The Awakening of Latin America Read online

  At that moment, I said, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), to which all Latin American countries belong, would intervene to take monetary or anti-infringement monetary measures. Those measures would mean a further curtailment of credit in order to try to reduce inflation by cutting back on the amount of money in circulation instead of reducing inflation by increasing production. In order to increase production, it would be necessary to do away with the existing relations of production, to do away with the present relations of agricultural production and have the people take over the factories—in short, carry out a real social revolution.

  Since it is impossible that the IMF will decide on or advise this, the situation will deteriorate, and I pointed out that countries would have only two choices—or, rather, would have to choose between two alternatives.

  They can diversify their foreign trade, adopting a new policy of selling to the rest of the world—which was the basis of our own development, in contrast with trading mainly with the United States. This will bring about a series of contradictions that are already known: the monopolies will become aggressive; the country will have to take new measures; it will become necessary to depend more and more on the people; and, as is only logical, the people, too, will demand more. The position held by the bourgeoisie will challenged, and this may lead to a social revolution—or, in any case, to a situation in which the national bourgeoisie is in constant conflict with monopoly capital.

  The other alternative is to confront the people’s discontent, to follow the directives of the IMF and other such agencies, to control the people’s exasperation with drastic measures and to initiate a stage of very serious civil strife. An administration facing this situation will be voted out of office, the new administration that replaces it will renew the struggle to diversify trade, and the struggle with the people will begin again. This was explained succinctly and well in the script of one of Sartre’s movies some years ago, called “L’Engrenage.”

  This process of administrations being voted in and out is always permeated with fear of making the definitive decision, which is that of taking over the means of production and handing them over to the people, as was done in Cuba, which has enabled us to take a big step toward socialist revolution.

  That was what I said in my final address to the Punta del Este [conference].

  Moderator: Compañero Gregorio Ortega.

  Journalist: After the Punta del Este conference, Commander Guevara, you went to Brazil. What can you tell us about your meeting with Janio Quadros?

  Che Guevara: It was a very short meeting. President Quadros paid me several honors. The first was that of waiting to chat with me for a few moments, because he had already promised to inaugurate an iron and steel plant in one of the states in Brazil, so it could not be a very long talk.

  Quadros has already talked about the results of that conversation, in which he simply reaffirmed Brazil’s position of resolute support for Cuba, of support for the people’s self-determination. We talked a little about the economic mission that is in Cuba right now and about the Brazilian government’s decision to come to a rapid agreement on initiating new aspects of trade with us. And, in a demonstration of affection for our government—not for me personally, but for the Cuban government—the highest Brazilian decoration was bestowed on me. This sums up my talk with President Quadros.

  Moderator: Compañero Honorio Muñoz.

  Journalist: Without departing from the Punta del Este conference, what can you tell us about one of the peripheral episodes that is least known here and which UPI reported on, if not today, then recently? UPI says, and other journalists—South Americans, I think—also state that, on one occasion, you met with a Mr. Goodwin, who, I think, is a personal delegate of Mr. Kennedy. What can you tell us about this? Did that meeting take place, or not? And, in general, what can you tell us about it?

  Che Guevara: It is true that I met with Mr. Goodwin, but he was not really Kennedy’s envoy. He is one of Kennedy’s advisers and he was at the Punta del Este conference.

  Some Brazilian friends invited me to a small, intimate get-together, and Mr. Goodwin was there. As some of the agencies reported, we talked, chatting on personal subjects. We were both the guests of a third person, a Brazilian official, and we talked as private individuals, not as representatives of our governments. I was not authorized to have any kind of a talk with a US official, and he was not authorized to have one with me. So with my limited English—which, as you have seen, is quite poor—and Mr. Goodwin’s Spanish, which is nonexistent, we exchanged a few words with the help of a Brazilian official, who served as translator.

  At one point, Mr. Goodwin said that he neither represented nor was authorized to speak in the name of his government but that he would convey some observations that Cuba made to his government. I limited myself to setting forth Cuba’s publicly established position: that we are willing to talk; that we do not seek a quarrel of any kind but will take all the way to the end any quarrel that is forced on us; that we want to be part of the Latin American system; that we are united culturally with the rest of Latin America and want to remain so; and that we insist on our right to be treated like any other country in Latin America or in the Organization of American States, only with a different social and economic organization, and that our absolute right to have whatever friends we want, anywhere in the world, be respected.

  In short, it was a brief, courteous, cool exchange, as might be expected of two functionaries of countries that are officially enemies, right? It was not seen as important until some journalist or functionary—perhaps of the Argentine embassy or government or a Brazilian journalist; I do not really know who—publicized it. That was all.

  Moderator: Compañero Ithiel León.

  Journalist: Commander, I have heard that the delegation representing Trujillo’s son’s regime [in the Dominican Republic] also signed the Alliance for Progress accord. Do you know what that country’s situation is within the so-called inter-American system?

  Che Guevara: Well, you know, it was not possible to speak about politics in the CIES conference. We did not have any relations with the Balaguer administration, and the situation in Santo Domingo is very special. The delegates from the Dominican Republic did not say anything in the conference. They abstained from all discussion, though they always voted— naturally, the way the United States did. Sometimes their chief delegate was not there; I do not know where he was, but he was absent many times.

  The government’s attitude there was very correct, because it was totally alienated from the conference. There was never any talk of excluding the Dominican Republic from the Alliance for Progress. Naturally, there was no talk of excluding anybody. For example, we asked several times if Cuba would be included in the Alliance for Progress, if Cuba would be entitled to Alliance for Progress funds, and Mr. Dillon did not reply. Naturally, the chairperson of the assembly did not know; he had no reason for knowing— he was the delegate of another country who had been elected there—and he asked Mr. Dillon, but Mr. Dillon did not answer him, either. So, the question remained, like in a mystery story, up to the last day, when Dillon made a final brusque remark, saying that Cuba would not get anything from the Alliance for Progress. He then held a press conference in which he spoke about Cuba, naturally, but the journalists also asked him about Stroessner’s regime, in Paraguay, and about the Dominican Republic. He gave an evasive reply but let it be known that the Dominican Republic would be included in the Alliance for Progress and would be one of the countries to benefit.

  More or less tacitly, it is assumed that Trujillo’s death has already lessened the guilt of the other members of the ruling team and that it can already be called democratic, because the father died, and all the others are very, very minor figures, and their punishments will be very, very short. So that situation remained hovering in the air, even though not a word was spoken there about the Dominican regime.

  Moderator: Compañero Gregorio Ortega.

  Jour
nalist: How did the Uruguayan people express their solidarity with our revolution, commander?

  Che Guevara: The Uruguayan people expressed their solidarity in practically every possible way. Their enthusiasm was really moving, and it caused a kind of upset in protocol and practice for us: the Cuban delegates were the only ones that the people—the few workers, because it was a typical beach resort—waited for to applaud and greet. It is important to note this: Punta del Este is a beach resort around 170 kilometers from Montevideo, the capital, and it has a harsh climate in the winter, the season it was when we were in the Southern Hemisphere, so there was nobody around—no workers, no other people. Therefore, except for a few isolated instances, it was impossible to experience the Uruguayan people’s solidarity at Punta del Este.

  But, when we arrived in Montevideo, it was tremendous. I had to give a talk on Cuban economic development in the assembly hall of the university, which was a rather small place. It was jam-packed. It had been attacked by groups of students—financed by the United States, of course—and, at midday, the university official had had to open the doors pistol in hand; then those students threw stink-bombs all over the assembly hall. I gave my talk in an atmosphere of chlorophyll room fresheners, but the people there were very enthusiastic—so much so that I had to ask them many times to restrain themselves, because I had promised the government that I would do everything possible to avoid incidents.

  The people were also wonderfully disciplined and had a great spirit of cooperation, in addition to tremendous enthusiasm, which really made me feel I was in Cuba. But when I left—and how this happened is not clear— it seems that somebody fired on some of the cars or simply shot over the people’s heads to provoke a reaction. So the meeting, which had been filled with great enthusiasm and had been held in a perfectly normal way, was clouded by the death of a professor [Arbelio Ramírez] of the institute, who had come to hear me. He was shot in the neck and died a few minutes later. The people reacted to that violently, falling on the presumed attackers; the police intervened; and there was a kind of showdown between the police and the demonstrators.

  I found out later that there were more incidents the next day, at the professor’s funeral. In addition, the Government Council met and timidly denounced the episode, saying that it was not “diplomatic”—something to that effect—for a guest at the CIES conference to take part in a political meeting. Naturally, I had not taken part in a political meeting because they had said it was to be a technical meeting, and a talk about economic development has to be technical. Of course, when it is Cuba’s economic development that is being discussed, and when the conditions for economic development are such that the people assume the political direction of the government, take over the factories, carry out an agrarian reform and, in passing, do away with the oppressor’s army, as well, then, naturally, the basic theses of economic development turn into political theses. But we have always said that you cannot separate political and economic issues.

  In addition, I had taken all the necessary precautions: I had spoken with the [Uruguayan] president and the minister of the interior and said that I wanted to attend the talk but left it to the government to make the decision, and they expressly authorized my participation.

  On the afternoon before the conference, one of the members of the Government Council, who had been president of the university the preceding year, made a radio address to the army asking it to take charge of the situation—to prevent subversion and a coup d’état. When we left, the situation was very tense.

  After all those events, the Uruguayan people went to the hotel where I was staying to express their affection in a thousand ways. There were so many representatives of groups that the owner of the hotel decided that delegations could not go upstairs, so there were some incidents. I could not speak with all of the delegations that came to see me, which would have been nearly impossible anyway, because there were so many of them. The people’s enthusiasm was very great at all times.

  Moderator: Compañero Honorio Muñoz.

  Journalist: Che Guevara, at Punta del Este, you challenged imperialism to an emulation contest between its plan, called the Alliance for Progress, and what our country has achieved. Our country, which is carrying out a socialist revolution, has the support of the socialist world, good relations with many countries that are not socialist and the friendship of the peoples of the world. On what do you base your confidence that we will win that competition?

  Che Guevara: On economics. That was a meeting in which they wanted to show everybody the possibilities of “representative democratic development,” etc., and they were talking about a rate of development of 2.5 percent. That figure alone destroyed the challenge, because we had a tremendous advantage: for us, in Cuba’s present conditions, 10 percent is a slow rate of development; 2.5 percent, in Latin America’s conditions, is considered an optimal or close to optimal rate of development. So our minimum was four times as great as their optimum. In terms of economic development, this is an immense difference.

  Moreover, I was led to issue that challenge because of my certainty that planned development is the only way of effectively guaranteeing that every economic policy that is followed will be applied fully and that correct policies of economic planning can only be developed, and development with high growth rates can only be achieved, when the people have control over the means of production. As I have said, it is very easy to see what the final result or the results at any moment—in 10 years or right now—will be.

  It is enough to examine the goals that were proposed in education; we have already reached them. For example, one of the paragraphs says,

  That the following be adopted as goals of the Alliance for Progress in the field of education, to be reached in the next 10 years:

  (a) at least six years of free, obligatory primary education for all children of school age.

  We set ourselves a goal of nine years. In the first program, they had proposed four years. We proposed nine years, because this year we’re beginning a system of nine years of free, obligatory education for the Cuban people.

  (b) The carrying out of systematic campaigns of adult education, promoting community development, job training, cultural development and the eradication of illiteracy.

  This is vague and speaks of the eradication of illiteracy, which we have already achieved to a very large extent this year and will fully accomplish next year, when we wipe out the last few pockets of illiteracy. And this is a 10-year plan [of the Alliance for Progress]. We are already advancing rapidly in providing job training and cultural development.

  (c) The reform and extension of high school education, so that a much higher proportion of the new generation will have an opportunity to continue their general education.

  We have proposed to extend high school education to all young people of school age and to reform education so much that we completely nationalize it and place all the country’s means of education at the service of the people.

  (d) The preparation of studies to determine what skilled labor is required for the development of industry, agrarian reform and agriculture; plans for social development and public administration at all levels; and the establishment of crash programs for training and follow-up programs for those personnel.

  We have already done all this, so it is easy for us to see that, since they need 10 years to do what we have already done, Cuba is bound to win this contest.

  And then it talks about “the reform, extension, and improvement of higher education, so that a much higher proportion of young people have access to it.” In other words, there is a great lack of precision in the Alliance for Progress mandate, while we are already giving scholarships and are increasing the number of university students, quite substantially in the most important disciplines.

  Some other proposals even include some Cuban proposals, for example:

  (g) The intensification of exchanges among students, teachers, professors, researchers and other specialists,
in order to stimulate mutual understanding and make the best possible use of the means of information and research.

  This is based on a Cuban proposal, which was changed, of course; our version was better documented and more precise than this one, but at least it is here. Another says:

  The establishment of a system of scholarships and other forms of social and economic assistance for students in order to reduce the number of dropouts, especially in rural areas, and to ensure effective equal opportunity to education at all levels.

  This, too, is based on a Cuban proposal for establishing full scholarships— here, the delegates took out the word “complete,” or “full”—which Cuba is also doing to a large extent.

  The public health program and the housing program—which does not even exist—clearly show that the Alliance for Progress cannot compete at all with Cuba’s development, not in the economic sphere, and much less in the social sphere, where Cuba’s progress is even greater.

  Moderator: Compañero Ithiel León.

  Journalist: During your trip, commander, in addition to meeting with President Janio Quadros, you also met with another head of state, President Arturo Frondizi of Argentina. What can you tell us about this other meeting?