Fidel Castro delivers the Second Declaration of Havana -- one of the most important anti-imperialist documents of the modern world -- Havana, Cuba, February 4 1962
The declaration ended:
Because now in the fields and mountains of America, on its slopes and prairies and in its jungles, in the wilderness or in the traffic of cities, this world is beginning with full cause to erupt. Anxious hands are stretched forth, ready to die for what is theirs, to win those rights which were laughed at by one and all for 500 years. Yes, now history will have to take the poor of America into account, the exploited and spurned of Latin America, who have decided to begin writing history for themselves for all time. Already they can be seen on the roads, on foot, day after day, in endless marches of hundreds of kilometers to the governmental "eminences," to obtain their rights.
They can be seen, armed with stones, sticks, machetes, now here, now there, daily occupying lands, digging their hooks into the soil which is theirs, and defending it with their lives. They can be seen carrying banners, flags, placards, unfurling them in the winds among the mountains or across the plains. And this wave of battering fury, of justice demanded, of trampled rights — this wave engulfing the lands of Latin America will never stop again. This wave will mount with each passing day. For this wave is formed by the most, the majority in all things, the people whose work piles up the riches, who create the values, turn the wheels of history and are now awakening from the long brutalizing slumber to which they were subjected.
For that great humanity has cried, "Enough!" and has begun to move. Marching with giant strides they will not be detained until they have conquered true independence, to which they have died more than once to no avail. Now at least those who die will die as the Cubans did at Playa Giron, they will die for their single, true, inalienable independence.
iPatria o Muerte! iVenceremos!
THE PEOPLE OF CUBA
Havana, Cuba
Free Territory of America
February 4, 1962
The National General Assembly of the People of Cuba resolves that this Declaration be known as the Second Declaration of Havana, translated into the major languages and distributed throughout the world. It also resolves to urge all the friends of the Cuban Revolution in Latin America that it be widely distributed among the worker, peasant, student, and intellectual masses of this continent.