In Cuba we had the most ferocious form of capitalism for 60 years. It dominated every sphere of life.

Let's not use the term democracy as a play on words which is what people commonly do, using human rights as a pretext. Those people that really violate human rights [the West] violate human rights from all perspectives. Typically on the subject of human rights regarding the nations from the south and Cuba they say, "They are not democratic societies, they do not respect human rights, and they do not respect freedom of speech".

In Cuba we had the most ferocious form of capitalism for 60 years. It dominated every sphere of life.

The United States turned to repression when its prominence started to slip in Latin America through establishing military dictatorships.

It is only through popular consultation and exchange with the people about social and economic policies that we were going to define the strategic direction of Cuba in the next years. To reach prosperous and sustainable socialism, which is our aspiration, we discussed that with the entire population.

There is the case of Henry Kissinger who was a known scholar who later became the National Security Advisor to President Nixon and later on Secretary of State. He received the Nobel Peace Prize for his role in establishing relations between the U.S. and China. At the same time that he was doing that he was also encouraging all sorts of covert actions against Cuba including political assassinations. This contradiction is one that is hard to understand.

In Cuba, what we do not accept is the comparison of our participatory democracy with bourgeois democracy which has not solved anything for humanity. The only thing it has done is to take humanity towards a precarious point. They have created the environmental crisis, the food crisis, the water crisis and the pandemics all over the world. The reason for that is because they have taken the majority of the resources and given it to militarism paid for by the western powers because it is a great business for them; this is the real truth.