"The rich do not know hunger"

by Fidel Castro

Cuban President Fidel Castro gave this speech to the United Nations 
World Food Summit held in Rome in October 1996

Hunger, the inseparable companion of the poor, is the offspring of the 
unequal distribution of the wealth and the injustices in this world. The 
rich do not know hunger.

Colonialism was not alien to the poverty and underdevelopment afflicting 
today a large segment of mankind. Neither is the offensive opulence and the 
squandering by the consumer societies of the former metropolis which have 
subjected to exploitation a large number of countries on Earth. Millions of 
people in the world have died fighting hunger and injustice.

What kind of cosmetic solutions are we going to provide so that in 20 years 
from now there would be 400 million instead of 800 million starving people? 
The very modesty of these goals is shameful. If 35,000 people — half of 
them children — are starving to death every day, why is it that in the 
developed countries olive groves are being torn down, cattle herds are 
being sacrificed and large amounts of money are being paid so that the land 
is kept unproductive?

If the world is rightly moved by accidents and natural or social 
catastrophes that bring death to hundreds or thousands of people, why is it 
not equally moved by that genocide which is taking place every day in front 
of our eyes?

Intervention forces are organised to prevent the death of hundreds of 
thousands of people in eastern Zaire. What are we going to do to prevent 
the starvation of one million people every month in the rest of the world?

It is capitalism, neoliberalism, the laws of a wild market, the external 
debt, underdevelopment and the unequal terms of reference that are killing 
so many people in the world.

Why is it that $700 billion are invested every year in the military instead 
of investing a portion of those resources in fighting hunger, preventing 
the deterioration of the soils, the desertification and deforestation of 
millions of hectares every year, the warming up of the atmosphere and the 
greenhouse effect that increase the number of hurricanes, the scarcity or 
excess of rain, the destruction of the ozone layer and other natural 
phenomena which negatively affect food production and man's life on Earth?

The waters are polluted, the atmosphere is poisoned, nature is being 
destroyed. It is not only the lack of investments, education and 
technologies or the accelerated pace of the population growth; it is the 
environment that is deteriorating and the future that is growing more 
hazardous with every passing day.

Why are increasingly sophisticated weapons still being produced after the 
Cold War is over? What are those weapons for if not to dominate the world? 
Why that ferocious competition to sell to underdeveloped countries weapons 
that will not make them more powerful to defend their independence while 
they would rather be killing hunger?

Why is it that criminal policies and absurd blockades that include food and 
medicines are being added to all this with the purpose of annihilating 
whole populations out of hunger and diseases? Where is the ethic, the 
justification, the respect for the most basic human rights and the common 
sense of such policies?

Let the truth prevail and not hypocrisy and deceit. Let us build an 
awareness on the fact that hegemonism, arrogance and selfishness must cease 
in this world.

The bells that are presently tolling for those starving to death every 
day will tomorrow be tolling for all mankind if it did not want, or did not 
know, or if it could not be sufficiently wise to save itself.