HAVANA, Cuba, Oct 29 (ACN) Speech delivered by Miguel M. Diaz-Canel Bermudez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the closing of the 7th Ordinary Period of Sessions of the 9th Legislature of the National Assembly of People’s Power, at the Convention Center, on October 28, 2021, “Year 63 of the Revolution”.
(Shorthand Versions-Presidency of the Republic)
Dear Army General Raul Castro Ruz, leader of the Cuban Revolution;
Comrade Esteban Lazo, President of the National Assembly of People’s Power;
Representatives of the National Assembly of People’s Power;
Guests:
It is my duty to close the 7th Ordinary Period of Sessions of the 9th Legislature and, at the same time, I come before you, the highest representation of our people, to comply with a legal mandate: to render accounts and report on my administration as President of the Republic.
I will do so by sharing assessments on the situation we have faced in these times, the issues on which we have focused our work and also to talk about the issues towards which we must direct our main efforts.
I do so on a day of special significance for all Cubans, the day when the loyal Camilo Cienfuegos, a symbol of Cuban identity, of courage, eternal hero of Cuban youth and, like him, joyful and profound, died.
By making these words public, I will surely count not only on your opinions, but also on those of our people. We will rely on them to improve our work, with the responsibility that comes with being a public official.
First of all, I must underline the very complex world context, affected by multiple crises derived from the unjust global order, which have worsened as a consequence of two long and hard years of pandemic.
Less than a week ago, deaths due to COVID-19 worldwide reached 5 million people and the number of infected persons exceeded 243,700,000. The World Health Organization estimates that if we take into account the excess mortality directly or indirectly linked to the new coronavirus, the pandemic’s toll could be two to three times higher than official records show; but the real impact on all aspects of life on a planetary level is yet to be known. What no one doubts is its high cost for the world economy, already out of tune with the prolonged prevalence of unsustainable consumption patterns, which have increasingly reduced the zones of wealth and comfort, while the world of the excluded is dramatically widening.
Cuba, in spite of being provided by the work of social justice of the Revolution with a universal and free health system, capable of having scientific potentialities that in a very short time put us at the world forefront in the research and production of vaccines, has not been able to escape the pandemic shock.
As has been assessed in the sessions of this Assembly, since 2019 the economy has moved through exceptional conditions. The combined effects of the tightening of the blockade and the escalation of the pandemic caused the country to lose more than 3 billion dollars in revenues during this period. In addition, significant expenditures have been made in excess of the budget to deal with COVID-19, the protection of workers and the population in general. All this has limited the capacity to face essential expenditures to support the state supply, mainly of food and medicines, as well as those required for the stability of the National Electric System; this difficult situation causes dissatisfaction and discomfort among the population.
To give you an idea: only in health services and expendable material for COVID-19, some 300 million dollars were invested, while the resources for the operation and maintenance of the National Electric System demand at least 250 million dollars per year.
Not having carried out timely maintenance and not being able to acquire the necessary resources to guarantee the electric service caused the unpleasant blackouts that we have been suffering since June 21. Although the limitations have not disappeared, there is availability of fuel for the generation of electricity, and a level of financing was allocated, under very difficult conditions to approve it, which will allow, before the end of the year, the recovery of 608 megawatts of power generation capacity, thus gradually improving the situation of this service throughout the country.
In this context, there have been conditions that favor inflation due to the existence of a demand much higher than the supply, which is the main priority of the Government’s work. One of the solutions to this problem is the growth of supply through a greater participation of national producers in our domestic market.
Thanks to the sustained control of COVID-19, a gradual process of recovery of economic and social activity has begun, to which the measures approved to provide greater autonomy to the socialist state enterprise and the improvement and diversification of the economic actors should contribute.
The Plan of the Economy and the State Budget for 2022, which we will evaluate next December, will be aimed at projecting the recovery of the basic levels of activity, achieving greater autonomy in the administrative management of the territories; prioritizing compensatory measures for the attention of the most vulnerable, and strengthening the implementation of the Ordinance Task, among other priorities.
Comrades:
It is necessary to target again the vile opportunism of the adversary. Just in the months in which the pandemic increased in the country, power cuts became frequent and the supply of goods and services contracted significantly for the aforementioned reasons, creating a favorable climate for irritation and discontent; the historical enemy of the Cuban nation knew the severity of the moment and launched itself with even more viciousness against our economy. In direct contradiction with President Biden’s recent declarations before the United Nations General Assembly, to favor multilateralism and cooperate in the fight against the pandemic at a global level, the blockade was tightened towards Cuba, new sanctions were imposed and a new destabilization program was set in motion which follows to the letter the “soft coup” instructions.
We have never sat down to wait for a change in a policy that for 62 years has changed only to tighten the blockade. The enemy’s formula has been to hope that our great material difficulties will weaken the resistance of the people and finally bring us to our knees before them.
Against a socialist project such as ours, violent or warlike actions, invasion, occupation are never ruled out; but the first priority is demoralization, surrender, that is why the message of hatred towards communists, the anti-socialist emphasis, the persecution of every possible economic solution, in short, the blockade. No matter how much it destroys, how much it damages, how much it undermines the faith of a people in its own strength.
However improbable and immoral it may seem, that is the design of imperialism against Cuba. The hypocritical cover-ups and deceptions about a supposed revision of the policy that the current government repudiated during the electoral campaign that brought it to power are no longer valid. The fraudulent pretexts about the alleged intention to favor the Cuban people and deny benefits to the Government are no longer acceptable.
The facts are before everyone’s eyes to prove that the objective has been, from the beginning, to provoke economic scarcity, punish the people, harm their standard of living, restrict their sources of income, limit their consumption and damage the social services on which a part of their well-being and the response to their most elementary needs depend. The purpose has been to condemn the Cuban population to the role of hostage in a genocidal policy with hegemonic designs.
That is why Washington is so annoyed by Cuba’s success in confronting the pandemic, in particular the outstanding results of the vaccination program developed with creativity, effort and its own resources. This explains the determination to denigrate our Public Health System and to hide this extraordinary achievement of Cuba, which breaks the misleading matrix they want to impose on our reality.
Every vaccine created and applied, every immunized compatriot, every contagion avoided and every life saved are triumphs of the national cause and defeats of the imperialist aggression against our country. It would seem unbelievable to describe it that way, but there is no other way to refer to the shamelessness of betting on a pandemic with cold political calculations against an entire people.
As I recently denounced at the closing of the last Plenary Session of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, in the current bilateral scenario we are experiencing with the United States, the Embassy of that country has been playing a growing role in the efforts of political subversion.
In contrast, I can categorically state that our embassy to Washington has never carried out any activity aimed at subverting the order in the United States, nor at undermining its political, legal or constitutional foundations. Our diplomatic mission in that country is limited to the deployment of an intense work in favor of bilateral relations, in terms of the lifting of the economic blockade and aimed at counteracting the slander against Cuba and the Revolution.
The trajectory of our diplomatic representations in the United States has always been absolutely clean, even though we have genuine concerns and legitimate criteria on the unjust nature of the U.S. political system and on the political, economic and legal outrages that are committed there on a daily basis.
The U.S. Government shamelessly uses the privileges enjoyed by its embassy to our country. U.S. diplomatic officials frequently meet with counterrevolutionary leaders. They provide them with guidance, encouragement, logistical support and directly or indirectly finance their activities. In their communication platforms, including digital media, they issue daily offensive pronouncements that constitute open meddling in the internal affairs of our country.
It is fair to ask what would be the behavior of the Government of the United States in the face of any embassy accredited in Washington engaged in instigating, guiding, motivating and financing any of the multiple extremist groups whose illegal activities threaten the stability, life and public order of that country. It would be good to know how the US government would respond to an embassy accredited in its territory that publicly promotes civil disobedience, political demonstrations and massive marches against the established legality.
With the recent provocations, it is clear that a concerted operation is underway against Cuba from Washington, involving millionaire funds aimed at generating the image that Cuba is a failed state, that there is an outrage against its citizens. This plan also includes the purpose of trying to get other countries to join in the measures of economic aggression, and even to get the United States itself to take punitive actions on a larger scale.
The truth always prevails no matter how powerful the tools existing today to hide or distort it may be. The lie may spread as the COVID-19 virus spreads and will have the power to confuse and infect many, but it will not be able to break the will so many times proven of this heroic people.
Against the plans of imperialism we are defeating the pandemic, as we have defeated and will defeat the aggressive plans, no matter how powerful the campaigns and slander.
The blockade is and will continue to be, foreseeably, a major obstacle to our strategies and potential for economic growth and development, but it is not an insurmountable impediment. We shall continue fighting against it tirelessly, with the support of the international community.
Our development and the well-being of our people will have to depend on the effort we make and the intelligence we bring together, aware that the cruel economic war of the United States will persist as long as that country’s criminal yearning to take control of Cuba’s destiny exists.
The blockade is not only a punishment for resistance. It is the daily way of preventing socialism from being associated with growth, progress and prosperity.
No! Socialism is not the cause of our problems. Socialism is the only explanation for the fact that we have survived that ferocious and genocidal blockade without renouncing to develop (Applause).
Como expresé hace unos días en el Pleno de nuestro Comité Central, solo de nosotros depende la respuesta digna a ese inmerecido castigo. Nuestra originalidad está obligada a ser tan grande como la maldad de quienes intentan rendirnos. La Revolución estaba y estará permanentemente desafiada a ser excepcional por la capacidad de su pueblo de resistir y crear.
Thanks to our system, to the integration of all the forces in pursuit of an objective, that is to say, thanks to the unity around the Party, Cuba had immediate answers to the unexpected pandemic and, at the same time, to face the rude deepening of the blockade left to us by the Trump administration and maintained against its own promises by the current Biden Administration.
The Economic-Social Strategy for boosting the economy and confronting the global crisis caused by COVID-19 was the first response.
A strategy that adjusted the country’s projections to the new scenarios without renouncing the development program until 2030. A revolutionary response because of its flexibility and its capacity to adapt to the complexity of absolutely new and unpredictable situations, such as the pandemic itself. A response based on our strengths and aware of existing limitations.
Promoting the development of a Government Management System based on Science and Innovation, we have created the National Innovation Council, whose specialized advice will have an impact on decision making and the solution of the most pressing problems.
More than 60 measures have been approved to boost the production and commercialization of foodstuffs and others that seek to increase the efficiency of the state enterprise; to stimulate the action of the new economic actors through the so-called Mipymes, to unblock processes and to chain productions are part of a set of actions that complement the Economic-Social Strategy.
At the same time, this year of so many restrictions, our State has developed an intense international activity of dialogue, exchange and cooperation with other nations and their leaders, participating in summits, virtual and, to a lesser extent, face-to-face events, which allow us to maintain a solid relationship with the international community and, in particular, with friendly nations.
As an expression of Cuba’s unchanging vocation of solidarity, gratefully acknowledged throughout the world, some 57 medical brigades of the Henry Reeve contingent have directly faced COVID-19 in 40 nations.
Compatriots:
I have allowed myself to insist on the external factors that aim at weakening us because, under the bonfires of the Unconventional War and the deafening noise that professional haters build in the networks, we could fall into the mistake of not appraising our own strengths, of not appreciating our unquestionable progress in a period, the last two years, plagued by challenges and uncertainty at world level. Let us begin with the legislative exercise, which should contribute so much to the country’s institutionality.
During this session, and in compliance with the agreed schedule, we have approved four important laws that mark a transcendental reform in the judicial and procedural order in the country; it is worthy to recognize the effort made even under the conditions imposed by the pandemic. These norms develop contents of the Constitution of the Republic and reinforce the guarantees and rights of citizens in harmony with society as a whole. They have been the result of a broad and participative process of creation of norms to which the directors and specialists of the courts, the Public Prosecutor’s Office, collective law firms and university professors have contributed, in addition to consulting with part of our people.
We must continue to improve this practice for the legislative exercise, so that each law we approve is the result of the contribution of all those who are linked to the object of regulation and, when appropriate, consultation with the people through various means.
The normative provisions approved place the country at the forefront of the most advanced and modern legislation in this field, with a spirit of renewal, reaffirming access to justice for all, expanding due process and thereby contributing to materialize the concept of the socialist State of law and social justice, recognized in Article 1 of the Magna Carta.
The Law of the Courts of Justice exalts the judicial function in the country, reinforcing the independence of the judiciary and the role of judges in society, adjusting its structure and operation to current requirements.
It recognizes essential principles for the judicial function, such as constitutional supremacy, impartiality, equality, free access to justice and popular participation in this area.
The criminal process, with the approval of the law on this matter, is endowed with greater guarantees for all those involved in it.
The strengthening of the rights and guarantees recognized in the Constitution and international treaties are notable; the recognition of victims and injured parties as procedural subjects, the anticipated forms of solution of the processes, the treatment of the accused and defendants between the ages of 16 and 18 years are novel. It is significant the legal assistance from the beginning of the process, together with the control by the courts of the precautionary measure of provisional imprisonment at any stage of the process, issues raised during the popular consultation of the constitutional text.
The Administrative Process Law, in addition to making this matter independent for the first time in the procedural order, will guarantee citizens the possibility of claiming in the courts rights that they consider have been violated by the Public Administration, requiring our managers and officials to act more transparently and in accordance with the law.
Finally, the Procedural Code unifies procedures in civil, commercial, family, labor and social security matters. The law reinforces the protection of persons in vulnerable situations and establishes measures to enforce judicial decisions, among other relevant issues.
The four laws approved set a challenge for the operators of the justice system, in the sense of the need for their training and to guarantee their adequate application, in order to safeguard prompt and effective justice.
We ratify our will to continue complying with the Legislative Schedule approved by this Parliament and, with it, developing the contents of our socialist Constitution.
The 8th Party Congress, held in this difficult year, left us with valuable debates and basic guidelines that are the reference and the greatest impulse to what we are doing. It addressed the most challenging problems of our reality: the gaps, the failures in communication, the need to promote dialogue, participation and popular control, the life in our neighborhoods, the work of the mass and social organizations, the attention to the vulnerable sectors of the population, the knowledge of the problems and interests of the youth.
The errors, routines and bureaucratization of the work in the community, but above all, the difficulties generated by the blockade in the daily life of all Cubans and the high political sensitivity demanded by the application of the Ordering Task, were strongly debated in the April Congress.
Under difficult circumstances, the Ordering Task was applied, considered an unpostponable step for the purpose of increasing business efficiency, but with undesired effects on the lives of the citizens, which today are expressed, above all, in the harmful inflation.
Deputy Prime Minister Alejandro Gil explained extensively in his speech the causes and possible solutions to this problem, I will not go into it in depth except to say that we are aware of its seriousness, and therefore the priority given by the Government to its solution and the attention to vulnerable people. Several elements of its initial design have been rectified taking into account the people’s criteria.
We are not going to lie by saying that this will be solved immediately, I can only affirm that the Revolution will never do anything apart from the interests and demands of the people. And I express my confidence that we will also overcome this challenge, as we have overcome other seemingly insurmountable challenges (Applause).
The Guidelines updated at the 8th Party Congress and what corresponds to the Five-Year National Economic and Social Development Plan until 2030, constitute the basis of the Economic-Social Strategy for the promotion of the economy, whose conduction has been decided to be the responsibility of the Ministry of Economy and Planning, through the macro-programs, with the programs and projects that comprise it.
Considering that for 10 years the Permanent Commission for the Implementation and Development of the Guidelines carried out functions in the interest of updating the Cuban Economic and Social Model of Socialist Development, and that the Management System of our Government has been perfected, it has been decided to remove the aforementioned Commission and transfer its main functions to the Ministry of Economy and Planning.
We are now in a better position to improve the management of the Government in close alliance with the structures of the People’s Power, whose potentialities and reserves still have much to contribute.
I see no better scenario than this to reflect on what we expect from our People’s Power.
The People’s Power, with capital letters, genuine, innovative and, for that very reason, questioned and attacked by those who ignore it or fear its example, constitutes the foundation and the essence of the Cuban political system; to strengthen it is to empower the initiative and direct action of our people in the consolidation of socialism.
This very session of the Assembly has given us good reasons to propose a critical and reflective discussion on popular participation and control, its various forms, mechanisms and procedures; but I also point out that it is important that these analyses be carried out in all social spaces, in all institutions and bodies of the State at all levels to encourage creative and responsible action in the revolutionary socialist process.
The exchange with representatives of different organizations and social groups, that is to say, the meetings with sectors and the tour through the provinces and neighborhoods, has provided us with a lesson learned, it is the need to assume new work styles that correspond to the social heterogeneity of the country, that the concerns and contributions of the citizenry are adequately channeled and that each demand receives timely, pertinent and well-founded responses within the established timeframe and in accordance with the established procedure.
It is imperative to take advantage of the knowledge, strength and popular initiative, not in a formal way, but organically, respectfully, aware that in this way the principle of co-responsibility is accentuated in the path towards the greatest possible social justice.
When we speak of innovation as one of the pillars of government management, we also think of our People’s Power.
Socialist democracy demands doing, innovating, changing and permanently transforming the forms of democratic participation.
Comrades:
The Constitution of the Republic of 2019 and the laws approved in the present Legislature by the National Assembly of People’s Power are legal foundations to support our actions, which we will continue developing along with the improvement of the legal system.
The actions that encourage, promote and materialize popular participation are of defensive and constructive importance for socialism. Immobility and formalism in the structures of government at the local level are as harmful as welfare, which is limited to the delivery of goods and resources without considering the importance of social participation.
Participation that is the essence and safeguard of our socialism. The opposite only serves the enemies of the Revolution for their purposes of returning to capitalism in Cuba. Freedom of discussion, the exercise of criticism and self-criticism of what we are doing wrong, of our problems, is vital to continue advancing, to build and to love.
We must listen, dialogue, attend to the proposals of our people. We must carry out popular consultations on matters of local and national interest, promote participatory budgets to decide among all of us where and how best to use public funds, with emphasis on the locality, the neighborhood, the municipality.
We reaffirm here the will of the Party, the State and Cuban society to respect, promote and guarantee constitutional rights, a will that was expressed during the process of constitutional reform that had as its culminating moment the binding referendum of approval of the Constitution of the Republic of 2019, and in all the actions that are carried out on a daily basis to generate the protection of rights.
These hard months of pandemic are the best evidence of how the State, supported by scientists, health personnel, educators, workers, farmers, combatants, youth, students, in the associative environment of communities and neighborhoods, in our economic actors, in political, mass and social organizations, has worked hard to reduce deaths, contagions; to save life as a right that allows us to enjoy the rest of the rights.
Citizen participation saves! (Applause.)
The protagonists of the process are those who build the sacred unity, those who develop the resilience of the nation; the guardians of dignity: our people.
When we move forward with mass vaccination, paying special attention to children and adolescents, we show our commitment to the comprehensive protection of the rights of children and adolescents in Cuba; this action is no less extraordinary for being an everyday occurrence.
We are committed to recognize and advance in guaranteeing the rights of families, developing the principles of family plurality, diversity, equality and non-discrimination. As a result of this will, we have the Preliminary Draft of the Family Code, solid, robust, based on human dignity as the supreme value that sustains the recognition and exercise of duties and rights.
We are convinced that, through the processes of specialized consultation, popular consultation and debates in the National Assembly of People’s Power, in exercise of the right to participation, we will reach the legislative referendum with a Draft Code of Families that will place Cuba among the most advanced countries in the world in family matters, in favor of children, adolescents, young people, the elderly and people in vulnerable situations.
These are just a few examples, we can also mention the National Program for the Advancement of Women, the National Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination and the Decree-Law on Working Mothers, among others, which show that the Revolution respects, promotes and guarantees rights (Applause).
Ladies and Gentlemen:
This Assembly recently approved an important Declaration denouncing the meddling of the US Government in our internal affairs and its unacceptable role as instigator and facilitator of ongoing provocations.
In this same room, where the Constitution of the Republic of 2019 was discussed extensively until its approval, I cannot fail to refer to the subtle or blatant attempts with which the adversaries of the Revolution, many of whom attacked the process that led to its approval, today seek to use the rights it grants to destroy the work that the Constitution itself defends and protects.
According to Article 56 of the Magna Carta: “The rights of assembly, demonstration and association, for lawful and peaceful purposes, are recognized by the State as long as they are exercised with respect for public order and compliance with the precepts established by law”; the exercise of rights implies the fulfillment of duties, among them, the respect for the order established in the Constitution, which is an expression of the principle of popular sovereignty.
The Law of laws cannot be interpreted at convenience, much less in the interest of those who are the first not to respect it. The Constitution, as established in Article 7, “…is the supreme legal rule of the State. All are subject to comply with it. The provisions and acts of the bodies of the State, its directors, officials and employees, as well as those of organizations, entities and individuals shall comply with its provisions”.
Our Constitution consecrates the principles of independence and sovereignty of the people, recognizes the right to self-determination, expressed in the freedom to choose our political, economic, social and cultural system; condemns direct or indirect intervention in the internal or external affairs of any State and, therefore, armed aggression, any form of economic or political coercion, unilateral blockades in violation of International Law, or any other type of meddling and threat to the integrity of the States.
Rights are not unlimited, their limits are also provided for in the Constitution: they are the rights of others, collective security, general welfare, respect for public order, the Constitution and the laws.
A demonstration ceases to be peaceful at the moment when the participants go to it with the intention of altering the normality of community life, social peace, with the intention of subverting the constitutional order and positioning themselves as discrepancy to socialism and, even more so, when all this is done following a script connected to the political interests of a foreign government that has maintained for six decades an economic war against our country.
Comrades:
I would like to thank in a particular way our scientific community, summoned to provide us with the tools that only Science can and should contribute to the economic and social processes in this era.
Thanks to Fidel’s visionary policy of fostering science, and the continuity given by Raul to that work; thanks to the talent, dedication and commitment with which several generations of Cuban researchers have been trained, our Government has been able to face, like no other in Latin America and the Third World, the terrible threat of a pandemic.
When we review these years in the immediate future, we will have to speak first of all of the health personnel, of the scientific creators and of the Academy that left the classrooms to share knowledge.
And we will also have to talk about our armed institutions: the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior, which decisively supported the efforts to face the situation, and took on the risky mission of producing, transporting and serving oxygen to hospitals in the most critical hours for the country (Applause).
I must also acknowledge the entrepreneurial system of the Revolutionary Armed Forces for their indispensable contribution to the nation’s economy, which has allowed us to have at our disposal fundamental resources to face emergencies.
Only an organized country, with a united leadership around a common purpose: the safeguarding of the nation, can propose the most important goals for the country. can set the highest goals in the most difficult times.
Knowing that our nation, blocked and without available financial resources, could not aspire to protect its population from the threat of the pandemic, more than a year ago we asked our scientific community for a sovereign solution to face the spread of the disease.
Today we are the first country in Latin America with three vaccines and two vaccine candidates in development, and the first in the world to begin vaccinating its population of children between the ages of 2 and 18.
Along the way we went through the hard impacts of contagion peaks, saturation of hospitals, crisis in the availability of beds and oxygen, the very painful deaths; tensions increased with the failures in the electric plants, the scarce availability of medicines and food.
The anti-Cuban gang, calculating that our end was near, jumped down our throats with demands for humanitarian intervention and even military invasion. They did not even bother to look at the history of how nations “saved” by Yankee or NATO troops have ended up in this century.
The Cuban people do know it, they are informed, and the men and women of good in the world also know it; with that awareness, a chain of solidarity donations was organized which still arrive in Cuba.
In the last few weeks, the number of infected and dead people has dropped significantly. Students are getting ready to go back to school and the country is preparing to open borders to oxygenate the economy. We feel like celebrating, for our children, our doctors, our scientists, our vaccines, our people; for Fidel, who returns again and again in each of his works of legitimate faith in human beings, who save lives and illuminate the horizon (Applause).
There is more than one reason for the celebration to be responsible and restrained. In many parts of the world, new outbreaks of the pandemic are occurring in the midst of the crisis caused by economic paralysis. That is the world we live in and it is up to us to face the risk. Let us make the success lasting.
Ladies and gentlemen:
On November 15, Cuba will reopen its borders, students will return to school; Havana, capital of dignity, will wait for its 502nd anniversary as it has not been able to do in the last two years. National life will resume its course, with the greatest joy, but alert.
The peace and harmony that distinguish life in our streets will continue to reign.
No one is going to spoil our party! (Applause.)
We are already vaccinated against COVID-19, and we have always been vaccinated against fear! (Applause.)
We have Homeland and we defend Life!
And we are still of Fatherland or Death!
We shall overcome!
