Speech by Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Party and President of the Republic of Cuba, at the Anti-Imperialist Tribune serving as the preamble to the March of the Combatant People.

Family members, comrades-in-arms, and friends of our combatants, compatriots.

On January 3, 2026, in the darkest hour of dawn, while its noble people slept, Venezuela was attacked in its entirety by order of US President Donald Trump.

It was confirmed, once again, now in his land of birth, Bolívar's visionary statement that "the United States appears destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty." And Che Guevara's warning that "in imperialism, you cannot trust even a tiny bit, nothing."

Bombs and kidnapping were the United States' response to the statements of the Venezuelan president, who, hours earlier, had shown willingness to dialogue on any matter. That was a difficult dawn for Cuba. Upon receiving the first news of the treacherous attack against several states of the brother country, where hundreds of Cuban collaborators are carrying out missions.

Very bitter hours passed between indignation and helplessness after learning that President Nicolás Maduro Moros and his wife, Cilia Flores, had been kidnapped.

Those of us who have the brave personal security combatants as part of our family, and know their Spartan readiness to defend the lives under their custody, knew, before it was confirmed, that they would behave like titans even in their last battle.

"Only over my dead body will they be able to take or assassinate the President." That is what First Colonel Humberto Alfonso Roca, chief of the small group of Cubans who protected the presidential couple that dawn at the price of their own lives, had declared more than once.

They, along with the combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces who also fell under the attackers' bombardment, summarize in their admirable service records all the qualities that distinguish heroes, Cuban heroes.

Thus, they crossed national borders to become paradigms in the history of struggles for a united America, the still unfulfilled dream of Bolívar and Martí.

The sacred remains of our 32 compatriots arrived yesterday in the homeland, as eternal soldiers of the integration we owe each other.

They are the only possible measure of the valor and character of Cubans loyal to a brotherhood forged since the times of Bolívar, exalted by Martí, and which is already legendary due to the heartfelt relationship between Fidel and Chávez, leaders of the regional integration that in a few years provided literacy, restored sight, and brought medical services and education to millions of Venezuelans and other inhabitants of Our America.

The promoters of the attack and kidnapping of President Maduro and his wife, resorting to the most abominable methods of fascism, wove a thick cloud of lies and defamation against the Bolivarian leaders before launching themselves cowardly upon Venezuela, openly disregarding the limits of international law, which until that day guaranteed a minimum of civilized coexistence among nations.

The current North American administration opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism, regardless of all it may mean in more war, destruction, and death.

The news of the aggression hit us hard. For over 25 years, Cuba and Venezuela have shared ideals and worked for a better possible world, determined to conquer all justice through the paths of socialism, but each country with its own methods and different realities.

Only those who ignore the value of friendship, solidarity, and cooperation forged among peoples can confuse the relationship between Cubans and Venezuelans as mere business or a vulgar exchange of products and services. Above all, Cubans and Venezuelans are brothers.

Giving one's own blood and even life for a sister nation may seem strange to others, not to Cubans.

US officials have recognized with astonishment, but also with unconcealed admiration, the bravery of this handful of men who, with a marked disadvantage in forces and firepower, offered fierce resistance to the kidnappers, even injuring several of their personnel and, as far as we know today, partially disabling one of their means of transport.

No matter how much they insist on praising their soldiers camouflaged with helmets and bulletproof vests, night-vision goggles, overprotected by planes, helicopters, and swarms amidst intentional blackouts, the assault by the Delta terrorists was not the walkover they had sold to the world.

One day, we will know the whole truth, but not even Trump has been able to deny that several attackers were injured. Our brave combatants, with conventional weapons and no vests other than their morale and loyalty to the commitment of the mission they were fulfilling, fought to the death and struck their adversaries.

None was a Superman. They were soldiers of honor trained in the ethical school of Fidel and Raúl, in patriotism, anti-imperialism, and unity. Heirs to the ideals of Antonio Maceo, who immortalized Baraguá with his virile refusal to negotiate a peace without freedom.

And of Juan Almeida, who shouted under a hail of bullets, in the middle of a remote sugarcane field, "Nobody surrenders here!"

The current emperor of the White House and his infamous Secretary of State have not stopped threatening us. "I don't think you can put much more pressure," Trump has said, in a tacit recognition of the extreme levels to which the blockade imposed on Cuba for over six decades has escalated. "Going in and destroying the place" is what, according to his imperial conception, is left for them to subdue us.

The grotesque phrase that has awakened profound indignation in the Cuban people can only be interpreted as an incitement to massacre, without regard for a country that has never promoted hatred towards another. Cuban patriotism was expressed very early by Martí in Abdala.

"The motherly love for the homeland is not the ridiculous love for the land and the grass our feet tread. It is the invincible hatred for those who oppress it. It is the eternal rancor towards those who attack it."

Cuba is not anti-imperialist by default. Imperialism made us anti-imperialists. But not only Cuba, but the world will also become increasingly anti-imperialist following this assault on all international norms. This offense to intelligence and human dignity, this act of criminal arrogance with which a sovereign State is attacked by an empire that despises the rest of the nations.

All the victories of the Cuban people are associated with the solidity of unity. Every time patriotic forces were divided, we lost. Every time they united, we won.

The enemies of the nation know this well, and that is why they bet on breaking that unity. Their threats now remind us of the threats of almost all North American administrations controlled by the so-called war-hawk factions.

The current hawks should know that the revolutionary defense strategy, known as the War of All the People, was born in response to the worst threats from other hawks. They should know how much their warmongering predecessors invested in the so-called era after failing in all attempts to destroy an indestructible leadership.

In recent days, young Cubans have gone viral on social media with the anecdote of the barracuda that lived and was narrated by Fidel. He recounts that while swimming underwater, he saw a barracuda coming towards him, and his first reaction was to retreat. But then he thought better of it and launched himself towards the aggressive fish, which disappeared from his sight.

"That is how one must act in the face of the empire, which is barracuda, piranha, shark, and vermin."

But I insist and reiterate one fact. It is young Cubans who made that video go viral on social media. Here we are, not one, but thousands of continuators of the work of Fidel, of Raúl, and of their heroic generation.

They would have to kidnap millions or wipe us off the map, and even then, they would be forever haunted by the ghost of this small archipelago they would have had to pulverize for not being able to subdue it. No, imperialist gentlemen, we are absolutely not afraid of you at all. And we do not like, as Fidel said, to be threatened. You will not intimidate us.

Like the reeds knotted at the center of the shield, unity is the most powerful weapon of our Revolution. Dear compatriots, several comrades who were on the front line of fire are already in the homeland with their bodies full of shrapnel like medals for valor.

One of them, Lieutenant Colonel Jorge Márquez, was the one who hit a helicopter and who knows how many of its crew members. He did so by firing his anti-aircraft weapon despite being wounded and bleeding profusely from a leg.

Courage is the word everyone uses to describe the confrontation with the aggressors, and to name First Colonel Lázaro Evangelio Rodríguez Rodríguez, who led the attempt to rescue the first fallen until an enemy drone hit him. "I'm wounded, Long Live Cuba!" were his last words.

When it seems the world buries even its last utopia, that money and technology are above all human dreams, that humanity grows weary, just at that moment, 32 brave Cubans offer their lives and become giants in a fierce battle to the last bullet, to the last breath.

No enemies exist capable of intimidating such heroism. The promising youth of most of those who fell in combat brings to mind Martí's verses to the eight medical students murdered by the Spanish metropolis in 1871.

"Beloved corpses, you who one day in dreams were of my homeland." Everything we know about their personal histories, the love and bravery that distinguished their actions, the commitment, dedication, and selflessness with which they went into combat, makes the pain more piercing. A pain that does not diminish but further exalts the patriotism and generosity of Cubans.

Today, Martí's unsurpassable definition that "Homeland is Humanity" has 32 new faces, 32 new stories. They not only defended Venezuela's sovereignty, but also President Nicolás Maduro and his wife, Cilia Flores. They defended human dignity, peace, the honor of Cuba, and of Our America.

They were the sword and shield of our peoples against the advance of fascism. And they will forever be a symbol, proof that there are no small people when its dignity is so firm. Thank you for your courage and example, comrades.

Today, we embrace their loved ones, mothers, fathers, wives, children, grandchildren, brothers, grandparents, their soulmates, and their friends. "Pain is not shared," said the Commander in Chief at the funeral for the martyrs of Barbados, "pain is multiplied, and when an energetic and virile people cries, injustice trembles."

Silvio sang then, "Let injustice tremble when the combative people of Fidel cry." Cuba does not threaten or challenge. Cuba is a land of peace. It was here in Havana and on Cuban initiative that 12 years ago, during the second CELAC summit, Latin America and the Caribbean were proclaimed a Zone of Peace.

A conquest brutally lacerated by the fascist claw in Venezuela. That vocation for peace did not in any way diminish the readiness for combat in defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity.

If we were to be attacked, we would fight with identical fierceness to that bequeathed to us by several generations of brave Cuban combatants, from the war for independence in the 19th century, the Sierra Maestra and the underground in the 20th century, and Africa in the 20th century, to Caracas in this 21st century.

No surrender or capitulation is possible, nor any kind of understanding based on coercion or intimidation. Cuba does not have to make any political concession, and that will never be on the negotiating table for an understanding between Cuba and the United States. They must understand this.

We will always be willing to dialogue and to improve relations between the two countries, but on equal terms and based on mutual respect.

History now will not be different. To the empire that threatens us, we say: Cuba, we are millions. We are a people ready to fight if attacked with the same unity and fierceness as the 32 Cubans who fell on January 3rd.

Compatriots, let us march united, and before the memory of their heroic example, let us swear:

Homeland or Death! We shall overcome! Homeland or Death! We shall overcome! Homeland or Death! We shall overcome! Ever onward to victory!
Today we say like Fidel: "When an energetic and virile people cries, injustice trembles."