Your Excellency, President Michael Higgins,
Thank you very much for your warm welcome, the courteous treatment during my stay, and the candid talks we just held.
I remember that an occasion similar to this was used as a pretext by famous Irish chronicler James O' Kelly to make one of the very few known interviews of Carlos Manuel de Céspedes, the Father of the Homeland. This interview was published in the book La Tierra del Mambí in 20th century Cuba. During a lunch, which was modest though "served with White House formality", as described by O' Kelly, Céspedes, in his capacity as the first president of the Republic of Cuba in Arms, said to the journalist, “We want peace so that we can focus on rebuilding our homes and the well-being of our country. But above all we want our independence."
Peace and independence have actually been the guiding principles of the Cuban revolutionary process since 1868. They are the same principles we uphold today in the face of the increasing aggression from the US. Those are the principles that unite us with Ireland, a friendly people who had to fight for their sovereignty like Cuba.
Esteemed President,
In the 1960s, Commander Ernesto Che Guevara, an Argentinian who fortunately was part of Cuban history, told his father, “With my boat at anchor and heaved-to, I am in this green Ireland of your ancestors". Half a century later we return to the green and patriotic Ireland, the same Ireland of the Che's ancestors, the one that accompanied Felix Varela during his stay in Saint Augustine, the one that apostle José Martí described in his New York Chronicles, the one that aroused the Commander in Chief's admiration, the Ireland that is still present in the streets and buildings of Havana. It is a pleasure to return here only seven days after the 20th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between our countries, after the historic visit by President Higgins to Havana, and after the first celebration of Saint Patrick's day in Cuba, and its famous parade.
Today we raise our glasses to peace and independence, to the friendship between the peoples of Cuba and Ireland, to always remaining in the same sea of struggle and hope.
Words written by Diaz-Canel in the guestbook of the Presidency.
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