YouSaid · the spoken record

ALARCON

lines on the record: 231
first: 1969-09-24
most recent: 1976-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We were obliged to begin our march towards development with a distorted economic structure, without financial resources, without technical or scientific staff, with a great demand for imports and without the necessary export earnings; while at the same time we bore the brunt of the aggressive policy of United States imperialism with its savage economic and commercial blockade, constantly threatened with aggression and subjected to provocation, harassment and pressures. 32. The hostility of United States imperialism and of its Latin American lackeys has roughened Cuba’s road towards a prosperous and independent economy, and has compelled our people to bear an additional burden of sacrifice; but the goal they sought, to weaken and strangle us, they have not achieved.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It is an interesting coincidence that the years of the first Decade have been those during which the Revolutionary Government of Cuba was being established, and also coincide to a large extent with the unhappy existence of the Alliance for Progress. It is easy to draw up a balance-sheet at this juncture, since not even the most naive have any illusions left concerning the plan conceived by the imperialists to counter the example of the Cuban Revolution, while the results of the first Decade are before us. For our people this decade has been one of profound change and of intense and vigorous creative activity.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Now that preparations for the Second United Nations Development Decade are occupying a prominent place in the work of this Assembly, we can draw conclusions from the first Decade and see that its most noticeable result was the disillusionment it produced in the countries of the third world, including those of Latin America, which are daily becoming more and more convinced that the road to development does not pass through an illusory co-operation with the former exploiters but presupposes, above all, a radical transformation of internal structures and mobilization of the efforts of the whole population. 31.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“29. The arbitrariness and injustice of those agreements can be neither forgotten nor condoned. Those decisions must be revoked. Cuba has corrected nothing and has nothing to correct. What we have done will be done by other peoples, by the force of history. To save the country’s wealth for our own people, to offer alliance to those struggling for their own welfare, to defend our national independence, to work for a higher degree of development, to rid ourselves of exploiters and parasites — these are things which need no correction. The amendment must come from those Latin American Governments which have been and are accomplices in the arbitrary, unjust and immoral measures dictated by the imperialists. 30.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The OAS agreements instituting sanctions against Cuba are morally invalid, because Cuba was not the aggressor but the victim of aggression; because OAS, even in the face of the world scandal of the invasion prepared by the United States Government, gave not even a sigh of disapproval, thus making a mockery of the Bogota Charter and of all the commitments that had been signed with all pomp and circumstance over the years; because, when the imperialist Government eliminated the Cuban sugar quota, shamelessly violating article 16 of the Bogota Charter, not only did OAS keep its mouth shut but its members even opened their hands to take advantage of the economic sanctions against Cuba and to share in the spoliation of our people; because OAS invented the legal monstrosity of the incompatibility between the social regime established in Cuba and the so-called inter-American system in order to exclude us; and because the Cuban presence there, in the midst of imperialists and their lackeys representing gangsters, oligarchs and corrupt politicians, was a perpetual denunciation of the tortuous shifts and manoeuvres of the masters of OAS.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“We are very much aware of what we have achieved during these 10 years, of what we are doing now, of what is worthy and of what is significant; and we are making ready for another 10 years with our heads held higher than ever!” He added, unequivocally: “And any Latin American country wishing to have diplomatic relations with Cuba must begin by declaring that the OAS agreements were arbitrary and unjust and that, above and beyond these agreements, and as reparation for the crime committed against our homeland and for their complicity with the Yankee imperialists, they are prepared to disregard those agreements.” 28. That is the Cuban position. Our foreign policy is guided by principles and not by opportunism.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Those who believe that we shall go round pleading for relations are mistaken. This country has resisted for 10 years with its head held high. It has lived through its most difficult hour.... It has had to endure crimes, blockades, aggressions, connivances with its head held high.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“They conspired together in the Organization of American States to vilify and attack us, trampling underfoot every moral principle and violating even the articles they themselves had drafted when they thought that a legal mantle could be drawn over their total subjection to imperialist policy. 27. The picture which the imperialist press and those governed by it have attempted to present of a repentant Cuba seeking diplomatic relations with those Latin American Governments is a perfidious, calumnious and ridiculous lie. In a speech made on 14 July last, when referring to this question, our Prime Minister expressed himself very clearly as follows: “Those who believe that we are here to beg for favours are mistaken. Those who believe that this country could ever flinch are wrong.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Those crumbs were the payment for their complicity and involvement, for the historic crime they had committed against a people which was gaining its independence and assuming its full national dignity. 25. Over the last 10 years Cuba has constantly had to defend itself against the attacks and intrigues of the imperialists and their Latin American lackeys, while at the same time making heroic creative efforts in the midst of an economic blockade and of a diplomatic isolation which in the long run has been a resounding failure. Today the Governments that are isolated are those very ones which took the road of servility and blackmail, of faithlessness to their own peoples, the road to disgrace. 26.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“At the same time, with the most astonishing effrontery, they invited CIA and its mercenaries to use their countryside for training and for attacking Cuba, placed themselves at the service of the Yankee spies, offered bases in their territory for piratical attacks against our production centres, helped saboteurs to steal in, echoed the worst calumnies against our people, and called in chorus for military intervention. They carried out the whole of this criminal policy precisely at the time when they were accusing Cuba of the crimes they were committing against our people. 24. Taking cynicism to its extreme, they rushed to distribute the Cuban sugar quota among themselves when the imperialists deprived our people of it.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Cuba will not return to the Organization of American States while that organization continues to be what it now is, We shall not enter any regional organization except the Organization of Revolutionary States of Latin America, as our Prime Minister, Commandant Fidel Castro, recently declared. As for Cuba’s alleged interest in resuming diplomatic relations with the countries of Latin America, it should be remembered that those countries themselves broke off diplomatic and trade relations with Cuba, not in exercise of sovereignty but in compliance with a policy dictated by imperialism, since it suited the strategy of isolation and encirclement of the Cuban revolution. Those Governments, the very ones which belong to OAS, accepted imperialist propaganda accusing Cuba of promoting subversion.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“As a regional organization of the United Nations it thereby violated both the letter and spirit of the Charter, not to mention its own constitutional documents, by inventing and applying the strange theory of incompatibility in order to exclude Cuba from its deliberations. Never has it spoken out against the subversion of imperialist espionage agencies in Latin America, against acts of military intervention, army take-overs or the exactions levied by monopolies on the Latin American peoples. Never has it raised its voice for any purpose, but has tamely followed the orders given to it. 23.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In the last 10 years of revolution it has been used by the imperialists time and time again to set up ministerial meetings against Cuba. With unprecedented hypocrisy it has lent itself to the whole policy of aggression against our people and has on numerous occasions been an open accomplice. It has been called the colonial office of the imperialist United States Government. That, we think, is an exaggeration. It does not reach that level. It is merely a low-ranking bureaucratic office for the transmission of orders. 22. The shamelessness of OAS knows no bounds in its service of imperialist policies. It endorsed the aggression of the Yankee Marines against the Dominican Republic without the slightest repugnance. It associated itself with the naval blockade of Cuba and with the economic sanctions.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“If there is any institution in the world which exemplifies the most ignommious subordination to the policy of a great Power, it is undoubtedly the so-called Organization of American States. In the constellation of organizations operating today in the international system of relationships, OAS stands lowest in prestige and effectiveness. It is universally and quite correctly regarded as a mere appendix of the State Department in Washington. 21. The history of OAS with regard to Cuba is embarrassing. In the first place it cravenly closed its eyes when, in open violation of the Bogota Charter, economic aggression was committed against Cuba. Next, when the military invasion of Playa Giron was notoriously organized and launched by the Government of the United States, it not only closed its eyes but lowered its head in cowardly shame.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It is our clear and equitable response to the promoters of the climate of violence which has brought about the present insecurity of navigation. 19. There have recently been many editorial statements and conjectures about the hypothetical possibility of Cuba returning to the so-called Organization of American States. In this very Assembly some representatives of Latin American Governments have felt bound to make statements on this matter. 20. The position of Cuba has been stated time and time again and in very clear terms, but time and time again attempts have been made to cloud it. What interest could Cuba have in re-entering an international organization that lacks the most elementary qualifications for the discharge of its supposed mission?”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The Government of Cuba wishes to put clearly on record that it will accept no compulsion based on multilateral agreements but will firmly maintain its position that Cuba will adopt measures based on bilateral agreements only with countries prepared to adopt exactly the same rules relating to the hijacking of aircraft and ships and similar violations of the laws governing international traffic. 18. To this effect the Revolutionary Government of Cuba has just adopted Act No. 1226 on the diversion of aircraft or ships, which gives a broad coverage to breaches of the law and provides for the return of perpetrators of such illegal acts to the States concerned, if these have agreed bilaterally with Cuba to apply the same policy. That is Cuba’s appropriate reply to the concern of the international community.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“As far as other means are concerned, such as pressure and threats of international blockade or boycott, what self-respecting Government could accept these conditions when such measures are exclusively within its own sovereign prerogatives? Furthermore, was there ever any talk of a blockade or international boycott when the imperialists and their lackeys were the ones causing the trouble? Is anything said even now when they are encouraging and assisting illegal departures from Cuba, hijacking Cuban ships and causing the deaths of valuable Cuban citizens? 17.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“In the first place, the Government of Cuba is not prepared to comply with the decisions of international organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), which, in addition to being an altogether discredited institution, whose agreements are completely devoid of morality, has, in the specific case of aerial and maritime piracy, frequently been an accomplice of the United States Government. As for the United Nations, has it not remained silent with folded arms when faced with cases of piracy against Cuba? By what right should the United Nations take up this question at the present juncture, seeing that in the past it has allowed illegal acts to pass without the slightest show of concern? 16. It is obvious that no solution to the problem can be found by this means.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Hijacked ships and passengers have been returned without hindrance, and at no time have we extolled either the deeds or their perpetrators. Our conduct, as is evident, contrasts with that of the Government of the United States and the Latin American Governments which abjectly follow its orders. We view the insecurity of air and maritime traffic with the same concern as world public opinion, and do so all the more intensely because our country has suffered most from this criminal imperialist invention and because our territory forms the usual background for these acts of violence. 15. Solutions cannot, however, be found by way of multilateral agreements or through boycotts or blockades.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“It is a well-known fact that the Revolutionary Government of Cuba has invariably followed the policy of paying for the return journey of any aircraft or ships brought by force to our national territory and of permitting the passengers to continue their journey as soon as possible with maximum guarantees for their safety, and has rejected any kind of publicity or propaganda which could encourage such acts. It was the imperialists themselves and their lackeys who engaged in scandalous conduct. It is they who started and continue this dirty game. With their depredations and kidnappings they have outdone the pirates and corsairs of old on the very scene of their misdeeds, the Caribbean. 14. The attitude of Cuba has always been crystal clear and in keeping with the international principles governing relations between States.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The Government of the United States and the lackey Governments of Latin America are now suffering from insecurity and are in their turn affected by the criminal procedures which they fostered by their deeds; and now with characteristic hypocrisy they are expressing indignation through their press organs and through international news agencies, and are maliciously trying to evade responsibility for the origin and development of those acts. 13.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“United States imperialism has never hesitated out of any consideration or respect for universally-accepted standards of coexistence, legal commitments or questions of sovereignty. Its purpose has been to harm the Cuban revolution at any cost and in any way, particularly through the United States naval base at Guantanamo which has been used as an advanced base on Cuban soil itself for gross imperialist provocation. 12. And what has happened now? The violence which they have encouraged has turned upon them. The pirates who thought they could sail the seas with complete impunity, sheltered by their own force, are now victims of the same climate of illegality they irresponsibly created in order to damage Cuba.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The atmosphere of illegality created by that policy necessarily encouraged proliferation of the new acts of violence which today disquiet the international community and which the Revolutionary Government of Cuba considers must be opposed in order to re-establish security of navigation on the seas and in the air and to purify the unhealthy atmosphere engendered by the imperialist policy of force and coercion, supported by Governments which now fear the consequences of this piratical policy which they had been applying to the Cuban people. 11. For the last 10 years, without truce or respite, United States imperialism, followed in its tortuous manoeuvres by the lackey regimes of Latin America, has encouraged an illegal exodus from Cuba with complete disregard for the lives and safety of the persons involved in the adventure.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Throughout those years the Revolutionary Government of Cuba denounced from this very rostrum the misdeeds and violations of international law and standards promoted by imperialism as part of its policy against the Cuban revolution, without evoking a single condemnation of conduct which from every point of view infringed international order and expressed a gangster approach to the handling of differences between civilized countries. 10.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The Government of the United States and the lackey Governments of Latin America promoted and encouraged the hijacking of Cuban aircraft and ships as part of their policy of blockade and aggression against Cuba, welcomed as heroes the vulgar assassins involved, and often took possession of the hijacked vessels, On many occasions those piratical actions, which were encouraged and praised by American imperialism and its servants, caused the loss of valuable Cuban lives; but those criminal acts found no echo in the international organizations. 9.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“This basic situation in no way contradicts the value of the United Nations as a forum of exceptional importance.in which to discuss the essential problems of our times; nor does it exclude the possibility of partial gains within the Organization in the internal struggle to prevent the imperialist Powers, largely and principally the United States, from imposing their will. 7. One point that has been mentioned in the Assembly this year is the climate of insecurity in aerial and maritime navigation, due to the forcible diversion of craft from their normal routes and activities. This is a grave problem which has already existed for 10 years, although it has not received the attention it deserves until quite recently, when its consequences began to affect those who had originally given it criminal encouragement. 8.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“When attitudes inspired by the loftiest and purest interests of the peoples predominate in the membership of the United Nations, and when it no longer responds to strategies of aggression and plunder; when the correlation of forces makes passivity impossible in the face of the use of force to settle international disputes, and utterly prevents complicity in aggression to serve powerful economic groups or a policy of military domination, then will the United Nations be able to give full effect to the principles it proclaims. 6.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“This situation becomes much graver when the United Nations is transformed from a passive and useless body into a covert or overt accomplice of actions condemned by the Charter itself and by international morality, The history of recent years offers many examples of its frustration, or of its complicity by omission or commission in conflicts and situations which have called for solution in the interests of the peoples and not of the aggressors. 5. These weaknesses and shortcomings must be denounced so that we can view the situation realistically and not contribute to a farce which in any event deceives nobody.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“The forces that attack peoples seeking their independence; the factors which hamper and impede development and domestic trade for the benefit of an insatiable minority; the policy which seeks to stifle nations unwilling to accept a foreign yoke; the power motives which maintain a climate of insecurity, conspiracy and pressure in the world and intrude in our debates with a hypocritical rhetoric — all these act within the international Organization to keep it from doing any useful work on the vital matters it is called on to consider. 4.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“Problems of peace and war, aggression and under-development, colonialism and racial discrimination, international co-operation and disarmament, trade barriers and the struggle for independence — to mention only some of the problems of greatest concern to mankind — are not being adequately solved through the United Nations, despite our constant repetition of good intentions year after year, despite our references to commitments assumed under the Charter which regulates our activities, and above all despite the clamour of public opinion and our daily contemplation of the drama of peoples suffering military aggression and overwhelmed by poverty and ignorance. 3. The reasons why the United Nations is so sterile is that it reflects all the factors that make up the complex world situation.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)
“1. Madam President, I wish to begin my statement by expressing to you the warm congratulations of the Cuban delegation on your election as President of this twenty-fourth session of the General Assembly. 2. On this day, as on many earlier days, we have before us items of great interest to all the peoples of the world. They come up monotonously again and again, but the international Organization cannot solve them, because they go beyond the narrow limits of existing possibilities.”
1969-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 24 (1969)