(Shorthand Versions - Presidency of the Republic)
Dear Nicolás, President of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela;
Dear Luis Arce, President of the Plurinational State of Bolivia;
Dear Daniel Ortega and Rosario Murillo, President and Co-President of the Republic of Nicaragua, respectively;
Dear Roosevelt Skerrit, Prime Minister of the Commonwealth of Dominica;
Dear Prime Minister Ralph Gonsalves of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and Dear Prime Minister Philip Pierre of St. Lucia;
Dear Brothers, Heads of State and Government, and other representatives of our Bolivarian Alliance and of the sister Republic of Honduras, represented by dear President Xiomara Castro:
I believe that the initiative of the ALBA Secretariat to propitiate this working meeting is very useful to update our priorities and exchange on the current and future challenges in our region.
As you know, just hours after his inauguration, the President of the Government of the United States reincorporated Cuba to the arbitrary list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism, without evidence, without justification or any respect for the truth.
They did it on the first day, because very soon it would have been demonstrated the relief for the Cubans that the exclusion from that list, which multiplied the siege against Cuba, meant.
And we would like to take this opportunity to thank the members of this Alliance for their efforts and demands for Cuba's removal from that list. It is something that the previous government of the United States had to acknowledge, just as that government also publicly acknowledged, although very belatedly, that there was no reason or argument whatsoever to keep our country on the fraudulent and spurious list.
But we have to take into account that the issue is not only Cuba, the entire region of Latin America and the Caribbean is under threat, and only with unity can we face the articulation of the imperialist and oligarchic counter-offensive that sustains that threat.
It is impossible for us to forget the episodes of interference that only a few years ago took place in our Zone of Peace, combining plans as delirious as they were dangerous.
Today, the Government of the United States intends to define the options for the countries of the region, which are: either to submit to us or to be the object of aggression.
And from day one, as we have seen, the new U.S. administration has shown total contempt for the Latin American and Caribbean peoples and their institutions, with a crude use of lies and manipulation.
Racist epithets, stereotypes and generalizations are used that label millions of innocent people as criminals because they are Latin American and Caribbean, and the U.S. Government threatens and attempts to legitimize the imposition of unilateral coercive measures and other decisions without respect for the order of other countries.
We believe that, faced with this scenario, it is up to us to discern well between the rhetoric and the desperation of these actors to achieve short-term objectives.
Just a few hours ago, these issues were discussed here in Havana, at a world event dedicated to José Martí and the balance of the world. We owe the Apostle of our independence a crucial reflection on how to act in the face of these challenges. And I would like to take three phrases from a text published in Patria:
"Neither peoples nor men respect those who do not make themselves respected".
"Men and peoples go through this world poking their fingers into the flesh of others to see if it is soft or if it resists, and we must put the flesh hard, so that it will throw out the daring fingers".
"...Cubans show that, at the time of the slap, there is only one cheek among us: let us all resist that which we must all suffer".
I think it is not superfluous to add that, with the Revolution and Fidel's guidance, Cuba made its own the whole Marti's ideology, which is a nourishing source of dignity, solidarity and anti-imperialism.
We cannot allow ourselves to be provoked by the new government of the United States, nor will we walk at the pace they want to impose. We will remain calm, analyzing each action and responding when necessary, with the courage and boldness with which our leaders, Fidel Castro, Hugo Chávez and Raúl Castro, have always done it.
Undoubtedly, in the current political and geostrategic scenario, the abundant and very diverse irritants between the United States and Our America will be exacerbated.
This is no longer a matter of speculation. The imperialist government itself has publicly declared its threat to the territorial integrity of nations, as can be seen in its references to the Panama Canal and the steps taken to rewrite the regional geography.
In short, divisions and differences could be accentuated.
This is not the first time. Let us remember that during Trump's first term in office, regional structures were polarized or semi-paralyzed and a group of countries were encouraged to found other structures in the region, under the pretext that those of supposed ideological orientation should disappear.
Let us not forget, and here I have some notes, what the other administration did in relation to the migratory issue. That administration of Donald Trump between 2017 and 2021 was the one that defended the construction of the wall on the Mexican border; it was the one that proposed a policy of zero tolerance and family separation, which caused the separation of thousands of migrant children from their parents at the border; it was the one that caused the restriction of asylum and protection programs.
Remember that Stay in Mexico program, which forced asylum seekers to wait in Mexico while their cases were processed; it also reduced the number of refugees admitted to the United States, setting historically low limits.
And Trump at that time tried to eliminate the DACA program, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which protects from deportation young undocumented immigrants who came to the United States as children; but, well, this was a decision blocked by the courts.
But it was a totally anti-immigrant migration policy, with a critical discourse towards migrants, describing them at times as a threat to the security and employment of Americans. This provoked a lot of criticism of that policy, which was a totally nationalistic approach and very much in line with his famous promise to put America first.
Cuba, in this whole order of things, aspires to an orderly, safe, regular migration that is also respectful of human rights.
Cuba also defends the preservation of CELAC as the legitimate space for dialogue and political coordination of the 33 countries of the region and to maintain its principles, which is now very necessary.
Within the framework of ALBA-TCP, the priority would be to strengthen an economic agenda based on complementarity, taking advantage of all the potentialities of each country.
Turning to other issues related to migration, we would like to reiterate our views:
For Cuba, the violent and indiscriminate deportation of migrants in the United States, arbitrary detentions and other violations of human rights are unacceptable, measures which, moreover, are used as weapons of political pressure and blackmail against the peoples of Our America.
The establishment of a detention center at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, where tens of thousands of people are to be imprisoned, constitutes a barbaric act. It is also a threat to the national security of Cuba and the sub-region. It is a military enclave that occupies a portion of Cuban territory against the will of our people and our nation. It also houses a detention and torture center that has been condemned by the international community on multiple occasions.
The construction of a migratory perspective of peace, understanding and collaboration, without politicization, is an issue that requires our collective and joint effort.
Migrant deportations should be carried out within the framework of bilateral or multilateral agreements that safeguard the sovereignty of each country and the principle of non-intervention in internal affairs.
Most of the migrants in U.S. territory arrived there attracted by their economic development and to satisfy basic needs that the economies of their countries are unable to provide, often as a consequence, as Maduro explained, of the economic and trade policies promoted by the United States.
In the particular case of Cuba, the U.S. government's policy of offering privileged treatment to Cuban migrants, regardless of the means by which they arrive in that country, is widely known, in addition to the impact of the economic blockade and the policy of maximum pressure, designed to depress the standard of living of Cubans living in their homeland.
Migrants and migratory flows are not a problem, but a phenomenon of our times, an expression of the challenges of the international system and the prevailing unjust economic order.
The stoppage of official aid is a demonstration of the selfishness and discriminatory policy that the United States will apply.
President Trump's early executive orders, such as the withdrawal from the Paris Agreement, as well as the declaration of a national energy emergency and that country's "energy liberation," will have a very negative impact on global efforts to combat climate change and the planet's overall environmental crisis.
Faced with the challenge posed to international cooperation, today more than ever, responses from the South must be strengthened. In that sense, the capacity for regional concertation will be vital to demand what rightfully belongs to us, and I believe that on these things we should reach certain agreements at this meeting.
Brothers:
The concept of "unity in diversity" highlighted by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, as a hallmark of CELAC and other integration mechanisms, takes on greater validity in the face of the growing attempts to divide us and make us go backwards in the concertation already reached on priority issues for our nations.
Let us respond to the imperialist counter-offensive with unity and the globalization of solidarity, with the promotion of integration, cooperation and dialogue.
The Strategic Agenda 2030 of our Alliance, approved by the Heads of State and Government on April 24, 2024, during the celebration of the Twenty-third Summit in Caracas, is an expression of the work and effort of this small community of nations and the compass that should guide us to achieve new results.
We commend the initiatives that the Alliance has been promoting in pursuit of the Strategic Agenda.
We support the AgroAlba initiative, in which progress was made with the signing of a Framework Agreement at the 24th ALBA-TCP Summit, on December 14, 2024, in Caracas. It is now time to work at the bilateral level, to establish modalities that contribute to increasing food production and guaranteeing our food and nutritional security.
I believe that if we look at the current problems of our nations, it is important for AgroAlba to include the elements of agroecology technologies for food production.
Cuba also made its contribution to the SELA study, commissioned by the Bank of ALBA and the Executive Secretariat of the Alliance, which, once concluded, will make it possible to identify niches of national productions that will facilitate the objective of boosting trade between our peoples and favoring the necessary economic complementarity.
To achieve this, it will be essential to establish maritime and air communication routes to improve the connection between the countries involved.
With regard to Artificial Intelligence, I would like to reiterate that based on some of the points I have noted, it is something that, as a transforming technology, can help the countries of the South, the countries of our Alliance, to achieve positive results if we work in a coordinated manner. There are positive aspects in the use of Artificial Intelligence with an impact on advances in medicine, in efficiency and productivity, in innovation in services, in the contribution to sustainability and in access to education and knowledge.
But also the use of Artificial Intelligence has challenges and concerns, such as the issue of ethics and privacy, bias and discrimination, impact on employment, lack of transparency and existential risks.
We in our country have approved an Artificial Intelligence Development Strategy that is based on ethics and is consistent with our principles, and we also have a working system to support this strategy.
We have prepared human capital and, although we do not have a powerful infrastructure, we already have projects in some research centers whose good practices and experiences we must multiply.
We have developed projects in training and education, in health, in agriculture.
We have established some alliances with countries and international organizations in terms of collaboration and, of course, we have the limitations that have to do with infrastructure in the blockade conditions.
The announcement made by Venezuela at the Summit held last December, regarding the creation of a center for this purpose in Caracas, could be a driving force for the urgent work that we must and can carry out together in this important area that can contribute so much to the development to which we aspire.
Finally, we believe that if this Alternative, born from the Bolivarian premise of integration that will save us, continues to move forward with greater unity, with more dynamism, with more coordination and more desire to strengthen and even rescue some of the projects that once had a high impact on our peoples, if nothing and no one manages to divert us from our objectives, nothing and no one can prevent us from realizing the dreams to which so many generations have devoted their energies and even their lives. That is the commitment, Maduro, of Cuba with our Alliance, with the peoples that make up our Alliance and, of course, together with all of us we will be fighting.
Ever onward to Victory!
Thank you very much.
