The participating organizations, representatives of a broad range of non-governmental organizations and associations, gathered at the meeting on Civil Society in Defense of Sovereignty and Human Rights in Cuba,

Aware of the deep political meaning which entails the struggle to preserve the most sacred achievements of our people,

Willing to face up to the last consequences of the Empire’s attempts to annihilate the Cuban nation,

Agree to issue the following Statement:

1. The triumph of a true Revolution in Cuba, deeply rooted in humanism and with an independentist inspiration, is the event of greatest transcendence in our national history. The conquest and exercise of power by the people themselves defined, from the beginning of the Revolution, the democratic essence of the Cuban social order. The building of a social justice State gave the category of genuine citizens for the first time to millions of men and women that could exercise rights that had been long denied by the neocolonial social order imposed on Cuba by the United States imperialism.

2. The Cuban revolutionary process has placed sacred and universal principles of relations between civilized nations at the highest level: respect to sovereignty, national independence and people’s self-determination. Upon these values depend the development, exercise and enjoyment of all rights by human beings, enshrined in our socialist Constitution and guaranteed by the Cuban Revolutionary Government.

3. The Cuban civil society is today part and parcel of the Nation, acting in the continuous conformation and enrichment of the national identity and homeland values, fully participating in the processes for the development of our cultural entity, defending the most solid principles and interests of the Revolution and being, in essence, reflection and incarnation of the spirituality of our people.

4. The true Cuban civil society is not mercenary nor is in the pay of foreign powers to act against the homeland’s interests; has it not been manufactured nor imported to be the accomplice of those who attack their people. The United States government–a foreign government that arrogates the right to interfere with our internal affairs—is totally unable to establish criteria on the validity of our civil society.

5. The undersigned of this Statement recognize the autochthony and the genuinely democratic, participatory and popular value of the political system that we have chosen for ourselves in keeping with our national interest and the uniqueness inherent to our history.

6. We strongly condemn the attempts to impose the “transition to capitalism” in Cuba, laid out in the plan for the annexation of Cuba adopted by President George W. Bush on 6 May 2004, requested by the cynically called Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba. This shameful project intends on taking away our independence and restoring Yankee domination on the Cuban nation. The Cuban organizations, together with our people, will never let our historic enemies restore the opprobrious system of exploitation that buried the hopes of independence and justice that inspired the struggles of so many Cubans.

7. The immoral exercise to condemn Cuba at the Commission on Human Rights is yet another aggression aimed at justifying Bush’s plan of aggression and blockade. It makes no sense that the empire that attacks us, trying to kill all Cubans by hunger and disease, encouraging terrorist acts against our people and harboring in its territory terrorist of the worst sort –responsible for the death and suffering of many Cubans—intends to condemn us. Those who try to condemn us, shamelessly using the issue of human rights, have no moral reason whatsoever.

8. In the defense, preservation and development of our indisputable social achievements, the value of national unity has been sacred and vital; we strongly and firmly oppose anything that diminishes, denies or weakens it. An armed aggression against our land will be met by the continuous and organized resistance of our people until the final victory.

9. Culture is a source of freedom. “To be cultured to be free”, said our apostle José Martí. Culture can neither be possible without the sovereign exercise of the people’s will. The Revolution is the most important and inspiring cultural event in the Cuban libertarian epic. A genuine culture of emancipation and human redemption is only possible if it is inspired by men and builds on the most valuable and creative of its heritage.

10. Neither armed aggressions, terrorist acts, slandering and disinformation campaigns, nor the criminal and unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on us for over forty years, nor the measures contained in the plan for the annexation of Cuba, nor any other crueler decisions will make us give up in the unwavering support to the revolutionary social project that we have freely chose and will defend.

11. The Cuban Revolution today takes on a meaning of universal validity. The presence of thousands of cooperators and collaborators in the remotest and poorest places of the globe is a selfless and noble example of commitment with the life of the poorest and forgotten. “Homeland is Humanity” said Martí.

12. The participating organizations wish to express our appreciation to the defenders of ideas of justice and dignity to intellectuals, parliamentarians, NGO representatives, social fighters and all those who honestly defend the right of existence of the Cuban Nation.

13. We denounce the intentions stated by top U.S. government officials of using other countries’ governments and NGOs, religious groups and exchanges between academics, students, intellectuals and artists to encourage subversion and to finance mercenaries with a view to toppling the government that we Cubans have chosen. We urge the civil society from around the world and the international public to repudiate such inadmissible acts of aggression against the independence of the country.

14. The Cuban people will prevent the attempts to stripe it from everything that belongs to them; they will defend with all their strength the right to live and hand down a free nation, to enjoy and participate in the development of culture, to obtain ever higher levels of schooling, to enjoy universal and quality health care services, to participate as active and leading subjects in the political and economic life of the country, to responsibly and in full freedom express their opinions, to continue providing the world with their help in solidarity as proof of our internationalist vocation, to defend to the last consequences the fate of the Revolution evidencing their unconditional loyalty to the Homeland, Socialism and Fidel.

Havana, 12 April 2005

(Minrex)