June 10, 2022
Cuban President Miguel Diaz Canel speaking to the People’s Summit for Democracy, photo: Bill Hackwell
Dear Manolo; and all the comrades who are participating in the People’s Summit for Democracy;
I was not wrong when I said that I will not be at the Summit of the Americas but the voice of Cuba certainly will.
You are our voice. The Revolution has always had it very clear: wherever governments deprive us of our voice, people will be there to represent us, to speak on our behalf.
And so it has been since the times of the Ministry of Colonies, when there were governments that were pushed by the empire to break relations with Cuba, and ended up obeying the order of the master, with the honorable exception of Mexico.
The Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples (ICAP) was born from that understanding.
Solidarity is not only a principle that is inseparable from the revolutionary praxis. It is the most formidable weapon for those of us who believe in the power of the masses, in the telluric force of mobilized peoples and the inspiring struggle for social justice.
Wherever people are struggling, Cuba will be. And wherever Cuba is, people will be struggling.
The struggle that we are sharing today dates back to centuries, at the cost of the blood of some of the best sons and daughters of the Greater Homeland. That struggle is waged against the powerful neighbor’s re-colonizing attempts of our American nations. It is waged against the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine that continues to guide the US and its political approach to our region.
It is waged against the imperial policies of sanctions and penalties for countries that will not yield to such designs. It is waged against the US politicians’ aspirations to become gendarmes and supreme judges, determined to establish who should be our leaders and even our civil society.
Cuba was the first Latin American nation that was excluded from the hemispheric alliances for having rebelled against the empire. Others tried to do the same before but they were subject to coup d’états, dictatorships and transnationals of terror like Operation Condor.
Cuba was expelled from the OAS; it was alienated from its natural environment. Several aggressions were financed and are still financed against the Revolution. We are the honorable survivors of 63 years of blockade and, to the disgrace of that powerful empire, which is 30 times bigger than our Island, we are among the countries of the hemisphere that can show the best education and health indicators as well as a scientific development of our own.
The fraternal Venezuela is also being arrogantly punished. It has been robbed of its savings and its assets abroad and its legitimate government has been ignored. Vicious attacks have been launched to strangle Nicaragua, a nation that has faced so many conquest attempts in history and where at some point in time a dictatorship that was strongly sponsored by Washington was imposed.
People are wise. Peoples have memory. Those people that have organized a Summit that the empire wanted to prevent, as well as the proud governments that did not silence their denunciations and raised their voices also in our behalf, understand that where there used to be a punished nation before, now there are three and tomorrow there will be 10. However, if people line up in close ranks, the giant in its seven-league boots that floats around in heavens devouring worlds shall not trespass.
Thanks to that understanding the Ninth Summit of the Americas was not exactly what its organizers expected. Solidarity was ever more present also where it had not been invited to, where it was not wanted.
Therefore, I would ask you to share our most sincere appreciation with the governments of the region that firmly opposed the exclusions of Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas.
Deserving our special recognition are President Manuel López Obrador from Mexico; the Prime Minister of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves; the Presidents of Bolivia, Lucho Arce, and from Honduras, Xiomara Castro; as well as the many leaders and heads of the Caribbean and Latin American delegations who, during the Summit itself, have rejected the exclusion of Cuba and the criminal blockade against our people.
North America is not the enemy. The North America of workers, indigenous populations, and immigrants, who have also been excluded, not only once but day after day, by the merciless empire of the market; that North America that you are showing to us, a rebellious, insubordinate, pro-active and fraternal North America, is our natural sister is not, and will never be, our enemy.
Thank you for giving voice to the excluded. Thank you for painting the horizon with hope. Thank you for ratifying to us, once again, that a better world is possible.
Source: Minrex