Fidel Castro: any invader of Cuba will fight a million armies

“The invader will have to fight against an army, ten armies, a hundred armies, one thousand armies, one million armies!” roared the Cuban President, in an act of defiance against the hostility of the USA. Fidel Castro was accompanied by his brother Raul, the Minister of the Armed Forces, the leadership of the Cuban Communist Party, government ministers and chiefs of the Cuban Armed Forces.

“Our experience teaches us that if one day our country is attacked and occupied by powerful forces, every man and woman, wherever they are, can become an army. When a fighter or a group of them become cut off or isolated, they should assume the responsibility of their actions and carry on fighting”, declared Fidel Castro.

He reminded the audience that peace and mutual cooperation between peoples are the way forward and that ideas, not military power, will provide the basis for a safe future for Mankind. “Only peace and cooperation between peoples will be capable of saving Mankind from death, which takes place through robbery, exploitation, wars and destruction of living conditions on our planet”.

He added that new technologies will never be superior to the conscience and intelligence of the human being, claiming that in Cuba “we knew how to follow on” after the “progressive world” was conquered by capitalism after the gains made at the beginning of the twentieth century (a reference to the Soviet bloc). He stated that “they did not know how to overcome their own mistakes and ideological anachronism”.

The current century, according to the Cuban leader, is “the most decisive in the history of mankind”, one in which “we must prepare the most sacred duty”.

Fidel Castro reminded the audience that this was the 45th anniversary of the expedition he led with 82 men on the ship “Granma”, today the name of the official government newspaper. Fidel Castro led the mission on Granma, which sailed from Mexico and arrived in Cuba on 2nd December, 1956, to prepare a revolutionary army in the mountains.

President Castro remembered that only 18 of his group survived the constant attacks by the army and air force of the fascist dictator, Fulgencio Baptista, aided and equipped by the United States of America. The small armed group which Castro led managed to survive in the mountains, where they were joined by peasants, forming the Guerrilla de la Sierra Maestra, which would overthrow Baptista’s corrupt and oppressive regime on 1st January, 1959.

Marcia MIRANDA, PRAVDA.Ru BRAZIL