Fidel Castro - CASTRO DELIVERS SPEECH AT PRESIDENTIAL PALACE lyrics

[Speech by Fidel Castro; Havana, Revolucion, Spanish, 17 January 1959] (Speaking to the legion of workers who gathered to show their support of and gratitude to the revolutionary government in advance of the Wednesday meeting, Doctor Fidel Castro spoke as follows:) I was to attend a meeting with the electrical workers this evening, but on arriving at the premises of the CTC [Central de Trabajadores de Cuba -- Central Organization of Cuban Workers], I found that they had been summoned to a gathering in front of the Palace to demonstrate their support of revolutionary justice. However, it is not a ceremony which we are holding. This is a simple gathering to prepare for that which is scheduled, to make preparations in time, so that all the people can come. It is not good to have called together only a part of the people. No one knew about this meeting. If everyone had known, the crowd would extend to the breakwater. The problem is that the people of Cuba want to meet out justice and the enemies of the Cuban revolution do not want this. Naturally, those who did not live here in Havana, in Santiago or in Las Villas under the terror of Ventura, of Pilar Garcia, of Irenaldo Garcia, or Chaviano are now sympathizing with the poor ruffians, the poor little ruffians. But here there is a problem more important than all of this. Here we are discussing the sovereignty of the country, the right of the people of Cuba to govern their own fate. Therefore, to show to the entire world the will of the people of Cuba, their determination to continue advancing, their irrevocable pledge to defend the revolution against any enemy, we will organize the most gigantic ma** gathering ever seen in our country. In a survey made by a reputable firm, it was found that 90 percent of the people favored shooting the ruffians, and that 3 percent opposed it. Now then, I believe that after the attacks made upon our fatherland, I believe that after the insolent intervention in the domestic affairs of Cuba, the three percent is dwindling, too, and I am certain that now they favor shooting the ruffians. But this must be demonstrated, and we are going to demonstrate it next Wednesday at 2 in the afternoon. We are going to ask the attendance, the cooperation, first of all, of all the workers' trade unions, all the civic institutions, all the student groups, of industry and trade, so that all of the people as a ma** will gather in front of the Presidential Palace demanding justice, in a ceremony urging justice and urging that the United States return the war criminals and the millions of pesos carried off (shout of "And the refugees"). I will explain to you what happened with the refugees. We could not, where the right of asylum was concerned, fall into the same practices as Batista did. As of the time they went there and the emba**ies agreed to give them asylum, there was nothing else we could do. We will indeed demand that they be returned. But the attack upon the sovereignty of the country, upon our right to apply justice came from the Congress of the United States, and that is precisely where the Venturas, the Masferrers and the Pilar Garcias have taken refuge, and what we are going to do instead of holding up the shooting of the ruffians is to demand that the United States return to us the ruffians they have there. But not only this, we will demand that they return the millions of pesos which were stolen and which belong to the people of Cuba. We will not have atomic bombs, but we are in the right. We will not have atomic bombs, but justice is on our side, we are in the right, and we are going to demonstrate this and the support of the Cuban people in graphic fashion here, not by paying anyone, as the false governments did, to get them there, but by urging the people to come on foot, even if they have to walk ten leagues to get here. We will appeal to all the people of Havana, of the nearby cities and provinces, to gather here on Wednesday at 2 in the afternoon, and we are going to invite the journalists of the whole world to show them that this is the will of the people of Cuba and that they cannot call the people of Cuba criminal because they want to just to those who have murdered more than 20,000 of their compatriots. When all is said and done, when the total number of ruffians who will be shot is calculated, they come to fewer than the number they murdered in a single town, because there will not be 450 ruffians shot, but at minas de Bueycito alone they murdered 450 unfortunate peasants. And no one got up then in the Congress of the United States to say that Batista was shooting the people of Cuba. But they are getting up there now, serving heaven knows what interests and paid by heaven knows whom to say that we are shooting Cubans, we, the very ones who liberated Cuba from genocide, the very ones who freed China from the gang of a**a**ins who violated women, murdered children and old people. Freed it from the gang of torturers, while no one in the Congress of the United States got up to protest. What they did is to send tanks, guns, planes and bombs. Now that the people of Cuba have triumphed, they want to castrate our revolution, prevent justice from being done, and this is what the people of Cuba will not permit, because they have now grown up considerably and have reached their maturity and are governing themselves. The people of Cuba no longer follow any orders but those of their own government leaders. For the first time, there are a president and a council of ministers and an army not taking orders from abroad. A president, a council of ministers and an army which cannot be bribed or intimidated. For the first time we have a republic of Cuba, never before free in truth, because it wants to be free and because it has a right to be free, and because its freedom has cost it very dear. For the first time there is a government prepared to serve the people exclusively, and for the first time there is a people entirely united under the banner of justice and liberty. This people, full of fervor and enthusiasm, whose men and women are prepared to fight, this people which has interfered with no one, which is but claiming its rights, which is fighting for the happiness it deserves, for those gains which have always been taken from it, the freedom which has always been withheld, the suffering people which for the first time in four centuries is fully master of its fate knows what it has achieved, knows where it is going and will know how to make the sacrifices which are necessary. But the most important thing of all is that if they see that we are weak they attack us, if they see that we are strong and united, they are afraid of us. If they see that we are strong and united, they respect us and now indeed they will not be able to go to Columbia to bribe some generals, because the guns are in the hands of the rebels. Therefore, this is no longer 1901 or 1933, when they interfered here and imposed upon us an amendment which was a shame and a humiliation for the country. In 1933 they bought Batista and he miserably betrayed the people. Now that there is no Platt Amendment nor is there anyone to buy or to bribe, they are beginning to seek to weaken the Cuban revolution with a defamatory campaign slandering a revolution on which the eyes of all America are fixed, slandering it because they do not want it to continue to serve as an example for this America which has suffered so much. They have tried to make an impression on minds in other countries with their international cable dispatches, but in such a way that they have taken the naive in some countries by surprise and they have started to send cable asking that the executions be stopped, as a result of the campaign of slander waged through the international cable agencies. But this is not a problem. They must listen to the people of Cuba, and the answer will be a half a million persons gathered together. I say half a million in order to avoid exaggeration, and the press will come from all over the world and the diplomats, too, to hear the demands of the people of Cuba, and I repeat, what we are going to ask of the government of the United States, because it is from there that the attack came, is the return of the war criminals and the millions of pesos which have been stolen from our country. As we are going to show those who showed their fangs so early that the people of Cuba know how to defend themselves. We are a small but dignified people. We are a small people but one with a very high conscience. We are a small people, but one of great value. And the facts have just proved this: an unarmed and untrained people, subjected to the worst terror ever known in the history of America, has disarmed an army of about 40,000 men. And this can never be achieved without a people truly capable of accomplishing such a feat. And since those gathered here are mainly workers, I must tell you that it was thanks to the workers that the triumph could be complete on 1 January, because when they tried to do the people out of their triumph with a military junta and a puppet government, the revolutionary general strike was the weapon which succeeded in defeating this whole maneuver and putting the weapons in the hands of the revolutionary army. And now this is enough for today, because we must work. All of you will carry the slogan to all of the work sites. You will all devote yourselves to feverish work with a view to the huge gathering next Wednesday, at 2 P.M. Every last worker, every last student, every last citizen should be present there because this will be a decisive test for the people of Cuba, because thus the people of Cuba will speak to the world. We will show that all of the people support justice and defend our national sovereignty. Because the problem here is not that they do not want the murders punished, the problem lies in the fact that -- who are they, to interfere in the domestic problems of Cuba? The problem involves demonstrating that no one has a right to import standards for the people of Cuba from abroad. We must bear witness not only to defend justice and the future of the fatherland and to prevent vengeance in the future, because if the war criminals go unpunished, the members of the families of the victims will believe they have a right to take vengeance into their own hands. But mainly it is a question of defending our right to sovereignty. No one here engages in talk about how we will interfere in Florida, in Virginia or in New York. The very fact that they undertake to make statements to the effect that they certainly are not going to interfere is already an insult, because we do not have freedom because they wanted it, nor because they state that they are not interfering. We have freedom because we won it, because it is a right of all nations in the world, and because, moreover, we know how to defend it. A certain Rudolf, I am not sure what his name is, stated that they were not going to intervene, but rather to exert diplomatic pressure. What do they call this -- shotgun diplomacy? If they want friendly relations let them begin by not threatening, because one cannot have diplomacy behind threats. This is a humiliation, an insult and an imposition. And if they want good relations with the people of Cuba, the first thing they have to do is respect its sovereignty and never speak again of whether there will be intervention or not, because we have never talked of whether or not we would interfere in the United States, and we are equals, we have the same rights. This, fellow countrymen -- the right, respect for the people of Cuba, the right to our sovereignty -- this is what we are going to defend with our ma** attendance. Thus there is no need for weapons. We are going to defend our sovereignty by means of public opinion and reason, because when the entire world sees half a million Cubans gathered here, we will have won the sympathy of the whole world. The people of Cuba are wholly united together today as never before in defense of their rights, above partisan considerations, because here the parties are finished, here only the fatherland counts. The entire world will see half a million Cubans gathered here, and if all who wanted could come, there would be six million. We are going to tell the world that the criminals are not Cubans, that the people of Cuba who want to punish the ruffians are not criminals, that the criminals in any case are those who said not a word while the Cuban people were being ma**acred. Those who while our people fought for their liberty and while scores of bodies were being found in the streets sent tanks, guns and bombs to the dictatorship. And the truth from the months of half a million Cubans will be a truth which will reach the entire world, a message which the whole world will understand. This truth will be much stronger than the lies with their evil intent spread by the mercenary cable agencies paid by Batista and by the interests inimicable to the republic. For this reason, fellow countrymen, to summarize, this is but a preliminary gathering. The slogan is: half a million Cubans in front of the Presidential Palace of the Provisional Revolutionary Government manifesting their support of justice and demanding the return of the war criminals and millions of pesos of which the republic has been robbed. -END-