Kuba

“Fortunately, our Revolution can still count on cadres from the old guard and others who were very young in the early stages of the process. Some were very young, almost children, when they joined the fight on the mountains and later they have given glory to the country with their heroic performance and their internationalist missions. They have the authority and the experience to guarantee the replacement. There is also the intermediate generation which learned together with us the basics of the complex and almost unattainable art of organizing and leading a revolution.”

“To my dearest compatriots, who have recently honored me so much by electing me a member of the Parliament where so many agreements should be adopted of utmost importance to the destiny of our Revolution, I am saying that I will neither aspire to nor accept, I repeat, I will neither aspire to nor accept the positions of President of the State Council and Commander in Chief.”

“Later, in my necessary retreat, I was able to recover the full command of my mind as well as the possibility for much reading and meditation. I had enough physical strength to write for many hours, which I shared with the corresponding rehabilitation and recovery programs. Basic common sense indicated that such activity was within my reach. On the other hand, when referring to my health I was extremely careful to avoid raising expectations since I felt that an adverse ending would bring traumatic news to our people in the midst of the battle. Thus, my first duty was to prepare our people both politically and psychologically for my absence after so many years of struggle. I kept saying that my recovery “was not without risks.”

"In one single African village –as we have already said and we shall repeat as many times as necessary– a Cuban internationalist doctor can at the same time train several excellent doctors at his side, in the biggest laboratory in the world, the community, to struggle against the particular diseases affecting each specific region in Africa. The books accompanying this doctor would be used as a common source of knowledge".

“Observing our sincere, patriotic and internationalist efforts, the manual and intellectual labor of our every day, I would dare say: anything that strengthens the revolution ethically is good; everything that weakens it is bad”.

"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".

"Radio Marti, Television Marti and other sophisticated and aggressive media insult the name of our Apostle of Independence. They are trying with these to humiliate the Cuban people and destroy its resistance.
 
A flood of speeches and lies are being waged against Cuba.  McCain, Bush’s candidate to the presidency of the empire, speaks; Bush himself speaks.  Against whom?  Against Marti.  On whose behalf? Marti’s".

"The power to the north had always been hostile to our struggle, since a long time before it had targeted our country with the ‘Manifest Destiny’ to make it part of its territory in its quest for expansion.
 
At a given point, the decline of the Spanish Empire, over which the sun never set, facilitated the blow to smash Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and Guam given by the new imperial power. It sought excuses, it used deceit and lies, and recognized that to all intents and purposes the Cuban people were free and independent, and with this it sought the backing of its valiant combatants to support the interventionist war".

"Cuba is cooperating free (...) many other sister countries in the hemisphere, both in education and healthcare, placing special emphasis on the training of medical personnel.  Thus, Cuba modestly carries out its Marti-inspired duty: “Homeland is humanity!” as our National Hero proclaimed".
 
 

"Martí was a profound thinker and a straightforward anti-imperialist. In his times, no one knew so precisely about the dire consequences of the monetary agreements that the United States was trying to force on the Latin American countries, the prototype of a free trade which today has been reborn in conditions that are more unfair than ever".

"Some ask themselves how it is possible for a small country with scarce resources to carry out tasks of such magnitude in fields as decisive as education and health, without which contemporary society is unthinkable".

"What does the empire decide to do in order to compete with Cuba in our hemisphere? To deploy an enormous ship turned into a floating hospital that works ten days in each country. It can assist a number of people daily but it cannot solve a country's problems. It does not compensate for the brain-drain, and it cannot train the specialists who are needed so that real medical services may be offered on any day of the week and year. All of the world's aircraft carriers, which today are instruments of military intervention deployed across the world's oceans, working as hospitals, could not offer those services to the millions of people treated by Cuban doctors in remote corners of the planet, where women go into labor, children are born and there are sick people in urgent need of attention".