WE publish below extracts from the editorial from the paper of the Cuban Communist Party, Granma the day after the announcement of the withdrawal of the Soviet troops from Cuba (September 14, 1991).
DOCUMENT
T HE decision, taken unilaterally
and without prior consultation by the Soviet authorities concerning their military personnel in Cuba, the so called Instruction Brigade, which we have called since 1979 the Study Centre no.12, has grave political consequences and compromises our security...
This brigade has in the course of time become the only Soviet military presence — a fact known to the United States, even if this was not a publicly known fact... On the eve of the 29th anniversary of this brigade, which continued to be a fighting unit with all the necessary means and instructions, the question was raised of its unilateral withdrawal, on the grounds that it belonged to a past epoch.
For us the word symbolic, which we were the first to use in this connection, has two meanings: the brigade is not a numerically significant force, but at the same time it expressed friendship and solidarity in the face of the US' threats...
In the scenario of the joint press conference held at the end of the bilateral negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States, the announcement of the decision to withdrawal the military contingent in our country appeared as an unconditional concession in the eyes of world public opinion. President Gorbachev omitted any reference to the US presence in Cuba as did the Secretary of State James Baker, who knew the news already and had time to find the right words....
On September 12, some hours after the Cuban ambassador in Moscow sent an official note to president Gorbachev concerning the announcement of the withdrawal, the Soviet Union's foreign affairs minister, Boris D. Pankin, gave a press conference. In his preliminary declaration, as in his answers to journalists, Pankin gave additional elements which made it possibe oor us to pubies fix em Cuba. 17 position on the principles of the matter....
International Viewpoint #214 • October 14, 1991
CUBA / INDIA According to the head of Soviet diplomacy, the American side had been told of the removal of the military contingent of the Instruction Brigade -before even the Cuban government could learn about it from the press agency — because this was an appeal to the US with the hope that they would respond on their side with similar gestures.
According to Pankin, and thus according to the Soviet authorities, everything was based on what the US might hypothetically do, on condition that these hopes were not unfounded; but the Soviet hopes are extremely modest — a reduction in the military personnel at Guantanamo or other equally minor gestures. But in any case this would only depend on the choices made by the US and could be reversed at any moment as often happens with US policy, above all now that that country feels that it owns the planet. The gestures that the USSR has said it is ready to make, on the other hand, are irreversible and unconditional....
Happily, we are no longer in October 1962, but nearly in October 1991, and the defence of Cuba rests solidly on a doctrine and preparation that, for more than ten years has totally excluded any other hypothesis. It is based on the unbreakable determination not to become the US' slave and to rely on our own forces...
We can also count on our own experience, and on being faithful to certain principles that we cannot renounce.... We have rejected all the pressures and even all the proposals of different North American administrations who have demanded that we abjure and break our close links with the Soviet Union...
One is filled with indignation at the thought that we are moving towards a new world order in which small Third World countries such as Cuba, whose system displeases the US, have no other choice than to submit or face the risk of disappearance; there will be no more room for ideological loyalties nor for elementary ethical principles without which a new menace will arise for our civilization; the predominance of a new barbarism based on the technological power and hegemonic delirium of the US.
Nonetheless, we have always had confidence in the peoples and the future. What our country represents today it has not become by wavering and denials. Faced with the arrogance of empire and the difficulties that have appeared in our relations with the USSR, we have chosen dignity and self-respect, without for all that deceiving ourselves. We know that we have reduced material resources and that we will be obliged to make truly heroic and superhuman efforts. But we are ready to do what is required by our principles.
It would be unjust to put an equals sign 18 between the Soviet military collaborators in Cuba, representatives of a tradition of solidarity and internationalism which has been indispensable for the construction of our armed forces, and the American forces at Guantanamo. It would also be immoral and unjustifiable to accept now, at precisely the moment when the talk about the end of the Cold War is reaching its climax, when nobody can use the pretext of Communist expansionism, nor see a danger in a small Soviet military contingent, that a US base and its aggressive troops should stay on Cuban soil while the Soviet troops withdraw. We would be ready to accept the simultaneous retreat of both forces. That would be the only equitable, just and honourable alternative in present circumstances. Besides these questions should be discussed by us, as an interested party....
Cuba is willing, to this end, to take part in an international accord at the United Nations.
In this agreement, with all its guarantees, one could [introduce] clauses satisfying both parties, among them, evidently, the cessation of practise invasions of Cuba which the US commanders have carried out systematically in the region for years.
Then in the case of Cuba, you could really talk about a new political philosophy at work in international relations...
Cuba does not threaten any government on the planet. But nobody can hope to count on Cuba to renounce its principles, to submit or take advantage at the expense of the interests of others.
The unilateral and unconditional decision, taken without any consultation with us, by the USSR to withdraw its military unit, amounts to giving the US the green light to go ahead with its aggressive designs against Cuba. This is the moral meaning of the withdrawal of this symbolic contingent from Cuba; there is no other possible explanation or interpretation of this event. Cuba will never surrender or self itself to the USA. We will fight to the death in order not to become slaves. *