ECONOMY

“To begin with, I will say that neither in the first or the second half of this century nor at any other time in history has a country done or achieved as much in sports as Cuba in an extremely short period of time. And it is a small Third World country, one that is additionally subjected to an economic blockade by the wealthiest and mightiest nation on Earth as well as to a thousand different forms of harassment and aggression”.

"In Latin America, where neoliberalism has been applied with absolute attachment to doctrine, economic growth in the neoliberal stage has not been higher than that attained under the previous state development policies".

"Under neoliberalism the world economy has not been growing faster in real terms; however, there is more instability, speculation, external debt and unequal exchange. Likewise, there is a greater tendency to financial crises occurring more often while poverty, inequality and the gap between the wealthy North and the dispossessed South continues to widen".

“I am firmly convinced that the current economic order imposed by the wealthy countries is not only cruel, unjust, inhuman and contrary to the inevitable course of history but also inherently racist. It reflects racist conceptions like those that once inspired the Nazi holocaust and concentration camps of Europe, mirrored today in the so-called refugee camps of the Third World, which actually serve to concentrate the effects of poverty, hunger and violence. These are the same racist conceptions that inspired the monstrous system of apartheid in Africa.”

"The blockade as a whole and the criminal economic warfare against Cuba must end! The threats, the subversive campaigns, the destabilization plans must end!"

“In the period we are going through, but progressively leaving behind, in Cuba today we have learned that a great number of variables are possible in the development of the economy and the solution of problems. It can be done if the state plays its role putting first the interests of the nation and the people”.

“Today, the transnationals are institutions with more capacity, wealth and power than all of the world’s governments put together. And the crisis will be even further accelerated as they continue to merge and increasingly dominate the world’s finances, production and economy, moved by the blind and uncontrollable laws of the system that gave rise to them”.

"When reflecting upon what is happening in the world, it is impossible to ignore that the advances made by humankind in political development, social justice and peaceful coexistence lag far behind its extraordinary scientific and technological achievements.".

“Today’s world is plundered and oppressed by the empire and its richest allies with their ruthless economic order, their financial institutions, their debts of trillions of dollars imposed on underdeveloped countries, which are forced every year to pay back more than they borrowed, thus increasing exponentially a debt which continues to multiply, leading hundreds of millions, billions of people toward the edge of an abyss of hopelessness. This world order cannot continue, this order is unsustainable, this order will come crashing down since it is impossible to go on underestimating nations, it is impossible to continue plundering and looking down on nations that are learning and growing ever more aware of their right to wellbeing and to life.”

"No one can deny that terrorism is today a dangerous and ethically indefensible phenomenon, which should be eradicated regardless of its deep origins, the economic and political factors that brought it to live and those responsible for it".

“The economic crisis also means the aggravation of major problems that are far from being solved: poverty, hunger and disease, which kill tens of millions of people in the world every year; illiteracy, lack of education, unemployment, and the exploitation of millions of children through child labor and prostitution; the trafficking and consumption of drugs, which mobilizes and absorbs hundreds of billions of dollars; money laundering; the lack of drinking water; the scarcity of housing, hospitals, communications, schools and educational facilities.”