[stop-imf] Castro at Financing for Development conference

[Robert Weissman]

Original: Spanish



SPEECH BY HIS EXCELLENCY DR. FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC
OF
CUBA, AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON FINANCING
FOR DEVELOPMENT.
MONTERREY,
MARCH 21, 2002



Excellencies:


Not everyone here will share my thoughts. Still, I will respectfully say

what I think.

The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and

exploitation like no other in history. Thus, the peoples believe less
and
less in statements and promises.

The prestige of the international financial institutions rates less than

zero.

  The world economy is today a huge casino. Recent analyses indicate
that
for every dollar that goes into trade, over one hundred end up in
speculative operations completely disconnected from the real economy.

As a result of this economic order, over 75 percent of the world
population
lives in underdevelopment, and extreme poverty has already reached 1.2
billion people in the Third World. So, far from narrowing the gap is
widening.

The revenue of the richest nations that in 1960 was 37 times larger than

that of the poorest is now 74 times larger. The situation has reached
such
extremes that the assets of the three wealthiest persons in the world
amount
to the GDP of the 48 poorest countries combined.

The number of people actually starving was 826 million in the year 2001.

There are at the moment 854 million illiterate adults while 325 million
children do not attend school. There are 2 billion people who have no
access
to low cost medications and 2.4 billion lack the basic sanitation
conditions. No less than 11 million children under the age of 5 perish
every
year from preventable causes while half a million go blind for lack of
vitamin A.

The life span of the population in the developed world is 30 years
higher
than that of people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!
The poor countries should not be blamed for this tragedy. They neither
conquered nor plundered entire continents for centuries; they did not
establish colonialism, or re-established slavery; and, modern
imperialism is
not of their making. Actually, they have been its victims. Therefore,
the
main responsibility for financing their development lies with those
states
that, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy today the benefits of those
atrocities.

The rich world should condone their foreign debt and grant them fresh
soft
credits to finance their development. The traditional offers of
assistance,
always scant and often ridiculous, are either inadequate or unfulfilled.

For a true and sustainable economic and social development to take place

much more is required than is usually admitted. Measures as those
suggested
by the late James Tobin to curtail the irrepressible flow of currency
speculation --albeit it was not his idea to foster development--  would
perhaps be the only ones capable of generating enough funds, which in
the
hands of the UN agencies and not of awful institutions like the IMF,
could
supply direct development assistance with a democratic participation of
all
countries and without the need to sacrifice the independence and
sovereignty
of the peoples.

 The Consensus draft, which the masters of the world are imposing on
this
conference, intends that we accept humiliating, conditioned and
interfering
alms.

Everything created since Bretton Woods until today should be
reconsidered. A
farsighted vision was then missing, thus, the privileges and interests
of
the most powerful prevailed. In the face of the deep present crisis, a
still
worse future is offered where the economic, social and ecologic tragedy
of
an increasingly ungovernable world would never be resolved and where the

number of the poor and the starving would grow higher, as if a large
part of
humanity were doomed.

It is high time for statesmen and politicians to calmly reflect on this.
The
belief that a social and economic order that has proven to be
unsustainable
can be forcibly imposed is really senseless.

As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in
the
arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate,
the
ill, the poor and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illnesses,
poverty or hunger.

It should definitely be said: "Farewell to arms."

Something must be done to save Humanity!

A better world is possible!

    Thank you.