Summary+of+2+speeches+by+Dr+Fidel+Castro

=== **1. Speech by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, at the ceremony commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Cuban Military Mission in Angola and the 49th anniversary of the landing of the 'Granma', Revolutionary Armed Forces Day, December 2, 2005.** ===


 * The history of imperialist and neocolonial plunder and pillage by Europe in Africa, backed to the hilt by the United States and NATO, as well as the heroic Cuban solidarity with its sister nations, have not been fully known, if only as well-deserved recognition for the hundreds of thousands of men and women who wrote that glorious page of history, which should be an eternal example to present and future generations.


 * In the case of Angola, the largest and richest of the Portuguese colonies, the situation was totally different. Washington launched a covert plan to rob the Angolan people of its legitimate rights and install a puppet government. Its main lever was its alliance with South Africa, involving joint training and equipping of the organizations set up by Portuguese colonialism to thwart Angolan independence and turn the country into a condominium of the corrupt Mobutu and fascist South Africa, whose troops it did not hesitate to use to invade Angola.


 * In mid-1975, the Zaire army and mercenary forces reinforced with South African heavy weapons and military advisers launched fresh attacks in northern Angola, reaching the outskirts of Luanda. However, the major threat was in the south: South African armoured columns in the south were advancing rapidly deep into the territory, with the aim of occupying Luanda with a combined force of racist South African and Mobutu's mercenary troops, before the proclamation of independence on November 11.


 * At no time did the US president, or his powerful Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, or the US intelligence services, even imagined the possibility of participation by Cuba. Never before had a Third World country acted to support another people in an armed conflict beyond its geographical neighbourhood.


 * The resounding victories in //Cuito Cuanavale//, especially the devastating advance by the powerful Cuban contingent in southwest Angola, spelled the end of foreign aggression. The enemy had to set aside its usual arrogance and sit down at the negotiating table. The talks culminated in the Peace Accords for Southern Africa, signed by South Africa, Angola and Cuba at the UN headquarters in December 1988.


 * The internationalist mission was fully accomplished. Our troops came back to the homeland with heads held high, taking with them only the friendship of the Angolan people, the weapons they had wielded with honour and bravery thousands of miles away from their homeland, the satisfaction of duty done and the glorious mortal remains of our fallen brothers and sisters. Their contribution was decisive in consolidating Angola's independence and achieving that of Namibia. It was also a significant contribution to the liberation of Zimbabwe and the demise of South Africa's repugnant apartheid regime.


 * That heroic saga has never been told in full. On its 30th anniversary, American imperialism went out of its way to prevent any mention of Cuba even at the commemorative ceremonies. To cap it all, it tried to rewrite history: Cuba, it seems, never played any part at all in Angolan independence, Namibian independence or the defeat of the until-then invincible army of apartheid. In fact, Cuba doesn't even exist; it's a figment of people's imagination. It is as if the US government had absolutely nothing to do with the hundreds of thousands of Angolan dead, the thousands of villages razed to the ground, the millions of landmines planted in Angolan territory, where they still take the lives of many children, women and other civilians.


 * We shall continue to withstand the effects of the embargo, which will be defeated one day by the dignity of the Cuban people, the solidarity among the peoples, the near total opposition of the international community --as was demonstrated yet again by the voting at the UN-- and by growing opposition on the part of the American public to an absurd policy that flagrantly violates their constitutional rights.

Ambassadors of Angola, South Africa and Namibia present expressed their appreciation for the Island’s solidarity and for the Cuban blood left on African soil.

=== **2. Speech delivered by Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz, President of the Republic of Cuba, at the Commemoration of the 60th Anniversary of his admission to University of Havana, in the Aula Magna of the University of Havana,on November 17, 2005.** ===


 * The kind of world we are living in it is not a world full of goodness, but a world full of egoism. It is not a world of justice, but one full of exploitation, abuse and pillage, where millions of children die every year –and they could be saved--, just because they are lacking a few cents worth of medicine, or some vitamins or re-hydration salts and a few dollars worth of food, enough for them to live. Cuban President Fidel Castro gave a detailed analysis of the critical moment in which humanity lives, in front of students, professors and youth leaders.


 * New things come up every day. Recently, the press reported that the US government had secret prisons in the satellite countries of Eastern Europe, the same countries that vote in Geneva against Cuba and accuse her of human rights violations. They accuse the country that has never known a torture centre in 46 years of Revolution, because our country has never broken that unparallel tradition in history where not one man has been tortured, that not one person has been known to be tortured. And we would not the only ones preventing that, it would be our own people that acquired a long time ago an extremely lofty concept of human dignity.


 * Even today, the empire is threatening to attack Iran if nuclear fuel is produced there. Nuclear fuel is not nuclear weapon; it’s not nuclear bombs. To prevent a country from producing the fuel of the future is like forbidding someone to prospect for oil, the fuel of the present, which is due to run out in a very short time. What country in the world is prevented from seeking fuel, coal, gas or oil? We know that country very well. It is a country with 70 million inhabitants bent on its industrial development and believing, quite correctly, that it is a great crime to use its gas or oil reserves to feed the potential of thousands of millions of kilowatt hours urgently needed by this Third World country for its industrial development. And there we find the empire forbidding them and threatening to attack with bombs. There is already an international debate on what day and at what time a pre-emptive attack will be launched on the research centres for production of nuclear fuel and on whether it will be the empire that does it, or its satellite Israel as it was the case in Iraq.


 * In 30 more years, oil reserves will run dry. Presently, 80% of oil is in the hands of Third World countries, since other countries have already depleted their reserves. Such is the case of the United States which had an enormous reserve of oil and gas that will barely last a few more years. That is why the US is trying to secure possession of oil by any means possible, in any corner of the world. However, that source of energy is running low and in 25 or 30 years, there will only be one fundamental energy source for the production of electricity, the nuclear, with some solar and wind energy sources. The day is far when hydrogen may become the ideal fuel, through still emerging technologies. Meanwhile, mankind has reached a certain level of technical development and cannot live without fuel. This is one present problem.


 * Firstly, nobody should have the right to manufacture nuclear weapons. There should be no privileges for imperialism to impose its hegemonic rule and to take the natural resources and raw materials away from the nations of the Third World. We have denounced that a thousand times, but that is not the solution. The first solution for any Third World country is to not fear the empire; we have always acted that way and they are beginning to feel demoralized


 * The world is desperately crying out for unity and if we cannot achieve a minimum of unity, we are not going to go anywhere. I believe that sooner rather than later the empire will disintegrate and the American people will enjoy more freedom than ever, they will be able to aspire to more justice than ever before; they will be able to use science and technology for their own improvement and for the betterment of humanity; they will be able to join all of us who fight for the survival of the species; they will be able to join all of us who fight for opportunities for the human species.


 * We have a different type of nuclear weapon: it’s our ideas. We possess a weapon as powerful as nuclear power and it is the immense justice for which we are struggling. Our nuclear weapon is the invincible power of moral weapons. That is why we have never even considered producing them, nor have we ever considered seeking biological weapons, what for? It is to the weapons that defeat death, that defeat AIDS and cancer that we dedicate our resources.