CARLOS LAGE DÁVILA AT THE 16TH IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT

November 3, 2006

ADDRESS BY CARLOS LAGE DÁVILA,
VICEPRESIDENT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE
OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA,
AT THE 16TH IBERO-AMERICAN SUMMIT OF HEADS OF
STATE AND GOVERNMENT
NOVEMBER 3 - 5, 2006

Excellencies,

Emigration is a right that must be respected. It is unfair and cruel to be
forced to emigrate and leave homeland and family behind in order to provide
food, healthcare and education to your children.

Sending remittances to family back home is a noble act which should be
facilitated but it is humiliating for a country to have to depend on this
money.

The fact that rich countries are adopting ever more restrictive, abusive and
xenophobic measures on emigration is morally unacceptable.

The wall on the Mexican border and the immigrant hunts that take place there
are proof, if any were needed, of the contempt that the powerful feel
towards all those who are not as powerful, even if these governments are
their allies.

Alongside this form of emigration is another which is just as shocking.
Doctors, computer programmers, teachers, nurses and other professionals and
technicians are encouraged to migrate to rich countries, and are offered
wages and conditions unavailable to them in our countries. For them there
are no walls or forced returns, on the contrary, there are plans and
programs in place to lure them. Around 240,000 Latin American university
graduates migrated last year. Training these professionals cost no less than

5 billion dollars. We should be paid compensation and I propose that we make

this demand.

These émigrés, whose rights we justly defend, are a consequence of the
plundering, exploitation and unequal distribution of wealth.

Nothing will stop this migration as long as there is underdevelopment and
poverty, as long as the current neoliberal economic policies are imposed on
the countries of the South, and as long as the current international
economic order remains unchanged.

I want to make something perfectly clear. In most underdeveloped countries
there is no political will or economic or human interest to change this
situation. The opulent and spendthrift North uses immigrants while
discriminating against them. The South is providing raw material to the
North, while serving as a kind of warehouse from where they get all their
resources, from mineral supplies to human talent.

Just one example that confirms this: the Millennium aims and goals, which
represent nothing more than a modest palliative for the problems currently
endured by underdeveloped countries, will not be fulfilled. The developed
world did not have any intention of providing the minimum financial aid
asked of them and billions of people continue to live without access to
food, healthcare or education.

Spending on arms and wars now exceeds one trillion dollars; another trillion

is spent on commercial publicity, which in the case of medication, for
example, means that the price is multiplied by up to ten times; the debt
still hasn't been cancelled and the official development assistance is
subject to an increasing number of conditions: advisers coming from the
North must live in luxury, purchases must be made in donor countries, and
less and less cooperation is given to healthcare and education while more
and more is given to the struggle against drug trafficking and for good
governance and human rights advice.

Instead of trying to change the current situation, the United States issues
certificates on "good conduct regarding migration". Good conduct means
letting the professionals migrate, restricting the emigration of
non-professionals and accepting back those undesirable to them, after these
have taken a postgraduate course in lawbreaking on the streets and in the
jails of the United States.

The United States, which depended and still depends so much on immigrants
for their economic development, and the European Union, which has been a
great source of emigrants in its time, are now the greatest persecutors of
immigrants in the world, and apply the most restrictive policies.

The free exchange of commodities that the developed world wants to impose
and the free flow of capital that it demands are nothing but a snare if they

are not accompanied by the free passage of people.

In this regard, and in others, the hypocrisy and double standards of the
world in which we live are laid bare.

The issue of migration in Cuba deserves a special mention.

A Latin American who goes to live in the United States is an immigrant but
if Cuban this person is labeled a political exile fleeing the communist
regime.

A Latin American must wait in his or her country for a permit to migrate to
the United States. If this person is an illegal immigrant, they are
returned, but if this person is Cuban, once in the United States, they are
immediately granted residency and work, and after one year they
automatically receive permanent residency, in compliance with the Cuban
Adjustment Act.

The Bush administration cancelled migration talks, once again limited
remittances to a total of $300 every three months and imposed travel
restrictions that allow Cuban immigrants to travel to Cuba only once every
three years and that to visit only parents, grandparents, children,
grandchildren or siblings; that is, to Mr. Bush, a cousin or aunt is not a
family member.

The United States government offers shelter and impunity in their country to

terrorists who have committed murder and hijacked boats and planes in order
to migrate; it restricts legal emigration while encouraging illegal
emigration in order to use this as propaganda against Cuba, heedless of the
fact that countless people have lost their lives in the Florida Straits.

This policy, enforced for decades, seeks to eventually promote a massive
exodus which can be used to intensify the anti-Cuban campaign and,
ultimately, serve as a pretext for military aggression.

A program financed by the United States government is aimed at luring Cuban
doctors and other healthcare specialists who are rendering important
services in various countries, but they are coming up against the iron will
of the new generation of professionals trained by the Revolution and our
solidarity programs will not be stopped.

In hardly two years, Operation Miracle has helped over 450 thousand people
from Latin America and the Caribbean to recuperate their vision, and all
these services have been provided free of charge. By now, conditions have
been created to operate on one million people every year.

Even though our country's own resources would not suffice to provide these
services, if imperialism succeeded in its offensive against Cuba's economic
resources, the capacity would be removed to perform eye surgery on one
million Latin American and Caribbean people during 2007. Such figure does
not include operated Cubans whose number this year is almost 100 thousand.

The new concepts applied to the massive and urgent training of physicians,
from Latin America and elsewhere in the world, will make it possible to
have, in a rather short time, over 10 thousand new doctors annually, who
will not practice private medicine but will take healthcare to and preserve
the lives of millions of people.

Today, cooperation in the field of health enables Cuba, and increasingly
Bolivia and Venezuela, to ensure all of its citizens, without exemption,
medical care of excellence provided free of charge.

At this moment, 2,400,000 Latin Americans from 11 countries are no longer
illiterates and thousands of Cuban specialists work as sport instructors.

Although blockaded and harassed, Cuba has never surrendered, and the
countries of Latin America can always count on Cuba to fight for their
rights which, as we know, will not be handed to us on a plate.

Thank you very much.