Che in Punta del Este: the strength of Cuba

This August 8 marks the 62nd anniversary of the historic speech delivered by Ernesto Che Guevara at the 5th Plenary Session of the Inter-American Economic and Social Council, meeting in conclave from the 7th to the 17th of that month, but in 1961, in Punta del Este, Uruguay, under imperial dictates in order to tighten the continental isolation against the Cuban Revolution.

With positions in the leadership of the Revolutionary Government, the mythical guerrilla fighter was the clear and forceful voice of Cuba at that meeting which, as he denounced from the beginning, disguised with technicalities and economicisms, the political nuance with which it had been conceived to advance in the cornering of the free and sovereign country that disobeyed the designs of the Monroe Doctrine.

Well, since on the previous eve of the meeting its organizers had publicly acknowledged their true intentions, in undeniable events, Cuba had every right in the world to speak there about politics, because the economic issue was also political, according to a definition by José Martí that Che pointedly recalled at the forum.

He was also going to do so because the Punta del Este meeting was expressly organized against Cuba and especially against the strength of its example, especially at a time when the world, not only America, was living under high tension that included countries in Europe, Africa and Asia, and the United States had to secure its continental rearguard.

Seen from all sides, economy and politics were closely linked for the Cuban conception and the representative of the nation would assert his right to speak on both subjects.

Che Guevara pointed out a paradox: if in that place they were talking about new times in continental relations, which was the only thing that coincided with the organizers of the event, those changes were actually taking place under the sign of Cuba, thanks to the imprint of Cuba, regardless of whom it may concern.

In other words, he explained that the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and its example were serving as a sort of corrective to the traditional policy of blatant disregard for the nations from Rio Bravo to Patagonia. Responding to its hegemonic interests, the Guardian was hurrying to make up and brutally isolate Cuba.

This had been going on since January 1959. But in April 1961, the United States had suffered its first defeat in America with the Cuban victory on the sands of Bay of Pigs, over a group of mercenaries organized and armed to the teeth by the power, something that its president was forced to admit publicly.

Ernesto Guevara referred to this in his words, summarizing the sustained chain of aggressions, sabotage and terrorist acts, all irrefutable, promoted by the CIA and the Pentagon against Cuba with the aim of overthrowing the Revolutionary Government, which was leading changes and fair transformations in his country, emitting beacon lights for the peoples of America.

The Cuban representative in Punta del Este made a summary of the most notorious acts, and among the most important economic aggressions he cited the suspension of Cuba's sugar quota in its market in December 1960, and the refusal of the US refineries established on the Island to process oil coming from the USSR, when they no longer supplied it.

Then the gendarmes of America held a meeting in Costa Rica, with all the complacency of the OAS, in which he led sister countries to vigorously condemn Cuba for its trade with the Soviet Union and the purchase of arms to defend itself from so many aggressions, under the accusation of establishing relations with an extra-continental power.

At the beginning of his speech, when he quoted Marti, Che Guevara recalled the textual words of the Cuban Apostle, which expressed the conviction that only the nation that traded with more than one of its equals, whether kingdom or monarchy, or republic, would live free and democratic.

And he gave examples that this was the line of the government of the Caribbean country, which he made clear: to open up to the world with sovereignty, in trade and solidarity, also in continental unity, joining efforts to grow and do justice.
Of extraordinary importance is the early vision of Ernesto Guevara when he foresaw the failure of the plan called Alliance for Progress, which was hatched at full speed and presented there to counteract the strength of Cuba's example, and also when he predicted the failure of the attempts to isolate the Island, something that in a first phase seemed a very difficult obstacle to overcome.

History records an antecedent to the Alliance for Progress in 1959, when Fidel Castro raised at the Conference of the Group of 21, held in Buenos Aires, the urgent need for the region to discuss financing for development, something that the United States had accomplished with Europe and the Middle East.

Two years before arriving in Punta del Este, the Cuban leader asked in Buenos Aires: "Why not come to the real conclusion that, under the current conditions, the best way to facilitate cooperation is through public financing? He answered himself by saying that such financing has always been insufficient. And he considered that it should be ostensibly increased.

When speaking on the economic issue in Punta del Este, Che clarified Cuba's line on the planning of economic and social development in Latin America, the Agrarian Reform, industrialization, the unfeasibility of subordinating health conditions to development, the conditions for the granting and use of foreign financial aid.

His denunciation of the conspiracy to attack the side of the Cuban economy and the closing of any possibility of accessing the resources that were being put into motion was also energetic.

In that order, he contributed on behalf of Cuba a series of suggestions and technical proposals aimed at the common action to be undertaken in the region, to focus on its development, a proposal made in a true spirit of solidarity, knowing with certainty that none of the resources and benefits that would be granted would be within the reach of the country, by the will of the hegemonic nation.

More than 60 years after that plan, Latin America and the Caribbean still need the fulfillment of the measures presented by Guevara. Although many things have changed, as is well known. The struggle for development, guarantor of freedom and democracy, continues to inspire us, with urgency, and in the midst of that, Guevara's ideas are astonishingly current, if you know how to look for them.