SPECIAL REPORT FROM RADIO HAVANA CUBA
                           January 26,  1998

                        E-mail: rhc@radiohc.org
                        http://www.radiohc.org


SPEECH BY FIDEL CASTRO RUZ, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA AT 
POPE JOHN PAUL II FAREWELL CEREMONY, HAVANA, CUBA, JANUARY 25, 1998

Your Holiness,

I think we have given the world a good example: you, by visiting what
some chose to call communism's last bulwark; we, by receiving the 
religious leader who had been imputed responsability for the 
destruction of socialism in Europe. There were those who foreboded 
apocalyptic events;  some even dreamed of them.

It was ruthlessly unfair to connect your pastoral journey with the 
mean hope of destroying the noble objectives, and the independence, 
of a small country subjected to a blockade and a truly economic war 
for almost 40 years. Nowadays, Your Holiness, Cuba is confronting
the mightiest power in history, like a new David -- albeit a thousand 
times smaller -- who, with the same sling of the Biblical times, strives 
for survival against a gigantic Goliath of the nuclear era who tries 
to prevent our development and subdue our people by hunger and 
disease. If that story had not been written then, it would have to 
be written today. This monstrous crime can neither be ignored 
nor excused.

Your Holiness, 

Every time I hear or read slanders against my homeland and my 
people, fabricated by those who worship no other God than gold 
itself, I remember the Christians in ancient Rome so atrociously 
defamed since, as I already expressed the day you arrived, very often 
in history slanders have been used to justify the worst crimes 
against the people. I remember as well the Jews exterminated by the 
Nazis and the four million Vietnamese who perished under the napalm, 
the chemical weapons and the explosives. No one ever had any right 
to exterminate others for being Christians, Jews or communists.

Every detail of your visit and your every word were broadcast to the 
world by thousands of journalists. All over the country a large 
number of nationals and foreigners were interviewed. Our national 
television networks provided live coverage of every mass, homily and 
speech. Perhaps, never before were so many news and opinions about a 
small nation heard in such a short time by so many people all over 
the planet.

Cuba knows no fear and despises deceit; it listens with respect but 
believes in its ideas, it firmly defends its principles and has 
nothing to hide from the world.

I am moved by Your Holiness' endeavors to have more justice in the 
world. The states will disappear and the peoples will constitute only 
one human family. If the globalization you proclaim could be extended 
all over the Earth and the abundant goods humanity can produce with its 
talents and its work could be equitably distributed among all human 
beings living on our planet today, then a world could really be 
created for them where there would be no hunger and poverty, no 
oppression and exploitation, no humiliation and scorn, no injustices 
and inequalities; a world where they could live in full moral and 
material dignity, in real freedom: that would be a world of justice! 
Your ideas on evangelization and ecumenism would not be in 
contradiction with it.

For the honor of your visit, for all the affection you have shown the 
Cubans, for every word you have said -- even those I might disagree 
with -- on behalf of the Cuban people, Holy father, I thank you! 


           [c] 1998, Radio Habana Cuba
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