A Christian Defense Of Revolutionary Cuba

Frei Betto, a Brazilian Catholic priest, was imprisoned and tortured by the military regime that ruled Brazil from 1964 through the early 1980s. A series of conversations between Betto and Fidel Castro has been published under the title "Fidel and Religion." What follows is Betto's speech to a Jan. 25, 1992 Peace for Cuba rally that took place at New York's Javits Convention Center.

Brothers and sisters, I am very happy to partake with you this celebration of faith and justice, and of hope for the freedom of the people of Latin America. I would like to say that above my hopes for the Cuban Revolution, above my admiration for Fidel Castro, is my admiration for life. Life is God's greatest gift.

I come from a country in which the majority of the people have been condemned to death by social conditions. The majority of people in Brazil do not have a secure life. This also happens in Bolivia and Honduras, in Colombia and Peru, in all of the countries of Latin America. With the exception of one: Cuba. It is the only country in Latin America in which life is socially guaranteed. This is enough for us as human beings, and as Christians, to defend the Cuban Revolution.

There are people who say that in Cuba human rights are not respected. You know, to talk of human rights in Latin America is a luxury. Because in Brazil and Peru, in Honduras and Guatemala, the people don 't even have the rights that animals have, the right to eat, the rights that dogs and cows and chickens have. I would love it if the laws which protect animals applied to the Latin American people.

I have never seen a hungry cow in the streets of Brazil. There are millions of hungry children in the streets of Brazil. Eight million of these children are abandoned. Seven thousand of these children have been murdered in the past few years. The only Latin American country where there are no children living in the streets, where there are no unemployed, and, although there are a lot of difficulties, everybody has a full life, is Cuba.

Some people say that Cuba must be liberated. For what future? Some say that socialism is in crisis. But capitalism has failed for the last 200 years. In Africa, Asia and Latin America, the majority of the countries are capitalist. And capitalism has failed there. Latin America is a lot poorer now that it was 20 years ago. Of almost 500 million inhabitants, 350 million are hungry. We have an external and internal debt of more than $400 million.

And so I ask: Cuba should free itself of what? Should it free itself to be served at McDonald's? Should the liberation of Cuba be at the hands of the International Monetary Fund?

You know what's in the future for Eastern Europe? It's the present of Latin America. Now, thanks to the embrace of the International Monetary Fund, the people of Eastern Europe understand inflation, high prices, unemployment and hunger. We don' t want this future for Cuba. This is not freedom.

Freedom, according to the Bible, is to share the wealth and to assure that everybody has an equal right to life. It is a shame and an embarrassment to all of us who live in supposedly Christian countries, that in Latin America this freedom only exists in Cuba.

That is why as long as there is a U.S. blockade against Cuba, we have to give our unconditional support to revolutionary Cuba. As a Christian and a freedom fighter, and above all as a Latin American, I am convinced that for us, socialism is not nostalgia for the past, it's the dream for our future. (recorded and transcribed by Eric Jackson)