"Cuba has shown it only takes justice and social development to fight drugs. In our country, the crime rate per 100,000 people is one of the lowest in the world. No other country in the hemisphere can exhibit such low rates of violence. It is known that, despite the blockade, no other country can boast our high education levels."
The Cuban Revolution, which has not been destroyed either by the blockade or the dirty war, is based on ethical and political principles; that is the reason why it has been able to resist.
"Beating the Yankees in agriculture is to defeat their main weapon, or one of the main weapons which they have been using against our Revolution, which is the weapon of the economic blockade, that is to say, the weapon of hunger."
"It is absolutely obvious that the United States will always try to put pressure on Cuba, as they do on the UN or any other public or private institution of the world. That is one of the features that characterizes the governments of that country; it would be impossible to expect otherwise from them. No wonder we have resisted for 54 years –and we’ll continue to resist for any additional amount of time, if need be- relentlessly defending our country and confronting the criminal economic blockade imposed by the powerful empire."
"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. "
"The United Nations can not exist without the presence of the peoples that have been calling for an end to the blockade. What would be the use of that body, which was founded at a time when an overwhelming majority of countries were not even independent, without our presence? What rights do we have if we can not even call for an end to the blockade imposed against a small country? One way or another they have subordinated us to the interests of the United States and NATO, a belligerent military organization that wastes more than one trillion dollars every year in wars and wea
“(…) But the Cuban Adjustment Act is a death factory that they have established and that must be removed. We will not give in on this point. Our stance is more encompassing still: we will keep on fighting until an end is brought not only to the Cuban Adjustment Act, but also the Torricelli Act, the Helms-Burton Act, the blockade and all the conspiracies against our country, which have now lasted over 40 years. (…)”
“Thank you for coming as a reinforcement in this difficult struggle that we are waging today to save the ideas you fought for so much, to save the Revolution, the homeland and the achievements of socialism, which is the materialization of some of your biggest dreams. We count on you to carry out this enormous feat, to destroy the imperialist plots against Cuba, to resist the blockade and to attain victory. "
"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.
"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".