MIL OSI Translation. Region: Spanish / Latin America / UN –
Source: Republic of Cuba
Speech by Miguel M. Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, President of the Councils of State and Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, at the solidarity meeting, at Riverside Church, Harlem, United States, on September 26, 2018, "Year 60 of the Revolution "
(Stenographic Versions-Council of State)
All Cubans who have passed through this Cathedral always say the same thing: Wonderful things happen here. And today, after an intense and hard day, we are living emotions with you here at Riverside Church.
Today at the United Nations, two sister nations raised their voices: Venezuela denounced all the aggression to which it has been subjected and also ratified its decision to continue the Bolivarian Revolution, as a faithful legacy to Commander Chávez (Applause and exclamations). And Cuba also raised its voice with Venezuela, to support Venezuela, to support Nicaragua, to support Puerto Rico, to support Latin America, to support the Palestinian people and the Saharawi people and to support all the just causes of the world!
(Applause and exclamations.)
And also to denounce, once again, the unjust blockade that the Government of the United States has imposed on us for almost 60 years!
Therefore, for Maduro, for the delegation of Venezuela, for the Cuban delegation it is very exciting, after that hard day, to share these emotions with you, friends of Venezuela and friends of Cuba in New York (Applause). And miracles like this only happen in this city, here in the Riverside Cathedral. For that we thank you very much for this meeting.
This is a meeting of solidarity and this is a Cathedral of faith and solidarity and, therefore, here it is not necessary to speak of names or positions, here we are all sisters and brothers; Here we are all friends and friends. Therefore, good evening friends and friends; good evening sisters and brothers:
It seems to us a lie today to be here, where more than once you warmly embraced Fidel and with him Cuba, in the name of the best of the American people.
For those moments, and for this in particular, the first thing we want to say is thank you!
To get here we went through Harlem, the neighborhood of the legendary hotel Theresa, which was opened to our first revolutionary delegation in the UN and hosted meetings of greats of the twentieth century, where Fidel received Malcolm x, Nasser, Nehru and Khrushchev.
The beautiful Riverside church, with its Gothic-style tower that until now we only knew from photographs and chronicles of that intense night of the year 2000, in which the hospitable friends of Harlem gave a multitudinous welcome of more than 3,000 people to our leader and his companions.
Just here, that night Fidel recalled that, in his first visit to the UN, in 1960, he had personally told his companions: "I'm going to Harlem, because there are my best friends" (Applause and exclamations).
And here today we want to remind you that precisely from that visit in 1960, 58 years are now being fulfilled, and that Fidel raised his voice in the UN to denounce the aggression against Cuba by the United States. By repeating the gesture in the 2000, in this church, they say that he felt so comfortable with the crowd gathered to greet him, that his speech ended with a good morning, had begun at 10:00 at night and ended after 2:00 in the morning. Of course I would not be able to repeat that feat, nor do I think the visitors will resist so much.
But if we could not stop coming to a place, in the composition of our delegation that attends the UN General Assembly, it is to this doubly sacred temple, for its mission and for its history.
In the Cathedral of Riverside, it can be said that the formation program of young Americans from the humblest districts of this great nation was born, in the Latin American School of Medical Sciences, our beloved elam, where until last year the amount that you presented today here (Applause). In the end we have to shoot ourselves a picture.
This church also reminds us of the close friendship between Fidel and the Reverend Lucius Walker, who was an emissary of solidarity in the darkest years of the deep economic crisis that in our country caused the exacerbation of the blockade, after the fall of European socialism. That's why here tonight we're going to talk about solidarity.
Cuba is not a large or powerful country, nor rich in natural or financial resources, but those limitations have not prevented us from practicing solidarity on the basis of sharing not what we have left, but what we have, but, above all, sharing our effort and our sacrifice. It is a solidarity sacrifice practiced with humility and that has had an impact, after several decades, in the lives of millions of people from several continents (Applause).
The most visible sign of this solidarity is the cooperation provided by more than 42,000 Cuban professionals, especially medical personnel, in more than 75 countries. They represent the more than one million Cuban professionals who since the triumph of the Revolution collaborated in Africa, Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean, providing medical services and health services, working in engineering works, with advice in agronomy, sports and other important areas of development.
They also represent the efforts of Cuban educational and university centers and the staff of these institutions, which during these decades trained tens of thousands of technicians and professionals from Third World countries and helped to eliminate illiteracy in many of them. .
The most significant effort of this internationalist solidarity of the Cuban Revolution was the support to the liberation movements in Africa (Applause). With that effort, we safeguard the sovereign integrity of Angola, achieve the independence of Namibia and strike a devastating and demoralizing blow to the war machine of the apartheid regime in South Africa (Applause).
Therefore, when Cuba comes to the General Assembly of the United Nations and promotes cooperation and solidarity, in the face of threat, competition, racism and selfishness, it does so with the authority of a people that demonstrated that such purposes are possible and that turned the declarations into concrete actions (Applause).
Especially this year in which the centenary of the birth of Nelson Mandela is commemorated, to whose memory a Summit for Peace has been dedicated, Cuba can not fail to express the sentiment that overwhelms us when the names of great leaders of the struggle for justice social and equality among all men are raised as a flag by representatives of enriched nations at the cost of plundering the oppressed and reviled peoples of the Third World, to which those leaders consecrated their lives.
Those who keep peace in suspense, strengthening their arsenals with increasingly sophisticated and threatening weapons, those who foment conflicts and threaten invasions, who just a decade ago considered Mandela a terrorist and handed nuclear weapons to the racist regime of that time should apologize to the peoples that suffer the cost of wars, when they could enjoy the benefits of disarmament (Applause).
58 years ago today, in his memorable first speech at the UN, Fidel warned that with a fifth of what the world is spent on armaments could promote a development of all underdeveloped countries, with a growth rate of 10% per year .
It is not necessary to calculate how much of the investment in armaments would suffice today to finance the development of the most economically backward countries; but for the enormous prices that everything has in our time, especially weapons, I dare to repeat that with a fifth of that expense many poor people would stop being (Applause).
Defending that a world of peace and cooperation is indispensable for development, the foreign policy of the Cuban Revolution has invariably maintained its position in favor of total disarmament and international solidarity (Applause). That is our commitment to those who have suffered and still suffer from injustice and exclusion, with those who have suffered and still suffer as a result of colonialism, neo-colonialism, imperialism and racism. It is a foreign policy that makes common cause with the dispossessed, the marginalized and the exploited (Applause).
Fidel taught us that "Cooperating with other exploited and poor peoples was always for the Cuban revolutionaries a political principle and a duty to humanity" (Applause).
Cuba also owes a lot to the international solidarity and solidarity of thousands of friends and activists here in the United States, among whom there are also many Cubans living here (Applause). The most recent demonstration was the international mass movement in favor of the release of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who were unjustly imprisoned and, before, the return of the child Elián González to his home in Cuba (Applause).
As everyone knows, our bilateral relationship with the United States continues to be characterized, above all, by the economic blockade that constitutes a fundamental obstacle to the development and welfare of Cubans, and which causes deprivation in our families.
The ties between both countries continue to be influenced by the pretensions of minority, but politically powerful groups within this country that promote tension and hostility. They are groups that aspire to Cuba returning to the past; For this they use deception and defamation, have powerful financial resources and the manipulative support of influential media. They have managed to promote new political measures aimed at strangulating the Cuban economy. They are measures that further impede bilateral exchanges between our peoples and that hinder the nation's relations and emigration.
But they will always stumble over the patriotic unity of Cubans and the ideology of independence and rebellion in which our nation was forged. They will also stumble over the rejection and activism of Cuba's friends in many parts of the world, including our sisters and brothers here in the United States (Applause).
What is currently mobilizing the Cuban nation and the task that concentrates the attention of our people is the massive and popular discussion process of the Constitution Project that we propose to adopt at the beginning of next year, as an expression of the country we want, as commitment to continue building socialism, with loyalty to the ideals that have accompanied the struggle for independence and social justice in our country throughout its history.
Within a few days, next October 10, 150 years of our independence cry will be fulfilled, when a group of Cuban patriots, under the guidance of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, proclaimed the beginning of the armed struggle for independence and for the abolition of slavery (Applause).
In honor of that date, in remembrance of the martyrs and heroes of our country, in gratitude towards the citizens of other countries who in a gesture of solidarity sacrificed their lives in the struggle for the independence of Cuba, among which were included prominent American fighters , and in fraternal recognition to the extraordinary effort of the tireless friends who during all these years have fought against the economic blockade and in demand of a policy of respect towards Cuba, ratify the solidarity and unwavering commitment of the Cuban Revolution with the cause of the justice and the right of peoples to dream and reach a better world, which is possible (Applause).
Sisters and brothers, this is our greeting, because this is what best friends do when they meet after a long time, or when, as is our case, they bring the beloved memory of their parents and their parents' friends. Today with you we feel that Fidel and Chávez are present here (Applause).
Long live the Bolivarian Revolution of Venezuela! (Exclamations of: "Viva!")
Long live the Cuban Revolution! (Exclamations of: "Viva!")
Long live the friendship among our peoples! (Exclamations of: "Viva!")
Ever onward to victory!
Thank you very much.
(Ovation.)
(Cubaminrex-Granma)
EDITOR'S NOTE: This article is a translation. Please forgive us should the grammar and / or sentence structure not be perfect.
