Díaz-Canel: We have lived, perhaps, the hardest year of the Revolution in recent decades

President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez highlighted the epic that the Cuban people have lived through 2020. "We have lived through this year of pandemic perhaps, the hardest year of the Revolution in the last decades."

In assessing the country's confrontation with COVID-19 during the first plenary session of the Sixth Ordinary Period of Parliament in its IX Legislature, the President considered that among the many elements to be taken into account is the continuity of the ideas of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro.

"We should ask ourselves how we would have faced the pandemic without the work he promoted during the hard years of the Special Period."

He also highlighted the indications of Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, "who spearheaded a whole organizational work that consolidated the system of multidisciplinary and intersectoral work.

"The policies applied in Cuba break the paradigms of neoliberalism. Here we have triumphed because the government and the State, with the Cuban Communist Party at the helm, have managed to integrate that system to defeat the pandemic," said Díaz-Canel.

In the responses of the neoliberal countries, he continued, market rules have prevailed instead of humane solutions. "In Cuba, the market was not the solution,  but to put the Cuban citizen at the center of attention."

The Cuban President argued that neoliberalism has acted selfishly and considered that in Cuba, solidarity, and unity predominated.

"We have shared with the world our knowledge and the exemplary role of our armies of white coats.

"We are opening another perspective of thoughts on how a government can share with the world that a better world is possible."

The President recalled that Cuba managed to overcome the first and second outbreaks. Now the concept of the new normality is being considered. There has been an increase in the cases, but that -he said- is due to the travelers, "many of them Cubans who had not been able to return to see their families."

The challenge now," he said, "is, with the presence of those travelers, to have a responsible, community, personal and social behavior, to maintain the achievements made.

The President made a special recognition to the young people who have been present in the red zone, in isolation centers, and performing all kinds of tasks. "They have called themselves together, and this shows that there is a commitment to their people and the Revolution."

"We have had more blockades and shortages, but fewer deaths and infections," he concluded.