referendum_cp_180703.jpg