YouSaid · the spoken record

CASTRO

lines on the record: 272
first: 1960-09-24
most recent: 1979-09-24
sittings or episodes: 2
sources: un-general-debate

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“The clashing of weapons, the threatening language and the overbearing behaviour in the international arena must cease. Enough of the illusion that the problems of the world can be solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the hungry, the sick and the ignorant; but bombs cannot kill hunger, disease and ignorance. Nor can bombs kill the righteous rebellion of the peoples. And in the holocaust, the rich, who are the ones who have the most to lose in this world, will also die. 147. Let us say farewell to arms, and let us in a civilized manner dedicate ourselves to the most pressing problems of our times. This is the responsibility, this is the most sacred duty of the statesmen of all the world. Moreover, this is the basic premise for human survival.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“I know that in many poor countries there are exploiters and those who are exploited. I address myself to the rich, asking them to contribute. And I address myself to the poor, asking them to distribute. 144. Enough of words: now to deeds. Enough of abstractions; we now want concrete action. Enough of speaking about a speculative new international economic order which nobody understands; we must now speak of a real objective order which everybody understands. 145. I have not come here as a prophet of the revolution. I have not come here to ask or to wish that the world be violently convulsed. I have come to speak of peace and co-operation among the peoples, and I have come to warn that, if we do not peacefully and wisely solve and eliminate the present injustices and inequalities, the future will be apocalyptic. 146.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Some have energy resources; others do not. Some possess abundant land on which to produce food; others do not. Some are so glutted with machinery and factories that even the air cannot be breathed because of their poisoned atmosphere; and others have only their own emaciated arms with which to earn their daily bread. 142. In short, some countries possess abundant resources; others have nothing. What is their fate? To starve? To be eternally poor? What good is civilization then? Why, then, the conscience of man? Why, then, the United Nations? Why, then, the world? You cannot speak of peace on behalf of tens of millions of human beings all over the world who are starving to death or dying of curable diseases. You cannot speak of peace on behalf of 900 million illiterates. 143. The exploitation of the poor countries by the rich must cease.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It is for this reason that on behalf of the developing countries we advocate our cause and we ask you to support it. But this is not a gift which we seek from you. If we do not come up with effective solutions, we will all be equal victims of the catastrophe. 140. Human rights are very often spoken of, but we must also speak of humanity's rights. Why should some people go barefoot that others may travel in expensive cars? Why should some live only 35 years that others may live 70? Why should some be miserably poor that others may be exaggeratedly rich? I speak on behalf of the children of the world who do not even have a piece of bread. I speak on behalf of the sick who lack medicine. I speak to you on behalf of those who have been denied the right to life and human dignity. 141. Some countries are on the sea; some are not.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“But the vast world now living submerged in backwardness with no purchasing power and with extremely limited consumer capacity will, with its development, add a flood of hundreds of consumers and producers to the international economy. And it is only in this way that the international economy can be rehabilitated and can help the developing countries to emerge from the crisis in which they are submerged. 138. The history of international trade has shown that development is the most dynamic factor in world trade. The major portion of the trade of today takes place among fully industrialized countries. We can assure you that as industrialization and progress spread throughout the world, so trade will also spread to the benefit of all. 139.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“This is not a project that would benefit only the developing nations; it would benefit all countries. 136. As revolutionaries, we are not afraid of confrontation. We have placed our trust in history and in peoples. But as the spokesman and interpreter of the feelings of 95 nations, it is my duty here to struggle to achieve co-operation among peoples, a co-operation which, if attained on new and just bases, will benefit all the countries composing the international community and will be a blessing for world peace. 137. Development in the short-term view may well be a task entailing apparent sacrifices and even donations which may seem irrecoverable.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Aid in the form of technical personnel and the training of cadres should also be considered as a contribution and counted as such. 135. We are convinced that if the Secretary-General of the United Nations — with the assistance of the President of the General Assembly, with all the prestige and weight of this Organization behind them, and further supported from the very outset by the backing that the developing countries, and especially the Group of 77, could and would give that initiative—would call together the various factors we have mentioned to initiate discussions in which there would be no room for the so-called "North-South" and "East-West" antagonisms, but in which all forces would be joined in a common undertaking, a common duty and a common hope, this idea that we are now submitting to the General Assembly could then be crowned with success.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The enormous responsibility of studying, organizing and distributing these amounts of resources should be entrusted fully to the United Nations. These funds should be administered by the international community itself, on a footing of absolute equality for all countries, whether they be contributors or beneficiaries, without any political conditions and without the amount of the donation having anything to do with the voting power in deciding when loans are to be granted and to whom. 134. Even though the flow of resources should be measured in financial terms, it should not consist only of money. It may well be made up of equipment, fertilizers, raw materials, fuel and complete factories, valued in the terms of international trade.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Mankind wastes that much every year on its military spending. Moreover, consider further the enormous amount of human resources of young people, technicians, scientists and the wasting of fuel, raw materials and other items. That is the fabulous price of preventing a true climate of confidence and peace from existing in the world. 130. The United States alone will in the 1980s spend six times that much on military activities. 131. We are requesting less for 10 years of development than is spent in a single year by the ministries of war and much less than a tenth of what will be spent for military purposes in 10 years. 132. Some may consider our demand irrational, but where the true irrationality lies is in the world's madness in our era and in the threats and perils which hover over mankind. 133.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“If there are no resources for development, there will be no peace. 129. Some may think that we are asking too much, but I think that the figure itself is still modest. According to statistical information, as I stated at the inaugural session of the Sixth Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, the world is making an annual investment in military expenditures of more than $300 billion. With $300 billion one could in one year build 600,000 schools, with a capacity for 400 million children; or 60 million comfortable homes, for 300 million people; or 30,000 hospitals, with 18 million beds; or 20,000 factories, with jobs for more than 20 million workers; or an irrigation system to water 150 million hectares of land which, with the appropriate technology, could feed a billion people.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In addition to the resources already mobilized by various banking channels, loan organizations, international bodies and private finance agencies, we must discuss and decide upon a strategy for the next development decade, so that in that strategy we include an additional contribution of not less than $300 billion, at 1977 real value, to be invested in the under-developed countries and to be made in yearly instalments of at least $25 billion from the very beginning. This aid should be in the form of donations and long-term, low-interest soft credits. 128. It is imperative that these additional funds be mobilized as a contribution of the developed world and of other countries with resources to the underdeveloped world over the next 10 years. If we want peace, these resources will be required.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“There are so many special, multilateral, public and private funds whose purpose is to contribute to one or another aspect of development—agricultural, industrial, meeting balance-of-payments deficits, and so on—that it is not easy for me, in submitting to this thirty-fourth session of the General Assembly this report on economic problems discussed by the Sixth Conference, to formulate a concrete proposal for the establishment of a new fund. 127. But there can be no doubt that the problem of financing should be discussed thoroughly and fully in order to find a solution to it.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Cuba—which is not speaking here on behalf of its own interests and which is not defending here a national objective—is willing to contribute, in accordance with its means, thousands or tens of thousands of technicians—doctors, teachers, agronomists, hydraulic engineers, mechanical engineers, economists, middle- level technicians, skilled workers and so forth. 125. The time has therefore come for all of us to join in the task of drawing entire peoples — hundreds of millions of human beings — out of the backwardness, poverty, malnutrition, disease and illiteracy that keep them from enjoying full human dignity and pride. We must therefore muster and mobilize our resources for development, and this is our joint obligation. 126.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“But even so, because of the nature of their social system, in which international solidarity is a premise, they understand and assume the obligation of helping to overcome that phenomenon. 123. Likewise, when the world expects the oil- producing developing countries to contribute to the universal flow of external financing for development, it does so because of a hope and duty of solidarity among under-developed countries, not because of obligations and duties which no one could hope to impose. The big oil-exporting countries should be aware of their responsibilities. 124. Even those developing countries that are relatively more advanced should make their contributions.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“And it is not only our problem, a problem for the countries victimized by under-development and insufficient development; it is a problem for the international community as a whole. 121. On more than one occasion it has been said that we were forced into under-development by colonization and imperialist neo-colonization. The task of helping us to emerge from under-development is, first and foremost, an historical and moral obligation for those who benefited from the plunder of our wealth and the exploitation of our men and women for decades and for centuries. But it is, at the same time, the task of mankind as a whole, and the Sixth Conference declared it so. 122. The socialist countries did not participate in the plunder of the world and they are not responsible for the phenomenon of under-development.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Development primarily involves attention to human beings, who should be the protagonists and goals of all development efforts. To cite the example of Cuba, I will point out that during the last five years our country has invested an average of nearly $200 million a year in school construction. Investment in medical equipment and construction of hospitals, polyclinics and so forth is averaging over $40 million a year. And Cuba is only one of nearly 100 developing countries—and one of the smallest at that, in terms of geography and population. Therefore, it can be deduced that the developing countries will need to have billions of dollars more invested every year to overcome the result of backwardness in education and in public health services. 120. This is the large problem that faces us.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Therefore, even the most modest estimates admit—and I refer to aid and not to the total flow of resources—that international financial aid will yearly have to reach between 8 and 9 billion dollars in order to obtain an agricultural growth rate of from 3.5 to 4 per cent in the developing countries. 118. With regard to industrialization, the estimates are far higher. The Second General Conference of UNIDO, when defining the goals for its Lima meeting, stated that at the heart of the international development policy there should stand a target to be achieved in the year 2000 of annual levels of between $450 and $500 billion of which a third—that is, from $150 to $160 billion—will have to be financed from external sources. 119. But development is not only agriculture and industrialization.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In view of this, the investments required by the developing countries are enormous, and they need them—primarily, and with practically no exception— in those branches of production that yield low profits and therefore do not appeal to private foreign lenders or investors. 116. To increase the production of food-stuffs so as to do away with the malnutrition that afflicts those 450 million persons I mentioned earlier, we must provide many new land and water resources. According to specialized estimates, 76 million more hectares of land in the developing countries would have to be cultivated and over 10 million more hectares of land irrigated in the next 10 years to meet the needs. 117. Irrigation systems for 45 million hectares of land would have to be repaired.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“One of the most serious phenomena that accompany the accelerated indebtedness of the developing countries, as we have already said, consists of the fact that the majority of the funds received from outside by the developing nations have to be used to cover the imbalance in their balance of trade, to renew debts and to make interest payments. 114. If we take as an example the non-oil-exporting developing countries, to whose situation I referred at the Havana Conference, we note that in the last six years alone they have run up deficits in their balance of payments of over $200 billion. 115.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Heads of State and Government recognize that only thus will their people be willing to pay the price required of them in order to become protagonists in the process. As I said on that occasion: "...if the system is socially just, the possibilities of survival and economic and social development are incomparably greater." The history of my own country provides irrefutable proof of this. 112. The emerging crying need to solve the problem of under-development brings us back to the problem I mentioned a little while ago and which I should like to make the last that I submit to this thirty-fourth session of the General Assembly. I refer specifically to international financing. 113.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Naturally, the developing countries cannot and do not hope that the transformations they seek and the financing they require will come to them as a gift following mere analyses of international economic problems. In this process, which implies contradictions, struggles and negotiations, the non-aligned countries must first of all depend upon their own decisions and their own efforts. 111. That conviction emerges clearly from the Sixth Conference. In the economic section of the Final Declaration, the Heads of State or Government acknowledge the need to carry out in their countries the necessary economic and social structural changes, considering that this is the only way to eliminate the present vulnerability of their economies and to turn the simple statistic growth into true development.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Not so many years ago we stated that the irrational squandering of material goods and the subsequent waste of economic resources by developed capitalist society had already become intolerable. Wherein lies the cause of the dramatic energy crisis that we are faced with right now? Who, if not the non-oil- producing under-developed countries, have to bear the main brunt of it? 109. This feeling that an end must be put to the consumer societies' waste of resources is very widely held. A recent UNIDO document states: "The present way of life, especially in the industrialized countries, may have to undergo a radical and painful change." 110.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The developing countries will not accept the unjust, arbitrary international division of labour that modern colonialism imposed on them with the English industrial revolution and that was widened and deepened by imperialism as "interdependency". 107. If we wish to avoid confrontation and struggle— which seems to be the only road open to the developing countries, but is a road that offers long and arduous battles whose proportions are unpredictable today— then we must all seek and find formulas of co-operation to solve the great problems that, while affecting our peoples, cannot be solved without also affecting the most developed countries, one way or another. 108.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“There is already talk of special military forces to occupy the oil fields and the sources of other raw materials. 104. But if it is the duty of everyone to concern himself over this sombre prospect, it is first of all the duty of those who possess the greatest wealth and material abundance. 105. In any case, the prospect of a world without capitalism is not too frightening to us revolutionaries. 106. It has been proposed that, instead of a spirit of confrontation, we employ a sense of world economic interdependency that will enable us to call on the resources of all our economies in order to obtain joint benefits, but the concept of interdependency is only acceptable when you start by admitting the intrinsic and brutal injustice of the present interdependency.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In October of 1978, the Commission of European Communities admitted, by way of clarification, that: the present balance of the world economy depends to a considerable extent on continuing the flow of private loans to non-oil-producing developing countries...on a scale unprecedented prior to 1974, and any obstacle to that flow will endanger that balance." 103. World .financial bankruptcy would be very hard, in the first place, on the under-developed countries and on the workers in the developed capitalist countries. It would also affect even the most stable socialist economies, but it is doubtful that the capitalist system would be able to survive such a catastrophe, and it would be very difficult for the resulting and dreadful economic situation not to engender inevitably a world conflagration.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The most renowned economists—both Western ones and those who subscribe to Marxist concepts- admit that the developing countries' system of international indebtedness functions in a completely irrational manner and that its subsistence could lead to a sudden interruption that might endanger the entire precarious and unstable balance of the world economy. 102. Some try to explain away the surprising economic fact that the international banking centres continue to provide funds to countries that are technically bankrupt by arguing that these are generous contributions to help those countries to meet their economic difficulties, but this is not so. In fact, it is an operation for saving the international capitalist order itself.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Sixth Conference was concerned not only because the debt of the underdeveloped countries was practically unbearable, but also because that debt was growing yearly at a rate that might be termed galloping. The data recently contained in the annual World Bank report that came out while we were holding the Conference in Havana confirmed that the situation was growing worse daily. In 1978 alone, the foreign public debt of 96 of the developing countries rose by $51 billion. This rate of growth has raised the foreign debt to the astronomical figure already mentioned. We cannot resign ourselves to this sombre prospect. 101.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“All the domestic and internal efforts, all the sacrifices that the peoples of the developing countries are making and are willing to make, and all the opportunities for increasing their economic potential that would be achieved by eliminating the inequality between the prices of their exports and those of imports and by improving the conditions in which their foreign trade is carried out, would not be enough. In the light of their true financial situation at present, they need enough resources to be able both to pay their debts and to make the enormous expenditures on a global level required by the jump into development. 100. Here again, the figures are far too well known to require repeating.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Response to these demands, some of which have been systematically presented by the developing countries in international forums through the Group of 77 and the non-aligned movement, would permit a change of course in the international economic situation that would provide the developing countries with the institutional conditions for organizing programmes that would definitely place them on the road to development. 98. But even if all these measures were implemented and the mistakes and evils of the present system of international relations were rectified, the developing countries would still lack one decisive element— foreign financing. 99.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“They must cease and the funds thus released must be used to finance development. 92. The international monetary system prevailing today is bankrupt and should be replaced. 93. The debts of the least developed countries and of those in a disadvantageous position are burdens impossible to bear and to which no solution can be found and they should be cancelled. 94. Indebtedness oppresses the rest of the developing countries economically and should be relieved. 95. The wide economic gap between the developed countries and the countries seeking development, instead of diminishing, is being widened, and should be closed and eliminated. 96. These then are the demands of the underdeveloped countries. 97.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The financial disorder also hits the developing countries and the latter hope that, when the outlines of the new international monetary system are drawn up, they—as the majority of the countries in the international community, representing as they do more than one and a half billion men and women—may be given a voice in the decision-making process. 86. To sum up: unequal exchange is ruining and impoverishing our peoples and must cease. 87. Inflation, which is being exported to us, is impoverishing our peoples and must cease. 88. Protectionism impoverishes our peoples and must cease. 89. The existing imbalance in the exploitation of sea resources is abusive and must be abolished. 90. The financial resources received by the developing countries are insufficient and must be increased. 91. Arms expenditures are irrational.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The developing countries—and, on their behalf, the non-aligned movement—demand that a substantial portion of the immense resources now being squandered on the arms race be diverted for development, which in turn would contribute to reducing the danger of war and to helping to improve the international situation. 85. Expressing the position of all the developing countries, the non-aligned countries call for the establishment of a new international monetary system which will put an end to the disastrous fluctuations to which the main currencies used in the international economy—especially the United States dollar—are subject today.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The developing countries need the establishment of a new system of financing through which they would receive the necessary financial resources to ensure the continuous and independent development of their economies. These financing methods should be long- range and at low interest. These financial resources should be completely at the disposal of the developing countries, to enable them to establish priority systems in their own economies and in accordance with their own plans for industrial development and to prevent those funds from being absorbed, as they are today, by transnational corporations, which use alleged financial contributions for development to aggravate the distortions of their economies and to reap maximum profits from the exploitation of the developing nations' own resources. 84.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Third United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea has once again brought out and stressed the arrogance and imperialist determination of some countries which, placing their technological possibilities before the spirit of understanding and accommodation requested by the developing nations, threaten to take unilateral action in carrying out deep-sea mining operations. 82. The foreign debts of the developing countries have now reached $335 billion. It is estimated that about $40 billion a year go to servicing those foreign debts—and that is more than 20 per cent of their exports. Moreover, the average per capita income in the developed countries is now 14 times that in the underdeveloped countries. This surely is an untenable situation. 83.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“They demand that, without deceptive falsehoods, generalized and non-reciprocal tariff preferences be applied, so that the young industries of the developing countries may develop without being crushed in the world market by the superior technological resources of the developed countries. 81. The non-aligned countries consider that the negotiations about to be concluded on the law of the sea should not be used—as certain developed countries seek to use them—in order to ratify and endorse the existing imbalance as regards sea resources, but should serve as a vehicle for equitable redress.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The developing countries demand that the countries that have created inflation and that stimulate it through their policies adopt the necessary measures now to control it and thus put an end to the aggravation of the unequal exchange between our countries, 80. The developing countries demand—and will continue their struggle to achieve this—that the industrial products of their incipient economies be given access to the markets of the developed countries to put an end to the vicious protectionism which has been reintroduced in the international economy and which threatens to lead us once again into a murderous economic war.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“They likewise ask that the Common Fund, projected and planned as an instrument of stabilization to establish a permanent correspondence between the prices they receive for their products and those they pay for their imports, and which has only just begun to be integrated, be given a true impulse and impetus. As far as the non-aligned countries are concerned, this linkage— which permanently ties the prices of their export items with the prices of the basic equipment, industrial products, raw materials and technology that they import from the developed countries—constitutes an essential pivot for all future economic negotiations. 79.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“While drawing up strategic concepts for advancing and continuing in their struggle, the Heads of State or Government repeated their demands and defined their positions. 77. The first and fundamental objective in our struggle consists of reducing and finally eliminating the unequal exchange that prevails today and that makes international trade a very useful, helpful vehicle for the hindering of our wealth. Today, the product of one hour's work in the developed countries is exchanged for the product of 10 hours’ work in the underdeveloped nations. 78. The non-aligned countries demand that serious attention be paid to the Integrated Programme for Commodities, which thus far has been manipulated and shirked in the so-called North-South dialogue.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In setting forth all the overwhelming negative aspects in the economic situation of developing countries, the Sixth Conference called the special attention of the world to the mounting problems of the least developed, the most disadvantaged, the land-locked countries, and those isolated in the hinterland, and asked that urgent measures be adopted to mitigate and alleviate their problems. 75. That was the far from optimistic, rather sombre and discouraging picture which the members of the non-aligned movement had in mind when they met in Havana. 76. Nevertheless, the non-aligned countries did not allow themselves to be swept into positions of frustration or exasperation, although that might have been understandable.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“In view of the inadequate progress which had been achieved in the work carried out within the United Nations for the drawing up of a code of conduct to regulate the activities of transnational corporations, the Conference reaffirmed the urgency of the early completion of the work on the code, in order to provide the international community with a legal instrument with which at least to control and regulate the activities of the transnational corporations in accordance with the objectives and aspirations of the developing countries. 74.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Once again, their policies and practices were declared unacceptable, it was charged that, in their desire for profits, they exhaust the resources, distort the economies and infringe the sovereignty of developing countries; undermine the rights of people to self-determination; violate the principle of non-interference in the affairs of States; and frequently resort to bribery, corruption and other undesirable practices through which they seek to, and manage to, subordinate the developing countries to the desires and plans of the industrialized countries. 73.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“When considering the matter of energy from that standpoint, the Heads of State or Government stressed that the subject should be the main focus of global negotiations within the United Nations, with the participation of all countries, and linking the problem of energy to all other development problems—with financial and monetary reforms, with world trade and raw materials—so as to make a comprehensive and global analysis of those aspects which have a bearing on the establishment of the new international economic order. 72. In revising and reviewing the main problems that confront the developing countries within the context of the world economy, we had to dwell on the activities of the transnational corporations.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Permit me to recall that my opening address to the Conference contained a definition of the desperate situation of the non-oil-producing under-developed countries—especially the least developed ones—and that at that time I expressed the confidence that the non-aligned oil-producing countries would devise formulas to help to alleviate the unfavourable situation of those countries that have already been hit by world inflation and by unequal trade relations and are suffering serious balance-of-payments deficits and sharp increases in their foreign debt. But that does not obviate the principal responsibility of the developed countries, their monopolies and their transnational corporations. 71.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“69. The problem of energy can be examined only in its historic context, taking into account the fact that the wasteful consumption patterns of some of the developed countries and the role played by transnational oil corporations have led to the squandering of hydrocarbons and noting the plundering role of the transnational corporations, which, until only recently, have benefited from cheap energy supplies which they have used irresponsibly. The transnational corporations exploit both the producers and the consumers and reap enormous and unjustified windfall profits from both, while at the same time falsifying the facts in order to shift the blame for the present situation to the developing countries, exporters of oil. 70.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“As Chairman of the movement and co-ordinating country, Cuba intends, together with the Group of 77, to do everything necessary to promote the programme of action on economic co-operation outlined by the Conference. 67. Nevertheless, we cannot conceive of that "collective self-reliance' as anything even remotely resembling self-sufficiency. We rather consider it to be a factor in international relations which will mobilize all the means and resources of that considerable and important part of mankind represented by the developing countries and incorporate them in the general current of resources and economies that can be marshalled in both the capitalist camp and the socialist countries. 68. The Sixth Conference rejected the attempts of certain developed countries to use the issue of energy as a means of dividing the developing nations.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“It is for this reason that it supported the efforts of raw material-producing non-aligned and other developing countries in their search for just and remunerative prices for their exports and their efforts to improve in real terms their export earnings. 66. Moreover, the Conference paid more attention than ever to the strengthening of economic relations and to the transfer of scientific and technological information among the developing countries. The concept of what could be defined as "collective self-reliance"— that is, mutual support and co-operation among the developing countries, so that in the first place they will depend on their own collective forces—was given great importance in the Havana Declaration.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“We noted that, while the inequality of international economic relations had increased the developing countries' accumulated foreign debt—to over $300 billion—the international financial bodies and private banks had raised their interest rates and imposed shorter terms of loan amortization, thus financially strangling the developing countries. The Conference denounced all this as constituting an element of coercion in negotiations that allows those financial institutions to obtain additional political and economic advantages at the expense of our countries. 65. The Conference took into account the neo- colonialist efforts to prevent the developing countries from exercising their full, permanent and effective sovereignty over those natural resources and reaffirmed this right.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The instability of the exchange rates of the main reserve currencies, together with inflation and the increase in the imbalance in the world economic situation, creates additional economic difficulties for the developing countries and reduces the real value of their export earnings and also further reduces their foreign currency reserves. As a negative factor, we pointed out the disorderly growth of international liquidity, mainly through the use of devalued United States dollars and other reserve currencies.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“The Conference also denounced the way in which certain developed countries had intensified and increased their domestic production subsidies that redounded against the products of the developing nations. 63. The Conference further deplored the shortcomings in the scope and operation of the generalized system of preferences and, in that spirit, condemned the discriminatory restrictions contained in the United States Foreign Trade Act and the inflexible positions adopted by some developed countries, which prevented the adoption of agreements on this issue at the fifth session of UNCTAD. 64. We expressed our concern over the constant deterioration of the international monetary situation.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)
“Whereas the prices of manufactured goods, capital goods, food-stuffs and the services that we import from developed countries are constantly rising, the prices of the primary products we export are not, but, on the contrary, are being lowered and are subject to constant fluctuations. Trade relations have worsened. We emphasized that protectionism- one of the aggravating factors of the great depression of the 1930s—had been reintroduced by some developed countries. The Conference deplored the fact that in the GATT negotiations the developed countries belonging to it did not take into account the interests and concerns of the developing countries, especially the least developed among them. 62.”
1979-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 34 (1979)