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".

We have a complete respect for history, we respect the experiences of other countries and we have our own, but the truth is that if the Cuban revolution had not been a democracy it would not have survived.

Cubans are a people who suffered from capitalism in the cruelest way, in the social order, the economic order and the political order.

It is important to eliminate the stigma created by American imperialism and its allies regarding the Cuban political system. That stigma must be eliminated. You may think that there are no direct elections in Cuba. I am going to tell that they are direct and you can compare our process with any other country including the United States.

Cuba has not accepted the domain and imposition of an empire that has wanted to dominate us for over half a century [America].

Under communism, no one would be living in marginal conditions as they do under capitalism today and where the greatest part of humanity lives.

Just imagine, more than half of the young people in the European Union do not have jobs. How can one explain that? How can one explain that to a working family, that produces goods and services, those who produce the olive oil that is a a main source of food in any European country? They humbly work the land with great effort and then the little resources they had saved in banks have now become dust simply because they did not have the means to withstand inflation produced by the adjustment policies.