Cuba reaffirms its will to advance in relations with the United States,
on the basis of respect for the principles and purposes of the United Nations
Charter and the principles of the Proclamation of Latin America and the
Caribbean as a Zone of Peace.
President Barack Obama of the United States of America will make an
official visit to Cuba this coming March 20-22.
This will be the second time a U.S. president comes to our archipelago.
The only previous US president to do so was Calvin Coolidge who landed in
Havana in January of 1928. He arrived aboard a warship to attend the 6th Pan
American Conference which was being held under the sponsorship of Gerardo
Machado, an infamous local character.
This will be the first time a president of the United States comes to a
Cuba which is in full possession of her sovereignty and with a Revolution in
power, headed by its historic leadership.
This event is part of the process initiated on December 17, 2014, when the
President of the Councils of State and Ministers of Cuba, Army General Raúl
Castro Ruz, and President Barack Obama simultaneously announced the decision to
reestablish the diplomatic relations that had been broken by the United States
almost 54 years ago. It is part of the incipient complex process of
normalization of bilateral ties and has advanced on the only grounds that are
possible and just: respect, equality, reciprocity, and the recognition of our
government’s legitimacy.
In the foremost place, this point has been reached as the result of the
Cuban people’s heroic resistance and their loyalty to principles, the defense
of national independence and sovereignty. Such values, which have not been
negotiable for 50 years, led the United States government to admit to the
severe damage the blockade has caused our population, and to recognize the
failure of the openly hostile policy toward the Revolution. They were unable to
impose conditions on Cuba which were contrary to our aspirations, forged over
almost 150 years of heroic struggle, not with force, economic coercion, or
isolation.
The current process undertaken with the United States has also been
possible thanks to unwavering international solidarity, in particular from the
governments and peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean who placed the
United States in an unsustainable position of isolation. Strongly united, “like
silver in the bedrock of the Andes,” as our national hero José Martí said in
his essay “Our America,” Latin America and the Caribbean demanded a change in
policy towards Cuba. This regional demand was made unequivocally clear at the
Summits of the Americas in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago in 2009 and in
Cartagena, Colombia in 2012, when every country in the region unanimously and
categorically demanded the lifting of the blockade and our country’s
participation in the 7th Hemispheric Meeting in Panama in 2015 when a Cuban
delegation, led by Raúl, attended for the first time.
Since the announcements of December 2014, Cuba and the United States
have taken steps toward improving the bilateral context.
On July 20, 2015, diplomatic relations were officially reestablished
along with the commitment to develop them on the basis of respect, cooperation,
and the observance of the principles of international law.
Two meetings between the countries’ Presidents have taken place, as well
as exchanged visits by ministers and other contacts between high ranking
officials. Cooperation in various areas of mutual benefit are advancing and new
opportunities for discussion have opened up, allowing for dialogue on issues of
bilateral and multilateral interest, including those about which we have
different conceptions.
The U.S. President will be welcomed by the Government of Cuba and its
people with the hospitality which distinguishes us and he will be treated with
all consideration and respect as befits a Head of State.
This will be an opportunity for the President to directly observe a
nation immersed in its economic and social development and in improving its
citizens’ well being. Our peoples enjoy rights and they can exhibit achievements
which are only dreams for many of the world’s countries, achievements that have
been attained despite the limitations derived from our condition as an
underdeveloped, blockaded country, something that has earned us international
recognition and respect.
In their joint statement released in Havana in February, internationally
renowned figures Pope Francis and Patriarch Kirill described this island as “a
symbol of hope of the New World.” French President François Hollande recently
affirmed that “Cuba is respected and heard throughout Latin America,” and he
praised the country’s capacity for resistance in the face of the most difficult
tests. South African leader Nelson Mandela always had words of profound
gratitude for Cuba. On July 26, 1991in Matanzas he said: “We in Africa are
accustomed to being victims of other countries who want to seize our territory
or subvert our sovereignty. In the history of Africa, there is no other example
of a people (like the Cuban people) who have come to the defense of one of us.”
Obama will find himself in a country which actively contributes to
regional and world peace and stability and which shares not what we have left
over with other peoples, but the modest resources we possess, making solidarity
an essential element of our identity, and for humanity’s well being, one of the
fundamental objectives of our international policy as Martí imparted to us.
He will also have the opportunity to meet a noble, friendly, dignified
people who possess a high degree of patriotism and national unity and who have
always struggled for a better future, despite the adversities we have been
obliged to face. The President of the
United States will be received by a revolutionary people with deeply-rooted
political culture, the result of a long tradition of struggle for their true,
definitive independence, first against Spanish colonialism and later against
imperialist domination by the United States; it has been a struggle in which
our best sons and daughters have shed their blood and faced all manner of
risks. We are a people who will never renounce the defense of our principles
and the vast work of the Revolution, unhesitatingly following the examples of
Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, José Martí, Antonio Maceo, Julio Antonio Mella,
Rubén Martínez Villena, Antonio Guiteras and Ernesto Che Guevara, among many
others.
We are also a people united by historical, cultural and affective ties
with United States citizens, one of whom is the emblematic figure of the writer
Ernest Hemingway who received the Nobel Prize for Literature for his novel set
in Cuba. We are people who show our gratitude to people from the United States
who like Thomas Jordan [1], Henry Reeve, Winchester Osgood [2] and Frederick
Funston [3] fought with the Liberation Army in Cuba’s wars of independence
against Spain; and those who in more recent times have opposed aggression
against Cuba, such as Reverend Lucius Walker who defied the blockade to bring solidarity
and help to our people and who supported the return of the boy Elián González
and the Cuban Five to our homeland. We learned from Martí to admire the
homeland of Lincoln and to repudiate Cutting [4].
It is worthwhile to recall the words of the historic leader of the Cuban
Revolution, Comandante en Jefe Fidel Castro Ruz, on September 11, 2001, when he
affirmed: “Today is a day of tragedy for the United States. You know very well
that hatred for the U.S. people has never been sowed here. Perhaps precisely
because of its culture and lack of complexes, feeling fully free, with a
homeland and no master, Cuba is the country where U.S. citizens are treated
with more respect. We have never preached any kind of national hate or anything
seeming to be fanatical, that is why we are so strong, because we base our
conduct on principles, on ideas, and we treat every U.S. citizens who visits us
with great respect, and they perceive this.”
These are the people who will receive President Obama, proud of their
history, their roots, their national culture, and feeling confident that a
better future is possible. A nation that assumes with serenity and
determination the current stage of relations with the United States, a nation
that recognizes both the opportunities and the unresolved problems between the
two countries.
The President of the United States’ visit will be an important step in
the process of normalization of bilateral relations. It must be remembered that
Obama, just as James Carter previously, has decided to work towards the
normalization of ties with Cuba by making use of his executive powers, and he
has consequently taken concrete action in this direction.
Nevertheless, in order to attain normalization there is a long and
difficult road ahead of us; it will require solving key issues which have
accumulated over more than five decades and aggravated the confrontational
nature of relations between the two countries. Such problems are not resolved
overnight, or with a Presidential visit.
To normalize relations with the United States, it is imperative that the
economic, commercial, financial blockade which causes the Cuba people such
hardship and is the principal obstacle to our country’s development be lifted.
We must acknowledge President Obama’s reiterated position that the
blockade must be eliminated and his calling on Congress to lift it. This is
also a demand supported by the growing majority of the American public, and
almost unanimously supported by the international community which on 24
occasions, in the United Nations General Assembly, has approved the Cuban
resolution entitled “The necessity of putting an end to the economic,
commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States of America on
Cuba.”
The U.S. President has taken steps to modify the implementation of some
aspects of the blockade; this is positive.
High-ranking officials in his administration have said that others are
being studied. Nevertheless, it has not been possible to implement a good portion
of these measures given their limited reach and because of the continuing
existence of other regulations, and due to the intimidating effect of the
blockade as a whole, which has been strictly enforced for 50 years.
Paradoxically, the government on the one hand adopts these measures and
on the other it intensifies the sanctions against Cuba which affect the daily
lives of our people.
Reality continues to show that the blockade is being maintained; it is
also rigorously enforced and has notable extra-territorial scope, producing a
deterring effect on companies and banks in the United States and in other
countries. An example of this are the
multi-million dollar fines which continue to be levied on U.S. companies and
banking institutions, and those of other nationalities, for having relations
with Cuba; the denial of services and the blocking of financial operations of
international banks with our country; and the freezing of legitimate transfers
of funds to and from Cuba, including those in currencies other than the U.S
dollar.
The Cuban people hope that the U.S. President’s visit will serve to
consolidate his will to be actively involved in a full-blown debate in Congress
to lift the blockade and, in the meantime, that he will continue to use his executive prerogatives to
modify its application as much as possible, without the need for legislative
action.
Other issues which are damaging Cuban sovereignty must also be resolved
in order to achieve normal relations between the two countries. Territory
occupied by the U.S. Naval Base in Guantánamo, against the will of our
government and people, must be returned to Cuba, to respect the unanimous wish
of Cubans that has been expressed for over 100 years. Interventionist programs,
intended to provoke destabilizing situations and changes in our country’s
political, economic, social order must be eliminated. The “regime change”
policy must be definitively interred.
At the same time, the aim of fabricating domestic political opposition,
supported by money from U.S. contributors, must be abandoned. An end must be
put to the aggressive radio and television broadcasts attacking Cuba in open
violation of international law, and the illegal use of telecommunications for
political purposes, recognizing that the goal is not to influence Cuban society
but to put technology at the service of development and knowledge.
The preferential migratory treatment our citizens receive, in accordance
with the Cuban Adjustment Act and the “wet foot-dry foot” policy, causes losses
in human lives and encourages illegal emigration and trafficking in persons, as
well as generating problems for third countries. This situation must be
changed, just as the “parole” program for Cuban medical professionals must be
canceled since it deprives the country of human resources vital to our people’s,
health and affects the intended beneficiaries of Cuban cooperation with nations
needing our support. Likewise, the policies which require Cuban athletes to
break their ties with Cuba in order to play in U.S. leagues must change.
These policies of the past are incongruous with the new stage which the
United States government has initiated with our country. All of them were
established prior to the administration of President Obama but he can modify
some of them with executive decisions and entirely eliminate others.
Cuba has taken on the building of a new relationship with the United
States, fully exercising its sovereignty and committed to its ideals of social
justice and solidarity. Nobody can claim that to do so we must renounce any one
of our principles, concede one single inch in their defense or abandon what our
Constitution declares: “Economic and diplomatic relations with any other state
can never be negotiated under aggression, threats or coercion by a foreign
power.”
Not even the slightest doubt can be harbored in regards to Cuba’s
unconditional commitment to its revolutionary and anti-imperialist ideals and
its foreign policy in favor of the world’s just causes, the defense of peoples’
self-determination and our traditional support for our sister countries.
As the latest Declaration of the Revolutionary Government has declared,
our solidarity is, and will always be, immutable with the Bolivarian Republic
of Venezuela, the government led by President Nicolás Maduro, and with the
Bolivarian, Chavista people who are struggling to find their own path and who
confront systematic destabilization attempts and unilateral sanctions
established by the unfounded, unfair U.S. Executive Order of March 2015,
condemned throughout Latin America and the Caribbean. The announcement made
this past March 3 to extend the so-called “National Emergency” and sanctions is
unacceptable, direct intervention in the internal affairs of Venezuela and its
sovereignty. The Executive Order must be abolished: this will be Cuba’s firm,
ongoing demand.
As Army General Raúl Castro stated: “We will not renounce our ideals of
independence and social justice, nor will we surrender even a single one of our
principles or concede one millimeter in the defense of our national
sovereignty. We will not allow ourselves
to be pressured in regards to our internal affairs. We have won this sovereign
right with great sacrifices and at the cost of great risks.”
Once again we reiterate that we have reached this point as a result of
our convictions and because we have reason and justice on our side.
Cuba reaffirms its will to advance in its relations with the United
States on the basis of respect for the principles and purposes of the United
Nations Charter and the principles of the Proclamation of Latin America and the
Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, signed by the region’s heads of state and
government, which include absolute respect for independence, sovereignty and
the inalienable right of every state to choose its own political, economic,
social and cultural system without interference of any kind; as well as
equality and reciprocity.
Cuba reiterates its full disposition to maintain respectful dialogue
with the government of the United States and to develop relations of civilized
coexistence. Coexistence does not mean
being obliged to renounce the ideas in which we believe and which have brought
us thus far, or our socialism, our history or our culture.
The profound conceptual differences between Cuba and the United States
in political models, social justice, international relations, world peace and
stability, among others, will persist.
Cuba defends the indivisibility, interdependence and universality of
civil, political, economic, social and cultural human rights. We are convinced
that it is an obligation of governments to defend and guarantee the right to
health, education, social security, equal pay for equal work, the rights of
children, as well as the right to food and development. We reject the political
manipulation and double standards relating to human rights, which must end.
Cuba has signed 44 international instruments on this subject, while the United
States has only committed to 18, and so it has much to share, to defend, and to
demonstrate.
In regards to our ties with the United States, both countries should
respect their differences and create a relationship which is beneficial for
both our peoples.
Regardless of the progress which can be achieved in ties with the United
States, the Cuban people will continue to move forward. With our own efforts
and proven capacity and creativity, we will continue to work for the country’s
development and for the wellbeing of Cubans. We will not desist in our demand
for the blockade, which has caused and causes so much harm, to be lifted. We
will persevere in the process of updating the socio-economic model we have
chosen, and in building prosperous, sustainable socialism in order to
consolidate the achievements of the Revolution.
A path that has been chosen in sovereignty and which will surely be
reaffirmed by the 7th Congress of the Communist Party of Cuba, with Fidel and
Raúl victorious.
This is the Cuba which will respectfully welcome President Obama.
[1] Major General, head of the Liberation Army’s General Staff (1869).
[2] Major. Killed in combat during the siege of Guáimaro, October 28,
1896.
[3] Artillery Colonel, under the command of Calixto García.
[4] A figure who in 1886 promoted hate and aggression against Mexico.
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