The general resolution adopted by the Tricontinental Conference represented a major victory for the philosophy of Maoism, in the sense that it rejected all Possibility of peaceful reform and declared revolutionary violence to be the only road to the future. These were the words of the resolution:
One cannot accept the, first small step as an alternative to those that follow.
We cannot permit ourselves to be deceived or frightened. * * * The struggle is to the death. * * * The peoples of the three continents must reply to imperialist violence with revolutionary violence to safeguard hard-won national independence, as well as to achieve the liberation of the peoples who are fighting to shake off the colonialist noose.
The general declaration of the Tricontinental Conference covered the following significant points:
1. Condemned Yankee imperialism for allegedly "carrying out a policy of systematic intervention and military aggression against the nations of the three continents."
2. Referred to Yankee imperialism as the "implacable enemy of all peoples of the world."
3. Referred again to Yankee imperialism as constituting "the basis for oppression; it directs, provides, and upholds the worldwide system of exploitation."
4. Proclaimed "the right of the peoples to meet imperialist violence with revolutionary violence."
5. Vigorously condemned "the Yankee imperialists' aggressive war in South Vietnam."
6. Proclaimed "its solidarity with the armed struggle of the peoples of Venezuela, Guatemala, Peru, Colombia."
7. Condemned "the aggressive policy of the U.S. Government and its Asian agents against peaceful and neutral Cambodia and calls for the rejection of all political, economic, diplomatic, and cooperation with the Yankee imperialists and with all puppet governments which help the U.S. overnment in their aggressive policy against the Indochinese peoples."
8. Condemned "the North American imperialists' blockade on Cuba."
Another resolution read in part:
North American imperialism is at the fore of the imperialists' aggressive policy. The most desperate actions against peoples, as in Vietnam and the Dominicin Republic, lie at the door of the Yankee imperialists. North American states girdle the globe. Aggressive pacts in which the United States is the leading power cover ever continent and sea. The United States is found behind everv aggressive action committed by the other imperialists.
Another resolution read in part:
North American imperialism is at the fore of the imperialists' aggressive policy. The most desperate actions against peoples, as in Vietnam and the Dominican Republic, lie at the door of the Yankee imperialists. North American states girdle the globe. Aggressive pacts in which the United States is the leading power cover every continent and sea. The United States is found behind every aggressive action committed by the other imperialists.
Another resolution read:
This conference is convinced that, in view of the imperialists' violence, the peoples of the three continents must reply with revolutionary violence. The latter (people's) must make use of all the most vigorous forms of struggle, among which armed battle is one of the higher forms to obtain final victory."
The resolution dealing with Vietnam said:
The conference sets forth clearly that to the imperialist tactic of limited wars the effective reply is the development of liberation wars in every region where conditions are ripe. The best example is Vietnam, where the United States by stepping up its intervention is creating the conditions for a more complete defeat later.
Again Vietnam was dealt with in these terms:
It is necessary to multiply solidarity with the Vietnamese people throughout the world and support their heroic battle in every mariner, even by sending armed volunteers if that be necessary. The Conference supports the four points laid down by the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and the five points stated by the South Vietnam National Liberation Front, and calls on all peoples to struggle to see this applied as the sole settlement for the Vietnam case. Defense of the Vietnamese people's just cause has become a central task for the revolutionary strategy of the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
A resolution on Puerto Rico said in part:
Puerto Rico remains occupied by U.S. imperialism, which not only denies her the right to independence, but has converted her into an enormous military base that includes atomic weapons.
Another resolution stressed the importance of Cuba:
Special mention is due solidarity with Cuba, whose people are defending and carrying forward a revolution only ninety miles from the United States. Her choice as the site of the first solidarity conference of the peoples of Africa, Asia, and Latin American is the highest recognition of the importance of her revolution and the significance it has for the peoples of the three continents. Cuba, because of her relatively small size, her geographical position near the United States and in a zone surrounded by Governments which are puppets of the Yankee imperialists * * * proves with her revolution, triumphing over all aggressions perpetrated or fomented by the United States, that revolution is possible and invincible.
A resolution on the Panama Canal Zone said:
The Panama Canal Zone is being used as a base for attack on peoples fighting for their liberation, it forms the Caribbean triangle with the military bases at Guantanamo and on Puerto Rico. This is done against the will of the Panamanian people.
The resolution on the United Nations denounced it as being manipulated by the United States.
The Conference's "Declaration on the OAS" said:
That the Organization of American States has no legal or moral authority to represent the Latin American nations. That the only organization that will be able to represent Latin America will be the one composed of the democratic and anti-imperialist governments that are the genuine product of the sovereign will of the Latin American peoples.
The Conference proposed:
That the revolutionary movements of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, and others in the Caribbean area and southern part of the hemisphere take prompt steps to make a joint study of this military situation, wlth a view to finding means to counteract the effects of this aggressive attitude of imperialism.
The Conference resolved:
To give the most determined support to the revolutionary movements of Colombia, Venezuela, Peru, Panama, Ecuador, and other countries of the Caribbean area and the southern part of the hemisphere in order to respond to the overall aggressive policy of U.S. imperialism with the most effective measures to counteract its effects.
To denounce before all the countries of the three continents the Yankee intervention in the armed struggles of Colombia, Venezuela, and Peru, and to promote the militant solidarity of the combatants of those countries with each other and with the peoples of the continents in the great battle for national liberation.
To give decisive support, in all forms, to the armed struggle undertaken in Peru, the path valiantly chosen by the Peruvian people to achieve its definitive and total economic and political independence.
Such was the atmosphere and the general political character of the Tricontinental
Conference in Havana.