HAVANA (AP) — Cubans across the island are being urged to pay tribute to Fidel Castro by signing oath upholding the late leader’s revolutionary ideals.
The oath contains Castro’s words outlining his vision of revolution, first pronounced in a May Day speech in 2000 at the height of the custody battle over a 6-year-old castaway Cuban boy named Elian Gonzalez. He was returned from Florida to Cuba a month later.
Here is the Cuban government’s official English translation of the text from that speech:
“Revolution means to have a sense of history; it is changing everything that must be changed; it is full equality and freedom; it is being treated and treating others like human beings; it is achieving emancipation by ourselves and through our own efforts; it is challenging powerful dominant forces from within and without the social and national milieu; it is defending the values in which we believe at the cost of any sacrifice; it is modesty, selflessness, altruism, solidarity and heroism; it is fighting with courage, intelligence and realism; it is never lying or violating ethical principles; it is a profound conviction that there is no power in the world that can crush the power of truth and ideas. Revolution means unity; it is independence, it is fighting for our dreams of justice for Cuba and for the world, which is the foundation of our patriotism, our socialism and our internationalism.”
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