Maintaining the high pitch of his revolutionary rhetoric, Cuban President Fidel Castro addressed the closing session of the three-day Group of 77 heads of state conference in Havana, describing the “current economic world order” as “cruel, unjust, inhuman and racist,” according to official Cuban sources.
Castro declared that the First World — the United States, Western Europe and Japan — could no longer lead the world because it is “incapable of preserving the human race.”
The Cuban president’s remarks were reported by Radio Habana Cuba, the official broadcasting service of the Cuban government.
Castro’s statements at the closing session of the G-77 summit echoed the sentiments contained in his address to the opening session of the conference, when he called for “the current economic world order” to stand trial before an international tribunal similar to the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals following World War II.
Every three years, the “current model of globalization” is responsible for killing more people from hunger and curable diseases than died in the six years of WWII, according to Castro’s address to the first G-77 conference.
The G-77 is an association of third-world nations founded in 1964 with 77 members and which now includes 133 states.
The conference held in Havana was the first of the G-77 meetings to have international heads of state in attendance — 42 national leaders participated in the conference. Those participating resolved to increase mutual cooperation and seek greater cooperation and understanding from the rich, industrialized nations.
In his closing statements, Castro suggested that a one percent tax be levied upon all “speculative financial operations” in order to assist developing nations.
Though Castro’s revolution is over 40 years old, communist Cuba is growing, not diminishing, in international importance. Havana’s hosting of a major world gathering is but one indication of Cuba’s significance on the world’s stage.
Prior to the G-77 conference, the presidents of Vietnam and Venezuela visited Castro to sign new trade deals. The Vietnamese delegation explored means of general economic cooperation, while Venezuela negotiated an oil agreement with the Cuban government.
Following the conference, a number of visiting delegations remained in Havana to discuss trade and development issues.
Cuban representatives are active in various areas of the world. The British government has invited a Cuban delegation to meet oil executives in Scotland, and discussions are in progress concerning the possibility of British oil exploration off Cuban shores in the Gulf of Mexico.
In Geneva, Switzerland, Cuba recently won re-election to a seat on the Human Rights Commission of the United Nations — against strong U.S. opposition.
Ironically, communist Cuba is joined by Stalinist Belarus on the U.N. Human Rights Commission. Both nations have a particularly bad reputation for abusing certain sectors of their citizenry, and both share a generally lax view of human rights.
Castro has kept continuity with the revolutionary zeal of the past. The Cuban government continues its program of locating, identifying and acquiring the bodies of fallen revolutionary heroes.
In Bolivia recently, Cuban forensic experts discovered an additional two bodies of guerrilla fighters who were part of Che Guevara’s band of revolutionaries operating in that country. The remains of the two will be taken from Bolivia and reburied in the Che Guevara memorial in Cuba, along with 30 of their previously located comrades.
In Cuba today, business is business, but the business of Castro’s Cuba remains The Revolution.