“We shall defend sovereignty as something sacred while some are very weak and others very powerful and while not everybody is willing to relinquish it in favour of a universal sovereignty”.
Quotes
“It should be clearly stated that the principle of sovereignty cannot be sacrificed to an abusive and unfair order that a hegemonic superpower uses, together with its own might and strength, to try to decide everything by itself”.
“We are a patriotic and honorable people that will never accept impositions or threats from anyone but we are also sincere friends of the United States, particularly of all the good Americans --who are many-- and we keep discovering many more.”
"We are prepared to do without anything, including life, except our country’s dignity and sovereignty. We are not the ones attacking, being hostile to or blockading the United States. We are not demanding that its constitution and political and economic system be changed. We show the strictest respect for the rights of other countries. Our rights must also be respected".
"We achieved full political sovereignty for the first time on January 1, 1959 when, after sweeping away the bloody tyranny imposed from abroad, the Cuban people began governing the nation. Since then, this noble and heroic people have not failed one single day to defend its right to development, justice, peace and liberty.".
“ [...] The empire acquired a large part of the world’s wealth with paper, imposing their United States laws there, scorning the sovereignty of nations.”
“The United States government is using unimaginable economic means to defend a right that violates the sovereignty of all the other countries: to keep on buying the raw materials, the energy, the advanced technology industries, the most productive lands and the most modern buildings in the face of our planet with paper money.”
"Unable to resign themselves to the independence and exercise of the sovereign rights of Cuba, the government of that country adopted the decision to invade our territory. The USSR had absolutely nothing to do with the triumph of the Cuban Revolution. The Revolution did not assume a socialist nature because of support from the USSR; it was the other way around: support from the USSR was produced by the socialist nature of the Cuban Revolution. To such a degree, that when the USSR disappears, Cuba keeps on being socialist."
“We have rather a powerful adversary: our closest neighbor the United States. We warned them that we would resist the blockade even though it would mean a very high cost for our country. There is no greater price to pay than that of capitulating to an enemy who is attacking you without right or reason”.
“With a pitiless blockade lasting for almost 60 years, and those who have died in mercenary attacks on Cuban ships and ports, an airliner full of passengers exploded in mid-flight, mercenary invasions, multiple acts of violence and force? Nobody could be so naive as to think that this noble and self-sacrificing people would renounce glory and their rights, and the spiritual richness they have earned with the development of education, science and culture”.
"(...) the first human right is the right to think, the right to believe, the right to live, the right to know, the right to know dignity, the right to be treated like other human beings, the right to be independent, right to sovereignty as a people, right to dignity as a man".