There is us living the Cuban experience that we believe is ours. We do not believe that it is perfect, but it has been above all counting truly on the people, which is where the origins of true democracy lie.

The American people have on many occasions been willing to shed their own blood for a noble cause, like when hundreds of thousands of Americans participated in the fight against fascism in Europe, and other causes. There are many good people there, and the Cuban people know the American people, we have many examples of solidarity from the American people in every stage of the Cuban people's fight for independence.

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, our experiment is not the best democracy and should not be a reference to anybody elses, it is ours. It has worked for us and the clearest evidence that our democracy has worked is that there is a revolution that has continued after a half century of facing down the most powerful empire. This has not happened many times in history.

When we talked about going to help Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea Conakry how many doctors in Cuba raised their hands to go? 15 thousand. In their homes they said, "We are willing to go risk our lives to help other countries". That is true medicine; it is the true observance of the Hippocratic Oath that doctors swear to.

In Cuba, despite having lived through the most difficult times, there has never been a neo liberal adjustment.

As you know Cuba has progressed a lot regarding all the indicators of social development and those rates can be compared favorably with the first world in several aspects. We think that without the heavy burden of the blockade that we can move forward a lot more in building prosperous and sustainable socialism to which we aspire.