January 1, 2024
65th Anniversary of Triumph of Cuban Revolution

Cuban President’s New Year’s Message to the People

On the morning of December 31, 2023, on the eve of another challenging year, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel warmly addressed the Cuban people in a video message, celebrating the new year and the 65th anniversary of the triumph of the Cuban Revolution and inviting them to start 2024 with passion and joy, by taking up the work to address all the issues that require change in Cuba.

In his message, the President congratulated the people for their achievements and urged them to destroy every brick of the United States blockade with creativity, “aware that no one will do it for us.”

He expressed profound gratitude to the people for all the progress made in the face of the colossal challenges that have been imposed by six decades of the economic blockade by the United States that continues to be reinforced, and the errors resulting from the ongoing search for ways to overcome the brutal siege.

“Today everything seems more difficult than ever due to long years supporting the criminal weight of a policy of sieges and sanctions that seems infinite in its cruelty. But we revolutionaries have not arrived at this 65th anniversary to surrender and deliver our flags,” said President Díaz-Canel.

He pointed out that reaching the end of 2023 is like having to take winding paths to reach the top of a very high mountain. Like so many times over 65 years, the climb has been arduous and at times we have had to backtrack. But we arrived, he affirmed.

Díaz-Canel pointed out that when one sets out on the path of socialism, as the leaders Fidel and Raúl Castro taught, every achievement is a victory and also a new starting point.

In this regard, he recalled that Cuba’s historic generation — against the predictions by the doomsayers of adversity — realized the Revolution with the conviction that it is possible.

The President noted that from the beginning of the struggles for independence to the present day, the secret of the Revolution sustaining itself in the face of all adversities has been the history of popular participation in Cuba’s outstanding resistance and creativity, on the basis of firm leadership and principles.

“The Revolution is not the work of a day, a year, or even 65 years. It is an idea, a will. This is the Revolution. It’s not any of us alone. It is all of us together, overcoming impossible things,” Díaz-Canel stressed.

(Prensa Latina. Quotations translated from original Spanish by TML.)

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