school children after attending the protest at which Lucius Walker spoke
interested in simply a balance of power away from the centralized world force that is the US. Cuba, as the proud independent island to the south, represents that defocusing of power.
Lage in his speech emphasized that the Cuban economy is based on socialist ideals, not market forces. Everything that the government does is for the people, not for the market. While the 1995 legalization of holding and exchanging US dollars by Cuban citizens brought increased wealth to Cuba, it was done, Lage argued, for all of Cuba. Since that currency market is state-owned, any profits go to the state, and so to all Cubans. Also the dual currency policy, he insisted, is temporary. It has caused some lessening of economic equality among Cubans, by giving an artificial advantage to those with relatives in Florida, but that trend will reverse when it is no longer necessary. It was necessary at one point because the average calorie intake among Cubans was dangerously low. The only thing the Cuban government holds more dear than the ideals of socialism, Lage insisted, is the health of its people. The average Cuban calorie intakes have now risen to meet the World Health Organization standard for an adequate diet.
Alarcón emphasized the misinformation spread by the US government. He discussed the use of the terms democracy and human rights used to combat socialism and economic equality. Cubans vote in much larger numbers than US citizens, and he argued have more influence over their government. Cuban citizens have the human right to free health care and free education through university. There are crucial differences betwen the governments in the US and Cuba, he said, but Cuba is at least on par in terms of democracy and in many ways ahead in human rights. Alarcon berated the US for breaking both the spirit and the letter of the WTO regulations, which bar unequal treatment of individual nations, with the embargo. He explained how US law creates not only an embargo, but by not allowing ships from third nations to enter US waters for six months after Cuba, creates a blockade of Cuba.
Roque spoke of the need to democratize the UN in order to give more power to smaller countries. The Security Council should be expanded, he said, in order to lessen the rift between first and second class countries in the structure of the UN. He highlighted the fact that Cuba sent soldiers to Africa to help Mandela’s African National Congress, and that, in contrast to more colonial interests, Cuba brought back only her wounded, not diamonds or oil from Africa. He repeated anecdotes of both African and Latin American students studying medicine for free in Cuba, and of thanks from third world nations for the humanitarian aid provided by Cuban forces.
In addition to the historical and factual accounts of Cuban policy by these three men who are often described as possible successors to Castro, representatives from countries spoke in more emotional and less factual terms, mostly expressing simply solidarity. Committees were formed to discuss the US blockade, US misinformation concerning Cuba, and solidarity with Cuba which provided slightly more intimate locations for very similar speeches.
Lucius Walker, of Pastors for Peace, a Canadian and US group which regularly brings humanitarian aid to Cuba defying the embargo, spoke at a protest in front of the American Interests Section organized by the conference. He spoke out against injustices that the US supports at home, such as unfair trials and poverty, which it then punishes Cuba for. He criticized the US government for, among other things, keeping many of its own citizens without healthcare, embargoing Cuba for a lack of capitalism, and housing the US military’s School of the Americas to train terrorists for the third world. Cuba, by providing for the welfare of its poorest citizens, Walker charged, sets a good example of the kind of equality that capitalism cannot tolerate.
In his final five plus hour speech, Fidel Castro spoke in what was perhaps the most calming voice of the conference. After five days of chanted slogans and angry denunciations from the microphone, Castro spoke almost jovially. He declared that every Cuban can afford a baseball game at five cents of a US dollar, that every Cuban was sufficiently fed with food and knowledge and pride. He told stories of the revolution and how great the desire of the people for it had been. Fidel spoke of his great love of the ten million people on his island. He told of the economic difficulties of the Special Period and the ideological difficulties of the dual economy. I asked the Cuban woman who sat next to me as Fidel took the stage if he gave public speeches very often. “He shows up everywhere,” she said excitedly “In schools, in factories, he likes to make surprise appearances.” Not to perform sound bites and disappear in a flash, though, but to perform hours long speeches that verge on storytelling.