“First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for the support and solidarity with our Revolution,” said Valdés, who has a busy work agenda in Brazil prior to his participation in the inauguration of President-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Sunday.

He congratulated the Brazilian people over Lula’s electoral victory on October 30, which constitutes “an opportunity for this country, Latin America and the world,” he said.

With political courage, the vice president described the combination of factors that affected Cuba during 2022, but always with the hope that “we will get ahead.”

He referred to the intensified United States blockade against Cuba (the main obstacle), weather phenomena, technological accidents, the fourth-generation war on social networks and the Covid-19 pandemic.

Regarding the brutal blockade for more than six decades against his country, Valdés charged that Washington “wants to leave Cuba without oxygen, without resources, and the only thing missing is a naval blockade,” although the blockade was nearly fulfilled when ships arriving at Cuban ports are sanctioned.

He praised the vision of the historic leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro, for the development of vaccines, especially against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, so we can say that “we are a country of men of science.”

The renowned Brazilian writer and liberation theologian Frei Betto said that the Cuban vice president arrived in “Lula’s Brazil” and called to “strengthen the ties of solidarity with Cuba that is going through difficulties.”

Despite all the problems, he noted, Cuba is not “on the Hunger Map” as Brazil returned to that condition, and described a series of events that threaten progress such as the blockade and right-wing propaganda that sells the illusion of the American dream.

“I hope that the government of hope (Lula’s) will be much more supportive of Cuba. We must attend to Cuba, to its Revolution,” the Dominican friar stressed.

Also during the meeting, Coordinator Alexis Isaac, on behalf of the Jose Marti National Association of Cubans Resident in Brazil, said that “we are an emigration fully identified with the events in our country, where love and political commitment make us stronger.”

He stressed that “wherever there is a dignified Cuban, there will always be an impregnable bastion in defense of the Revolution.”

The Cuban vice president was accompanied by Frei Betto, Cuban Deputy Foreign Minister Josefina Vidal, and Chargé d’Affaires Adolfo Curbelo.

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