"If the empire managed to secure control of Cuba again, not one of these higher institutions created by the Revolution would remain to guarantee young people this right. It would send most young people to the countryside, to cut sugarcane. It is a declared policy. It would attempt to steal the artistic and scientific talents Cuba has nurtured, as it has done in other countries in our hemisphere. Having more than 70,000 specialists in general comprehensive medicine and hundreds of thousands of other professionals, helping others, the poorest included, and exporting these services, is a sin of which a Third World country cannot be forgiven. Ultimately, we have held our ground in spite of the blockade, their aggressions and their brutal acts of terrorism for nearly half a century".
Quotes
"It is well known that, throughout my whole life, since I had a revolutionary conscience, I have dedicated myself, first and foremost, to the subject of education, ever since the Literacy Campaign up to the universalization of higher education. Despite the economic blockade and aggression, we have managed to attain a privileged and unique position in the world in this field".
"In his speech, Obama portrays the Cuban revolution as anti-democratic and lacking in respect for freedom and human rights. It is the exact same argument which, almost without exception, U.S. administrations have used again and again to justify their crimes against our country. The blockade, in and of itself, is an act of genocide. I don’t want to see U.S. children inculcated with those shameful values. An armed revolution in our country might not have been needed without the military interventions, Platt Amendment and economic colonialism visited upon Cuba. The revolution was the result of imperial domination. We cannot be accused of having imposed it upon the country. The true changes could have and ought to have been brought about in the United States. Its own workers, more than a century ago, voiced the demand for an eight-hour work shift, which stemmed from the development of productive forces".
“There are still some who dream of submitting Cuba using the criminal blockade as an instrument of the U.S. foreign policy against our homeland. If that country made the same mistake again it could spend another century implementing that useless policy against Cuba; that is, if the empire could last that long”.
"I wish to remind him of a basic ethical principle with respect to Cuba: there is no excuse for any injustice, any crime to last, regardless of time; the cruel blockade on the Cuban people takes lives and causes suffering; it also affects the economy of the nation and limits its possibilities to cooperate with healthcare, education and sports services, with energy saving and with the protection of the environment in many poor countries of the world".
“No matter how much is said it will never be enough to describe the cynical US policy that includes Cuba in the list of terrorist countries and applies the murderous Cuban Adjustment Act only to our nation, which it targets with an economic blockade preventing even the sale of medical equipment and medicines.”
"Even though it hurts our modesty, it is a bitter duty to say that our blockaded, threatened and slandered country has shown that Latin American peoples can live without either violence or drugs. It can even live, and that’s what has happened for more than half a century, without relations with the United States. That is something we haven’t shown; they have. "
“So much virtue has not allowed him to understand yet that 50 years of blockade and the crimes against our Homeland have not been able to bring our people to their knees. Many things shall change in Cuba, but they shall change because of our efforts and despite the United States. Perhaps that empire shall crumble first”.
"(...) under the aegis of the Yankee empire, no security guarantee exists for any other country. In the UN one can repeat time and time again the unanimous rejection of the economic blockade on Cuba, or any other measure such as the right of the Palestinian people to their constitution as a state, but unless such a right, or any other, fits in with the empire’s interests, it has no validity whatsoever".