Cuban President Thanks Solidarity Shown at the People’s Summit

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel thanked on Friday the solidarity of the peoples and governments of the region that strongly opposed the exclusion of his country, Venezuela and Nicaragua from the Summit of the Americas.  

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In the framework of the closing of the Peoples' Summit, the president said that "solidarity is not only an inseparable principle of revolutionary practice, it is the most formidable weapon for those of us who believe in the power of the masses, in the telluric force of the mobilized peoples and in the inspiring struggle for social justice".

In addition, he said that the Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, as well as his counterparts from Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador; Bolivia, Luis Arce; Honduras, Xiomara Castro; and other leaders of the region rejected both the exclusion and the blockade against the Cuban people deserve special recognition.

The Cuban president also spoke out against the spirit of the Monroe Doctrine, which continues to be "a guide and political focus of the United States (U.S.) for our region and promotes imperial policies of sanctions and punishment for governments that do not submit to them."

"Cuba was the first Latin American nation excluded from hemispheric alliances for insubordination to the empire," the president said, recalling his country's expulsion from the Organization of American States (OAS) and the U.S. imperialist policy that has promoted actions against the Cuban Revolution.    

"We are the honorable survivors of the 63 years of blockade (...) we are among the countries in the hemisphere with the best indexes of education, health and scientific development," President Díaz-Canel stressed.

Likewise, he emphasized that "the North America of the workers, of the native peoples and immigrants also excluded, not once but every day by the merciless empire of the market, that rebellious and proactive and supportive North America, will never be an enemy".

"Thank you for giving a voice to the excluded, for painting the horizon with hope, thank you for ratifying once again that a better world is possible," he concluded his speech at the event.