Latin American Network Information Center - LANIC

Castro Speech

FL112353Y Havana Domestic Service in Spanish 2306 GMT 11 Oct 77 FL

[Speech by Commander in Chief Fidel Castro at Cuba-Mozambique Friendship
Rally in honor of visiting Mozambique President Samora Machel held at the
26 July School City, Santiago de  Cuba--live]

[Text] Dear Comrade Samora Machel, dear members of the delegation of the
fraternal Mozambique people [applause], dear comrades of Santiago de Cuba:
Some of you are saying you cannot hear, but the best way to hear is by
keeping quiet.  [applause]  Let it not be said that the residents of
Santiago de  Cuba are not disciplined.  [crowd yells back "No" ] That they
are joyful, we know.  That they are disciplined, that they are
revolutionaries, we also know that.  This afternoon, there were some
threatening clouds, and we asked ourselves:  Is it going to rain today?  We
all know that Santiago's problem in recent years has been the lack of rain,
so if it rains, let us prepare to receive it with joy.  [applause]

Today's event, the presence of Comrade Samora Machel and his delegation at
this square facing the Moncada Barracks is a symbol of the times in which
we are living.  Who would have imagined it 20 years ago?  Without the
revolution in our country, without the revolution in Mozambique, without
the extraordinary impetus of the national liberation movement, without the
great changes that have taken place in today's world, it would have been
impossible for this meeting to take place.

There are many common things between Mozambique and Cuba.  This is not an
event of more courtesy, or mere protocol; this is an event that has a lot
of sense, a lot of moral and revolutionary value.  This is an event that
has great significance due to those things that the two countries have in
common.  [applause] Comrade Samora and the delegation he heads were pleased
with the idea of paying this visit to Santiago and holding the solidarity
event here.  Both in Cuba and in Mozambique, the path of independence and
revolution was long and difficult.  The path of our independence began more
than 100 years ago in 1868 and ended with the last liberating war in which
our fatherland achieved its final independence and was able to carry out
its revolution.  In Mozambique, the struggle for independence and for the
revolution marched together.  They did not have that long period of
imperialist and neocolonialist dominion that our fatherland endured for
over more than 60 years.  We were occupied by the U.S. troops, the Platt
Amendment, neocolonialism, feudalism and capitalism.  They ended their
struggle for national liberation and immediately passed on to the building
of socialism without imperialist dominion, without capitalism and without

But, it is also true that the two countries achieved liberation on the path
of sacrifice, of struggle, of abundant blood spilled and of heroism.  We
fought last century against the colonial troops, later on fighting against
imperialism, fighting against corrupted governments and their mercenary
forces at the service of that imperialism.  They fought against colonialism
over a period of many years.

When our revolution had already triumphed approximately 5 years before, the
Mozambique were beginning the armed struggle for liberation under really
very difficult conditions, because the colonial power had all the support
of imperialism and their NATO allies, because the colonial power, Portugal,
was a member of NATO and was receiving financial, technical assistance and
arms to fight against the African patriots of Mozambique, Angola,
Guinea-Biassu and others.  Thus, they did not freely achieve independence.
It was not granted.  It was a victory that was achieved through hard-fought
struggle, many sacrifices and great heroism.

Now then, what did they find when they gained independence?  Actually,
they did not find a nation in the traditional sense of the word.  In
reality, a Mozambique nation did not exist, since the colonialists had
encouraged tribalism, regionalism and racism.  They actually began to
develop the foundations of a Mozambique nation during the struggle.

When the independence war began in Cuba in 1868, what we could call a Cuban
nationality already existed.  They did not have that factor.  They were
oppressed by colonialism, imperialism, racism and capitalism.  They did not
even have what could be called a Mozambique nation.  They began to develop
and create the foundations of a national spirit during the struggle which
they began in 1964, to be specific.  They struggled, as did our
independence fighters in the last century, for 10 years and after 10 years
they had defeated the colonialist troops and gained independence.  They did
not find a nation but they did find all the consequences of colonialism.
The people of Mozambique for centuries were exploited by the colonialism.
The people of Mozambique for centuries were exploited by the colonialists,
and what did that mean?  The tribal ideas were still maintained.  The
country was 90 percent illiterate, 90 percent. [Castro repeats himself] We
had 30 percent.  If in Cuba there were 1 million illiterates in a
population of 6.5 million, Mozambique had 1 million who could read and
write and the rest, 9 million, could not read or write.  An important part
of the population did not even know the language of the colonialists.
Therefore, when one visits Mozambique and any visitor meets with the
people, in Beria or other places, he needs a translator for the language of
that region in order to be able to speak. [applause] They did not even have
a national language or a language which, even if not a national one, was
imported like the one here, Spanish, and could help then to understand each

The universities, the universities under the colonial system, had only 40
African students out of more than 4,000 students.  The others were the sons
of the settlers who owned the industries, businesses and the country's
wealth.  Forty Africans out of more than 4,000. [Castro repeats figures]
The only persons who could attend secondary schools to acquire technical
knowledge and attend the universities were not Africans but the sons of the
settlers.  As a result of all of this, the only persons in the country who
had technical knowledge were the settlers, the Europeans, the ones who were
occupying the country.

Logically, at the triumph of the struggle for independence--the struggle
for independence not to establish neocolonialism but to establish the
revolution after independence--most of the settlers left.  With the
settlers went the technicians, university professors, doctors, engineers,
administrators, the best qualified workers and technicians, and so forth.
And with a population of 10 million, do you know how many doctors
colonialism left there in Mozambique?  Any one of our hospitals has more
doctors than the number of doctors colonialism left there for 10 million
persons.  [It left] approximately 45 African doctors in Mozambique.

We had slightly more doctors, we had 6,000 and, as you well recall, they
left.  They were not Yankeees or settlers.  However, when they heard talk
of revolution, a real revolution not a story of revolution, and when they
heard [Castro corrects himself] and before they heard talk of socialism,
because they did not like the idea of agrarian reform, urban reform, social
justice and antimperialist struggle, 3,000 of them left.  But we still had
3,000 doctors.  We were left with 80 times the number of doctors left in
Mozambique.  That is the meaning of colonialism.

After many centuries of domination they left 45 doctors for the African
people.  Therefore, they are facing much more serious problems than we.  Of
course, Mozambique has enormous natural resources.  With a population equal
to ours, it is seven times larger than Cuba.

The colonialists and imperialists there planned to divide the country into
two or three regions, two or three states so as to exercise better control
under tribal and regional factors. But one of the great historic merits of
Mozambique revolutionaries is that they were able to prevent all this.

They have a big country with enormous natural resources.  Suffice it to say
that a single one of the great and many rivers in Mozambique has more
volume than all the Cuban rivers as a whole.

They have an enormous hydroelectric potential.  Let me cite another
example.  The imperialists thought that the Mozambicans would not be able
to gain independence, and were making great plans to fight the
independence.  Among many things, they begin integrating the resources of
Mozambique with imperialism's interests in the zone of Southern Africa and
built an enormous dam which cost 1.8 billion dollars.  Santiago's bay fits
inside that dam several times.  Not only Santiago's bay but our largest,
the bay of Nipe, fits several times inside that dam of Cabora Bassa.  The
imperialists and colonialists jointly built it to supply electricity to
South Africa's industries.  That dam has a capacity of 3,600 megawatts.
That is three times all the electricity producing capacity that Cuba has at
the present time.  Of course, we are increasing it.  We had 300 in the
beginning, now we have more than 1,200.  By 1980, we will be going over
2,000.  Our production capacity is not four times greater than it was
before the triumph of the revolution, but that dam by itself can produce
three times electric power than we can not produce.

That is just one river, but that river, according to the Mozambique
comrades, will accommodate two more big dams.  Mozambique has lots of
rivers.  Thus, Mozambique can build an electric network and produce enough
energy not only for Mozambique, but also for all its neighbors.  We have
been trying to estimate what it would cost with current oil prices to
produce the electricity that dam provides. We believe it would cost
approximately 400 or 500 million dollars in oil.

Nature has of course given them those great energy resources. By hydraulic
means which are inexhaustible.  An oil well dries out, but the river will
always flow.  We could say that a river is eternal.  Energy is a most
important factor for development in today's world, and they have an
enormous hydroelectric capability to such an extent that they can solve all
their problems of electric energy indefinitely and unlimitedly.

The country has great mineral resources. They have not yet found petroleum,
but it is probably that they will find it as well as gas.  They have coal,
large deposits of coal, that is a great asset also.  They also have large
mineral deposits, among them, iron of great quality, which would give them
a foundation based on coal and iron for the future development of the steel
industry.  The coal would also make it possible for them to develop the
petrochemical industry.  But besides coal, they have copper and many other
minerals.  However, the largest part of their territory had not yet been
explored, so no one knows how much Mozambique has in mineral resources.
They have a hydraulic capability for electric energy.  They have coal and
countless other mineral resources.

In addition, they have large forest areas and, above all, soil of
magnificent quality.  let us say that they can some day cultivate 40 or
50 million hectares of land.  To cite an example I would say all of Cuba's
agricultural land amounts to some 6 million hectares, and we are the
largest sugar-exporting nation of the world.  They also have water, not
only for agricultural purposes, but for agriculture and have sufficient
land to cultivate 40 or 50 million hectares of land.  A hectare of land is
something like what we have here, this square.  In caballerias, that would
be some 4 million caballerias of land.

Thus, Mozambique could become something like a granary capable of producing
food for the entire African continent, and the production of foodstuffs has
great importance in the world of the future, because the inhabitants of
this planet have already reached more than 4 billion.  We will be 7 billion
by the year 2000 and the population of the world continues to grow.  The
production of foodstuffs does not grow at the same pace.  Thus, we have it
that Mozambique has large natural resources--hydroelectric energy, mining
and agriculture.  That is the country they rescued from the hands of
colonialism and imperialism.  They have 10 million inhabitants who are
fighters, patriots, combat-ready, enthusiasts, intelligent, noble, who
constitute the human factor of that country.

It is clear that all that has to be developed.  You can imagine what it
means to start virtually from zero, zero engineers, zero physicians,
because between 45 and zero the difference is small, zero technicians, zero
industries, practically none, just a few the colonialists had.  Ahead lies
an immense task for them.  Of course, it is not by chance that the
Mozambique people now have the opportunity of beginning to build that
country.  It is not by chance.  The struggle for independence did not just

The organization of the struggle for independence under very difficult
conditions, confrontation against imperialism and colonialism, to make war,
to struggle against racism, tribalism, regionalism, neocolonialism, and
capitalism, to reach the status of a united people who are beginning to
acquire a strong national spirit with which to advance toward the future
were not accidental.

That was the work of the revolutionaries, patriots, martyrs and leaders.
That was, in the beginning, the work of Mondlane and the word, in the
beginning and to date, the work of Comrade Samora Machel.  [prolonged
applause]  They began by uniting the different patriotic, nationalist,
anticolonialist and antimperialist forces.  They created the FRELIMO
[Mozambique Liberation Front].  And while they were organizing the
political movement, they began to train the first combatants.  Since 1962,
if my memory does not fail me, and already by that time, Comrade Samora
Machel was in the camps where future combatants were being trained in the
fraternal Republic of Algeria.  [applause] Comrade Samora Machel
participated in the organization of and realization of the first armed
actions in 1964.  These actions began in the north of Mozambique in a
province called Cabo Delgado.

However, the process was not an easy one. Once the armed struggle was
begun, they had to face different factions within the National Liberation
Front because it was a vast movement which included all those who said they
fought against colonialism, imperialism, that they wanted independence, and
so forth.  There are all sorts in such broad fronts.  There are people who
want independence to establish neocolonialism or to establish capitalism,
to maintain the system of man's exploitation of man.

Contradictions emerged in the early years between the clearest, more
advanced, more progressive revolutionaries and those elements that wanted
to remove colonialism, gain independence and establish a national
bourgeoisie and create capitalism.  And the revolutionaries had to face
hard struggles within the movement.  The reactionary elements resorted to
tribalism, racism, regionalism and so forth, and the revolutionaries were
forced to wage a battle within the front, an intelligent struggle, trying
to maintain unity and, at the same time, trying to fight reactionary ideas
within the liberation movement.

And it must be said, as history will attest, that they displayed
extraordinary ability and had great success in carrying on that struggle
amid the war. And, amid the war, disputes arose stimulated by the
colonialists, and some of the reactionary elements went to the side of the
colonialists.  Many leaders were assassinated, including Mondlane in 1968.
He had been the founder of the front.

Since that time, Comrade Machel has been outstanding for his decisive role
in the struggle against these factions within the FRELIMO.

In the wake of the death of the movement's founder, Machel was named as one
of the three FRELIMO leaders.  The following year, the Central Committee,
which had emerged from the second congress, appointed him president of the
liberation movement. [applause]  But, of course, it was no accident that he
reached that position of authority and prestige.  He had participated in
the armed actions from the beginning and was later named the one primarily
responsible for organizing the guerilla forces and for direction of the
war. When he was named FRELIMO president, he already had great military
experience.  However, more important than his military experience was his
political experience and clarity.

From 1969 or 1970, he led the FRELIMO in the political and military fields.
He intensified the war and by 1974 the colonialists had been defeated.

A very interesting fact is that since the war itself Comrade Samora Machel,
heading a group that was led by FRELIMO, began to prepare the conditions
for creation of a future party, because a front is not the same as a party.
The front included everyone and the party was a vanguard, and conditions
for creation of a party were prepared during the war.

Once the Portuguese were defeated, a transition government was installed,
for the combatants or Mozambique, Angola and Guinea-Bissau not only
defeated the colonialists in Africa, but they defeated fascism in Portugal.
[applause] They not only brought independence to the colonies, they also
brought democracy.  The truth is that it was a bourgeois democracy but they
brought democracy to fascist Portugal.

That is why we must say that the Africans of the Portuguese colonies not
only liberated themselves with their struggle but also helped liberate--we
cannot say they liberated because the Portuguese people fought over decades
of fascism--but they also helped the Portuguese people to liberate
themselves from fascism.  When the colonial war reached a critical stage in
Africa, as a result of the heroic struggle of the oppressed peoples by
Portuguese colonialism, fascism reached a critical stage in Portugal and
was defeated.  Independence had been achieved.  But can everything be
resolved with what we call "achieving independence"?  Independence for
what?  Independence for whom?  Independence for the capitalists,
independence for the bourgeois, independence for the landowners who
possessed all the country's wealth, independence to create neocolonialism,
independence to maintain exploitation of man by man.

They said:  No.  They said independence for the people.  Independence to
end exploitation of man by man.  Independence for socialism. [applause]
That is something of extraordinary importance, because immediately after
the revolutionaries assumed power with Comrade Machel heading them,
revolutionary laws began to be applied in Mozambique. They began by
nationalizing the land.  They began by nationalizing all the industries of
all those who had cooperated with colonialism.  They nationalized the
industries of all those who abandoned the country.  They began
nationalizing education, health services and all strategic points of the

Naturally, the landowners were not going to support revolutionary
government, a government of the Africans, there.  They left the country in
large numbers.  They thought as all reactionary elements thought in all
eras, since the glorious October Revolution, whose 60th anniversary will be
commemorated soon. [applause]  The bourgeois thought that when they left
the country, the country would go bankrupt:  We are going to leave behind
the servants of the land, the workers, the laborers to see how they manage
the country.

The same thing was done in the old Russia.  They also did the same thing
here.  They said:  Let us see how these people manage and are able to
govern the country when the technicians, the managers, the wise men, the
intelligent ones, the trained ones and so forth [leave].  Let us see if the
workers and peasants can make the country move.  Well, we had problems,
setbacks, mistakes, but we made the country move forward. [applause] Not
only did we make it move forward, but is it moving forward rather well.  I
am not going to think everything is perfect.  No, we can never say that.  A
demonstration of that is that we have 130,000 students in the universities,
just to cite an example.  A demonstration of that is that the industries
that before had to be built by North American enterprises today the Cuban
workers build them whether it be fertilizer plant, or a cement plant, or a
textile mill of the like. We build the schools by the hundreds, the roads,
the dams, the country roads, the railroads, in sum we have learned how to
do a certain number of things.  They thought this country would not move
forward and it did.  It is marching forward.  It is to be supposed that as
times goes by it will march forward better, unless we all are mediocre.

We have physicians, agricultural engineers, technicians.  As time goes by,
we have more and more of them.   Let us see if within 2 or 3 years we have
some 150,000 university students.  Time passes on and in just a few more
years there will be more than 200,000 and so forth.  Thus, this is what we
have demonstrated here in Cuba.  In Angola, they did the same thing.  They
said:  We leave and the country sinks.  IN Mozambique, they said:  We leave
and the country sinks.  They did the something everywhere.  That lesson
repeats itself.

Comrade Samora Machel was explaining to me some very interesting things.
In our plans of cooperation with Mozambique, we have offered them a
number of
scholarships.  We have even devoted four basic secondary schools on the
Isle of Pines [applause] to Mozambique students.  In the same manner, we
have assigned a number of schools to the sister Republic of Angola.
[applause] So far this year, 20,000 Mozambique youths have already arrived
to attend secondary studies in Cuba.  The comrade was telling me: Comrade
Fidel, the reactionary elements, Mozambique's enemies, began to spread
rumors that Mozambique was sending children to Cuba, selling children to
Cuba.  [laughter in the crowd] Comrade Samora Machel, that is nothing
new. That is an old rumor.  That is as old as the October Revolution.

Since the beginning of the first socialist revolution, those lies and
tricks began.  I told them that was not invented in Mozambique, but it was
invented almost 60 years ago.  I cam remember, I told him, that in Cuba
there was time when they began to spread rumors that we were sending the
children to Russia, that we were going to take the children away from the
families to send them to Russia.  I remembered and told him that repugnant,
perfidious story invented in connection with the "Patria Potestas" [power
of the father derived from Roman law] when they even made up a supposed
law and published it and disseminated it, saying that it was a
revolutionary government that took away the "Patria Potestas" from the
families.  This provoked great panic.  We said a similar story was made up
in Mozambique.  There were frightened families, mothers who left for other

I remembered what happened here.  It is irrational, absurd to consider
taking away the "Patria Potestas."  All that the revolutionary state does
is to argue with the parents and tell them to take care of the children,
because the teachers cannot do everything in the schools.  And the family
is very important in education, family education is very important and the
family example is very important. [applause]  How can the revolutionary
state assume education without the maximum cooperation of the family,
without the maximum participation of the family.  The revolutionary state
can build schools, can train professors, assign resources for education but
without the family and without the cooperation of the family this task
would be [Castro corrects himself] would not be successful.

When has actually happened in the years of revolution?  We have built
sources of schools, hundreds of schools for scholarship students and the
family wants increasingly more scholarships and more scholarships and more
scholarships.  And we have to tell the family there are no scholarships,
there are not enough.

Scores and hundreds of child care centers are built and the mothers every
day want more child care centers and [they say] there are not enough child
care centers.  And some of them say they want them [the centers to remain
open] until 5 of 6 [presumably p.m.] since we are, I am, at work until 7 or
7:30, and so forth.  Those are the problems heard every day.

However, in the first years of the revolution--so that you can see how
ignorance is abused, what lack of scruples the reactionaries have--they
launched a rumor that the revolution was going to take away "patria
protestas" over the children.  And Comrade Machel told me that over there
in Mozambique they did the same thing and told him: They are not good
inventors.  That is an old thing, that is an old thing because when I saw
that invention about "patria potestas" I asked myself: Where did those
people get this diabolic thing.  Later on I read the books of Sholokhov,
The Russian author who wrote about the revolution, "Blood in the Don" and a
number of books about the Don.  Already by that time in 1917, 1918, over
there the bourgeoisie and the aristocracy and feudals had invented the
story of "patria potesta."  They already had done it by that time,and I
learned about it from Sholohov's books.  I mention it because this is
nothing new or anything of the sort.  What they did was to copy
submissively what had happened in other countries.  These bourgeoisies over
here and the colonialists and reactionaries in Angola, Mozambique and other
places do not invent anything.  What they have done is to copy others, but
they have invented nothing new during these years.

And from the arsenal of intrigues, lies, infamies of reactionary classes,
they have taken the resources to fight here, over there and everywhere with
the same tricks and the same things.

Therefore, they [the Mozambique people] are experiencing some of the same
things we experienced.  At least there were bourgeoisie over here.  There
are no bourgeoisies of any sort in Mozambique.  Over there the owners of
every business, every little shop, all the big stores, warehouse,
transportation, factories, lands and cattle were Portuguese settlers.  Over
there in Mozambique about the only thing there might have been were a few
candidates to become bourgeoisie which is not the same as being

They [presumably Machel and revolutionaries] waged their battles over
there with great intelligences, making the people aware, fighting reaction,
fighting prejudice, fighting tribalism, and opportunely facing all those
problems, fighting anarchy, fighting liberalism, creating the foundations
for the party so that, from the beginning of the government, they could
initiate a real revolutionary mark.

Then, in turn and at the opportune time and under the necessary created
conditions, they proclaimed socialism as the objective of the Mozambique
revolution.  [applause] But they not only proclaimed socialism, they not
only proclaimed socialism [Castro repeats himself] since anybody and
everybody [pipisigallo] speaks of socialism [Castro apparently then
addresses a translator] to say it in popular terminology.  Go ahead and
translate this to him. [laughter] I do not know if they know this term in

There are demagogs of all types in the world who speak of socialism and
others [speak] of scientific socialism or something that seems similar to
it which is Marxism.  No, no, Socialism based on the principles of
Marxism-Leninism, [applause] Our principle, our ideology is

And with the foundation created during the war they began to prepare for
the third congress and formation of a Marxist-Leninist vanguard party, with
those letters and those words. [applause]

One has to consider the immense satisfaction that Marx and Engels and Lenin
would have felt over the fact that before the 60th anniversary of the
October Revolution, for Lenin who had seen so clearly the problem of
colonialized countries and the problem of the liberation movement in the
colonies, ideals which were the inspiration of such extraordinarily
brilliant thinking as that of Ho Chi Minh who took the ideas of Lenin
[applause], what immense satisfaction for the founders of the revolutionary
doctrines and scientific socialism that before the 60th anniversary of the
October Revolution the Mozambique revolutionaries by 1975, despite the 90
percent illiteracy in that country, despite the fact they they still did
not have a nation, despite that they had only 45 doctors, proclaimed the
socialist objectives of the process and the Marxist-Leninist nature of
their ideas. [applause]

We pay tribute to historic dates.  We pay tribute to the men who helped us
with their brilliant ideas, but to tell you the truth, facts such as that
one constitute a living monument to Marx, Engels and Lenin and the best
tribute that the men of the new generation can pay to the October
Revolution. [applause]  The fundamental thing about this is that actually,
without socialism and without a revolutionary doctrine, the Mozambique and
Angolan patriots and others could not face the gigantic problems they have
ahead and the task of building a country starting from scratch.

Imagine what it would be like of a bourgeois would begin a small factory of
any kind, that other one a small store, that one a house of prostitution,
that one a bar, that one any other thing anywhere, that one a drug
business, and the other a gambling business, which is what characterizes
the capitalist society, and the waste, luxury and the very few resources of
that country that are needed for books, medicines to devote them to buy
automobiles, luxuries, to begin traveling to Paris, London and Lisbon,

Imagine a country which starts from zero, where the 90 percent of the
population has to be taught to read and write, to consolidate the national
spirit, to establish a public health program to combat the 1,001 diseases
that the continent has and to begin developing those economic resources.
How can that be done without socialism, without a planned economy, without
a truly revolutionary doctrine?  What would one fall into?  One would fall
once again in to the imperialist dominion, into neocolonialism.  Well, no
one can tell where one would fall.  One would fall into hell for life, for
life because I cannot imagine how the capitalists would solve illiteracy.
neither would neocolonialism solve Portugal's illiteracy, nor poverty, nor
hunger, nor underdevelopment.  How could it do it?  By delivering what is
needed to the monopolies to undertake the task?  What the monopolies and
the capitalists need is slaves, slaves to work on the great farms and
cultivate cotton by hand, and if there is cheap labor it is better for
them.  That way they have to make fewer investments, and cultivate rice and
cane by hand, and sisal or henequen by hand.  There is not doubt that
Mozambique's process is an example of political talent, of political
awareness, of revolutionary convictions.  That is why I believe that
Comrade Samora Machel constitutes one of the great historic merits.
[applause] We know what Africa is, what colonialism left behind in Africa.
We know it very well, in Angola, in Ethiopia, in Mozambique, in
Guinea-Bissau, in the Republic of Guinea, in Congo, everywhere.  We have
been everywhere. [portion indistinct apparently due to transmission
difficulties] Imperialism and colonialism left behind in Ethiopia-I repeat
it because we must learn it by heart--150,000 lepers, 450,000 persons
suffering from tuberculosis, 6 or 7 million suffering from malaria and 14
million with eye infections, 90 percent illiteracy, undernourishment--that
is what imperialism and neocolonialism left behind in Africa.

And, in addition, only 125 physicians.  Those were generally trained in
their universities and lived in the capital and no one would make move one
kilometer away from the capital.

When the books of imperialism and colonialism are read, it is good to have
clear ideas, but it is also good to have clear examples that would teach us
and tell us what imperialism represented and what colonialism represented.
How, these peoples achieving independence have to face up to all those
problems together, such as underdevelopment, poverty, undernourishment,
diseases, illiteracy, without industries, without modern agriculture, even
though they might have great natural resources.  They have to do that in a
world in an economy in crisis as a result of all this capitalist madness,
with a contraction in the markets and so forth.  Then, we also have an
unequal balance of trade, an unequal balance of trade. Anything has to be
produced by hand to trade it for equipment which, if in the past was worth
5,000 pesos, now is worth 40,000.  If a truck was worth 5,000 in the past,
now it is worth 40,000.  It has increased in price eight times, but what
you produce has not increased in value eight times.  In this process it
might have increased in value two or three times.  What you have only
increased two times in price, and sometimes not even two.

Look at the price of sugar, its value is seven cents and a little more.  It
is twice what the price was 15 years ago.  But, let us say I buy a truck,
an omnibus, go to the capitalist market to buy a truck, an omnibus.  It is
priced at seven or eight times more.  Go to buy a factory of any kind, its
value is seven or eight times more.  Now, I told you about the natural
resources they have.  Yet, there are great rivers with great potential, but
what do they have now?  What do they have now?  They collect cashew nuts.
They are great producers of cashew nuts.  Imagine how many cashew nuts have
to be collected, dried, packed and shipped.  The cashew nut is cheap [to
produce], so the world, those who have money, can eat them.  The Africans
cannot even dream about eating cashew nuts, because if they do, they would
not be able to buy even a pin.  They, of course, do not produce pins.  They
are produced only by industrialized countries.  Cashew nuts for Paris, New
York, London, Lisbon and so forth.  How many cashew nuts have to be
collected to buy one truck?

In addition, they produce henequen.  You know what that is.  One has to be
careful when one bends down so that one would not be jabbed in the
forehead, or eyes, or face.  Well, they cut henequen and cultivate henequen
to export it to buy a piece of machinery.  Well, anything one buys from
energy to industrial equipment...[leaves thought unfinished] they cultivate
cotton by hand and export a little cotton.  They cultivate tea by hand and
export a little tea.  It has to be picked leaf by leaf.  You know how to
pick tea?  Well, over there, the British standard of living is very high.
One hour of British labor is equal to 30 or 40 hours of Mozambique.  The
price is cheap.  They buy it cheap, but the truck they sell at a very high
price.  Any industrial equipment or semimanufactured product is sold at a
high price.  How many tea leaves have to be picked to buy a factor?

I have cited the examples of the cashew nuts, cotton picked boll by boll,
tea picked leaf by leaf, sisal leaf by leaf, and what else do they have?
You produce a little sugar which is cut by hand in very warm weather.  You
also have copra.  One has to climb the coconut tree and cut them one by
one.  How many coconuts have to be cut from a tree to buy a tractor?  With
these examples I am citing, I am trying to explain the tragedy of the
underdeveloped world and the unequal trade balance.

In the metallurgical industry, when you make a machine from a ton of steel
its price multiplies six or seven times.  The price of that machine goes
sky high [in exchange] for cashew nuts, sisal and dry coconut meat.  That
is the tragedy and it is one of the world's most difficult problems--how
the problems of the underdeveloped countries, which represent the immense
majority of mankind, are going to be solved.  This has to be said.

One has to take a bus now, if possible, and this is difficult in Havana
now.  One has to get medicine, and if one wants to, he should be able to
rest for a day, see a movie and have a right to life.  How are these
problems going to be faced without socialism, without a scientific
doctrine, without the unity of progressive and revolutionary forces,
without an effort to change these conditions that exist in the world?

Comrade Samora Machel, with a very clear political viewpoint, not only
helped and worked hard to create the bases for a party, dissemination of a
doctrine, a program, a goal, but he also was consistent in doing this and
extraordinarily expanded his relations with the socialist countries and the
progressive movement.  I do not want to go on this much more but I want to
add that Mozambique is also near Zimbabwe, Zimbabwe for Africans and
Rhodesia for the racists.  It is near South Africa.  It has thousands of
kilometers of borders with those racist, fascist and colonialist and, to be
clearer yet, colonized countries.  Mozambique is attacked, economically
blockaded, frequently attacked by the racists who are at the service of
fascism, at the service of colonialism, at the service of the hateful
racism.  In other words, Mozambique is in the forefront of the trenches of
the struggle for the liberation of peoples and against racism.

And Mozambique has not hesitated in giving its maximum support to the
revolutionary movement.  It closed its borders with racist Rhodesia which
oppresses more than 6 million Africans.  They [Mozambique] were receiving
considerable revenues for the railroad and 40,000 workers were employed by
the railroad, and Mozambique, fulfilling the spirit of the decisions made
by the United Nations, closed the border, making great economic sacrifices
with that action, including the employment of tens of thousands of workers,
and this was not translated into assistance from the United Nations or
consideration for Mozambique.  In other words, they maintain an
internationalism position that is firm and consistent.

We had the honor of visiting that country and of making contacts with the
leaders of Mozambique and its people, and we know of the hard and difficult
conditions under which they are struggling.

When I spoke of what Mozambique is living, it must be added that it lives
off those things I said and off the 200,000 Mozambique peoples who are
working in the South African Mines.  Those were the jobs that the
colonialists created; they furnished cheap labor to the South African
racists.  In this way, 200,000 Mozambique people work in the mines of the
South African racists and this is one of the revenues Mozambique has, of
the modest revenues Mozambique has.

Mozambique is experiencing a blockade.  The South African racists do not
want a supply spare parts.  Just as parts came here from the north, parts
there traditionally come from the south, from South Africa, which has been
creating all the problems it can [for Mozambique].  So, there are the
conditions of life of Mozambique.  I believe that this can give you an idea
of what FRELIMO has represented and what Comrade Samora Machel represents
for us.  His visit is truly a great honor.

We, to the extent of our capabilities, are offering some cooperation to the
people of Mozambique.  Since we are a small nation and an underdeveloped
country, although we are in a better situation than Mozambique, we cannot
do much, but we try to contribute with something. We have some doctors,
nurses, sugar technicians, livestock technicians, agricultural technicians,
fishing, construction and transportation technicians [in Mozambique].  In
sum, there are about 300 Cubans in Mozambique working in these fields and
the time will come when there will be slightly more than 400.  We are also
offering all the experiences of the revolution and we have already had some
experience, and this will help them to avoid mistakes and be able to
accelerate their process.

We also offer them scholarships to study in our country and there are four
schools to which secondary level students are coming to quickly prepare
themselves in our country until the day they can build their own schools in
equal or greater numbers than we are building.

We are cooperating with them in the international arena.  We are closely
linked in our relations with the socialist camp and revolutionary movement.
We will continue struggling for them politically, trying by all possible
means to cooperate and thereby fulfill an elemental internationalist duty.
[applause]  We cannot be egotistical.  We cannot wish everything for
ourselves.  We already have three times as many doctors as we did at the
triumph of the revolution.  We have more than 8,000 young boys at the
medical school; 3,000 entered that school this year; 4,000 will enter in
1980; and the number entering medical school will continue to increase; and
we will have all the doctors we want to have.  As Guillen [Cuban poet] has
said, we will have whatever number of doctors and technicians we want, and
not only for ourselves.  We are sharing a little of our technical resources
with other countries that are in a worse situation than we are.  These
countries are in a much worse situation than we are.  In fact, there is no
possible comparison between the number of doctors.  We already have one
doctor per less than 1,000 persons.  There is a doctor per 900 persons in
this country.

Mozambique has received doctors from abroad.  If it only had those 45
[mentioned earlier] it would have a doctor or 2 doctors per 200,000
persons.  It would have 200 times fewer doctors than we have.  Different
countries, including Cuba, have sent doctors and they now have a total of
400 doctors or 1 doctor for each 25,000 inhabitants who take care of the
hospitals, save lives and do perform such tasks.  We are making our modest
contribution.  I believe that is is very important that these situations be
seen clearly throughout the world and that all revolutionaries and all the
world's progressive men weigh this heavy and truly tragic problem--how the
problem of the underdeveloped countries, which represent the immense
majority of mankind, are going to be solved.

You already can imagine how much they have to learn and develop with 90
percent illiteracy, and when they have to build a factory of anything, you
know what it is to build a factory; workers are required to handle the
equipment, cranes, highly qualified fitters.  We have gone through that
experience, and now it is good that after so many years we have industrial
construction brigades.  When they will have to build a small factor, [they
will face]--these problems, and [how about]--the equipment and capital
required to do it?  Our question is and the question which all of us
progressive men of the world must ask is this:  How must we work and how
can the problems of the underdeveloped world be solved?

I do not want to speak more.  My role here was to introduce comrade Samora
Machel.  We had the opportunity to get to know him and he left a big
impression in all the comrades in our delegation because of his career, his
talent, his political quality, his leadership capability.  We saw him there
with the people and we saw how he communicates with the people.  The
Mozambique people perhaps are better conversationists than we are a a
little more bustling, and in different ways, singing and with revolutionary
songs, he is establishing order.  He is the only leader I have seen with
more ability to achieve getting attention and in establishing order
[applause] at a meeting.  We were discussing here if we should use a
translator can be here nearby and if there is a word that is not
understood...[Castro leaves though unfinished].  But it seems to me that
since he is very expressive it will not be difficult for your to understand
him.  We are going to understand him even if he speaks in Portuguese.
Therefore, I yield to Comrade Samora Machel. [applause]  Fatherland or
death?  We will win. [applause]