[News] Díaz-Canel: We are a nation of peace and solidarity, and we defend our socialist Revolution

[Anti-Imperialist News]

groups.io <https://groups.io/g/cubanews/topic/87028134>


  Díaz-Canel: We are a nation of peace and solidarity, and we defend our
  socialist Revolution

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------

/This is very long summary of the presentation with questions and 
answers from journalists that Cuban President Díaz-Canel made to the 
nation last night on Cuban TV. It covers all the main issues facing the 
island as it prepares to open the economy, tourism and so on, in the 
face of Washington's escalating regime-change efforts. It reviews the 
experiences Cuba has since Covid, both accomplishments and remaining 
challenges and concludes with a discussion of Washington's effort to 
disrupt Cuba's progress in these areas. /
cuba-debate

Oscar Figueredo Reinaldo, Angélica Arce Montero, Dinella García Acosta, 
Lisandra Fariñas Acosta, Ania Terrero, Deny Extremera San Martín

November 12, 2021

Cuban president appears on national television. Photo: Revolution Studio.

The first secretary of the Party's Central Committee and president of 
the Republic of Cuba, *Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, appears on national 
television to speak to the Cuban people about the new normal and other 
current issues. */Cubadebate/ broadcasts this special intervention live 
through its social networks.


      With a people like this there is no possible surrender

*Various criteria are issued in relation to issues related to the 
reality that the country is entering the new normal* . These issues and 
the interrelationships between them, the consensus that is being built 
around this situation, were announced by the Cuban president as the 
center of his appearance on Friday night.

“We have lived through two years of closures and restrictions in which 
we have been faced with very difficult situations and moments, and we 
have also had to regret painful losses, but we are getting up. *We are 
at a time when we are controlling the pandemic and this is opening 
perspectives on how the country can resume its course, its rhythm and 
its stability,* ”Díaz-Canel began his speech.

He recalled that at the beginning of the confrontation with the 
pandemic, “we said that this was going to be a long-distance race. At 
that time, we gave in great detail a group of situations that we 
predicted would be experienced. It was also an endurance race. *If we 
had been a weak people, we would have given up. But in Cuba there is no 
room for surrender. With a people like this there is no possible 
surrender. *

"It is because of that spirit, effort and shared commitment that today 
we can talk about results; today we can stop to count, to honor and 
acknowledge," he said.

Speaking of the tribute, he pointed out that, in the first place, it 
must be done “to the more than 8,270 compatriots whose lives the 
pandemic took from us. I express our condolences to family and 
friends. We have all lost a loved one in this fight, but also among all 
of us we got up to work so that no one else died and, above all, that 
the deaths were minimal.

“We must also honor those who died investigating and providing medical 
assistance in what were their trenches. To them we dedicate the triumph 
of science and health over that unknown enemy that has already claimed 
more than five million lives around the world.

    “Cuba deserves a celebration adjusted to the new normal, but worthy
    of the effort, discipline, participation and contribution of the
    vast majority of our people so that we could reach this moment.

"Everything we have faced has had, as an additional element of great 
rigor, the cruel and criminal policy of Yankee imperialism against Cuba, 
which tried to take advantage of this moment of uncertainty to tighten 
all the nuts of the blockade, defame and slander," denounced the Cuban 
president.

"They have wanted to present us as a failed state, as a government that 
could not overcome this situation together with its people," he added.

However - he continued -, as José Martí said, "there is no bow that cuts 
through a cloud of ideas."

*"Defending these ideas is that our people have been overcoming and 
hope, lights and paths are opened to move forward," he stressed.*

He warned that “we have to be convinced that there are no prizes for 
challenging an empire. Quite the opposite. In this constant challenge 
against the empire that wants to disappear us as a nation and a 
Revolution, we receive campaigns and threats, prohibitions and 
punishments, and in these conditions, we have received more: a totally 
intensified blockade.

“Regardless of whether the blockade persists, we are obliged to jump 
over it with our own strength, efforts and with the talent that is in 
the people. None of us know more than all of us together. *With those 
own forces we can achieve conquests and greatly attenuate the 
difficulties caused by the blockade.*

“That is the way to defend the homeland, what our parents left us as an 
inheritance. It is not a material inheritance or wealth, but, above all, 
of commitment. An inheritance that forces us, together, to climb 
mountains. Right now we are reaching one of the peaks of those 
mountains. This is a time of harvest based on what we have sown with 
that effort, those achievements and that determination, "he said before 
going on to answer questions from the journalists gathered at the Palace 
of the Revolution.


      We are vaccinated, we are immunized, let's go now to the booster

Angélica Paredes, Radio Rebelde. Photo: Revolution Studies.

*Angélica Paredes, Radio Rebelde - Can it be said that there is 
currently control of the epidemic in Cuba? What guarantees do Cubans 
have that we will not have to face other pandemic peaks as severe as 
those we have experienced in recent months? *

*President Díaz-Canel - *The pandemic has not ended. We have to learn, 
by controlling the pandemic, to live with it.

“In March 2020 we started with a very low level of incidence, which 
showed us that as we were learning from the pandemic, we were also able 
to control it by updating our protocols and introducing very innovative 
biotechnological drugs. .

“At the end of the year and at the beginning of January, with control of 
the pandemic, we opened the border. It was the first moment we aspired 
to enter the new normal. At that time we had an influx, especially of 
Cubans living abroad and Cubans who were visiting who came from 
countries where there were high levels of transmission, and, on the 
other hand, a group of tourists.

“The magnitude of the entry of people who arrived at that time did not 
allow us to place them all in isolation centers, as it exceeded our 
capacities. Therefore, they had to go to the home quarantine, and it 
must be recognized that the measures that had been established were not 
always complied with, the home entry was not effective, and a totally 
different transmission from the one that existed began to manifest 
itself, mainly due to at the entry of much more aggressive variants of 
the virus, such as delta.

*“This behavior was increasing to the point that between July and 
September 2021 it reached very high levels, we almost approached 10,000 
daily cases. *

“At that stage, vaccines were being investigated, we had asked our 
scientists that we needed sovereignty in vaccines and they were in the 
stages of research and clinical trials. Later, when we began to apply 
the intervention studies in groups and communities at risk, results 
began to be obtained that later facilitated the mass vaccination of the 
population.

“With the results of the massive vaccination and the incidence that we 
were having with the immunization of the population, *in the last four 
or five weeks there has been a decrease and at the moment we are below 
400 daily cases. We are almost returning to the levels that were in 
January 2021. *

“The figures began to decrease in October, and now, almost in the middle 
of November, we are well below what we had in January, which reflects 
the control we have been having of the pandemic.

*“In the same way, deaths have been decreasing. *In the same 
relationship with which the cases increased by months, so did the 
deaths. Between July and September there were peaks of deaths, and they 
decreased in October, already when mass vaccination begins to take 
effect, and *in November we go through 31 deaths in the days that have 
elapsed of the month, also approaching the figure of January of this 
year . *

Photo: Revolution Studies.

"Today, active cases in the world are 7.47% of all confirmed cases that 
have been. In the area of the Americas, it is 10.89%, and in Cuba (2 074 
on Thursday) it is only 0.22% of accumulated cases. Therefore, Cuba has 
better control of the pandemic than the world and the region.

“*Cuba has 98.92% of cases recovered from the disease*, the Americas 
86.66% and the world 90.51%. There is a notable percentage difference 
that shows the efficiency of the results that we are having.

“In the world, fatality behaves at 2.01%, in the Americas at 2.44%, and 
in Cuba at 0.86% and it is decreasing these days.

“This means that, under the same conditions in which the pandemic has 
been faced, in the case of Cuba with all the problems that we have 
described and, above all, the influence of the blockade and our 
shortcomings, if we had not achieved control of the disease with the 
measures applied and the results of our vaccines and our protocols, 
today, if we are guided by what is happening in the world and the 
Americas, we would have a mortality rate two to three times higher than 
what we have had.

“In other words, *we have managed to reduce the lethality that 
corresponded to us due to the behavior of the pandemic in relation to 
what is happening in the world two or three times. *I think that this is 
a result that really proves the work done by the health system, by our 
scientists, and also the cooperation and participation of all our people.

“Now, regardless of these results, we are challenged to live with the 
disease. Covid-19 will not disappear, there is no forecast or scientific 
evidence to guarantee that it will disappear.

“For almost two years we have prepared ourselves, we have learnings. A 
Cuban method based on science and innovation has been consolidated that 
has allowed us to get here, which took advantage of the potentialities 
of the Innovation Committee and the science and innovation system of the 
Ministry of Public Health together with that of BioCubaFarma, and also 
creating interconnections between this innovation system, the productive 
sector of goods and services and the rest of the entities that also 
participate as part of the knowledge sector. Such is the case of the 
universities that have been linked to all this. With this we have 
achieved a science and innovation management to face covid-19.

“You have been aware: week by week, every Tuesday, we have a meeting 
with scientists and new lights and perspectives always appear in those 
meetings. Balance sheets and analysis of the results obtained are made 
and we propose new elements.

“ *There has also been an integrality in this work of science in the 
attention to these problems.*During all this time, that management and 
innovation system was first focused on learning from the disease and 
establishing the most robust sequences possible inpatient care 
protocols, but we were also working to prevent and cut transmission. We 
have also had to focus on the different steps that have led to the 
development of vaccines. Studies were also carried out to improve the 
quality of life of those who have been convalescing and we had to make a 
projection based on the attention to this problem in vulnerable people, 
in vulnerable communities and in our children. It has been a whole 
sequence of work that has given us strength, but it has also been a 
learning process.

“One of the most remarkable things that today undoubtedly constitutes an 
element of national pride is the sovereignty that our vaccines gave us. 
*We already have a complete vaccination of more than 70% of our 
population. More than 90% have at least one dose and we continue, we 
continue. *

“I was looking at some statistics, which I review weekly, offered by a 
site called The world in data. One of the statistics it presents is 
vaccination by country and there we have seen how Cuba evolves and is 
increasing in places with respect to the world in terms of the fully 
vaccinated population.

Photo: Revolution Studies.

“Let us remember that we, due to the limitations we have had, had to 
start designing our vaccines. Therefore, *we entered vaccination perhaps 
at a slightly later stage than other countries with money to pay for 
vaccines and that were favored in some international mechanisms.* We had 
first the entire research process and all the phases that it takes to 
develop our vaccines, to make sure that they had the possibilities of 
being taken to mass vaccination.

"What is happening now? Here I compared the place where Cuba was three 
days ago in percent of the population fully vaccinated, and we were in 
33rd place. *We are growing at a more or less weekly vaccination rate of 
4.4% each week.* However, the last countries that we surpassed and those 
that we are closest to surpassing are only growing in a range between 
0.3% to no more than 2%. Therefore, we are taking advantage of all that 
vaccination effort at the country level and that in the coming days will 
have very favorable results, as the vaccination of children is completed 
and we are beginning to vaccinate the cases that have been affected by 
the illness.

“There are other elements that have given us strengths. Molecular 
studies laboratories have been created in all the country's provinces 
and in the special municipality of Isla de la Juventud. When the 
pandemic started, we only had three such labs. In addition, innovative 
drugs have been developed, drugs that already had results in the 
treatment of other diseases in the conditions of the pandemic have been 
applied, and equipment and devices created in the urgency of the 
pandemic have also been designed, manufactured and used.

“For example, when we foresee that there would be a crisis in the 
intensive care rooms due to the number of cases that reached a critical 
or serious stage and that in the world they had us blocked and no one 
sold us lung ventilators, Cuban scientists and also the sector 
productive state in relation to the non-state sector found answers and 
there were designs of lung ventilators that have already been produced 
in the order of hundreds of units, which are beginning to give us 
sovereignty in that sense.

“Together these are the results that allow us to move towards that new 
normal that we are talking about today, but the only guarantee of 
keeping a situation under control is our behavior, it is the 
responsibility that we are able to share from the individual, the 
familiar, the social, the institutional, the collective and at the level 
of our entire nation. That we know how to rise to the challenge of 
moving to the new normal and that this allows us to resume the life of 
the country from each one of us, from our families, from our children, 
in current conditions, safely and sustainably.

“*We have Cuban vaccines that have demonstrated their effectiveness, 
progress has been made in immunization and control of the epidemic is 
much more than evident. *In the midst of this situation, as in the 
hardest days of the pandemic, we will continue to cooperate with the 
world, but we have to have a control that starts from all our 
consciousness and responsibility on this issue.

“A few days ago we recognized the creators of the vaccines, yesterday 
the University of Havana awarded the /honorary degree/ to Dr. Vicente 
Vérez, an important leader in the creation team of Soberana, but I think 
we also owe him an award for heroism and dignity of the Cuban people.

“We are vaccinated, we are immunized, we are now going to the 
reinforcement; We have more experience, we have learned, there is a 
robust work system, there are results and, furthermore, we are talking 
about a desire to improve ourselves also from the things that did not go 
well. We have already proposed orienting some of these scientific 
sessions to enter not only on the issues of the pandemic, but on the 
other problems that our health system has to face and improve.

“We have learned, but we cannot trust or relax. *The challenge of 
opening the borders, of being able to open ourselves to the arrival of 
family and friends, to tourists, and also to the end of the year 
festivities, to celebrate the triumph of the Revolution that are 
approaching, we have to do it with all responsibility. *We are more 
prepared than what happened at the end of the year, because we have 
immunization, we have vaccines and we are going to the reinforcement, 
but we must support all that result with great responsibility so as not 
to back down and to do it safely. Those are the two elements to 
highlight: we are controlling the pandemic, but we have to, responsibly, 
coexist with the pandemic to avoid a pandemic outbreak ”.


      Worldwide there is a tendency to go to doses of reinforcements

Photo: Revolution Studies.

*Thalía González, Information System of Cuban Television - You have 
spoken on the subject of vaccines, national pride. It is a topic that is 
talked about a lot today in our homes, schools, communities, and there 
is a question associated with the topic of reinforcement. This booster 
vaccination process begins in the country when the entire population is 
not yet immunized, although we know that the level of immunization is 
high. Many Cubans wonder if this anticovid-19 vaccination scheme that 
Cubans have is not enough, why is this reinforcement coming?*

*President Díaz-Canel– *We have to address several elements and the 
combination of them is what will not lead to the answer and the 
conviction of why we should do it and how much is insufficiency or a 
capacity for sustainability in what we are doing.

“First, we cannot forget that the development of vaccination in Cuba was 
a system that had stages. It began with a stage of scientific research 
to arrive at the creation of vaccines; afterwards, he went to the 
necessary clinical trials to verify its safety; then we move on to the 
intervention study. With the results of this and the approval of Cecmed, 
we were able to go to interventions in risk groups and territories. And 
with the results of the latter, we entered into mass vaccination.

“Therefore, *we have Cuban men and women vaccinated at different 
times.* Vaccination was not done all at once for the entire population, 
so there are people who have been vaccinated for more than four, five 
months, perhaps some will reach six months. Others are in stages closer 
to this time, they have not completed the schedules, so the distribution 
of vaccination is not uniform over time.

“According to world trends in scientific research at this time, several 
countries, with the appearance of more aggressive strains, have carried 
out studies that determine important booster doses for their vaccines to 
maintain high immunization levels. *The time varies depending on the 
effectiveness of the different vaccines - I mean those from other 
countries, because ours acted and we vaccinated people in the presence 
of very aggressive strains and demonstrated effectiveness.*

“That is not a situation exclusive to the anti-covid vaccines. We know 
that there are many vaccines, even within Cuban vaccination campaigns, 
that are reactivated from time to time.

*“Therefore, worldwide there is a tendency to go to doses of 
reinforcements for everything that I explained to them.*

“What considerations have Cuban scientists made and shared with us last 
Tuesday? They argue that the effectiveness of Cuban vaccines has been 
demonstrated, it has been proven that there are high levels of 
antibodies from vaccination, which are prolonged with much higher levels 
up to between six and eight months after being vaccinated. But they 
argue that, taking into account international trends, our effectiveness, 
that we cannot go back and that we have people vaccinated at different 
moments in time, it is important then to go with booster doses.

“Although there is a part of the population that we have not finished, 
but we would start with those who have been vaccinated with the full 
scheme for the longest time. We can do it because we have our vaccines, 
because they showed that they are safe and have given us immunity, and 
now we want to prolong that immunization to avoid reaching pandemic 
outbreaks. There is a whole group of possibilities, of variants, of 
booster doses that the scientists explained and demonstrated very well 
in that scientific session. *From the raw vaccination, that is, if you 
were vaccinated first with Abdala or Soberana, how can you supplement 
the booster dose using Abdala or Soberana 01, which is one of those that 
is giving very good results in the studies that are being carried out 
over booster doses.*

"Let us also remember that we are still developing the clinical trials 
and tests of a fifth vaccine candidate, Mambisa, which also has very 
good prospects and whose previous results, which are not yet complete, 
give a very good chance of being used. as a booster dose. Mambisa can be 
applied at the nasal level.

“With all these potentialities, taking into account international 
trends, scientific studies and our desire not to go backwards, it is 
justified to go to the booster doses.


      If a tourist wants to get vaccinated, they can do it

Photo: Revolution Studies.

*Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, **/Roundtable/**: –President, you were 
speaking at that magnificent CIGB facility that was inaugurated in 
Mariel a few days ago that gives a lot of hope regarding the production 
of vaccines and I think that when they began to talk about Cuban 
vaccines and their effectiveness, many in the world said that they would 
come to make tourism to Cuba to get vaccinated. Is this possibility 
contemplated that the vaccination can be applied to tourists whenever 
they demand it? And, furthermore, are there any real possibilities for 
recovery in this sector that energizes the rest of the Cuban economy?*

*President Díaz-Canel - *Your question focuses on the economy and on the 
role of reviving our economy in this situation of a new normal to which 
we are advancing. First, I would recognize the enormous effort that the 
country has had to make in all this time and that, in the midst of such 
a complex economic situation, Cuba turned to saving lives, first and 
foremost.

“At the beginning of covid-19, we honestly exposed the complexity of the 
situation. *From that moment, we anticipated that the country was going 
to decrease its income levels, so we were going to have a shortage.* We 
announced that tourism was going to be paralyzed, that we were not going 
to receive the tourism income that we had at other times. We reached 
more than four and a half million tourists in one year. We were talking 
about the contraction that there would be in foreign investment, in our 
exports and imports; the difficulties we were going to have with 
production processes, which were going to slow down the processes of the 
economy and services, including tourism.

“In these exceptional conditions that the economy has gone through, *the 
country stopped receiving more than 3 billion dollars in a year and a 
half of income. *It would be necessary to see what things would be 
different today if we had counted on that income.

“But, in addition, *the little income that we received we had to 
dedicate an important part precisely to saving lives, and more than 300 
million dollars have been dedicated to cover insurance costs in the 
fight against covid.*

“In the midst of that, we have expressed all the will to continue 
proposing actions that complement the economic and social strategy that 
was designed to face the economic crisis, a crisis that is 
multidimensional, multifactorial and is global.

“Now, with this entry into the new normal, *undoubtedly our economy will 
recover, and it will also do so under conditions of new capacities*, 
because, in the midst of all these circumstances, we have approved the 
new economic actors.

“The approval of the new forms of management, both state and non-state, 
and, therefore, that network of state and non-state forms of management 
is flowing at a good pace, sooner rather than later. It will also give a 
dynamic in the offers of services and goods to our population.

“*But in this economic recovery, tourism plays a fundamental role*, 
because tourism also pulls the rest of the economy. It is that concept 
of the locomotive of the economy, which will now have more potential 
because it will link more forms of management, both state and non-state.

“And we also have to see what we have already stopped perceiving because 
tourism has been contracted in these pandemic conditions.

“I always say in a trivial way that tourism is the economic activity 
that sounds like a counter every day in the country, and when we have 
income from tourism, the country has more air, more oxygen to advance 
the economy. Not for pleasure the Empire has attacked it, as one of the 
economic activities in which they know that they cause us affectations.

Photo: Presidency Cuba.

“In the midst of this situation, we have to recognize that in the 
economy, having less income, the demand of the population is less 
covered; *By having an illegal foreign exchange market, which is also 
causing an exchange rate much higher than the official one, it has 
caused an inflation phenomenon*, for which studies are being carried 
out, and we are also going to overcome that challenge.

"In these conditions of the new normal, and with all the preparation 
that has been done, *we are expecting there to be a greater arrival of 
tourists than we had initially predicted in the midst of this situation. *

“Today, the way tour operators, travel agencies, and airlines are 
moving, tell us that *from the 15th we will have flight sequences that 
exceed fifty weekly flights*, and this will be increased during the 
month of November, and it will have higher levels in December and January.

“In the remainder of the year, *we must receive almost 50% of what we 
have received in all this year in pandemic conditions. *Therefore, there 
is an immediate increase, we predict that, but not an immediate recovery 
of tourist activity, because remember, we had figures of almost 4.5 
million tourists, but it is a good start, above the expectations we have 
with the contraction that the world economy is having, and the difficult 
situation that the covid still generates in a group of countries that 
are the origin of tourism to Cuba.

“In the middle of that, *if a tourist wants to get vaccinated, they can. 
*There are all the designs and, even, the tourist or visitor who arrives 
in Cuba for a long time and wants to be vaccinated, will have all the 
follow-up to complete the scheme.

“To those who cannot complete the scheme due to the time they are in the 
country, and the intervals from one dose to the other, their first dose 
is applied, and the rest are carried by them with all the indications, 
the method and possibilities. of your follow-up.

“In fact, they have already announced to us that there are groups of 
tourists who come precisely with the aim of, in addition to staying in 
Cuba, getting vaccinated and taking advantage of the security offered by 
Cuban vaccines.

“Yesterday, the prime minister, Marrero Cruz, made a tour of the 
airports to see how the campaign is being prepared. Also in those days, 
the Government has followed the elements of logistics insurance for tourism.

"During this time tourism was not stopped, there were low levels of 
tourism, but work was being done on the recovery of the hotel plant and 
there was a tremendous effort to recover capacities, create better 
conditions in hotels, and that allows us tourists to Those who arrive in 
Cuba will find a country in peace, a country of solidarity, a beautiful 
and endearing island, a friendly people and they will be able to 
appreciate a Cuba that lives and where it is lived safely.

"These issues in which we have been relating the economy, tourism, 
vaccines in covid and new normal conditions, will be treated in a more 
detailed way next week in another press appearance, in which the Prime 
Minister, Manuel Marrero will be present. Cross; the Vice Prime Minister 
and Minister of Economy and Planning, Alejandro Gil, and another group 
of ministers and representatives of institutions linked to economic issues.


      Work in the neighborhoods is here to stay and we have to make it
      sustainable

Photo: Revolution Studies.

*Alina Perera, **/Juventud Rebelde/** –In recent months we have seen a 
rebirth of community work, there has been a strong movement, for 
example, in more than 60 neighborhoods of Havana, which were in need of 
transformation. The idea has spread to other parts of the country, and 
only hours ago you were in the provinces of Guantánamo and Granma, and 
there, too, journalists were able to see how communities are being 
transformed and accumulated problems are solved. *

*You said in the East that these transformations must be made 
sustainable and systematic, and that even this work with the neediest 
neighborhoods is here to stay. How to achieve that sustainability and 
that systematicity?*

*President Díaz-Canel - *I know that there are dissatisfactions at work, 
that there have been times of rise and less intensity at work in the 
neighborhoods, but when the problem of the neighborhoods is addressed, 
we cannot fail to recognize that in between all times, there have been 
leaders of community projects that have remained stable, and that have 
been niches of experience and work in relation to the neighborhoods.

“That was what I felt in one of the first meetings we had with 
representatives of social sectors, which was with the leaders of 
community projects, in San Isidro, and there we learned a lot for all 
this work that we have been trying to intensify and promote.

“The sustainability of this work will be to the extent that we are 
consolidating ourselves in a whole group of concepts that we are 
defending with this work. First, *we are defending the exercise of 
popular power as part of our political system in the socialist 
construction*, which happens through moments in which citizens can 
debate, raise their concerns, aspirations and propose solutions.

“That there is a moment in which these proposals can be implemented, and 
that there is also a third moment through which there is accountability 
and popular control over what is done.

“If we see that from how everything is organized at the level of our 
political system, we must give a fundamental role to the delegates of 
the People's Power, who are representatives of the people, because then 
the people would participate directly and also indirectly through the 
management of the delegate, the management of the commissions and the 
management of the Municipal Assemblies of People's Power.

“*The neighbors are having the capacity to, within so many problems that 
exist, that we cannot solve at the same time, define priorities. *That 
which the neighbors propose, is represented by their delegate in the 
Municipal Assembly, and this, based on the possibilities of resources 
that it has, approves the priorities that will be worked on, that 
returns to the neighborhood, people go working and thus they are 
perfected, doing popular control and we get feedback on the results.

“If we do it that way, there is sustainability and it goes through that 
concept of popular power, well supported by elements of democracy and 
popular participation, which turns the beneficiaries, who are the 
neighbors, into protagonists of the change and transformation that they 
are having. in the neighborhood.

“On the other hand, as we needed a boost, because the pandemic also 
paralyzed processes like these of work in the neighborhoods, *we have 
asked that public institutions, state institutions, companies in each 
territory and, in the case of Havana, organizations of the Central State 
Administration, participate in this process.*

“That begins to give us an element of construction of social 
responsibility that the entire institutional system, all economic 
actors, must have, from the responsibility of a public institution 
located in a neighborhood - for example, with the issue of sustainable 
development of that neighborhood. , the protection of the environment, 
the work in function of the community–, but it is also building a 
sensitivity in these institutions, groups of workers and leaders, about 
the problems of the neighborhood.

“And if we start from sensitivity, undoubtedly there will also be a more 
intense and more intentional projection towards the 
neighborhood. Therefore, *it is not about intervening in the 
neighborhood, it is about respecting what the neighborhood proposes*, 
and supporting and helping the neighborhood. Accompany all that 
transformation process, and all that, then, we have to support it, for 
the purpose of making it sustainable, with what we are designing now and 
that there is a group of academics and experts working on these issues.

“First, *we have to decentralize a group of powers to the 
municipalities, so that they can exercise the autonomy of government 
recognized by the Constitution.*

“We also have to give a new approach to municipal budgets so that in the 
municipalities, the budget contains resources that facilitate not only 
working with a sample of neighborhoods, as we are doing now, but also 
extending actions to all neighborhoods, and that all this be connected 
with the territorial development strategies that have been approved with 
the local development projects and the strengthening of the local 
productive systems. And there we are also proposing a business resizing, 
which will encourage more state companies to have municipal 
subordination, so that the municipality can have state entities and 
non-state economic actors that can chain and work according to the 
development of the municipality.

"We can also include all this in that the political practice with which 
we have to work in the neighborhoods is to *do politics with the 
concepts of doing politics in the Revolution* , with what Hart defined, 
based on the experience of Marti's thought and the Commander-in-Chief, 
who is a combination of ideology, science, ethics in political practice.

Photo: Alejandro Azcuy.

"*Work in the neighborhoods is here to stay and we have to make it 
sustainable*, articulating all these elements and with the conviction 
that, although there are many problems that we cannot solve all at once, 
yes every day we will tear each piece to pieces. one of those problems.

    “It is essential to strengthen the avenues of participation, which
    is the only thing that will make this Revolution sustainable in the
    communities, and to extend it to the entire country.

“In recent days we invited all the first secretaries of the Provincial 
Committees of the Party and they participated in the experience of La 
Timba, they shared with the population, and then we had a debate on that 
experience and on what they had been doing in the province.

“Now this month we are already leading visits to the provinces, such as 
the ones we started yesterday in Guantánamo and Granma, where one of the 
elements that we are appreciating is how work is being done in the 
neighborhoods.

“It must be said that in the provinces we also have popular 
participation in the neighborhoods. We saw him yesterday in Cecilia, in 
Guantánamo, and in Pedro Pompa, in Bayamo.

“We also see the spirit that is created among the neighbors, the levels 
of participation, and popular control is very important. It is the 
people controlling what is done, so that everything is with quality. If 
we let things go wrong, the responsibility lies with the neighbors 
themselves.

“Therefore, it is to consolidate experiences that are already within the 
Revolution, it is to turn exceptions into rules, and it is a more 
direct, intentional attention towards people who are at a disadvantage, 
towards those who have some type of vulnerability, and that It shows 
that the strength of the Revolution is in the neighborhoods.


      Permanence and systematic

Photos: Revolution Studies.

*Hector Martínez, Cuban Television Information System - I wanted to 
refer to the exchanges that you have had with various sectors of society 
in recent months, which have undoubtedly had a great impact on Cubans. 
Is this practice going to be maintained over time? Has some type of work 
system been designed that allows the opinions gathered in these meetings 
not to become a dead letter?*

*President Díaz-Canel *–These recent exchanges with different sectors of 
society have been very useful, but I want to point out that it is not 
something new. We had also been carrying out an intense system of visits 
with the participation of the entire Government to the provinces, and in 
those tours we had exchanges with universities, students and professors, 
the scientific sector, the artistic sector, the press, and also the 
times of pandemic caused a breakup.

“But, undoubtedly, in a renewed way as you recognize, we have returned 
to this practice, and we have done it with a broader perspective, of 
participation and contribution.

“In a few months we have had meetings with representatives of 
economists, jurists, businessmen, journalists, federated women, 
self-employed workers, artists, young people, community and religious 
leaders, farmers, scientists, athletes and also with people from the 
LGBTIQ + community. … *They have all been very revealing and very 
committed.*

“We have everything documented, and both the leadership of the Party and 
the Government are constantly updated on what is coming out in each of 
these meetings, and in the very spaces of the work system we are 
monitoring how responses are given to the proposals of these encounters, 
therefore that is already in a working system, which is a part of your 
question.

“And I think it *is* already *evident that many of the things that have 
been raised we have begun to implement.* For example, the 
transformations that we made in some of the planning approaches that 
were related to agricultural production, and the improvement that we 
made with the 63 measures to promote and stimulate food production and 
marketing, have to do with the contributions that we had in two meetings 
with agricultural producers.

“The lawyers addressed two fundamental issues: how to improve our 
regulatory creation process and how to deepen the issue of legal advice. 
*We have already introduced changes in the normative creation process 
and we have incorporated many of the principles that were raised in the 
process to arrive at the Family Code.* Version 22 of the Family Code, 
without being yet a preliminary draft or the final document that was to 
be presented to the National Assembly before reaching its approval and 
popular consultation, began to circulate with a long time to collect 
opinions from the population.

“Therefore, of that version 22 there are already new versions that 
incorporate new elements that are part of the normative creation, and it 
is the document that will be taken to the approval of the National 
Assembly, and then continue with that process.

“*The meeting with the LGBTIQ + community gave us, based on their life 
stories, a lot of knowledge and recognition of issues that we have to 
address from another social point of view*, which have to be with social 
policy content, including some elements that have to be contained for 
treatment in the Family Code.

“The meeting with the academics of the Cuban Academy of Sciences, 
immediately took as an agreement that every month we were going to have 
a meeting with the Cuban Academy of Sciences, as a consultative body 
that can contribute much to us on various issues that it has. the 
country, and in fact next Monday we have a meeting again.

"That is to say, all this is being followed up and it is not really 
going to be a dead letter, and we must recognize the contribution that 
these sectors have had. For example, the meeting with university 
students who participated in important tasks during the covid gave us 
elements of deficiencies that we had in the health system, but they 
proposed projects; for example, one of computerization of the Cujae to 
improve the management of investments in a health institution. All this, 
with permanence and systematicity, is being followed.


      In peace, in the present and in the future, Cuba lives and will live

Photo: Alejandro Azcuy.

*Wilmer Rodríguez, Cuban Television Information System - My question is 
focused on the challenges and the future of the nation and of the Cuban 
Revolution. There are those who think these days that next November 15 
will create a difficult situation in the country. Looking at the country 
towards future challenges, I would like your opinion from your position 
as first secretary of the Party and president of the Republic, but also 
as a Cuban, as a man who knows, who has traveled, who knows, who comes 
from the base, who know the country we live in.*

*President Díaz-Canel - *One observes that there is a whole media 
intention and that it transcends the media, it is part of an imperial 
strategy to try to destroy the Revolution. They have tried to construct 
events by date: they tried to test July 11, now they propose to make 
provocations around November 15; They have raised a whole media halo so 
that the world can wait for what will happen in Cuba on November 15. I 
don't think that even that takes away our sleep, we are calm, safe, but 
attentive and alert, and we are prepared to defend the Revolution, to 
confront any interventionist action against our country, especially 
against everything that threatens peace, the citizen tranquility and our 
constitutional order.

“But, more than that, we are going to focus on the future. I think we 
have to see the future from the present, from this very present that we 
are now going to live with the return to normality. There is the fact 
that the results that we are having in the confrontation with the covid 
- due to vaccines, for everything we have explained - allow us to resume 
the economic and social life of Cubans and Cubans, that the economy 
begins to revive, that Let's open the doors to tourism, let the school 
year begin with all its enthusiasm, joy and color (you have to see how 
the children in Guantánamo told us yesterday how eager they were to go 
back to school); that today we are inaugurating the Havana Biennial, an 
important cultural event that they also wanted to massacre us; the fact 
that, in the midst of all this situation,We were able to start up a 
high-tech biotechnological facility such as the CIGB-Mariel center, 
which we recently inaugurated, in the company of the Army General and 
the Prime Minister; the efforts that are being made in the preparation 
of the sugar harvest, in the implementation of the measures that we have 
approved for autonomy and business improvement, in the application of 
measures to improve the production and marketing of food, the 
application of a system of government management based on science and 
innovation that, with the experience of confronting the covid-19, is 
being transferred as experience to other areas and in all the 
organizations we are having expressions of that management system.in 
<http://system.in/> the company of the Army General and the Prime 
Minister; the efforts that are being made in the preparation of the 
sugar harvest, in the implementation of the measures that we have 
approved for autonomy and business improvement, in the application of 
measures to improve the production and marketing of food, the 
application of a system of government management based on science and 
innovation that, with the experience of confronting the covid-19, is 
being transferred as experience to other areas and in all the 
organizations we are having expressions of that management system.in 
<http://system.in/> the company of the Army General and the Prime 
Minister; the efforts that are being made in the preparation of the 
sugar harvest, in the implementation of the measures that we have 
approved for autonomy and business improvement, in the application of 
measures to improve the production and marketing of food, the 
application of a system of government management based on science and 
innovation that, with the experience of confronting the covid-19, is 
being transferred as experience to other areas and in all the 
organizations we are having expressions of that management system.in 
<http://system.in/> the application of measures to improve the 
production and commercialization of food, the application of a 
government management system based on science and innovation that, with 
the experience of coping with covid-19, is being transferred as 
experience to other areas and We are already having expressions of this 
management system in all organizations.in <http://organizations.in/> the 
application of measures to improve the production and commercialization 
of food, the application of a government management system based on 
science and innovation that, with the experience of coping with 
covid-19, is being transferred as experience to other areas and We are 
already having expressions of this management system in all organizations.

“We have taken this management system to fundamental activities such as 
the energy issue in the country, food production, in different issues, 
which opens up potential.

“Today jurists, experts, academics, scientists are linked to all the 
development programs that the country is carrying out, to the management 
of laws and legal norms in its process of creating regulations so that 
they emerge robust.

*“This Palace is constantly an in and out of academics, scientists, 
experts, who come here to make their contribution to a group of programs 
and processes.*

"The way in which we have made the economic and strategic planning of 
the economic and social development of the country, taking as 
macro-program the strategic axes of the National Economic Development 
Plan, taking these macro-programs to projects, in which scientific 
institutions, experts and academics.

“The fact that we are developing a very intense legislative process, 
faithful to what the National Assembly approved. In the last 
legislature, the assembly approved four laws that in the matter of 
defense of the rights of the people are very advanced; Now we go to the 
debate on the Family Code, which can put before us a very inclusive code 
that respects rights and multiplies participation.

“All these are a group of elements that from this presentation that we 
are generating allow us to say that the future of the country is a 
future of hope, a future of prosperity, and it is a future of Revolution.

“*Cuba is a nation of peace. *We are rebels, we are dissatisfied, we do 
not tolerate what is badly done, we make adequate criticism and we will 
have to do more criticism of everything we do wrong where there is a 
space of mediocrity; but we are, above all, a nation of peace, a nation 
of solidarity, of friendship. And that nation defends a project that is 
a genuine socialist revolution, which is not clandestine in power.

“On the contrary, it is constantly renewing itself, constantly improving 
itself, constantly with the will to do what is best for the people, 
based on the participation of the people. *We are a revolution aware 
that its example makes those who oppose it uncomfortable* and therefore 
we are a revolution that would not survive, and we have to be clear 
about that, to the error of neglecting its defenses.

“That is why also in this presentation of the new normal we are going to 
the Moncada Exercise, we are going to the Defense Day, but as a genuine 
element of popular participation, also in the preparation that we have 
to have and strengthen to maintain our sovereignty and independence.

“*We are a society open to dialogue, debate, to the improvement of our 
society*, we have an enormous desire to continue expanding our 
democracy, the spaces for debate, the participation of our citizens in 
terms of the Revolution. But we are a society closed to pressure, closed 
to blackmail, to foreign interference.

“From that present that envisages the future to which we are going to 
arrive, Cuba lives and it is not a miracle. Cuba is living because its 
children want it and each one of us is responsible for building the 
future of the Cuba to which we aspire. Cuba also cooperates with those 
who have the least, Cuba saves lives and not only feels the 
responsibility and commitment to solidarity, but we also have an 
enthusiasm for sharing our knowledge to also help those who need it most 
in the world.

“*Our currency is peace.* It is raised by the Army General two 
congresses of the Party, that peace together with the ideological battle 
and the economic battle are our priorities. Peace and citizen security 
are strongholds that distinguish us in the midst of a global environment 
that is increasingly aggressive and insecure. We, as part of that 
future, will take care of peace as we take care of our children.

“In peace, we have achieved the first Latin American vaccines, in peace 
we have immunized almost one hundred percent of our population, 
including our children; In peace, the schools work, and in peace, we 
will begin on the 15th another stage of the school year; in peace, our 
economy will recover; in peace, we will continue advancing with the 
economic and social strategy; calm, attentive and safe. *In peace, in 
the present and in the future, Cuba lives and will live* ”.

COMPLETE PRESENTATION:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bhv7NdczGZ8

Printed article from: Cubadebate: *http://www.cubadebate.cu*

http://www.cubadebate.cu/noticias/2021/11/12/diaz-canel-comparece-en-television-nacional-para-hablar-sobre-la-nueva-normalidad-y-otros-temas-actuales/print/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20211113/92bc094a/attachment.htm>