Cuba warns the United States that there will be no understanding or negotiation with “coercion”

“There is no surrender or surrender possible, nor any type of understanding based on coercion or intimidation. Cuba does not have to make any political concessions nor will that ever be at the negotiating table for an understanding between Cuba and the United States,” he stated.

“It is important that you understand: we will always be willing to dialogue and improve relations between the two countries, but on equal terms and on the basis of mutual respect. This has been the case for more than six decades. History now will not be different,” he added.

The Cuban president spoke before several thousand people gathered at the Anti-imperialist Tribune, next to the Havana boardwalk, and led by senior officials of the Government and the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC, the only legal one), but this time without former president Raúl Castro.

“Cuba does not threaten or challenge,” said Díaz-Canel, who however added that, if attacked, the island would defend itself.

“If we were to be attacked, we would fight with ferocity identical to that bequeathed to us by several generations of brave Cuban fighters, from the wars for independence in the 19th century, the Sierra Maestra, the underground, Africa and even Caracas in this 21st century,” he stressed.

“They are not going to intimidate us,” said Díaz-Canel. “His threats now remind us of those of almost all previous (US) administrations controlled by hawks,” he said.

“They would have to kidnap millions or disappear this archipelago from the map,” he added.

For Díaz-Canel, the attack against Venezuela on January 3, which began months before with a “network of lies and defamation,” has opened “the door to a new era of barbarism, dispossession and neo-fascism.”

The president acknowledged that the news of the US military operation “hit hard” the Cuban Executive, that they were “very bitter hours” of “indignation and impotence.” Venezuela was Havana’s main political ally and its first commercial partner.

In his opinion, in these moments of American threat, the key is to avoid internal divisions: “Unity is the most powerful weapon,” he stressed.