`The bells will toll for all humanity'

Reprinted here is the text of the speech given on November 16 by Cuban President Fidel Castro, at the World Food Summit, held in Rome at the headquarters of the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation.

Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the result of the unequal distribution of wealth and of the injustices of this world. The rich do not know hunger. Colonialism was no stranger to the underdevelopment and poverty that today is suffered by a large part of humanity. Nor are the offensive opulence or the extravagances of the consumer societies of the former metropolises which exploited a large part of the countries of the Earth. Fighting against hunger and injustice, millions of people have died.

What bandages are we to apply so that within 20 years there are 400 million, instead of 800 million, starving people? These goals, if only for their modesty, are shameful. If 35,000 people starve to death each day, half of them children, why is it that in developed countries olive groves are uprooted, flocks sacrificed, and great sums are paid so the land will not produce?

While the world is logically moved when accidents, natural and social disasters occur, killing hundreds or thousands of people, why isn't it moved in the same way in the presence of this genocide that takes place every day right before our eyes? Intervention forces are being organised to prevent the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in eastern Zaire. What will we do to prevent 1 million people from dying of starvation every month in the rest of the world?

It is capitalism, neo-liberalism, the laws of a savage market, foreign debt, underdevelopment and unequal terms of trade that are killing so many people in the world.

Why do we invest $700 billion each year in military expenditures, and we do not invest a part of these resources in combating hunger; soil deterioration; desertification; the deforestation of millions of hectares each year; global warming; the greenhouse effect, which increases the hurricanes, causes a lack of or excess rainfall; the destruction of the ozone layer and other natural phenomena that affect food production and the life of people on Earth?

Water is contaminated, the atmosphere is poisoned, nature is being destroyed. It is not only the scarcity of investments, the lack of education and technology, accelerated population growth; because the environment is deteriorating and the future is being compromised more and more every day.

Why are we producing more and more sophisticated weapons since the end of the cold war? What are these arms for, except to dominate the world? Why is there fierce competition to sell arms to underdeveloped countries, since they won't make them stronger in the defence of their independence and since hunger is what we must kill?

Why, on top of all this, are there criminal policies and absurd blockades, which include food and medicine, to kill an entire nation through hunger and disease? Where are ethics, justifications, respect for the most elemental human rights, the sense in such policies?

Let truth reign, not hypocrisy and lies. Let us be conscious of the fact that in this world, hegemony, arrogance and selfishness must cease.

The bells that toll today for those who die of hunger each day, will toll tomorrow for all of humanity if it doesn't try to save itself, doesn't know how to save itself, or is not wise enough to save itself.

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