Speeches and Statements

Speech by Commander-in-chief Fidel Castro at the Hector Peterson Memorial in Soweto. Soweto, South Africa. September 5, 1998

05/09/1998

Victory is not achieved only with arms. It's also achieved many times without arms. And I don't practice the philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi, but history has shown that many and great battles have been won fundamentally with ideas (Applause and exclamations). That's why I always say that the first thing is the idea; the second, to struggle for ideas; and the third is to triumph with sweat and blood, if necessary, for those ideas.

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Speech by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro at the closing ceremony of the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution 5th National Congress. City of Havana. 28 September 1998

28/09/1998

I think we have just won a second victory with the excellent development and the results of this Congress, with the hurricane or without the hurricane, even under the hurricane or pursued by the hurricane (Laughter), which got here right behind us, although without very strong winds but with enough rain to really soak the Karl Marx Theater, where we would have had 4,000 to 5,000 guests today if flood water had not seeped in affecting the...

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Fidel Castro, SPEECH IN THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE 8TH SUMMIT OF HEADS OF STATE AND GOVERNMENT OF IBERO-AMERICAN COUNTRIES, Oporto, Portugal. 18 October, 1998

18/10/1998

I will try to be as concise as possible, speaking, if need be, telegram like. First of all, I would like to say in all frankness, as I always do, that in my opinion this has been an extremely fruitful meeting. I would go so far as to say that never before had so much been done, in such a short time, for our aspirations of integration, unity and development.

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Fidel Castro, SPEECH AT THE OPENING CEREMONY OF THE 16TH HAVANA INTERNATIONAL FAIR FIHAV ’98. November 1st, 1998

01/11/1998

I have not come to discuss politics or the blockade, droughts, hurricanes or calamities of any kind, because I take them for granted (Laughter). I have come to share a few jokes with you, partly at the expense of the words by our very dear and really highly appreciated Minister of Foreign Trade, without blaming him at all for the torture that we have to go through here every year.

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SPEECH DELIVERED BY COMMANDER IN CHIEF FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, FIRST SECRETARY OF THE CENTRAL COMMITTEE OF THE COMMUNIST PARTY OF CUBA AND PRESIDENT OF THE COUNCILS OF STATE AND OF MINISTERS, AT THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE 12TH NATIONAL SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FORUM, HELD AT THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE CENTER ON 21 NOVEMBER 1998

21/11/1998

I promised to say a few words following Comrade Miret’s intervention to explain my absence from this forum.Actually, a great number of activities accumulated in the last few days. There were visiting heads of government that we should receive and converse with as well as other personalities, not all of them reported by the press.

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Speech given by Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz, First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba Central Committee and President of the Council of State and Council of Ministers at the ceremony on the 40th Anniversary of the triumph of the Revolution, held at Cespedes Park in Santiago de Cuba on January 1st,1999

01/01/1999
The existence of a single superpower and a stifling world economic order make it difficult, perhaps even impossible, for a revolution like ours to survive were it to emerge today and not when it had a mainstay in a then bipolar world.  That is how our country had the necessary time to develop an invincible capacity for resistance and deploy worldwide the strong influence of its example and heroism waging a great battle of ideas from every...
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REMARKS BY DR.FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE CLOSING SESSION OF THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMISTS CONFERENCE. NATIONAL CONVENTION CENTER, HAVANA. JANUARY 22, 1999

22/01/1999

You have honored me by asking but I will not make a speech. I will limit myself to presenting a paper. (APPLAUSE) I will do it in the style of a cablegram and it will mostly be a dialogue with myself.

Month of July. Latin American and Caribbean Economists Meeting. Subject: Serious world economic crisis in sight. Need to convene an international conference. Focal point: Economic crisis and neoliberal globalization.

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