Caracas, 29 March 2025. -
Dear comrade, Yvan Gil, Foreign Minister of the sister Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela:
Dear Foreign Ministers and heads of delegation of the ALBA-TCP member countries:
Compañero Jorge Arreaza Montserrat, Executive Secretary of ALBA-TCP:
Dear comrades:
I bring the affectionate greetings of President Miguel Díaz-Canel to the Venezuelan people, to President Nicolás Maduro Moros, to all the peoples and governments of ALBA and his message of encouragement and certainty of victory.
This meeting is taking place at a crucial juncture, when the United States is trying to force the design of an international system that threatens peace, stability and security.
Through the supposed defence of an extreme nationalism, an imperialist and racist exceptionalism, the US government resorts to the use of brutally punitive economic and trade tools, the pernicious effect of which will have a negative impact on our peoples.
It applies discriminatory, repressive and illegal policies that attack the dignity and human rights of our nationals living in that country, while resorting to blackmail, intimidation and the implementation of an increasing number of unilateral coercive measures against our nations that violate international law.
In this design, natural resources, critical infrastructure and legitimate international relations with other countries are under threat, and those who do not submit to the imperial plan are exposed to aggressive extraterritorial persecution.
The United States is trying to violently impose a new division of the world, in which one part would be made up of those who submit to its dictates, by making economic, territorial or security concessions; and on the other, those who will be subject to coercion and aggression, for refusing to be subjugated and defending sovereign equality and their right to self-determination.
This design already causes direct, intentional and politically motivated damage to the sovereignty and independence of states. It violates the principle of non-interference in internal affairs and hinders the efforts of nations to promote the full enjoyment of human rights.
We cannot ignore the new threats we face: foreign interference, unconventional or cognitive and communicational warfare and attempts to break our unity.
The words of our Apostle José Martí come to mind, and I quote: "Our enemy obeys one plan, that of festering us, dispersing us, dividing us, suffocating us. Therefore, we obey another plan: to teach us to our full height, to squeeze us, to unite us, to outwit him. Plan against plan" (end of quote).
Latin America and the Caribbean must continue to be a Zone of Peace, as proclaimed by CELAC, with the signature of the Heads of State and Government, at its II Summit held in Havana in January 2014. The Panama Canal belongs solely to the Panamanian people.
We have the commitment and the duty to maintain a system based on respectful relations of friendship and cooperation, free of threats and aggression; as well as a climate of peace, stability and justice, in order to banish forever the use and threat of the use of force.
We must work so that the 9th CELAC Summit, to be held on April 9 in the sister Republic of Honduras, has as its premise the defence of ‘unity within diversity’, a concept adopted by the Community at the proposal of GE Raúl Castro Ruz.
Cuba firmly supports the preservation and consolidation of CELAC, as a representative mechanism for political consultation and dialogue among its 33 countries. We must concentrate on strengthening the Community's positions, curbing positions that would mean a reversal of what has been achieved and safeguarding its historical heritage.
The politically motivated use of mass, violent and racist deportations of migrants by the United States constitutes a flagrant, massive and systematic violation of the human rights of our fellow citizens. We must mobilise to prevent them from being used as a weapon of blackmail and political pressure against our nations.
The use of the Guantanamo Naval Base, which the United States is usurping, to imprison migrants is a brutal and illegal act that threatens the security and peace of Cuba and the region.
The kidnapping, without jurisdiction or due process, without trial, defence or sanction by a competent court; and sending to third countries, by the United States, of Venezuelan migrants and of any citizenship is an atrocious act and constitutes cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.
The main motivation for Cuban migration is economic, due to the genocidal US blockade, aggravated by the inclusion of Cuba in the spurious list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism, whose impact on our economy and families is devastating.
We have expressed to the US government our willingness to continue to honour the three existing Bilateral Migration Agreements which, to date, have been complied with, with relative normality, by the United States, which signed them in recognition that they respond to the national interest of both countries and benefit both peoples.
That government bears a great deal of responsibility for the fact that Cubans residing in its territory, under various migratory statuses, are there because of the politicisation that has singled out its encouragement of their emigration in order to damage, destabilise and denigrate Cuba.
It has led them to ask for and granted them the status of ‘refugees’ under the fraud of ‘credible fear’ to people who left their country regularly, with passports and airline tickets on commercial airlines, and who as soon as they regularise their situation travel to visit their relatives in the homeland where they were born. They are the only ‘politically persecuted’ people in the world who act in this way and are now victims of the same people who encouraged and welcomed them, who threaten them mercilessly.
The anti-Cuban politicians who are members of the US Congress and the Secretary of State, with a few exceptions, were not born in Cuba, nor have they visited the country. They have been fiercely anti-Cuban and corrupt, and have profited from aggression against the Cuban nation. The corrupt, anodyne and blackmailing Secretary of State is today, together with his so-called Special Envoy, to the disgrace of Our America, the main responsible and promoter of the persecution and attempted mass deportation of Cubans resident or temporary in the United States, including many who entered that country regularly, who work, who pay taxes there, who have acquired property or who are exploited and who live in misery waiting for the application of the Cuban Adjustment Act, discriminatory to all those of other nationalities. This is the consequence of their actions because, in order to harm Cuba, they have not hesitated to hurt them and separate their families. Where are they now and what are they doing, hypocrites and cynics? You do not even defend those who voted for you. Don't keep pretending and lying to the separated families.
Even former Senator Robert Menendez has charged and insisted that the Secretary of State should accompany him to serve the 11 years of imprisonment to which he has been sentenced for similar acts of corruption.
We reaffirm, once again, Cuba's commitment to regular, safe and orderly migration, and its confrontation of crimes associated with migratory movement, including human trafficking and the illegal smuggling of migrants.
We also reiterate to the Government of the United States our willingness to maintain dialogue on migration and law enforcement issues, including cooperation in the prevention and prosecution of these crimes and of terrorism and drug trafficking.
We appreciate the expressions of the members of our community, requesting the end of the US blockade and the exclusion of Cuba from the fraudulent list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
We reaffirm once again our firm and energetic support for the Bolivarian and Chavista Revolution led by President Nicolás Maduro Moros, determined to defend with unwavering determination the direct threats and unacceptable external sanctions and pressures. Venezuela will continue to win!
Cuba reiterates its full and absolute support for co-president Daniel Ortega Saavedra, co-president Rosario Murillo and the Sandinista people. Enough of destabilising actions against the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of Nicaragua!
All our support and solidarity to the brother Plurinational State of Bolivia in the defence of sovereignty against US interference.
The dear nations of the Caribbean will always have a sister in Cuba, which will accompany them, despite any risk of a tightening of the blockade, in their right to receive fair, special and differentiated treatment, essential to face the growing challenges arising from the prevailing unjust international financial system and climate change, as well as in their legitimate claim for reparations and compensation for the horrors of slavery and colonialism. I say this with the excitement of my very recent official tour to Africa, which included the island of Gorée.
We call to continue to strengthen this Alliance, to close ranks against those who seek to impose their agendas on us. ‘Freedom is not to be begged for, but to be conquered...’ said Antonio Maceo.
This is the moment when the United States is stepping up its ignominious campaign against the medical cooperation that Cuba provides to more than fifty nations. It is a shameful reprisal, based on politically motivated slander in an effort to attack Cuba and negatively affect cooperation relations with numerous countries without measuring the damage to the health of low-income families or those living in remote places. I ask the US government, will the United States be willing to supply Cuban doctors with US doctors under the same conditions of solidarity or preferential treatment? While dismantling health services and stripping low-income and poor US citizens, Cubans and migrants residing there, who massively use the so-called Obamacare, Medicare or MediAID, could any deluded person think that instead of soldiers, the US is going to send doctors to their countries?
For our part, we ratify our willingness to maintain the cooperation agreed with each country that has requested it, adopted through legal agreements, under the protection of international norms and practice, which have been defended with firmness and transparency, particularly in the Caribbean, in the face of threats from Ambassadors Pro-Consuls and personally from the Secretary of State himself, the same one who cut off resources for the health of the discredited USAID while restoring funds for the destabilisation of our countries.
Let us respond to the imperialist counter-offensive with our plan, strengthening unity, globalising solidarity, and promoting integration, cooperation and dialogue.
Fidel used to say that unity means sharing objectives, ideas, concepts and strategies, which are arrived at through debate and analysis, and I quote: ‘We must prevent the strategic lines from being diluted in the enormous sea of tactical criteria and imagining that they do not exist’.
We are called upon to work hard, to confront and defeat the onslaught of imperialism in order to defend regional peace and security.
Allow me to convey to you our absolute conviction that, if this Bolivarian Alternative continues to advance with unity and effectiveness, they will not be able to prevent us from realising the dreams to which so many generations have devoted their lives.
Let us always carry with us the confidence and optimism in the victory of the founding fathers.
Chávez and Fidel showed us the way, we are called upon to preserve it and to continue their legacy.
Thank you very much.
(Cubaminrex)