We are a few days away from the Constitutional Referendum in our country, which attracts all our attention, the mobilization of our people and whose coverage by the media that you represent, which has been intense, I thank.
The Government of the Republic of Cuba has consistently denounced that the Government of the United States of America prepares a military aggression against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with humanitarian pretexts.
In the speeches of the First Secretary of the Central Committee of our Party on July 26, 2018 and January 1, 2019, and in the speeches of the President of the Councils of State and Ministers, compañero Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, in July last year and more recently, it has warned about the serious economic, political, social, humanitarian and regional peace and security consequences that a new military adventure of the United States in Our America would have.
The Declaration of the Revolutionary Government, dated February 13, with absolute responsibility and with all the necessary data, affirmed - and I reiterate - that US military transport flights are taking place, originating in North American military installations from which units of US forces operate, special operations and marine infantry that are used to perform covert actions, and even against leaders or people called valuable.
With complete ignorance of the governments of the territories concerned and total disrespect for the sovereignty of those States, the preparation of a military action with a humanitarian pretext continues.
President Donald Trump, yesterday afternoon, and other senior officials and spokesmen of the US government have repeated and confirmed that the military option is among those considered. Yesterday President Trump said: "All options are possible."
According to the United States' own press, high-ranking US military commanders have never dealt with humanitarian aid, have had meetings with US politicians and other nations and have made visits to places evidently related to the issue occupy
We all assist in the making of humanitarian pretexts. A deadline has been set for forcing the entry of "humanitarian aid" by force, which is in itself a contradiction: it is not possible for truly humanitarian aid to rest on violence, on the force of arms or on the violation of International Law. This mere approach is a violation of International Humanitarian Law that reveals the politicization of humanitarian aid, as at other times when noble causes of universal recognition have been used as a pretext to develop military aggressions.
It would be necessary to ask, before the establishment of a deadline, before the sustained declaration that the humanitarian aid is going to penetrate anyway that day in Venezuelan territory against the sovereign will of its town and the decision of its constitutional Government, what objectives Are they chasing each other? Which could be that they are not generating an incident that puts in risk the life of civilians, that provokes violence or unpredictable circumstances?
In recent days, there has been talk that humanitarian aid could last for months or even years. It has been said "how long the reconstruction lasts". We should ask that senator from Florida what reconstruction he is talking about. We are talking about a nation that is not at war or has not suffered a war; but it is known that the war is excellent business for the American companies of the military-industrial complex and later for the others the so-called reconstruction.
The United States Government continues to exert pressure on the member States of the United Nations Security Council to force the adoption of a resolution that would be the prelude to "humanitarian intervention". In its articles it contains the diagnosis of a situation of breach of peace and security in that sister nation and urges all international actors and of any nature to use the necessary measures.
It is known from precedents, even recent, that this language is usually followed by another calling for zones of no flight, protection of civilians, establishment of humanitarian corridors under Chapter VII of the Charter authorizing the use of force.
We hope that the Security Council of the United Nations will prevail its vocation and its responsibility as the main guarantor of international peace and security and not lend itself to military adventures.
We call on its members to act in accordance with International Law and to defend peace, precious for humanity, for Our America and also for the Venezuelan people.
The Government of the United States has invented, has made a coup in Washington imperialist, with a "president" built in that capital of the North, which has not worked internally.
Numerous US sources could be cited, accredited media that have given all the details of the way in which the coup was articulated. The pressures exerted by the United States Government against other countries, trying to force the recognition of the alleged "president" self-proclaimed and proclaimed by Washington, or the call for new elections in the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, are still brutal. , annulling those that legitimately and constitutionally his people already gave.
The efforts of the National Security team of the White House, some officials of the State Department and some US embassies are well known. In addition, a large communication and political operation is under way, generally a prelude to larger-scale actions by that Government.
Unilateral and, therefore, illegal coercive economic measures are increasingly applied against the sister Republic of Venezuela: the embargo or the freezing of financial assets in third countries; the tremendous pressures that are produced on governments that supply Venezuela and even the Venezuelan oil industry; pressures on banks in third countries to prevent legitimate financial transactions, even in third currencies; the confiscation, practically robbery, of the subsidiary of PDVSA in the United States and other interests settled in that country.
These measures constitute a gross violation of International Law and also of International Humanitarian Law, cause human hardship and damage and are totally incompatible with hypocritical appeals from those responsible for the application of these cruel measures to provide humanitarian aid. The figures are obscene. There has been talk of humanitarian aid of some 20 million dollars to a country that is being deprived of more than 30 billion dollars for these arbitrary, illegal and unjust measures.
The Government of the Republic of Cuba calls on the international community to act in defense of peace, to avoid, with the joint effort of all, without exception, a military intervention against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela.
One can only be, at this crucial moment where enforcement is decided, the validity of the principles of International Law, of the Charter of the United Nations; where it is decided that the reason of legitimacy of a government lies in the support and vote of its people; where it is decided that no outside pressure can replace the sovereign exercise of self-determination; in these circumstances, one can only be for or against peace, one can only be for or against war.
We encourage the Montevideo Mechanism, especially the Government of the United Mexican States, the Eastern Republic of Uruguay, the governments of the Caribbean Community and the Plurinational State of Bolivia to continue making their best efforts under these emergency conditions, to promote a solution based on dialogue and absolute respect for the independence and sovereignty of Venezuela, and the validity of the principles of International Law, especially that of No Intervention.
We call for an international mobilization for peace, against the military intervention of the United States in Latin America, against the war; above political differences, ideological differences, in favor of a supreme good of humanity that is peace, which is the right to life.
We call all governments, parliaments, political forces, social movements, popular, indigenous, labor and social organizations, unions, peasants, women, students, intellectuals and artists, academics; especially to communicators and journalists, to you (points to journalists), to Non-Governmental Organizations, to representatives of civil society.
At the same time, the Government of the Republic of Cuba reiterates the firm and unwavering solidarity with the constitutional president Nicolás Maduro Moros, with the Bolivarian Revolution and Chavista, with the civic-military union of his people, and we affirm that in the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela we must defend today the postulates of the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace. Today we must defend the sovereignty of all, the independence of all and the sovereign equality of States.
We attended astonished yesterday afternoon President Donald Trump's speech. Surprisingly it decreed the "end of socialism" and announced "a new day" for humanity. He solemnly proclaimed that, for the first time in history, there will be a hemisphere free of socialism.
Interestingly, he also spoke of progress in negotiations with a large socialist country and had chosen another to hold an important summit.
How many times have characters in the United States decreed the end of socialism or the end of history?
President Trump honored "great leaders" present at the Florida event: a governor, a couple of senators, a representative, an ambassador, all fundamentalist Republicans and, five minutes later, apparently, they warned him or noticed that It had been deeply unfair to omit the name of John Bolton, also present there.
Bolton has been a warmonger for decades, the main organizer of the coup in Venezuela and a permanent advocate of the military option.
The President of the United States referred to human dignity. It seems to forget that it is in capitalism and, in particular, in imperialism where injustice prevails, exploitation, manipulation of people.
Criticized corruption, perhaps without recognizing that the American political system is corrupt by nature, which is where special interests or corporate contributions prevail, where money is sent and now data, big data, where elections are won by manipulating people .
He spoke of democracy, not to mention the millions of mostly black and Hispanic American citizens excluded from the vote; to the 40 million poor, half of them children.
He forgot to mention the more than 500,000 people who live without a home, without a roof in that country. Perhaps he ignores that there prevails a differentiated racial pattern, from the application of the death penalty, the penitentiary system, the judicial sanctions or, even, in the police brutality that costs lives of African-Americans permanently.
He did not mention the lack of unionization of American workers, nor that women in that country lack the right to equal pay for equal work.
He mentioned the Venezuelan migrants, but he did not talk about the wall on the Rio Grande. He did not mention the Central American minors who are cruelly separated from their parents or some of their deaths in detention. He did not refer to the repression of the migrants, nor of the minorities, nor to the murders at the hands of the Border Patrol.
President Trump promised success to the putschists and said: "... because the United States is behind you supporting you." It seems that he does not realize that the coup has not worked and that is why the external threat against Venezuela increases.
He introduced himself as the Head of a peace-loving State. There are dozens of wars provoked by successive governments of the United States. Now launch a new arms race, even nuclear. It is the country where he has been tortured and tortured. It is the country that calls the death of innocent civilians in war adventures "collateral damage". It is the country that has sent tens of thousands of young Americans as cannon fodder to die in wars of imperialist dispossession. It is the country that launched a war that has caused more than a million deaths based on the lie of the existence of weapons of mass extermination in Iraq. Some of the current protagonists were also responsible for that one and they are now also lying about Venezuela.
The President said that socialism does not respect borders. But that is the imperialism that militarily occupied Cuba more than once, which prevented our independence until the entry into Havana of the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz. It was the country that stripped Mexico of more than half of its territory, that imposed cruel military dictatorships in Latin America and that today maintains aggressive military bases practically all over the planet.
President Trump said that socialism promises unity, but provokes hatred and division. Extraordinary cynicism, extraordinary hypocrisy! He is the representative of an amoral government, of a sector rejected, even by the traditional American parties, which applies dirty politics, which encourages with the language of hatred and division the polarization of society and that even high conservative exponents have denounced because they lack the minimum standards of decency in politics.
The President also said that nothing is less democratic than socialism. Mr. President Trump, try a constitutional reform, referendum your policies, respect the will of your constituents. Remember that you are President having lost the popular vote for more than three million ballots.
The accusation by the President of the United States that Cuba maintains a private army in Venezuela is infamous. I'm going to submit evidence. Our Government rejects this slander in the strongest and most categorical terms, while reaffirming the duty and commitment to continue providing the modest cooperation in which more than 20,000 Cuban aid workers, all civilians, 94% of them participate in Health, others in Education, as it does in 83 countries around the world.
We Cubans will continue our own course and prepare for a successful referendum in just a few days. We will continue working serene, consecrated, and imbued with the certainty that we have enough tools to build our future.
The Cuban collaborators in Venezuela, during last Saturday and Sunday, already exercised their vote in the Referendum. They did it in a massive way.
They tell their relatives, who logically worry about the news they receive, that despite the circumstances, they live normally in Venezuela; that it is not true that there are hundreds of thousands of Venezuelans dying of hunger, as some mendacious spokesmen say, and reaffirm that they will continue to carry out their deeply humanitarian work.
I firmly reject President Trump's attempt to intimidate those who, in a totally sovereign manner, in the exercise of self-determination, have decided to build and defend socialism, and intimidation towards numerous parties, organizations and people who, lovers of justice, equity, of socially and environmentally sustainable development, adversaries of exploitation, neo-colonialism, neoliberalism and exclusion, have embraced with deep conviction the socialist and revolutionary ideas, under the conviction that a better world is not only possible, it is not only indispensable, but it is inevitable.
As many analysts and US politicians have recognized, yesterday's speech in Florida was very electoral. It wants to intimidate not only the socialist and communist forces, but also the Democratic leaders, the voters, especially the young voters who are dissatisfied with the system.
He proclaimed yesterday that there will never be socialism in "America".
He not only wants to intimidate people, but also Democrats. His position is known that whoever votes for the Democrats in the electoral campaign, which seems to have already begun, will vote for the construction of socialism in that Northern nation.
The main "theoretical contribution" of Trump in his speech yesterday was the incorporation of McCarthyism to the Monroe Doctrine, in the defense of a single imperialist power, which added an extreme, visceral, old-fashioned, essentially old anticommunism, anchored in the Cold War. You will not be charged any copyright. President Reagan and former Prime Minister Churchill anticipated addressing the issue.
71 years ago Churchill said: "Socialism is the philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance and the gospel of envy..." 36 years ago, Reagan said: "I believe that communism is another sad and strange chapter in human history whose last pages are being written even at this moment ... I believe this, because the source of our strength in the search for human freedom It is not material, but spiritual. "
It was a clumsy and crude declaration of imperialist domination over Our Martiian America. "We have seen the future of Cuba here in Miami," the US president said yesterday. It is wrong, the future of Cuba is here. With additional blocking measures or without them, the future is decided by Cubans and Cubans. We have done, we have built and we will defend a socialist revolution in their noses.
We must remember the defeat of the Batista dictatorship, established and sustained by imperialist governments. We are proud of the victory of Playa Girón or Bahía de Cochinos. Of our value against the risk of holocaust in the October Crisis. Of our firm and virile response to state terrorism, before the blowing up of a civilian plane in full flight; facts that have caused 3 478 deaths and 2 099 Cuban and Cuban with disabilities.
We reiterate to President Trump that our loyalty to Fidel and Raúl will be invariable, and that the process of continuity led by President Díaz-Canel is permanent and irreversible. We will be united with our Communist Party of Cuba. We have written, together, this new Constitution and we will vote for it on February 24, for the Homeland and Socialism. It will also be a response to President Trump's speech.
Thank you.
Moderator. - Well, we now go to a brief question session. I ask colleagues in the press, to identify themselves, to identify the medium they represent and to make use of the microphones that are available in the room.
Katell Abiden (AFP). - Good afternoon, Mr. Minister. I want to ask you two questions. If a military intervention occurs in Venezuela, what will be your reaction?
On the other hand, I would like to have your opinion on the possible application of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act by the United States.
Bruno Rodríguez - Yes. Your first question is hypothetical. Our call is to stop a US military intervention in Venezuela, it is time to unite and act together, in time to stop it.
In the second, I can reiterate: As we have explained before and other leaders of our nation and spokesmen of our Foreign Ministry have said, our country is prepared to face any measure of hardening of the blockade or, even, implementation of new elements of the Helms-Burton Law. We have a program, with a predictable economy plan until 2030. The Cuban economy has a strong international anchor. Our economic relationships are diverse. We also count on the prevalence of the rule of International Law, the rules of Free Trade and Freedom of Navigation, and we are sure
that the fiercely extraterritorial application of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba not only arouses an enormous international rejection, but will also face strong resistance from our economic, investment, financial and tourism counterparts, as opposed to the attempt to impose additional sanctions against the sovereignty of their States, against their national interests and those of their businessmen and citizens.
Hatzel Vela (ABC-Miami). - What evidence, in these times, has the Cuban Government that the United States is on the way to a military intervention? Could you explain more about that, please?
Bruno Rodríguez - Yes, thank you very much.
I can reiterate that I have all the data that allow me to affirm that flights are taking place from US bases, where special operations and marine infantry units are operating, used for missions of this nature, in preparation of actions against Venezuela.
If you would like to visit some airports, you might be able to personally notice what I am saying. I affirm, flatly, that they are not humanitarian aid flights.
Governments are generally able to obtain this information, but even without the data you are asking about, it is clear that an international situation has been set in which the United States Government is moving towards the military threat.
I do not know how you could explain what it means to summon tens of thousands of people on the Venezuelan border to force in humanitarian aid. I do not know what your media outlet expects to happen under those circumstances. I do not know how you interpret a senator's statement that US capital will be necessary for the reconstruction of Venezuela.
Lorena Cantó (Agencia EFE) .- You said, returning to title III of the Helms-Burton Act, that Cuba is prepared to face an intensification of sanctions and wanted to ask you if you aspire that countries, especially like Canada and other trading partners of Cuba, have an active position like the one that was initially produced when this provision was approved and that was what stopped its implementation and has caused its periodic suspension, I do not know if they have maintained contacts with the governments of these countries, if they have transmitted that now they will have an active position as at that time in 1996.
Bruno Rodríguez - Thank you. We are necessarily discreet given our position, but I can tell you that I know of strong opposition from numerous Member States of the European Union and other industrialized nations; I have seen some statements; I also know about huge diplomatic exchanges and I am convinced that these nations will defend not only the sovereignty of their States, but also their national interest and the interest of their companies and citizens, and I am sure that they will consider it unacceptable, as in fact I know that That is their position, the attempt to establish discriminatory forms in favor of American companies against those national interests. They are assisted by International Law, the obligation to apply their own laws in their own territory, the existence of antidote laws that should also be applied according to their own legal system and international circumstances, because I have heard strong, firm statements from numerous counterparts of the United States on trade and investment, considering US policies on trade, in terms of tariffs or other aspects unacceptable.
Sergio Gómez (Cubadebate). - President Trump spoke yesterday in Miami as if there was a worldwide unanimity around the recognition of Guaidó. Is there or does the Minrex appreciate that there is such unanimity? And in that same sense does this agenda of aggression of John Bolton and Marco Rubio against Cuba that President Trump has assumed has been or has not been effective in achieving the isolation of Cuba from the international community? Because the last news we had about it was a global applause for the restoration of relations between the two countries.
Bruno Rodríguez - Isolation of Cuba or the United States?
Sergio Gómez. - No, if it has been achieved, if that policy has been effective, in your opinion, in isolating Cuba from that international community that applauded the restoration of relations.
Bruno Rodríguez - One reads in the press numerous statements and data. On my own, less than a quarter of the member states of the United Nations interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela to demand elections or, in one way or another, recognize the "president" invented in Washington. So I think the data is reliable.
I am also aware of a recent debate in the Security Council of the United Nations, where the alleged accuser became a defendant in the face of a defense of international law and the sovereignty of Venezuela by numerous Member States of the United Nations.
I also know of a meeting of the Coordination Bureau of the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries that expressed itself firmly against a military adventure and in support of Venezuelan sovereignty.
So I think we have to separate propaganda from reality, not letting American spokespersons, who sometimes want to make us confuse reality with their wishes, not ours, succeed.
If there was any doubt in relation to the international situation in Cuba, it would be enough to briefly review the minutes, or more fun, to see in the video what happened on the 1st. November in the General Assembly of the United Nations: 10 votes, practically unanimous, left isolated the Government of the United States that is still obstinate in a genocidal blockade.
Those who speak now of humanitarian aid and generously offer 20 million, have caused Cuba damages of approximately one million million dollars at prices based on the value of gold, or more than 130 billion dollars at current prices. The damages of the blockade, as has been said, calculated in a scrupulous way and with an internationally auditable methodology, reflect that without them Cuba would have grown in the last decade at an average of 10% per year.
I believe that it is totally clear that the Government of the United States, in its attempt to isolate Cuba, has been deeply isolated.
Thank you.