[Marxism] Che and Chavez at the UN

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.humannaturemag.com/editions/1_07/che.html
Flashback
President Chavez’s UN Rant Has Cuban Roots

By CHRISTOPHER WINDHAM

Last year, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez sharply criticized the 
United States and President Bush before the United Nations General 
Assembly. Chavez, among other things, questioned the U.S.’ commitment to 
peace and accused Washington of exploring world domination. He even 
likened President Bush to the devil during his well-received speech in 
New York.

While the speech drew a standing ovation and headlines across the world, 
it wasn’t the first time a foreign leader openly attacked the U.S. on 
the UN floor.

On December 11, 1964, Cuban revolutionary Ernesto Che Guevara, who is 
better known to today’s generation through hip-hop inspired t-shirts and 
the movie “Motorcycle Diaries,” strongly denounced the U.S.’ aggressive 
foreign policies and its treatment of poor blacks and Latinos. Guevara 
made the speech before the 19th United Nations General Assembly.

Only four months had passed since the Civil Rights Act was enacted. And 
the tension surrounding the efforts by blacks for equal rights helped 
set the tone for a portion of Guevara’s speech that he devoted to 
discrediting the U.S.’ role as world humanitarians.

“Those who kill their own children and discriminate daily against them 
because of the color of their skin, those who let the murderers of 
blacks remain free -- protecting them, and furthermore punishing the 
black population because they demand their legitimate rights as free 
men… how can those who do this consider themselves guardians of 
freedom?” Guevara said.

Guevara also suggested the U.S. civil rights movement should be examined 
on the world stage – though he acknowledged that the UN lacked the 
authority to shape U.S. domestic policy.

“The time will come when this assembly will acquire greater maturity and 
demand of the United States government guarantees for the life of the 
Blacks and Latin Americans who live in that country, most of them U.S. 
citizens by origin or adoption,” he said.

Guevara, an Argentine doctor, was part of the Fidel Castro-led group 
that overthrew Cuban leader Fulgencio Batista in 1959. Guevara was 
killed in the Andes Mountains by U.S.-trained Bolivian soldiers in 1967.

Peter McLaren, a professor of education at the University of California 
Los Angeles, who has studied Guevara’s life and ideology, says Guevara’s 
remarks reflect his fierce opposition to racism, which he saw as closely 
linked to capitalism. The criticism also reflected, McLaren says, his 
admiration for civil rights leader Malcolm X, who Guevara sent a letter 
of solidarity to while in New York for the speech.

Since blacks and Latinos were homogenized under the common umbrella of 
poverty and racism, Guevara “saw them as brothers and sisters in the 
common fight against imperialism and as potential warriors in the 
struggle for socialism,” McLaren says.

It’s not a secret that President Chavez is a great admirer of Guevara 
and Castro. He may have had their earlier UN speeches in mind before 
delivering his address, McLaren says.

Days after his UN speech, Chavez appeared in a Harlem church, pledging 
to double the amount of discounted heating oil available to poor 
Americans in 17 states through a program he launched a year earlier.

President Chavez’s speech stands out from other UN addresses in that he 
delivered personal barbs at the U.S. President whereas others condemned 
U.S. policies. (Though Cuban dictator Fidel Castro in 1960 did describe 
his future archrival, then-presidential candidate John F. Kennedy, as "a 
millionaire, illiterate and ignorant.”)

A day earlier at the UN, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad 
criticized U.S. nuclear policies, but refrained from personally 
attacking President Bush.  The same holds true for Soviet Premier Nikita 
Khrushchev, who threatened the West in a 1960 UN speech, but did not 
personally attacking President Dwight Eisenhower.

During his wide-ranging speech, Guevara expressed Cuba’s support for 
Puerto Rico, who was resisting what he called U.S. efforts to convert 
the country into “a model of hybrid culture.”  He also called for an end 
to colonization in Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“The brutal policy of apartheid is applied before the eyes of the 
nations of the world,” Guevara said. “The peoples of Africa are 
compelled to endure the fact that on the African continent, the 
superiority of one race over another remains of fiscal policy, and that 
in the name of this racial superiority murder is committed with 
impunity. Can the United Nations do nothing to stop this?”

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