Cuba Supports the Declaration of Havana at Plaza Civica (current Plaza de la Revolucion) where over one million people representing the entire country gathered to constitute the  General Assembly of the People of Cuba to reply on behalf of the people of Cuba and of Latin America to the Declaration of San José.

 
THE HAVANA DECLARATION OF 1960
by Fidel Castro Ruz

Close to the monument and the memory of Jose Marti, in Cuba, free
territory of America, the people, in the full exercise of the inalienable
powers that proceed from the true exercise of the sovereignty expressed in
the direct, universal and public suffrage, has constituted itself in a
National General Assembly.

Acting on its own behalf and echoing the true sentiments of the people
of Our America, the National General Assembly of the people of Cuba:

1)   Condemns in all its terms the so called "Declaration of San José," a document dictated by the North American imperialism that is
detrimental to the national self-determination, the sovereignty and the
dignity of the sister nations of the Continent.

2)   The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba,
energetically condemns the overt and criminal intervention exerted by North
American imperialism for more than a century over all the nations of Latin
America, which have seen their lands invaded more than once in Mexico,
Nicaragua, Haiti, Santo Domingo or Cuba; have lost, through the voracity of
Yankee imperialism, huge and rich areas, such as Texas, vital strategic
centers, such as the Panama Canal, whole countries, such as Puerto Rico,
which has been converted into an occupied territory; and have suffered,
moreover, the outrageous treatment dealt by the Marines to our women and
daughters as well as to the highest symbols of our history, such as the
effigy of Jose Marti.

This intervention, based upon military superiority, unfair treaties and
the miserable submission of treacherous rulers, throughout 100 years has
been turning our America -- the America that Bolivar, Hidalgo, Juarez, San
Martin, O'Higgins, Sucre and Marti wanted free -- into areas of
exploitation, the backyard of the political and financial Yankee empire, a
reserve of votes for the international organizations in which the Latin
American countries have been appearing only as droves of beasts behind the
"restless and brutal North that despises us."

The National General Assembly of the People declares that the
acceptance by the Governments that officially represent the countries
of Latin America of that continued and historically irrefutable
intervention betrays the ideals of independent of its peoples, destroys its
sovereignty and prevents true solidarity among our nations, all of which
obliges this assembly to repudiate it in the name of the people of Cuba,
with a voice that echoes the hope and decision of the Latin American people
and the liberating accent of the immortal patriots of Our America.

3)   The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba rejects
likewise, the intention of preserving the Monroe Doctrine, used until now,
as foreseen by Jose Marti, "to extend the domination in America" of the
voracious imperialists, to better inject the poison also denounced in his
time by Jose Marti, "the poison of the loans, the canals, the railroads..."
Therefore, in the presence of a hypocritical Panamericanism which is only
the predominance of Yankee monopolies over the interests of our people and
Yankee handling of governments prostrated before Washington, the Assembly
of the People of Cuba proclaims the liberating Latinamericanism that throbs
in Marti and Benito Juarez. And, upon extending its friendship to the North
American people--a country where Negroes are lynched, intellectual are
persecuted and workers are forced to accept the leadership of
gangsters--reaffirms its will to march "with all the world and not with
just a part of it."

4)   The National General Assembly of the People declares that the
spontaneous help offered by the Soviet Union to Cuba in the event our
country is attacked by the imperialist military forces could never be
considered as an act of intrusion,but that it constitutes an evident act of
solidarity, and that such help, offered to Cuba in the case of an imminent
attack by the Yankee Pentagon, honors the Government of the Soviet Union
that offered it, as much as the cowardly and criminal aggressions against
Cuba dishonored the Government of the United States.  Therefore, the
General Assembly of the People declares, before America and before the
world, that it accepts and is grateful for the support of the Soviet
Union's rockets, should its territory be invaded by military forces of the
United States.

5)   The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba categorically
denies the existence of any purpose whatsoever on the part of the Soviet
Union and the Chinese People's Republic to "use Cuba's political, economic
and social situation... to jeopardize the continental unity and endanger
the unity of the hemisphere."  From the first to the last shot, from the
first to the last of the twenty thousand martyrs who died in the struggle
to overthrow the tyranny and win revolutionary power, from the first to the
last revolutionary law, from the first to the last act of the revolution,
the people of Cuba have acted with free and absolute self-determination,
and, therefore, the Soviet Union or the Chinese People's Republic cannot be
blamed for the existence of a Revolution which is Cuba's firm reply to the
crimes and wrongs perpetrated by imperialism in America.

On the other hand, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba
maintains that the policy of isolation and hostility toward the Soviet
Union and the Chinese People's Republic, promoted and imposed by the United
States Government upon the Governments of Latin America, and the
belligerent and aggressive conduct of the North American Government, as
well as its systematic opposition to the acceptance of the Chinese People's
Republic as a member of the United Nations, despite its representing almost
the total population of a country of over 600 million inhabitants, do
endanger the peace and security of the hemisphere and the world.
Therefore, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba ratifies its
policy of friendship with all the peoples of the world, reaffirms its
purpose of establishing diplomatic relations with all the socialist
countries also, and, from this moment, in full exercise of its sovereignty
and free will, expresses to the Government of the Chinese People's republic
that it agrees to establish diplomatic relations between both countries
and that, therefore, the relations that Cuba has maintained until now with
the puppet regime, which is supported in Formosa by the vessels of the
Seventh Fleet, are hereby rescinded.

6)   The National General Assembly of the People reaffirms -- and is
certain of doing so as an expression of a view [Unreadable text] to all the
people of Latin America--the democracy is incompatible with the financial
oligarchy, racial discrimination and the outrages of the Klu Klux Klan, the
persecution that deprived scientists like Oppenheimer of their positions,
that prevented the world from hearing for many years the wonderful voice of
Paul Robeson, imprisoned in his own country, and that killed the
Rosenbergs, in spite of the protest and horror of the world and the appeal
of rulers from many countries, including Pope Plus XII.

The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba expresses its
conviction that democracy cannot consists only in an electoral vote, which
is almost always fictitious and handled by big landholders and professional
politicians, but in the rights of citizens to decide, as this Assembly of
the People is now doing, their own destiny.  Moreover, democracy will only
exist in Latin America when its people are really free to choose, when the
humble people are not reduced--by hunger, social inequality, illiteracy and
the judicial systems--to the most degrading impotence.

For all the foregoing reasons, the National General Assembly of the
People of Cuba:

Condemns the large states, a source of poverty for the peasants and a
backward and inhuman agricultural system; condemns starvation wages and the
iniquitous exploitation of human labor by immoral and privileged interests;
condemns illiteracy, the lack of teachers, of schools, of doctors and
hospitals, the lack of protection to old age that prevails in Latin
America; condemns the inequality and exploitation of women; condemns the
discrimination of the Negro and the Indian; condemns the military and
political oligarchies that keep our peoples in utter poverty, block their
democratic development and the full exercise of their sovereignty; condemns
the granting of our countries' natural resources to the foreign monopolies
as a submissive policy that betrays the interests of the people and yield
to the directives from Washington; condemns the systematic deceiving of the
people by the publicity media that serve the interests of the oligarchies
and the policies of oppressive imperialism, condemns the news monopoly by
Yankee agencies, which are both instruments of the North American trusts
and agents of Washington; condemns the repressive laws that prevent
workers, peasants, students and intellectuals, in short, the great majority
of each country, from organizing themselves and fighting for the
realization of their social and patriotic aspirations; condemns the
monopolies and imperialistic organizations that continuously loot our
wealth, exploit our workers and peasants, bleed and keep in backwardness
our economies, and submit the political life of Latin America to the sway
of their own designs and interests.

In short, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba condemns,
both the exploitation of man by man and the exploitation of under-developed
countries by imperialistic financial capital.

Therefore, the National General Assembly of the People of Cuba
proclaims before America:

The right of peasants to the land; the right of workers to the fruit of
their work; the right of children to education; the right of sick people to
medical and hospital attention; the right of youth to work; the right of
students to free, experimental and scientific education; the right of
Negroes and Indians to "the full dignity of man;" the right of women to
civil, social and political equality; the right of the aged to a secure old
age; the right of intellectuals, artists and scientists to fight, with
their works, for a better world; the right of States to nationalize
imperialist monopolies, thus rescuing their wealth and national resources;
the right of nations to trade freely with all peoples of the world; the
right of nations to their full sovereignty; the right of nations to turn
fortresses into schools, and to arm their workers, their peasants, their
students, their intellectuals, the Negro, the Indian, the women, the young
and the old, the oppressed and exploited people, so that they may defend,
by themselves, their rights and their destinies.

7)   The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba proclaims

The duty of peasants, workers, intellectuals, Negroes, Indians, young
and old, and women, to fight for their economic, political and social
claims; the duty of oppressed and exploited nations to fight for their
liberation; the duty of each nation to make common cause with all the
oppressed, colonized, exploited or attacked peoples, regardless of their
location in the world or the geographical distance that may separate them.
All the peoples of the world are brothers!

8)   The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba reaffirms its
faith in that Latin America will be marching soon, united and triumphant,
free from the bindings that turn their economies into wealth relinquished
to North American Imperialism and prevent its true voice from being hard at
the meetings where domesticated Chancellors form an infamous chorus led by
their despotic masters.  Therefore, it ratifies its decision of working for
that common Latin American destiny that will enable our countries to build
a true solidarity, based upon the free will of each of them and the joints
aspirations of all.  In the struggle for such Latin America, in opposition
to the obedient voices of those who usurp its official representation,
there arises now, with invincible power, the genuine voice of the people, a
voice that forges ahead from the heart of its tin and coal mines, from its
factories and sugar mills, from its feudal-types of lands, where "rotos,"
"Cholos," "Gauchos," "Jibaros," heirs of Zapata and Sandino, grip the
weapons for their freedom, a voice that resounds in its poets and
novelists, in its students, in its wives and children, in its vigilant old
people.

To that friendly voice, the Assembly of the People of Cuba answers:

Present!  Cuba shall not fail.  Cuba is here today to ratify, before
Latin America and before the world, as a historical commitment, its
irrevocable dilemma: Fatherland or Death.

9)  The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba resolves that
this declaration be known as "The Havana Declaration."


"...This declaration, once submitted to the consideration of the people
of Cuba, we shall ask all revolutionary organizations of America, all
workers' unions, all student, intellectual and artistic organizations, all
revolutionaries in America, to support it.  It bears the prestige of the
democratic contribution of our people, for what must be emphasized, and we
shall always emphasize, is that this Revolution reached power by the will
of the people, governs for the people, and is held in power by the backing
of the people..."  The foregoing words were uttered by the Leader of the
Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, as the great Assembly of the People of
Cuba, summoned to reply to the Declaration of Saint Joseph, which was
approved by the Organization of American States, and in which, through the
pressure of imperialism and the submission of the Latin American
Chancelleries, the firm and courageous attitude of the revolutionary people
of Cuba, in defense of its agrarian, anti-imperialist, democratic, national
and liberating revolution, was condemned.

Carrying out the command of the General Assembly of the People,
expressed in the foregoing words by the leader of the Cuban Revolution,
Fidel Castro, we submit to your consideration the text of this historic
document, approved in said General Assembly, and request your adherence to
this resolution, which is the expression of our people's will to conquer or
perish, as well as the free voice of Our America, a victim of the
oppression of imperialism and its National allies: the big landholders, the
political and military oligarchs, the national traitors!

Carrying out the command of the General Assembly of the People,
expressed in the foregoing words by the leader of the Cuban Revolution,
Fidel Castro, we submit to your consideration the text of this historic
document, approved in said General Assembly, and request your adherence to
this resolution, which is the expression of our people's will to conquer or
perish, as well as the free voice of Our America, a victim of the
oppression of imperialism and its National allies: the big landholders, the
political and military oligarchs, the national traitors!

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