When we hosted the I Conference, the Cubans were barely able to migrate legally to the United States. The US Government flagrantly failed to comply with the agreements existing from the mid-80s. That caused a new boatlift, from which new accords were established – which, although not fully fulfilled by the US Government, have made it possible for nearly 200,000 Cubans to migrate legally to the United States over the last ten years. Once more, it has been the Cuban Government the one that has defended and rendered possible the right to migrate legally to that country.

In 1994, Cuba was visited by 37,000 Cubans living abroad; in 2003, by nearly 168,000, of which some 115,000 came from the United States.

In 2000, some 38,000 Cubans made family-related visits to the US; if they cannot do it now, it is because of the prohibitions put in place by the US Government. Those who migrate legally no longer have to wait for five years to return to our country on a visit. The Cuban youths who live abroad can take university courses on a cost-recovery basis and post-graduate studies in Cuba. The immigrants visiting our country do not necessarily have to stay in a hotel, as was the case of 1994. Correo de Cuba magazine is published steadily. Tomorrow, you will have the official presentation of the Internet portal Nation and Emigration, geared for the Cubans residing overseas. In the course of these years, we expanded the possibilities for the definitive return to the country; in 1994, we removed the requirement of the entry permit for those residing temporarily abroad, who are now over 50,000. The Travel Validity, used last year by more than 20,000 Cuban immigrants, became operational in 1995. And finally, as of 1 June, the Cubans residing abroad will no longer need an entry permit to travel to the country.

On the other hand – and under the decision adopted by our National Assembly of People’s Power in 1995 when the Foreign Investment Act was discussed – in the last two years alone, 72 proposed business deals or investments by Cubans living in 12 countries have been processed in Cuba. Of the 7 companies that operate charter flights to Cuba from the US, 6 are owned by Cubans. More than 100 travel agencies, also owned by Cubans, are involved in the preparation of trips to our country – which have increased despite the draconian measures and the constant persecution of the US Government to prevent them.

The last Food and Agribusiness Exhibition, held in Havana with the presence of US companies, was attended by a score of Cuban-born CEOs residing in the United States.

The relation of the immigrants with the country’s cultural life is a reality today. Between 1996 and 2003, Cuba published 53 titles with works by 163 Cuban authors living in more than 15 countries.

Over the same period, more than 200 articles by 106 authors residing overseas were published in Cuban cultural magazines. In the last few years, more than 10 authors presented their works at the International Book Fair of Havana. Some of them have been part of the board of prestigious literary prizes in our country.

All of this allows us to assert that our Government and various Cuban institutions, with the active involvement and participation of the Cubans residing overseas, have worked seriously and that the situation today is totally different from the one we had when the I Conference was held.

Today, we can also announce new decisions that will further facilitate the attention to and the relations with the Cubans residing abroad. These are:

The creation of a new office, initially attached to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to deal with the Cubans residing overseas, with more extensive functions and powers than those currently enforced by the Foreign Ministry’s Division of Consular Affairs and Attention to Cubans Residing Abroad.

The decision to grant university scholarships to children of Cuban immigrants.

The creation of a summer course program of Spanish language and Cuban history and culture, particularly designed for descendants of Cubans residing overseas.

The adoption of new measures that will further expedite and render more secure the customs procedures. This will include the pricing system by luggage weight, which must resolve one of the issues causing the most complaints and nuisances.

Having said all this, I believe it is essential to underscore three aspects:

First: There are no major problems between the Nation and its immigrants. In essence – and even when we should continue to work in the future – the decisions made in the last decade have laid the groundwork for the gradual normalization of relations between the Nation and its immigrants. Those who present the ongoing aggression of the US Government – in alliance with a crooked, ambitious and anti-patriotic clique of Cubans residing in that country – as a “problem among Cubans” are lying. The real problem, both for the Cubans who live in their homeland and for all those who – no matter where they live – feel love for Cuba and want to see it free and sovereign, is the decision of President Bush (who has inherited an imperial yearning for Cuba that goes back a couple of centuries) to deny us the right to self-determination; to deny us the right, enshrined in the UN Charter, to be an independent country and select, without outside interference, our economic, political and social model, as well as our laws and our institutions.

Second: The economic blockade and the policy of aggression against Cuba are today the major obstacle to the full normalization of relations between the Cuban immigrants and our country.

Third: The measures announced by President Bush last 6 May are a new and flagrant violation of the human rights of both the Cubans living in the US and those living on the island. Standing up to them must become the top priority of whoever feels like a Cuban.

However, precisely at this point in time, when there is an increase in the pressures and the threats against Cuba, our optimism is stronger, as well as our unwavering faith that this noble and generous people will not be subdued; the people that endured these last 14 years of huge perils and hardships will not surrender, let alone now knowing that its final victory over the blockade and the aggressions is certain. When we hosted the I Conference – some of the guests here today will remember it very well – what was at stake was whether the Cuban nation would be able to survive such obstacles and dangers. Today, ten years later, nobody, not even our most embittered enemies, doubt our capacity to overcome the difficulties and forge ahead. That is, most likely, the cause of their despair and their ever-increasing hatred against our people.

Cuba will take a giant leap towards its socio-economic development the day it is left in peace to build its future. It will do it just the same, even if the blockade is further tightened – but, undoubtedly, without the costs entailed by the economic war that it has to endure today, our country would move a lot faster.

And that day, when there is no longer any blockade, hostility or “transition” plans for Cuba designed in Washington – or the yearning to annex Cuba to the US – then the Cubans will be able to travel legally back and forth without any restrictions whatsoever, except the handful of people who may not be worthy of such prerogative for their shameful and harmful conduct against the homeland; those who wish to retire in Cuba and have the means to that end will do so; it will not be a crime, under the US law, to invest in and trade with our country; the Helms-Burton Act and the Torricelli Act will have been repealed; there will be no Cuban Adjustment Act or any encouragement to illegal migration; there will be no brain drain either; there will be no terrorist groups threatening our country and those who wish to travel to Cuba and engage in a dialogue with its authorities; they will not do it with impunity; there will be no more illegal broadcasts against Cuba; there will be no more radio and TV stations tarnishing the name of the Apostle of our independence; there will be no more money from the US budget to fund subversion and the campaigns of lies against Cuba; there will be no more plans of military aggressions or attempts to assassinate our leaders. Our five young heroes, who are political prisoners in the US, will have returned to their Homeland, to their families and to their people. The Cuban nation will have finally reached, after centuries of struggle and huge sacrifices, its right to live in full justice and freedom.

Finally – and in light of the dangers looming over the very existence of the Cuban nation – I would like to recall that next 12 June it will be the 103rd anniversary of the moment in which by 16 votes in favor (of which 4 said that they were doing it against their will, forced by the circumstances), 11 against and 4 absences, the Constituent Assembly was compelled to accept the Platt Amendment. Before, on 25 July 1900, the US military governor in Cuba had dictated Military Ordinance 301, which set forth: “Therefore, it is ordered that a general election be held on the Island of Cuba on the third Saturday of September 1900 to elect delegates to the Convention…to draft and adopt a Constitution for the people of Cuba – and, as part of it, make provisions and agree with the US Government on the relations that must exist between that Government and the Government of Cuba.” In conformity with the regulations imposed by the US occupation army, only 150,648 inhabitants – accounting for 7% of the Cuban population at the time – were entitled to vote. That is how, under the rapacious guise of the Empire, those so-called “elections” were organized.

Let us recall, now that we are getting ready to exchange views with respect and transparency on our free Cuba, the text of the Platt Amendment:

Article I. The Government of Cuba shall never enter into any treaty or other compact with any foreign power or powers which will impair or tend to impair the independence of Cuba, nor in any manner authorize or permit any foreign power or powers to obtain by colonization or for military or naval purposes, or otherwise, lodgement in or control over any portion of said island. As of that moment, Cuba had to receive the OK of the US Government to reach a treaty or covenant with another country.

Article II. The Government of Cuba shall not assume or contract any public debt to pay the interest upon which, and to make reasonable sinking-fund provision for the ultimate discharge of which, the ordinary revenues of the Island of Cuba, after defraying the current expenses of the Government, shall be inadequate. As of that moment, Cuba would have to make consultations with the US Government to see which levels of indebtedness it could reach.

Article III. The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene for the preservation of Cuban independence, the maintenance of a government adequate for the protection of life, property, and individual liberty, and for discharging the obligations with respect to Cuba imposed by the Treaty of Paris on the United States, now to be assumed and undertaken by the Government of Cuba. The promise of an independent country, over which hundreds of thousands of Cubans had died, was reduced to this infamous phrase: “The Government of Cuba consents that the United States may exercise the right to intervene…”

Article IV. That all acts of the United States in Cuba during its military occupancy thereof are ratified and validated, and all lawful rights acquired thereunder shall be maintained and protected. This way, they prevented the revision of the fraudulent operations, through which the voracious US capitals had appropriated the young nation’s best land and resources.

Article V. The Government of Cuba will execute, and, as far as necessary, extend the plans already devised, or other plans to be mutually agreed upon, for the sanitation of the cities of the island, to the end that a recurrence of epidemic and infectious diseases may be prevented, thereby assuring protection to the people and commerce of Cuba, as well as to the commerce of the Southern ports of the United States and the people residing therein. Hypocrisy and demagoguery to hide the obvious: the US imposed the condition of protectorate on Cuba, without independence and powers. That reminds us of the promise in the new annexation plan of Cuba adopted by President Bush “to vaccinate all children under five years of age who have not been inoculated.”

Article VI. That the Isle of Pines shall be omitted from the proposed constitutional boundaries of Cuba, the title thereto being left to future adjustment by treaty. A brazen imposition that did not hide the plan of taking over the Isle of Pines. Since they were not able to make it with this first attempt, they left the issue pending for a more favorable moment.

Article VII. That to enable the United States to maintain the independence of Cuba, and to protect the people thereof, as well as for its defense, the government of Cuba will sell or lease to the United States lands necessary for coaling or naval stations at certain specified points, to be agreed upon with the President of the United States. Thence came the imposition of the Guantánamo Naval Base, turned today into a horrendous concentration camp that harms the credibility and moral authority of the US Government in the eyes of the world. The Guantánamo Naval Base is the world’s only facility still maintained against the will of the country where it is located. The US Government still sends us the check amounting to US$ 4,085 per annum – that we, of course, do not cash – for the rental of the 117 square kilometers encroached on one of the country’s best harbors. But we do not give up on the idea of one day seeing that territory illegally occupied returned to our Homeland.

This is the crossroads looming over the Cuban Nation today: either the return to the corrupt Republic of the Platt Amendment offered once again by the Helms-Burton Act and President Bush’s famous Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba, in which four or five Miami-based ultraconservative millionaires vie for the “pleasure” of serving as President for the imperial master, or the return to the virile, free and independent Republic, “with all and for the good of all,” as dreamed of by José Martí, that our people has built and is willing to defend.

We understand that the right to call oneself Cuban depends, beyond the place of residence, on the answer given to that question and the readiness to defend the independence of our country with life itself.

Welcome to the Conference. We hope that these three days of outspoken and open debate will be of interest to the Homeland.

Thank you very much.

(Granma)