标签： Cuba

Amid growing cross-border tensions between Spain and Morocco, Spanish authorities have moved to reinforce security at the frontiers of its two North African autonomous cities, Ceuta and Melilla, both of which share a land border with Morocco. The ramp-up in defensive measures comes in response to widespread warnings that another large-scale migrant incursion is planned for August 15.

Relations between the two neighboring states have been strained since an unprecedented mass crossing on July 30, when roughly 72,000 migrants entered Ceuta in a single wave of arrivals. While senior Spanish government officials have repeatedly sought to highlight what they frame as productive cooperation from Rabat on border management, independent analysts and international affairs specialists have pushed back against that narrative. These experts argue that Morocco’s deliberate decision to avoid intervening to stop the crossing at minimum created the conditions that allowed the unprecedented influx to take place.

In the wake of the July incursion, Spanish authorities have facilitated the return of most migrants to Moroccan territory. However, the crisis has already left a devastating human toll: official and on-the-ground accounts confirm more than 100 migrant deaths have been recorded, while approximately 1,500 unaccompanied child migrants remain in Spanish custody, and around 4,000 additional people are still unhoused and wandering Ceuta’s public streets.

The standoff has escalated further in recent days after senior Moroccan officials made public pro-independence statements regarding the contested autonomous territories, which have long been a point of friction between Spain and Morocco. In a bold address that garnered overwhelming public backing across Spain, Defense Minister Margarita Robles delivered a firm rebuke of Rabat’s claims two days ago. Robles stressed that both Ceuta and Melilla are unquestionably an integral part of Spanish sovereign territory, and that no challenge to that status would be tolerated. “Any act of aggression against Ceuta or Melilla is an act of aggression against the entire nation of Spain,” Robles stated, cementing the Spanish government’s uncompromising stance amid the escalating crisis.

On August 13, 2026 — designated the “Year of the Centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz” — Cuba’s top leader Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez delivered a landmark closing address at the Carlos Marx Theater, wrapping up the First International Colloquium *“Fidel: Legacy and Future”* during a national political and cultural observance of Fidel Castro’s 100th birth anniversary.

Opening his remarks, Díaz-Canel extended greetings to retired revolutionary leader Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, Fidel Castro’s family, and gathered delegates, emphasizing that Fidel’s legacy endures across every generation, region, and community of people fighting for global equity. The centenary colloquium drew more than 1,500 registered participants from 63 nations, including 500 Cuban delegates, with thousands more international and domestic supporters unable to attend due to logistical constraints amid the country’s ongoing economic pressures. Díaz-Canel credited organizers from the Fidel Castro Ruz Center and the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba’s Ideological Department, alongside partnering institutions, for pulling off the major international gathering against the backdrop of severe national resource limitations, and called for all colloquium presentations to be widely disseminated to capture new insights from those who worked directly with Fidel and scholars who have spent decades studying his global impact.

Against the backdrop of what he described as a “brutal and immoral imperial blockade” aimed at destroying Cuba’s sovereignty and people, Díaz-Canel framed the centenary celebration as yet another testament to Cuban resilience and international solidarity. He highlighted that delegates traveled from distant nations, covered their own expenses, brought donations, and accepted limited material conditions to participate, turning what many considered an impossible event into a tangible demonstration of global support for Fidel’s ideals. “Fidel is not only from Cuba,” Díaz-Canel stressed. “He belongs to all revolutionaries of the world, and to all humanity.”

Díaz-Canel clarified that following Fidel’s principles does not mean blind adherence, but rather a commitment to permanent anti-imperialist struggle against global injustice. He noted that hundreds of assassination attempts against Fidel failed to diminish his legacy, and instead amplified it: today, millions of people across the world carry forward his vision, not just out of nostalgia, but to build a more just future, refusing to surrender to what he called the “plunder and greed” of a decadent global empire.

A core focus of the address was the central role of young people in advancing Fidel’s legacy. Díaz-Canel shared his impressions from the accompanying Youth Forum, noting that young delegates displayed extraordinary maturity, shaped by their experience navigating the inequalities of capitalist societies and hardened by renewed Cold War-era McCarthyist repression for their decision to attend the centenary event in Cuba. He recalled Fidel’s own roots as a young revolutionary activist: as a university student who cut his political teeth organizing against dictatorship, transformed journalism into a tool for popular denunciation, and took up armed struggle after constitutional paths to reform were closed by the Batista coup. For this new generation of young Fidel followers, Díaz-Canel bestowed the official title of the “Fidel Centennial Generation”, stressing that Fidel always entrusted young people with the movement’s most critical tasks, viewing youth as the most passionately revolutionary phase of life.

Díaz-Canel warned of growing global threats to progressive movements, including the resurgence of fascism, an ideological war aimed at erasing historical memory and imposing capitalist hegemony on the Global South, and coordinated disinformation campaigns that label core human values obsolete to justify illegal aggression, from the ongoing genocide in Gaza to attacks on Iran and Cuba’s ongoing energy blockade. He called for all progressive, emancipatory, and socialist forces to unify, rejecting pressure to avoid radical language that would leave movements paralyzed at a moment when collective mobilization is the only path to survival and change.

Looking back to a reflection Fidel published exactly 10 years and one day before the centenary, Díaz-Canel noted that the text has gained renewed relevance today. In that final birthday reflection before his death, Fidel recalled his childhood in Birán, his father the Spanish immigrant, his early love of nature, and the formation of his ethical worldview through Cuban history. Even at 90, Díaz-Canel recalled, Fidel remained endlessly curious about scientific progress, deeply concerned for humanity’s future, and unflinching in his criticism of U.S. hegemony, never hesitating to expose collaborators and sellouts.

Against the intensification of the U.S. blockade that has restricted Cuban well-being in every area, Díaz-Canel said Fidel’s legacy remains the clearest path forward, anchored in three non-negotiable principles: national independence, the ongoing Cuban Revolution, and the values and gains of socialism. Under these principles, Cuba continues its process of economic and social transformation, centered on the popular well-being and social justice that Fidel spent his life defending.

Díaz-Canel concluded that the gathering of global supporters in blockaded, harassed Cuba itself is the greatest possible monument to Fidel on his centenary. He thanked international solidarity activists for complementing the Cuban people’s heroic resistance, echoing Raúl Castro’s summary of Fidel’s core teaching: that people can overcome even the harshest conditions if their will to win holds, they assess circumstances clearly, and they never abandon their just principles.

Fidel, Díaz-Canel stressed, lives on in every Cuban doctor saving lives amid medicine shortages, every teacher showing up to work in cities and remote mountain communities, every worker reporting to their job despite the blockade’s resource restrictions, and every combatant willing to sacrifice for homeland and socialism. When future historians study Fidel Castro Ruz, he argued, they will not only see one man — they will see an entire people, and millions of people across the world, who inspired by Fidel’s example defeated the most powerful criminal empire in history and carved out their own place in history. The address closed with resounding chants of *“Long live Fidel! Long live a free, sovereign and independent Cuba! Long live socialism! Homeland or Death! We shall overcome!”*

On August 13, 2026, Cuba opened a new chapter of collective historical memory to mark the 100th birth anniversary of legendary revolutionary leader Fidel Castro, gathering domestic leaders, global allies and people from all walks of Cuban life for a moving political and cultural tribute that also closed the first international colloquium titled *Fidel: Legacy and Future*.

Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, a core leader of the Cuban Revolution and Fidel Castro’s lifelong comrade and brother-in-arms, headlined the event alongside Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic. The event, hosted at Havana’s iconic Karl Marx Theater, also welcomed special guest Rebel Army Commander José Ramón Machado Ventura, alongside senior members of the Political Bureau, the Central Committee Secretariat, other Party, State and Government leaders, representatives of political, mass and social organizations, top officials from the Ministry of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, Fidel Castro’s immediate family, his long-time close collaborators, and delegates to the week-long colloquium that had brought together supporters from 63 countries starting August 10.

Before the formal program began, colloquium delegates broke into resounding chants that echoed through the theater: first “Fidel, Fidel”, then the beloved rallying cry “It can be heard, it can be felt, Fidel is present”. For attendees, this chant was far more than symbolic: Fidel’s presence persists, multiplied across the Cuban people, embedded in his transformative ideas, and embodied in the Cuban Revolution, his most enduring contribution to global history.

In his keynote address, President Díaz-Canel walked attendees through the extraordinary, impactful life of Fidel Castro, framing the centenary as a celebration of a lifelong warrior, “a rebel, a fighter, a righteous man of Cuba, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. A righteous man of humanity.”

Díaz-Canel highlighted the remarkable achievement of hosting the international colloquium despite the ongoing harsh U.S. imperial blockade that has strangled Cuba’s economy for decades. He extended special recognition to all international delegates who overcame significant logistical and political obstacles to stand in solidarity with Cuba, and paid particular emotional tribute to young Cubans, whom he dubbed the “Fidel Centennial Generation”.

“Fidel is not only from Cuba. Fidel belongs to all revolutionaries of the world who admire his work and share his ideas. Fidel belongs to all of humanity,” Díaz-Canel affirmed. He emphasized that identifying as a follower of Fidel means committing to being a permanent anti-imperialist, standing against every form of global injustice. From Fidel, Díaz-Canel recalled, the Cuban people inherited three non-negotiable, inalienable principles: unwavering defense of national independence, preservation of the Revolution, and upholding the core values and transformative gains of Cuban socialism. He confirmed that all ongoing economic and social reforms in Cuba remain rooted in these guiding principles.

“When future historians look back in time, searching for Fidel Castro Ruz, they will no longer see just one man,” Díaz-Canel stressed. “They will see millions who, inspired by his exemplary life, earned a place in history, with the unwavering resolve that this nation has demonstrated.”

The most heartfelt tribute of the day came from Cuba’s youngest generation, delivered via a moving performance by children’s theater company La Colmenita. The production wove together Fidel Castro’s core beliefs and legacy, framing sport as a universal right for all people, science as the non-negotiable foundation of the nation’s future, and collective heroism as the face of Cuban dignity.

The stage was reimagined as a pioneer explorer camp, a form of youth development Fidel Castro long championed for its ability to build character. It brought to life iconic Cuban figures that embody Fidel’s legacy: sporting legends Ana Fidelia Quirot and Pedro Luis Lazo, pioneering scientists Jorge Berlanga and Belinda Sánchez, and national heroes including Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, and Elián González — for whom the Cuban government, under Fidel’s leadership and alongside Raúl Castro, waged and won a fierce international battle to return Elián to his home country.

Reciting a passage from Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano that describes human life as “a sea of little flames”, the performance captured Fidel Castro’s singular intensity: he burned with such unwavering passion that one cannot look at him without blinking, and all who engage with his legacy today, just as when he was alive, are ignited by that fire. Lines from Cuban national hero José Martí, recited by a young performer playing a scientist, fit Fidel perfectly — he was widely regarded as Martí’s greatest modern disciple. “If I was of any use before now, I no longer remember: what I want is to serve more,” Martí wrote, a creed that Fidel embodied throughout his life of struggle for Cuban and global justice.

Throughout the performance, one core value emerged as central to Fidel’s legacy, a principle that Cuba has made its national banner alongside Fidel: solidarity. From Fidel, Cubans learned to share what they have, even when resources are scarce. Guided by that ethos, this small Caribbean nation has extended medical and humanitarian aid to the most remote corners of the globe, in the name of preserving life, while wealthy global powers often bring only conflict and destruction. Cuba has long embodied Fidel’s vision: standing tall, head held high, with an outstretched hand to lift others up. This is Fidel’s Cuba: a nation that continues to defy expectations, and in saving its own sovereign project, lifts up other marginalized nations across the Global South.

Writers and young artists framed Fidel as a “conqueror of the impossible”, a modern Quixote who fought against overwhelming odds to advance justice. Journalist and writer Katiuska Blanco shared intimate anecdotes from Fidel’s childhood growing up on his family’s estate in Birán, noting that even from a young age, his sense of justice and determination marked him as a leader who would write brilliant new pages of Cuban history.

La Colmenita’s performance also addressed Cuba’s current challenges, emphasizing that Fidel’s legacy teaches Cubans to face obstacles with creativity, unity and sharp intelligence. It called out the U.S. blockade as the most severe barrier to Cuban progress, but stressed that it can never be stronger than the Cuban people’s will to prevail. This conviction, Raúl Castro reminded attendees, grows directly from “Fidel’s enduring teachings”, whose legacy, the international colloquium confirmed, remains the most reliable compass for Cuba’s future.

The deep, enduring friendship between Fidel Castro and Venezuelan Bolivarian leader Hugo Chávez was another centerpiece of the tribute, with anecdotes highlighting how Chávez’s relationship with Fidel reinforced a core truth: no one who encountered Fidel Castro remained indifferent to his extraordinary personality and moral authority.

As with all major Cuban national events, poetry and music formed the emotional backbone of the day. The stirring melody of the 26th of July Movement Anthem rang through the theater, a reminder of how Fidel, Raúl, and their fellow revolutionaries turned the defeat of the 1953 Moncada Barracks attack into the foundation of ultimate victory over the Batista dictatorship. The notes of the Cuban National Anthem followed, a timeless call to action that retains its urgency even amid ongoing external threat, reminding Cubans that “to die for the Fatherland is to live.”

To mark the centennial, the entire auditorium joined in singing “Happy Birthday” to Fidel, a tribute echoed across the entire island — his great home, which has been steered by Raúl Castro through decades of revolutionary struggle, alongside Fidel in countless chapters of shared glory. When the performance curtain fell, the theater erupted in chants of “I am Fidel” and “Cuba is not alone”, followed by a wave of thunderous applause that lasted for minutes. For all gathered in that space, there was no doubt: Fidel Castro lives on, in the Cuban people, in his ideas, and in the global struggle for justice.

On August 13, 2026, during the third session of the inaugural International Colloquium titled *Fidel: Legacy and Future*, Cuban officials formally presented the landmark publishing project *Fidel Castro Ruz, Selected Works* — a work conceived as a centennial gift from the Cuban people to the world, honoring the birth of the Cuban Revolution’s iconic leader Fidel Castro Ruz. The launch event was attended by Cuba’s highest-ranking leadership, including Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, who received a symbolic copy of the complete collection during the ceremony.

René González Barrios, director of the Fidel Castro Ruz Center, detailed the massive scope and rigorous work that went into compiling the collection. The final product is a 23-volume monumental work spanning 15,944 pages, bringing together 690 documents spanning 33 distinct formats, supported by 12,210 contextual footnotes designed to help readers situate Fidel’s words within their specific historical moments. A full standalone volume, the 23rd, is dedicated exclusively to the correspondence exchanged between Fidel Castro and Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías, the late Commander and former President of Venezuela, which González Barrios described as “a true treasure and a manual of revolutionary ethics.”

González Barrios emphasized that the collection is the product of years of collective work by a team of academic and historical specialists united by a shared commitment: to deliver Fidel Castro’s ideas, shaped across decades of changing global and national contexts, to the Cuban people and the wider world as a living resource for political and social struggle. The project would not have been possible without the solidarity support from one of Cuba’s longstanding international partners: the Communist Party of Vietnam and the people of Vietnam, who took on the responsibility of printing 3,000 copies of the complete collection.

Vu Trong Lam, director and editor-in-chief of Vietnam’s National Political Publishing House “The Truth”, which completed the printing work, noted that the collaboration represented more than a publishing project. It stands, he said, as a new demonstration of the shared commitment between the two nations to protect, expand, and carry forward the longstanding traditions of solidarity, special friendship, and comprehensive cooperation that have defined Vietnam-Cuba relations for decades.

Alongside President Díaz-Canel, the presentation ceremony was attended by multiple senior leaders of Cuba’s Communist Party and national government, including Esteban Lazo Hernández, President of the National Assembly of People’s Power; Manuel Marrero Cruz, Prime Minister of Cuba; Roberto Morales Ojeda, Secretary of Organization of the Party Central Committee; and Salvador Valdés Mesa, Vice President of the Republic, among other senior political officials.

Questions of immortality and enduring legacy have long captivated human thought: How can a man continue to live, shape consciousness, and remain present long after his physical departure? How does he hold his place across generations, and how does his influence persist through changing times? For those who never encountered the extraordinary figure at the center of this reflection, or for those whose judgment has been clouded by ideological opposition and prejudice, these questions may seem unanswerable. Yet history shows that there is a path to eternal life that transcends physical existence: when a leader dedicates every breath of his life to the people he serves, he leaves an indelible mark that centuries cannot erode.

This kind of enduring survival is rare, but when it takes root, no earthly force can uproot it. It grows from the collective heart of a nation, where exceptional figures who put collective good above personal gain are forever enshrined. These are the leaders who carry the suffering of their people as their own, who do not merely demand justice but dedicate every moment of their lives to fighting for it, who never place faith in random fortune but instead believe that meaningful victory comes only through boundless, unwavering sacrifice.

When a nation is blessed to call such a figure its son, brother, and father, it will never allow his memory to fade into the obscurity of history. Instead, it elevates him to the status of a permanent guiding force: as constant as the sun that warms the earth, as vast as the sky that arches over every citizen. He earns the right to endure through his own choices and his lifelong commitment, and no power on earth can strip that right away.

A core truth anchors this reality: any leader who earns the sincere devotion of an entire people earns it forever. Noble, courageous nations do not forget the leaders who fought for them; they are grateful, sincere, and loyal in reciprocating the sacrifice that was given for their freedom and well-being. That gratitude becomes the foundation of a lasting legacy.

So for those who still ask how a man can outlive his own time, the answer is clear. This is no ordinary leader. The figure who traverses decades, who remains present in the lives of Cubans and resonates with justice seekers across the globe, is Fidel Castro Ruz. To speak his name anywhere on Earth is to invoke the highest, most authentic, and most just ideals of what humanity can achieve: a legacy written not in stone, but in the permanent heart of a grateful people.

In a public address delivered on the morning of Tuesday, August 12, 2026, Carlos Fernández de Cossío, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, laid out the lasting influence of Fidel Castro’s ideological framework on Cuba’s foreign policy, affirming that the revolutionary leader’s core principles have shaped—and continue to steer—the island nation’s actions across global diplomatic platforms.

Fernández de Cossío structured his remarks around three foundational lessons drawn from Castro’s thinking, each rooted in decades of Cuban revolutionary history. The first and most fundamental pillar, he emphasized, is the uncompromising defense of Cuba’s sovereign rights, even when facing extreme external threats. He pointed to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, widely known in Cuba as the October Crisis, as a defining example of this steadfast commitment to national self-determination.

The second core principle outlined by the deputy minister is Cuba’s refusal to compromise its solidarity and internationalist commitments to marginalized movements and peoples across the globe, regardless of pressure from opposing governments. Fernández de Cossío highlighted longstanding U.S. efforts to force Cuba to abandon its open support for the Puerto Rican independence movement and its internationalist interventions in Africa as evidence of this unwavering stance.

As a concrete illustration of this commitment, he recalled a 1970s prisoner exchange agreement: when Cuba negotiated the release of four U.S. citizens detained on the island for crimes aligned with U.S. government interests, the Cuban government did not demand bilateral concessions or economic benefits for itself. Instead, it secured the freedom of four Puerto Rican independence activists: Lolita Lebrón, Rafael Cancel Miranda, Irvin Flores, and Andrés Figueroa.

Fernández de Cossío also quoted veteran Cuban revolutionary Carlos Rafael Rodríguez to underscore the reliability of Cuba’s internationalist promises: “There is no obligation we have assumed with any country, group, or government that we have not been able to honor. This should be clear to the United States.”

The third key lesson from Castro’s thinking, Fernández de Cossío argued, is the imperative of denouncing the existing global economic order. He stressed that this critique is not an abstract academic exercise, but a core component of Cuba’s ongoing revolutionary struggle to advance global justice for all marginalized nations and peoples.

The deputy minister highlighted Castro’s decolonial vision and his call for a more equitable redistribution of global wealth, pointing to a longstanding paradox the revolutionary leader repeatedly identified: that humanity has never held greater scientific, technological, and productive capacity to generate widespread prosperity, yet the world has never been marked by such deep, systemic inequality.

Fernández de Cossío confirmed that Castro’s teachings continue to guide Cuban diplomacy in every multilateral forum the nation participates in, including the United Nations, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Group of 77 and China, and regional integration bodies across Latin America and the Caribbean. Wherever struggles for global justice and a more equitable world order are underway, he said, Cuba contributes in line with Castro’s legacy.

Beyond these three core pillars, Fernández de Cossío noted that Castro’s foreign policy work and teachings have educated the entire Cuban people on complex global issues, embedding international solidarity in popular culture and national identity. He cataloged a series of landmark people-centered internationalist actions rooted in Castro’s vision: mass popular assemblies in Havana’s Revolution Square where hundreds of thousands of Cubans endorsed the First and Second Declarations of Havana; widespread national solidarity with the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War; the deployment of the first Cuban medical brigade to Algeria; national blood donation drives for communities hit by disasters; the founding of the Henry Reeve International Medical Contingent, which has led critical public health responses to the Ebola epidemic in West Africa and COVID-19 in more than 40 countries and territories worldwide.

He also highlighted the impact of Cuba’s educational internationalism, noting that tens of thousands of students from low-income communities across the globe have received free training in Cuban schools and universities. In addition, he recalled Cuba’s mass voluntary internationalist mission in Africa, which saw more than 350,000 Cuban combatants deploy to support anti-colonial and anti-apartheid struggles across the continent.

In closing, Fernández de Cossío summarized Castro’s core foreign policy ambition: to defend Cuba’s unquestionable right to full and absolute sovereignty, and alongside the Cuban people, to contribute to advancing justice and ending systemic injustice in every corner of the globe.

HAVANA – Top Cuban leadership and youth delegates from communist and progressive movements across the globe gathered this week for the youth forum “I Believe in You”, a core event held as part of the inaugural International Colloquium focused on Fidel Castro: Legacy and Future, marking the centenary of the iconic revolutionary leader’s birth.

Cuba’s highest-ranking official, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez – who serves as both First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic – headlined the forum, joined by Roberto Morales Ojeda, Political Bureau member and Organization Secretary of the party. Organized by the Union of Young Communists of Cuba (UJC), the gathering created an open space for transnational dialogue and collective reflection, where young attendees reaffirmed their shared commitment to leading global efforts to address pressing 21st-century challenges.

Opening the discussions, Meyvis Estévez Echeverría, general secretary of the UJC National Committee, delivered a sharp condemnation of the long-running U.S. blockade of Cuba, which has been intensified to unprecedented levels in recent years. She framed the embargo as a genocidal policy that inflicts direct harm on ordinary Cuban families, outlining devastating public health consequences: 12,000 Cuban children are currently waiting for life-impacting surgical procedures due to critical medical supply shortages, 67,000 infants have been unable to access updated immunization schedules, and 34,000 pregnant people lack access to sufficient prenatal ultrasound services.

Estévez Echeverría emphasized that young Cubans carry forward the revolutionary audacity embodied by Fidel Castro, the former Commander-in-Chief, and issued a firm rebuke to the U.S. government: “We tell them loud and clear that there is absolutely no possibility that we will surrender the homeland that Fidel bequeathed to us.” She also extended gratitude to the global community for acts of international solidarity, particularly noting the support from youth movements that have shipped essential medicine and humanitarian aid to the island. Young Cubans, she added, remain focused on tireless collective work, building equitable prosperity and protecting the hard-won social gains of Cuban socialism.
### Global Youth Leaders Condemn Imperialist Aggression Across Regions
Gonzalo López, president of the World Federation of Democratic Youth (WFDY), told the forum that global imperialism, alongside its allies in the European Union and NATO, increasingly relies on blockades, unilateral sanctions, militarism, and open war to enforce global dominance and crush popular movements fighting for freedom, national sovereignty, human rights, peace, collaborative development and social progress.

López stressed that these coercive policies leave tangible, harmful impacts, pushing large segments of the global population – especially young people – into poverty, while creating widespread barriers to accessing basic needs including clean drinking water, sanitation, food, energy, education, healthcare, housing, cultural access and athletic opportunity. “To crush the struggle of the people, imperialism resorts to everything, including its most aggressive expression: fascism,” he said.

He highlighted ongoing crises driven by imperialist intervention across the globe, starting with the Middle East, where he denounced the occupation, colonization, and ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people at the hands of Israel, a key U.S. ally. “We cannot accept the images of children dying of hunger, nor of young people and women being killed in lines to get bread,” López stated. He also condemned the more than 100 unilateral sanctions imposed on Venezuela, as well as repeated U.S. interference and military aggression, including what he called the “brutal kidnapping” of the Venezuelan president. Turning back to Cuba, López rejected the decades-long criminal blockade of the island and the unfair designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism – a label that contradicts Cuba’s actual global legacy of advancing public health, universal education, and solidarity with marginalized nations around the world.

“This heroic people, this heroic youth of Cuba, can always count on the solidarity of the peoples of the world in their struggle to defend their sovereignty and on the path to building a new society,” he affirmed, adding that “Cuba can always count on the solidarity and active work of the World Federation of Democratic Youth to ensure the continued sustainability of the Cuban Revolution.” López also recalled the World Festivals of Youth and Students hosted in Havana in 1978 and 1997, both driven forward by Fidel Castro’s vision, noting that for the revolutionary leader, “believing in youth was more than a conviction, it was an attitude, a way of thinking.”

For his part, José Alejandro Alonso Cáceres, a representative of the Latin American and Caribbean Continental Organization of Students (OCLAE), recalled that Fidel Castro was the first recipient of OCLAE’s Order of Solidarity, honoring his lifelong struggle against imperialism and advocacy for peace, national sovereignty, and self-determination for Global South nations. “Fidel is an example of dignity and resistance; he bequeathed to us an unwavering faith in victory,” Alonso Cáceres said, reaffirming the Latin American student movement’s commitment to “the rebel Island and to Fidel” and its pledge to uphold the banners of solidarity, internationalism, and socialism. “Because if the present is one of struggle, the future is ours,” he concluded.
### Chilean Student Leader Links Local Struggles to Fidel’s Revolutionary Legacy
Marking the centenary of Fidel Castro Ruz’s birth, Ivania Garrido, president of the Federation of Students of the University of Chile and a representative of Chilean communist youth, used her address to critique the dominant neoliberal ideology that frames systemic economic precarity as an individual failure. Garrido outlined the acute challenges facing Chile under its new far-right administration, which took office in March 2025: the government has cut public education funding, undermined long-fought collective bargaining rights for educators, and pushed to impose strict security and control regimes within schools.

Garrido reported that Chilean students have already mobilized in response, returning to the streets in recent months under the clear slogan: “public education must be defended.” She said Fidel’s legacy holds critical lessons for Chilean young people today: “He taught us that a student movement closed in on itself has a low ceiling, and that its true strength emerges when it stops speaking only on behalf of students and joins forces with workers and the people.”

Garrido argued that the task of her generation goes beyond defending past gains: it requires challenging the root of systemic inequality, the market-led model that has turned fundamental human rights into profit-generating commodities. “The student who isolates himself becomes exhausted; the one who builds the people, transforms,” she said. She warned that the greatest risk facing young people globally today is the loss of historical memory, as powerful forces push societies toward “a present without memory and without a future.” Echoing Fidel Castro’s own definition that “revolution is a sense of historical moment,” Garrido called on young people to reclaim a long-term vision in an era that erases both collective past and collective future. “Fidel believed in us, the youth of this America. We respond that we also believe. We believe in his project and we know that believing is not about savoring, but about continuing. Let this centennial not be a farewell, but a rebellion,” she said.
### Díaz-Canel Outlines Three Core Mandates for Young Global Revolutionaries
Addressing the assembled Cuban youth and international progressive delegates, President Díaz-Canel emphasized that Fidel Castro’s enduring revolutionary legacy can only survive if it is carried forward by the generation that will build the future. “Young people must defend Fidel’s humanist and revolutionary legacy, because they are the ones called to build the future, to create a better world,” Díaz-Canel declared.

The president opened his speech by praising the political maturity of young people across the globe, who he said have grown enormously in their political consciousness through their direct confrontation with the failures of capitalist societies. He highlighted Cuban young people as a particularly powerful example, who have adapted and persisted amid the deep hardship created by the intensification of the U.S. blockade and what he called the “economic genocide” imposed by Cuba’s adversaries.

Díaz-Canel walked attendees through the historical context of Cuba’s revolutionary movement, recalling 1953 – the centenary of Cuban independence hero José Martí’s birth – when Cuba was ruled by a brutal tyrannical regime aligned with U.S. corporate monopolies. Fidel Castro, a dedicated student of Martí’s work, brought this injustice to global attention, Díaz-Canel said, recalling Fidel’s landmark, record-setting speech to the United Nations that laid bare the scale of Cuban oppression under U.S.-backed rule. It was that generation of the Martí Centennial, Díaz-Canel explained, that embraced the socialist ideal and launched the armed struggle that would ultimately lead to the 1959 triumph of the Cuban Revolution, walking through the iconic foundational events that shaped modern Cuba: the annual torchlight march that remains a Cuban youth tradition today, the July 26 attacks on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks, Fidel’s imprisonment and exile in Mexico, the Granma yacht landing, the years of guerrilla struggle in the Sierra Maestra, and finally the victory that established the revolutionary government.

Against this history, Díaz-Canel framed today’s young people as the “generation of the centennial of Commander-in-Chief Fidel” – and the generation called to carry forward his legacy. He outlined the current global context facing this generation: a sweeping imperialist offensive targeting the Global South, driven by a period of systemic crisis in global capitalism that has fueled the rise of extreme ultra-conservative ideology. This crisis, he explained, is the root cause of the growing influence of fascism and fascist politics across the world today.

Díaz-Canel warned that the global left now faces three interconnected fronts of conflict: an ideological war to impose capitalist and imperialist logic on Global South nations; a cultural war that seeks to erase collective historical memory and impose cultural colonization to control narratives; and a media war defined by aggressive mass misinformation campaigns that violate basic human values and enable “reputation assassination” and the “invisibilizing of the perpetrator” to build false pretexts for war.

Closing his address, the president laid out three core mandates for young people, drawn directly from Fidel Castro’s revolutionary thought: prioritize humanism over the profit-driven logic of algorithmic systems; defend cultural identity against the threat of cultural colonization; and center solidarity over individual selfishness, as Fidel always demanded. “And thus we will have a better world. We believe in you to build that better world,” Díaz-Canel concluded.

On Monday, ahead of the official opening of the first ever International Colloquium titled \”Fidel: Legacy and Future\” at Havana’s Convention Palace, Cuba’s top leader Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez — who serves simultaneously as First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic of Cuba — convened a full day of productive meetings with high-profile delegates from across the globe who gathered in the Cuban capital to honor the legacy of iconic Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro.