This end justifies the means. A long time ago, in the Soviet Union, it was believed that to preserve state security, torture was a necessary means to obtain state security. After World War II, the United States thought to preserve its own security that it had to do the same, and there were so-called interrogation centers in Guantánamo and elsewhere. It is now believed in certain circles that to preserve state security, torture is still a necessary means. A few years ago, the same circles believed that a preventive war was necessary in order to protect state security, and then there was preventive war. This also shows that this end justifies the means, and I think a lot of us could say that this end justifies the means.
President Obama, I am very thankful for your concern for freedom of speech. We have heard very much about the issue in the past six months; at the beginning of the campaign it was a very popular slogan, and now your administration has suspended some of those charges, and the Obama administration is more open to transparency, and we are happy to have that process, but it is necessary to start from the beginning, just as you have been doing. So now, we are happy to have some degree of openness.
We also want to ask the same question to the United States: We have been following this very closely. And as you know, it is one of the most important political issues in the US, and we are going to ask for this meeting to discuss your view of the US situation.
The Obama administration has talked about the importance of reparation for previous human rights violations, for example, in Guantánamo. We do not see, nor do we understand the reason to punish people who were victims of the abuses of communism. So we are going to propose to you that, not only for Cuba, but for other countries as well, including the United States, compensation to all the people who were victims of torture, of abuses of all kinds.
The United States has also said, since many years, and very loudly, that the Cuban government is involved in terrorism. The United States, the world’s superpower and a country which is now in a war against the Islamic state which is committing one of the greatest massacres in human history, where they are burning people alive, is now accusing us of terrorism.
Another thing that interests us very much, and that we are very proud of is that on October 1, it will be twenty-five years since the collapse of the Soviet Union. This has been one of the greatest achievements in the struggle for peace, and of course we appreciate that we have lived in a world without nuclear weapons. We have lived in a world where the threat of nuclear war was much smaller.
We are also very proud of what you did. We see what happened in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and also on that first nuclear attack against Cuba, and then against Vietnam, but we are convinced, and we are very grateful for this in what you have done with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty and other important measures that you have taken, as well as your effort to achieve disarmament throughout the world.
But in the year of the collapse of the Soviet Union, also in the United States there was a celebration of the 50th anniversary of the creation of NATO. And here we see once again how the United States continues its effort to build a wall against the integration of Latin America and against the construction of a multipolar world, to build a wall against the building of peace, where nuclear war and the risk of war reappear. We can say in Cuba, as well as in many other countries in Latin America, that we are in a world where there is a risk of a nuclear war. In Latin America, in Latin America and the Caribbean, we are in an area where the United States has bases in at least 14 different countries. We have a strong Cuban military presence, that the US government has not accepted. They have placed a missile base in Poland, as well as some elements of the United States strategic army. I can say that all of this, while we don’t want a nuclear war, does not help to stabilize world peace and also the peace of our region.
We are not in a position to do a thorough analysis of what your intentions are in Latin America and the Caribbean, or what you are going to do with countries like Bolivia, Honduras, El Salvador, or other countries. But we think that this is going to be an important meeting to learn more about our perceptions of world peace, and that we also have ideas and good proposals to contribute to peace, to fight against war, to fight against terrorism, and to fight against poverty and underdevelopment.
This will be the topic of this meeting. I thank you very much for your interest in this meeting. We will talk about how the United States can contribute to peace and to a world free from war, from nuclear war and terrorism. We will see if the Obama administration will change its priorities and will make some changes in the foreign policy, for example, with respect to Cuba. We’ll see if Obama will also make a change in the foreign policy in the Middle East. We have not had any results on the Middle East peace process; it continues to be in deep stalemate, to continue.
The international situation, our relation with other countries, has continued to be very complicated and worrisome. We have seen the military crisis in Venezuela. We see how the coup d’état against Maduro is failing. We see another military coup d’état against the current president of Honduras. And we see an economic crisis in Haiti, and we see the crisis of the so-called “drug war” in Colombia, that for the first time has already entered the indigenous communities, where there is a war against the civilian population and against the guerrillas, and where the government of Colombia continues to be very brutal, including with the presence of US-trained troops that are also participating in the repression.
We believe that the relationship between the United States and Cuba has been one of the worst in our recent history. We have some reasons to be optimistic. It will be a great honor for me to host these two presidents of the United States and the Cuban people in this historic meeting between Obama and Castro. And we will see if our hope, our faith that there will be a change and a turnaround in the relations between our two countries is a correct one, is a just one.
And we have a strong wish that both presidents will also visit Cuba, because it’s a very beautiful and wonderful country and we really wish that all Americans can visit Cuba and see for themselves what a great country it is, and what we have done for the world with our revolution. And we invite you to visit the island.
[Applause]
In one of my letters, I wrote that I thought about you a lot. You were the first one in history to receive a letter written by me to Fidel Castro, and it was in May of 1993. I was in New York. At the time, I had no idea that I would be standing here some years later, and that this day would have arrived.
My brother, I think about you, and I am happy to see that you are still around. The world is not the same, and life is not the same. The world has been turned upside down. Everything that has happened in our lives over the past twenty-five years has taught us to stay calm in spite of the many changes that are taking place.
In any case, we are going to have the opportunity to discuss many things together, and we are also going to talk about other things.
For example, we will discuss other things, and I would like to express here, and I do so from the depths of my heart, a commitment to you: there will never be a nuclear war in Cuba. And I will never do anything that could remove the security guarantee that I’ve given you and our people. We are going to give everything, including our lives, if necessary, to achieve this objective.
I will never let you down in this commitment. Nor will I ever let down the people of Cuba.
The United States government has said that we’ve done many things to help them. They also say that they could do a lot for us, but they haven’t done it.
On the other hand, what have they done to help the Cuban people? They’ve left Cuba in a condition of poverty and suffering, contrary to what we’ve had with the Soviet Union and other countries, including the United States, and we’ve suffered a lot. But they have never tried to help us and they have never done anything to help the Cuban people.
There are many problems in the world, there are problems with the economy, problems with healthcare, and many other things, but what is also true is that there is a very broad consensus in favor of Cuba among Americans. And I believe that there are many Americans, many US citizens who, despite the many differences that we have, would be willing to sit down at the same table and to work for a peaceful world, for this great project, of which you are part, because I am going to do everything I can to work for that.
I would like to propose two concepts and a formula. Let us continue our conversation because I want to do everything that is possible to find the truth and the good, and not just to do what is possible. I think that you understand me. I know that I do not agree with all of
