"In East Timor, where genocide was committed before independence, internal conflicts arose supported by Australia, a United States ally, who took over the natural gas fields in the proximity of the Timor coastline. Under no circumstances did the Cuban doctors abandon their patients who were all inhabitants of that small nation. The personnel replacing them have remained there. These are indeed Cuban doctors and graduates, of which there are thousands, the same ones which the empire tries to bribe away making unmentionable efforts, but to very little effect. No other country in the western hemisphere or in the world has such wealth. Today we are training hundreds of young people from East Timor in our medical schools. The doctors who have just returned set an example of what conscience can do".
Quotes
" It is a real fact that Bush and his group are much more trapped in their foreign policy errors than even Nixon when he resigned in 1972. The bloody Iraqi War and its rejection by the U.S. people, the toll in human lives, the extremely high number of wounded and maimed for every death in the military adventure, all reveal a situation full of contradictions: the deteriorated image of the United States and the impossibility of giving up the wars of conquest for raw materials, the dollar and the price of gold, currency devaluations and inflation, consumerism and the inability to supply themselves with consumer goods, production of ethanol and the world shortage of food, fascist methods and democratic demagoguery, torture practices and secret prisons and human rights, maximum environmental pollution of the country and the species’ right to survival, the benefits of science for health and the use of the same to massively liquidate or invalidate human beings, the brain drain and underdevelopment of poor countries, the price of oil and the ever-greater wasting of energy, the November elections and growing numbers of Latinos dying on the border. The list would be endless. It is, in essence, a contradiction between life and death".
"Condoleezza Rice herself would have to answer some questions: How many Americans have been killed by bombs sent by Cuba? Has even one single brick ever been broken because of an explosive device coming from our country? Why are we being included in the grotesque list of terrorist countries, the same one on which Venezuela’s inclusion is being arbitrarily threatened? Who used terrorism against our homeland to blow up planes in mid-air, commit acts of sabotage, and launch mercenary invasions and threats of bombings and wars, economic blockade and actions that have cost thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars? Who is going to believe you or Bush? Why are you insisting on provoking fratricidal wars between the peoples of Latin America? In Iraq, more than a million people have died. How many deaths does the United States of America offer Latin America, a region with over 500 million inhabitants, to defend its democracy and its empire?".
"Today drugs are one of the most serious problems in this hemisphere and in Europe. In the war against drug trafficking and organized crime, encouraged in the enormous U.S. market, the Latin American countries are now losing almost ten thousand men each year, more than twice the number lost by the United States in the Iraq war. The number grows and the problem is very far from being resolved".
“…None of the problems affecting today’s world can be solved with the use of force, there is no global, technological or military power that can guarantee total immunity against such acts…”
“The hundreds of military bases set up in scores of countries in every continent; their aircraft carriers and Navy fleets; their thousands of nuclear weapons; their wars of conquest; their military-industrial complex and their arms trade are incompatible with the survival of our species. Likewise, the consumer societies are incompatible with the idea of economic growth and a clean planet”.
"The Empire has ruled the world through economy and deceit rather than force. At the end of WWII, it had attained the privilege of minting the convertible hard currency, the monopoly over the nuclear weapon and the possession of most of the gold in the world while it was the only large-scale producer of manufactured equipment, consumer goods, food and services worldwide."
“Drugs should not be used as a pretext to set up bases, invade countries and bring violence, war and plundering to Third World nations. This is the worst environment to sow good qualities among the people and to bring education, healthcare and development to other nations.”
“Our revolution could present itself in the world as a model for revolutions; the gentlemanly behaviour of the Rebel Army in regards to the enemy had no precedents in the history of revolutions and wars.”
Speech at the massive people’s demonstration at the Presidential Palace. January 21, 1959.
"The wars between powers seem no longer a possible solution to the great contradictions as they were until the second half of the 20th century. Still, they have had such an impact on the elements that make human survival possible, that they could prematurely put an end to the existence of the current intelligent species that populates our planet."
“In a nuclear war the “collateral damage” would be the life of all humanity”.