Che Guevara: Address to the United Nations General Assembly

Explanation and Analysis of the Document

In his impassioned address—which attracted attention in part because of two failed assassination attempts against him during his visit to New York City—Guevara calls attention to numerous places throughout the world where, in his view, injustice reigned. He chastises the United Nations for its failure to address the issue of apartheid in South Africa. He is sharply critical of what he calls “U.S. imperialism” in such countries as Cambodia and Vietnam. Additionally, he calls attention to conflict in Turkey, as well as in African countries such as Mozambique, Angola, and Portuguese Guinea (today's Guinea-Bissau). He then turns his attention to Latin Americans, focusing first on the “assault on their will and their historical destiny” by the United States. Guevara is also sharply critical of Western imperialism in such nations as British Guiana (now Guyana), Guadeloupe, and Martinique. He calls for complete disarmament and a halt to the production and testing of nuclear weapons. He offers words of support for the Communist People's Republic of China, calling it “the sole representative of its people” and hence urges that it be admitted to the United Nations.

Returning to issues surrounding Latin America, Guevara argues that economic relations between Latin American and capitalist countries are exploitative and unequal. He calls unabashedly for imposition of a Socialist model: “So long as the economically dependent peoples do not free themselves from the capitalist markets and, in a firm bloc with the socialist countries, impose new relations between the exploited and the exploiters, there will be no solid economic development.” He condemns U.S. involvement in the affairs of Latin America—in, for example, Venezuela and particularly in Cuba—and he reasserts the right of Cuba to maintain on its territory any weapons it wants. He calls for withdrawal of U.S. forces from Guantánamo.

Guevara ends his address by quoting the Second Declaration of Havana, which says that Latin America is a “family of 200 million brothers, who suffer the same miseries.” This “epic,” he says, will be written by the “hungry Indian masses, peasants without land, exploited workers, and progressive masses.” He sees the conflict in the region as a struggle that would be maintained by those “mistreated and scorned by imperialism” and seen as “a weak and submissive flock” but who would conquer “Yankee monopoly capitalism.” During this "hour of vindication,” the “anonymous mass” would write its own history “with its own blood” and reclaim those “rights that were laughed at by one and all for 500 years.” Guevara ends his address by stating that this “wave of anger” would “sweep the lands of Latin America” and that the laboring masses who “turn the wheel of history” were “awakening from the long, brutalizing sleep to which they had been subjected.”