Below is an excerpt from To Speak the Truth: Why Washington’s ‘Cold War’ against Cuba Doesn’t End. This selection of speeches by Cuban revolutionaries Ernesto Che Guevara and Fidel Castro is one of Pathfinder’s Books of the Month for September. The specific excerpt printed here is from a speech given by Guevara at the UN-sponsored Conference on Trade and Development in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 25, 1964. Copyright © 1992 by Pathfinder Press. Reprinted by permission.

BY ERNESTO CHE GUEVARA  
The various forms of discrimination that hamper trade, and that make it easier for the imperialists to manipulate a range of primary commodities and a number of countries producing those commodities, are still being maintained. In the nuclear age, it is simply absurd to classify products such as copper and other minerals as strategic materials and to prevent trade in them. Yet this policy has been maintained and is maintained to this day. There is also talk of so-called incompatibilities between state monopoly of foreign trade and the forms of trading adopted by the capitalist countries. Using that pretext, discriminatory relations, quotas, etc., are established—maneuvers in which GATT has played a dominant role under the official guise of combating unfair trade practices. Discrimination against state trading not only serves as a weapon against the socialist countries but is also designed to prevent the underdeveloped countries from adopting any of the most urgent measures needed to strengthen their negotiating position on the international market and to counteract the actions of the monopolies.

The suspension of economic aid by international agencies to countries adopting the socialist system of government is a further variation on the same theme. A common practice of the International Monetary Fund in recent years has been to attack bilateral payment agreements with socialist countries and to impose on its weaker members a policy of opposing this type of relations between peoples.

As we have already pointed out, all these discriminatory measures imposed by imperialism have the dual object of blockading the socialist camp and strengthening the exploitation of the underdeveloped countries.

It is undeniable that present-day prices are unfair. It is equally true that those prices are conditioned by monopoly restriction of markets and by the establishment of political relationships that make free competition a term applied one-sidedly: free competition for the monopolies—a free fox among free chickens.

Quite apart from the agreements that may emanate from this conference, opening up the large and growing markets of the socialist camp would help to raise raw material prices. The world has plenty of hunger, but not enough money to buy food. And paradoxically in the underdeveloped world, in the world of hunger, projects for increasing food production—that is, to be able to eat—are actually discouraged in order to maintain present prices. This is the inexorable law of the philosophy of plunder, which must cease to be the rule in relations between peoples.

Furthermore, it would be feasible for some underdeveloped countries to export manufactured goods to the socialist countries and even make long-term agreements so as to enable some nations to make better use of their natural wealth and specialize in certain branches of industry that would enable them to participate in world trade as producers of manufactured products. All this can be complemented by the supplying of long-term credits for the development of the industries, or branches of industry, we are considering. It must always be borne in mind, however, that certain measures with respect to relations between socialist countries and underdeveloped countries cannot be taken unilaterally.

It is a strange paradox that while in its reports the United Nations is forecasting adverse trends in the foreign trade of the underdeveloped countries, and while Dr. Prebisch, the secretary-general of the conference, is stressing the dangers that will arise if this state of affairs persists, there is still talk of the feasibility—and in some cases the necessity, as with the so-called strategic materials—of discriminating against certain states because they belong to the socialist camp.
 
 
Related articles:
Cuban revolutionary Fernando Martínez touring UK:
To triumph, revolution in Cuba went beyond ‘politics of the possible’
Cuban gov’t takes presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home