(Shorthand Versions - Presidency of the Republic)
Dear Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution;
Heroines and heroes of the homeland;
Heroic people of the heroic Santiago de Cuba;
Dear Cuban people:
It is an honor to be here today, 65 years after that night that the Revolution illuminated with its triumph, as if the Sun had not hidden that day.It is an enormous privilege to be here and to share the celebration together with the historic protagonists of that heroic deed.
We have seen it in the images of the recount. And we have remembered what Fidel said before the euphoric people for the victory: "This time, fortunately for Cuba, the Revolution will really come to power [...]. Neither thieves, nor traitors, nor interventionists.This time it really is the Revolution".A phrase with an extraordinary meaning.
At last Cubans were completely free, the frustrated dream of the Mambises was fulfilled.Already forever a single flag would fly in the public buildings.No other poet would have to ask himself, like Bonifacio Byrne, why "two flags should float where only one is enough: mine!
For those of us who had not yet been born and who learned of the transcendence of that night from books some years later, it means a lot to be in the place where Fidel spoke to the people on the first day of the first year of the Revolution, which would mark a before and after in the history of our America.
Everything is impressive when you enter the history of Santiago, but there is a particular and unique moment: January 1st, 1959.The façade displaying the star of Hero City reminds us of all that its most generous sons gave to the cause of freedom.City of the Maceo, of the Moncadistas; of the brothers Frank and Josué País, of Vilma, of Asela, of Hart and of so many names that would make the count infinite.Cuban mothers marched through its streets to stop the murder of their children, and on a day like today 65 years ago, with Fidel at the forefront, the Mambises entered Santiago!
Whenever we visit this city we are moved to look at this balcony from which, with Raul, Almeida, Celia and other fighters at his side, Fidel proclaimed the victory achieved after more than two years of bloody war; then he went to the future and returned to warn the people about the colossal challenges that awaited us,
and said: "the Revolution will not be an easy task, the Revolution will be a hard enterprise full of dangers".
The 65 years that have passed confirm his warning.Nothing has been easy for Cuba.Nor has it been easy for the enemies of the Revolution, who have tried everything and failed in everything, because hatred disintegrates in the face of the resistance of a heroic and creative people who chose love and dignity as their formula.
We are inspired by the epic feat that crosses, as a sign of immutable identity, the 155 years of struggle that go from 1868 to our days, with a fundamental moment of link in that victory of 1959.
Fidel and his Centennial Generation, here represented by Raul, Ramiro, Guillermo, Machado and all his comrades living or dead, drank from Martí's ideology the amazing accumulation of human values and non-negotiable principles that before Céspedes, Agramonte, Maceo, Gómez and so many leaders of the mambisado bequeathed to later generations with personal stories worthy of an epic poem yet to be written.
The ethic that runs through the Cuban revolutionary history since its anti-colonialist origins - "that sun of the moral world" Cintio Vitier called it- reaches the possibility of being fully realized in practice after the triumph of January 1959 with the Revolution in power.Its triumph meant freedom, dignity and true justice for all, from the first laws.And he did not win the people's trust with promises, but with deeds and achievements: works of deep and sustained social significance, which in a few years transformed a poor and backward country into a world reference in education, health, sports and culture.
This Revolution is, first of all, a libertarian act of continental projection that not only liberated the country from a servile, repressive and corrupt dictatorship, but also very soon untied the knots of economic dependence on Yankee transnationals and liquidated the cruelest expressions of human exploitation, which had become naturalized in the heart of Cuban society, such as child labor, prostitution or the semi-slavery of Haitian immigrants.
The work of 65 years is immense and it would be as difficult to ignore it as it would be to summarize it in a few words.This is the Revolution, genuine and profound, of the Agrarian Reform and the Urban Reform, which empowered the people by nationalizing and placing at the service of popular interests the land, industries, banks, communications, large constructions and investments, transportation, foreign and domestic trade.The one that eliminated unemployment, guaranteeing women and men the human right to work.And it is the one that built hundreds of thousands of apartments for workers and peasants even in the most remote areas of the country.
This is the Revolution that, after having lost 3,000 doctors due to a politically induced exodus in the 1960s, built one of the most formidable and prestigious health systems of our time and today has half a million workers at all levels, guaranteeing universal coverage and free care for all Cubans.
At the same time, during these six decades, 600,000 Cuban health professionals have collaborated in 165 countries.And more recently, during the COVID-19 pandemic period, some 3,000 members of the Henry Reeve Contingent provided services in 40 of them.
Some 27,000 young people from a hundred nations have graduated from the Latin American School of Medical Sciences (ELAM), and more than 4 million low-income people in our region and Africa have regained their sight with Operation Miracle.This is also the Revolution: consistency with the example of Ernesto Guevara, the beloved Che, the permanent will to practice solidarity and share what we have, with the deep conviction that it is doctors and not bombs, cooperation and not sanctions, that the peoples need.
All this has been possible thanks to the nationalization of education, the elimination of illiteracy and the development of a profound revolution in education, which guarantees universal and free access to all citizens.
With the Cuban literacy program Yo sí puedo, implemented in 30 nations, more than 10 million people from practically all continents have been taught to read and write.More than 70,000 foreign students have graduated in Cuba and more than 3,000 are currently studying in our island.
Higher education, science, innovation, biotechnology, environmental preservation and sustainable development are other areas that stand out for the research and contributions of the talented Cuban people to the effort to overcome the obstacles imposed by the blockade, our condition as a small country and our own limitations.The Science and Innovation System in government management is based on the infinite potential of these combined forces.
We firmly believe in the revolutionary and transforming capacity of the human mind to make the greatest dreams come true.It is one of Fidel's teachings that we can practice in all areas today because before there was a revolution in education, in science and even in women's development policies, which today is a determining majority in the advances we describe.
Of course, this is also the Revolution that has guaranteed the right of all the people to sports, and the radically new social conditions in which physical education and sports activities are developed, as well as their massiveness, have made it possible to obtain important successes and to occupy the first places in numerous international competitions, despite the relatively small number of the Cuban population.
Our culture, internationally recognized in its various manifestations, is at the service of the people, eliminating the elitist character of other times to fully develop the most authentic of the national culture together with the continuous contributions of universal culture.
The industrialization process has been developed, the generation of electricity has increased, more highways and roads have been built than in all the previous history of the country.
This is the Revolution that won democratic freedoms for all workers by placing in their hands the ownership of the fundamental means of production, which is manifested in the growing popular participation in the economic management and decision-making on issues of economic and social development of the country.
This is the Revolution that liquidated the bourgeois legal order to establish a new law, based on socialist legality, endorsed by the active participation of the people in the elaboration and discussion of laws.And that which over the years has strengthened and perfected the new socialist State and established its organs of Popular Power in accordance with the interests of the working people.
All that I have listed and much more is the work of the Revolution, which has managed to survive a policy of persecution, harassment and attrition, of economic warfare which before was also a military war, because it has developed, without ever neglecting it, the defensive capacity of its glorious Revolutionary Armed Forces and keeps its organs of State Security and Internal Order on alert to crush any hint of imperialist aggression.
This is the Revolution that created and practices an independent international policy -which is still a dream for nations of similar development-; an independent international policy of fraternal friendship, in close collaboration with the majority of the countries of the world, in accordance with the principles of socialist internationalism; integration with the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean; close friendship with the peoples of Asia, and cooperation with all countries that respect our national sovereignty.
In this policy, the relationship with the peoples of Africa occupies a central place, where several of the best sons of the Revolution have written countless pages of heroism together with their African comrades-in-arms, who consolidated the independence of Angola, other African nations and were decisive for the end of apartheid.
If the counterrevolution of Cuban origin, financed, armed and trained by the CIA, has not been able to defeat Cuba in any field, throughout these years, that is the work of the Revolution in its intelligence and defense agencies and organs of State Security.And that is one of the major reasons why we have defeated so many times the powerful enemy of little Cuba, politically, economically, ideologically and militarily, turning Cuban socialism into an irreversible historical fact.
With genuine mass organizations and all possible avenues open to participation in the revolutionary process, the sacred and essential unity of revolutionaries has been forged within and around the Communist Party of Cuba.
This is the Revolution, a fundamental fact, at times indescribable, that transcends us all in all orders, but at the same time includes us individually and collectively, because the Revolution is all of us, beyond how much the Revolution has represented in the material order, although some forget it in the intensity of the current shortages.
It is a high political consciousness in the majority of the people, who deeply feel the Revolution, who understand it, who understand the difficulties and errors and struggle to overcome them; who have not lost their revolutionary enthusiasm and who are impregnated with an extraordinary internationalist sentiment.
The Revolution is the road to a new man and a new woman by proclaiming and guaranteeing the rights of women to social equality, creating premises for their total liberation and outlining the appropriate policy to fully achieve this objective, by proposing the happy development of children and favoring the greatest possibilities of material and spiritual growth for youth. Always ensuring that all practical or underhand expressions of discrimination or exclusion based on skin color, sexual orientation or prejudices incompatible with the human condition are definitively eliminated.
I am well aware that these words do not exhaust the minimum review of the work of the past 65 years.There are still many battles to be recounted, many merits to be highlighted, countless feats that perhaps we will never know.In a Revolution under perpetual siege, silence is also a weapon, and modesty a school.
The main makers of this colossal work, those who have brought it to us undefeated, deserve the greatest recognition, which will undoubtedly be to see that the following generations are loyal to history.
When we recount, even if it is minimal, what has been achieved in conditions of genocidal blockade, always resisting and overcoming adversities, always growing morally and with dignity, but with a thousand dreams detained and infinite aspirations postponed, then a question arises: how much more immense would the work be without that atrocious siege blocking us?
The majority of the Cuban people know that only unity around the Party and the Revolution will allow the preservation of the Cuban nation and the economic and social achievements.That certainty and the arrival of the 66th year of the Revolution give us strength that will oxygenate us in the advance towards new and challenging goals.
The absolute dedication of the heroes and their followers of the Centennial Generation to the cause of the freedom of Cubans and the definitive independence of the homeland continue to have a deep impact on the Cuban youth of this era, on the many who are here and also on the majority of those who are leaving.
Our young people continue to resist the bullets of the economic war and are doing admirable things, convinced that it is possible to defeat external aggression and internal brakes at the same time.
This is a day of deep significance for the nation, which we traditionally dedicate to celebrate, as Camilo Cienfuegos would do, with the joy gained through sacrifice, the good fortune of remaining united and loyal to that heritage of supreme value.
Today we are summoned to save the dignity of the future, avoiding error and committed to success, with all the weapons of human intelligence that distinguish the Cuban and the maximum effort, which is still lacking, put in function of immediate positive results, aware that what we do late will no longer be useful.
I dare to say, on behalf of all of us who have the responsibility to achieve it, that we assume the commitment aware of the risk involved in facing any change or economic and social transformation in a country viciously blockaded and in an international context undermined by uncertainty, injustice, abuse and the indifference of the powerful.
We will not tire of demanding the lifting of the blockade and the end of the economic war.It is a legitimate right to confront the hostile and arbitrary international economic order on equal terms with the rest of the nations, without harassment or financial persecution.And to those who say that we use it as a pretext for our inefficiency, once again we say: take away the pretext.
With our hands and feet tied, it is no good.Fair play, gentlemen imperialists, and let's see who wins.
But if you prefer to be condemned by history on account of that crime against humanity which is to attempt the surrender of a country out of hunger and need, if you do not remove the blockade, Cuba will find a way to solve it.
This country has enough dignity, talent and willpower to rise above the siege with its own efforts and overcome it.It will not happen in a day, but we will do it!
Imperial arrogance, which has turned its arbitrary policy of unilateral sanctions into a kind of global epidemic, will be defeated sooner rather than later, with the articulation of forces and efforts of other peoples and governments unjustly and irrationally condemned like the Cuban one for not accepting its impositions and designs.
Unlike the U.S. empire, increasingly demoralized by its hegemonic pretensions, Cuba is respected and admired in the world for its permanent disposition to cooperation, solidarity, fair exchange, everything that humanity needs today to reverse the dangerous tendencies to its disappearance as a species.
Compatriots:
Much remains to be said, but even more remains to be done.Before the beautiful flag that every January 1st brings us omens of how the year that begins will be, we bring the commitment to work tirelessly so that the will to do better continues to wave with strength.
Before the stone that holds the sacred ashes of Fidel; before the Army General and leader of the Revolution, Raul Castro Ruz; before the Historic Generation, which continues to stand by our side; before the memory of all those who fell or won fighting for the definitive independence of Cuba and earned Santiago de Cuba the honorary title of Hero City, let us ratify the commitment to change everything that needs to be changed, without renouncing a single principle of the Revolution.
Cubans:
The mambises will continue to enter Santiago.
Like Raúl on the 60th anniversary, today we can express that after 65 years of struggle, sacrifice and victories, we live in a free, sovereign and just country.
Long live the Cuban Revolution forever! (Exclamations of: "Long live!")
Fatherland or Death!
Socialism or Death!
We shall overcome!
(Applause.)
