Cuba’s President Speaks To Honor 32 Cuban Combatants Killed in Venezuela During Jan. 3 U.S. Imperialist Assault

On January 16, 2026, hundreds of thousands of Cubans marched and rallied in Havana to pay homage to their countrymen killed during the U.S. assault on Venezuela two weeks earlier.

Thirty-two Cuban soldiers died while putting up fierce resistance to U.S. forces that stormed the presidential residence in Caracas on January 3 and ultimately kidnapped Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro and his wife Cilia Flores.

Cuba’s president Miguel Díaz-Canel delivered the speech published below at the José Martí Anti-Imperialist Tribunal in Havana, which faces the U.S. embassy. It was both a tribute to the 32 Cuban combatants and a response to Washington’s escalating threats against his nation.

The U.S. government has waged an economic war against Cuba for more than six decades. U.S. president Donald Trump imposed new sanctions on the island during his first term, which have stretched the Cuban economy to its limits. The recent U.S. blockade and plunder of Venezuela’s oil have added to the pressure.

In the wake of the assault on Venezuela, Trump has raised the specter of a naval blockade of Cuba to completely cut off the supply of oil to the island.

In the lead-up to the U.S. surgical attack on Venezuela, Washington repeatedly harped on the theme that the mutual aid agreements between Cuba and Venezuela were dangerous and nefarious.

Speaking of this relationship, Díaz-Canel said, “Only those who are unaware of the value of friendship, solidarity, and cooperation forged between peoples can mistake the relationship between Cubans and Venezuelans as a mere business transaction or a vulgar exchange of products and services.” He noted that the Cubans were defending not just Maduro and Flores, but the sovereignty of Venezuela and the integrity of the region.

The U.S. attack, in complete disregard for international law, “opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism, regardless of all that this may mean in terms of more war, destruction, and death,” Díaz-Canel stated. But, he added, Cuba will not give up.

“The Cuban people are not anti-imperialist by default. Imperialism made us anti-imperialist,” the Cuban president said. “But not only Cuba; the world will become increasingly anti-imperialist as a result of this assault on all international norms, this affront to intelligence and human dignity, this act of criminal arrogance by which a sovereign state is attacked by an empire that despises the rest of the world,” Díaz-Canel explained.

“No, imperialist gentlemen,” Díaz-Canel said to applause from the crowd. “We are not afraid of you at all! And we don’t like being threatened!”

Díaz-Canel’s full speech is published here for the information of our readers. The English-language version of the speech that follows is based on the translation by Cuba’s foreign ministry of the Spanish-language original. Minor editing of the translation was done by World-Outlook, which also added the headline, subheadings, photos, and endnotes.

— World-Outlook editors

*

Honor & Glory to Our Fallen Heroes!

Honor and glory to our fallen heroes! (Exclamations of: “Honor and Glory!”)

Family members.

Comrades in arms and friends of our fighters.

Fellow countrymen:

On January 3, 2026, in the darkest hour of the early morning, while its noble people slept, Venezuela was treacherously attacked on the orders of US president Donald Trump.

Once again, now in his homeland, Bolívar’s visionary statement that “the United States seems destined by providence to plague America with miseries in the name of freedom” was confirmed, as was Ernesto Che Guevara’s warning that “imperialism cannot be trusted, not even a little bit, not at all.”^[1]

Bombings and kidnapping were the United States’ response to the statements of the Venezuelan President, who hours earlier had shown himself willing to talk about any issue.^[2]

It was a difficult awakening for Cuba, as the first news of the treacherous attack against several states of our sister country where hundreds of Cuban collaborators are serving on missions was received.

Very bitter hours were spent 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 fighters as part of our family and know their Spartan readiness  to defend the lives under their protection, knew, before it was confirmed, that they would behave like Titans even in their last battle. (Applause)

“Only over my dead body will they be able to take or assassinate the president,” First Colonel Humberto Alfonso Roca, head of the small group of Cubans who that morning protected the presidential couple at the cost of their own lives, had declared more than once. (Applause)

They, along with the combatants of the Revolutionary Armed Forces who also fell under the attackers’ bombardment, embody in their admirable service records all the qualities that distinguish heroes, Cuban heroes! (Applause) 

Thus, they transcended national borders to become paradigms of the history of struggles for a united America, the still unrealized dream of Bolívar and Martí.^[3]

The sacred remains of our 32 compatriots arrived back home yesterday, like eternal soldiers of the integration that we owe ourselves. They are the only possible measure of the courage and character of Cubans, loyal to a brotherhood forged since the time of Bolívar, extolled by Martí, and already legendary for the close relationship between Fidel and Chávez, leaders of regional integration, who in just a few years brought literacy, restored sight, and brought medical and educational services to millions of Venezuelans and other inhabitants of our Latin America and the Caribbean.^[4] (Applause)

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 the cowards hurled themselves against Venezuela.

U.S. rulers open the door to barbarism, plunder, war, destruction

Openly disregarding the bounds of International Law, which until that day guaranteed a minimum of civilized coexistence between nations, the current U.S. administration opened the door to an era of barbarism, plunder, and neo-fascism, regardless of all that this may mean in terms of more war, destruction, and death.

The news of the attack hit us hard. For more than 25 years, Cuba and Venezuela have shared ideals and endeavors in favor of a better world, committed to achieving full justice through socialism, but each country with its own methods and different realities.

Only those who are unaware of the value of friendship, solidarity, and cooperation forged between peoples can mistake the relationship between Cubans and Venezuelans as a mere business transaction or a vulgar exchange of products and services.

Above all, we Cubans and Venezuelans are brothers! (Applause)

Giving our own blood and even our lives for a brother nation may surprise others, but not Cubans.

U.S. officials have acknowledged with astonishment, but also with undisguised admiration, the bravery of this handful of men who, with a marked disadvantage in forces and firepower, mounted fierce resistance against the kidnappers, even injuring several of their personnel and, as far as we know today, partially disabling one of their means of transport.

However much they insist on glorifying their soldiers camouflaged with helmets and bulletproof vests, night vision goggles, protected by airplanes, helicopters and swarms of drones overhead, amid intentional blackouts, the Delta terrorists’ assault was not the walk in the park they have sold to the world.

One day we will know the whole truth, but even Trump has not been able to deny that several attackers were injured.

Our brave fighters, armed with conventional weapons and with no vests other than their morale and their loyalty to the mission they were fulfilling, fought to the death and dealt blows to their adversaries! (Applause)

None of them were supermen; they were honorable soldiers, 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 vigorous 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: “Here no one surrenders!!”^[5] (Applause)

The current emperor of the White House and his infamous secretary of state have not stopped threatening us. “I don’t think much more pressure can be exerted,” Trump said, in a tacit acknowledgment of the extreme levels to which the blockade imposed on Cuba for more than six decades has escalated.

Cuba has never promoted hatred toward another country

“Entering and destroying the place” is what, according to their imperialistic vision, is left for them to subdue us. This grotesque phrase, which has sparked profound indignation among the Cuban people, can only be interpreted as an incitement to a ruthless massacre of a country that has never promoted hatred toward another.^[6] 

Cuban patriotism was expressed very early on by Martí in Abdala: “Love, mother, for the homeland/ Is not the ridiculous love for the land,/ Nor for the grass that our feet tread;/ It is the invincible hatred for those who oppress it,/ It is the eternal rancor toward those who attack it.” (Applause)

The Cuban people are not anti-imperialist by default. Imperialism made us anti-imperialist. But not only Cuba; the world will become increasingly anti-imperialist as a result of this assault on all international norms, this affront to intelligence and human dignity, this act of criminal arrogance by which a sovereign state is attacked by an empire that despises the rest of the world.

All the victories of the Cuban people are linked to the strength of their unity. Every time the patriotic forces were divided, we lost. Every time they united, we triumphed. The enemies of the nation know this well, and that is why they are trying to break that unity.

Their current threats remind us of those made by almost every US administration controlled by the so-called Hawks, proponents of war. Do today’s Hawks know that the revolutionary defense strategy known as the People’s War was born in response to the worst threats from other Hawks? Do they know how much their warmongering predecessors invested in the “post-Castro era,” after failing in all attempts to destroy an indestructible leadership?

In recent days, young people have been sharing on social media the anecdote about the barracuda, experienced and recounted by Fidel Castro. He tells how, swimming underwater, he saw a barracuda coming toward him and his first reaction was to retreat; but he quickly reconsidered and dove toward the aggressive fish, which disappeared from sight. This is how one must act against the empire, which is barracuda, piranha, shark, and vermin. (Applause) But I insist and reiterate one fact: it was young Cubans who made this video go viral on social media.

‘We are not afraid of you! And we don’t like being threatened!’

Here we are, not one, but millions continuing the work of Fidel, Raúl, and their heroic generation. They would have to kidnap millions or wipe us off the map, and even then, the ghost of this small archipelago, which they had to pulverize because they couldn’t subdue it, would haunt them forever.^[7] (Applause)

No, imperialist gentlemen, we are not afraid of you at all! And we don’t like being threatened, as Fidel said! You will not intimidate us! (Applause)

Like the rushes knotted in the center of the shield, unity is the most powerful weapon of our Revolution.

Dear compatriots:

Several comrades who were on the front lines are now back home; their bodies riddled with shrapnel like medals of 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 gun, despite being wounded and bleeding profusely from his leg. (Applause) 

Courage is the word everyone uses to describe the confrontation with the aggressors. And they mention First Colonel Lázaro Evangelio Rodríguez Rodríguez, who led the attempt to rescue the first fallen, until one of the enemy drones hit him: “I’ve been wounded. Long live Cuba!” were his last words. (Applause)

When it seems that the world is burying even its last utopia, that money and technology are above all human dreams, that humanity is weary, just at that moment, 32 brave Cubans offer their lives and grow larger than life, in a fierce battle until the last bullet! Until their last breath! (Exclamations of: “Glory!”) There are no enemies 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/ Were the dreams of my homeland.”

All that we know of their personal stories, of the love and bravery that distinguished their actions, of the commitment, dedication, and selflessness with which they went into battle, makes the pain all the more poignant; a pain that does not diminish, but rather further exalts the patriotism and generosity of Cubans. (Applause and shouts of: “Long live!”) Today, Martí’s unsurpassable definition, “Homeland is humanity,” has 32 new faces, 32 new stories.

They not only defended the sovereignty of Venezuela, President Nicolás Maduro, and his wife Cilia Flores; they defended human dignity, peace, and the honor of Cuba and 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 no people are insignificant when their dignity is so unwavering! (Applause) 

Thank you for your courage and example, comrades! (Applause.)

Committed to peace, but ready to fight

Today we embrace their loved ones: mothers, fathers, wives, children, grandchildren, siblings, grandparents, their comrades in arms, and their friends. “Pain is not shared,” the Commander-in-Chief [Fidel Castro] said at the memorial service for the martyrs of Barbados. “Pain multiplies. (…) And when a spirited and virile people weep, injustice trembles!” (Applause and shouts of: “Injustice trembles!”) Silvio sang then: “Let injustice tremble when Fidel’s valiant people weep.” 

Cuba does not threaten or challenge! Cuba is a land of peace! It was here in Havana, and at the initiative of Cuba, that twelve years ago, during the Second CELAC Summit, Latin America and the Caribbean was proclaimed a Zone of Peace, a conquest brutally lacerated by the fascist attack in Venezuela.^[8]

This commitment to peace in no way diminishes our readiness to fight in defense of sovereignty and territorial integrity. Should we be attacked, we would fight with the same ferocity bequeathed to us by generations of brave Cuban combatants, from the wars for independence in the 19th century, through the Sierra Maestra, the underground resistance, and Africa in the 20th century, to Caracas in this 21st century. There is no possibility of surrender or capitulation, nor of any kind of agreement based on coercion or intimidation.^[9]

Cuba does not have to make any political concessions, nor will that ever be on the table for negotiations aimed at reaching an understanding between Cuba and the United States. It is important that they understand this: we will always be open to dialogue and improving relations between our two countries, but on equal terms and based on mutual respect. This has been the case for more than six decades. History will not be any different now!

To the empire that threatens us we say: Cuba is 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.

Fellow countrymen:

Let us march together! And before the memory of their heroic example, let us swear:

Homeland or Death! 

We shall win! (Exclamations of: “We shall win!”)

Homeland or Death!

We shall win! (Exclamations of: “We shall win!”)

Homeland or Death!

We shall win! (Exclamations of: “We shall win!”)

Ever onward to victory! (Exclamations of: “Always!”)

(Exclamations of: “Ever onward to victory!” and “Long live the Revolution!”)

NOTES

[1] Simon Bolívar was a Venezuelan military officer who led the fight for independence in the early 1820s in the region encompassing Bolivia, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, and Venezuela today.

Ernesto “Che” Guevara, an Argentine by birth, was a commander of the guerrilla forces during the Cuban revolution and a leader of Cuba’s new revolutionary government, spearheading the agrarian land reform and literacy campaigns alongside other roles. Inspired by revolutionary possibilities in Africa and Latin America, Guevara left Cuba in 1965 for internationalist missions. He was captured and executed in Bolivia by CIA-assisted forces in 1967.

[2] Venezuela’s president Nicolás Maduro said in a New Year’s interview that his government was willing to receive U.S. investment in its oil sector, coordinate with Washington in the fight against drug trafficking, and hold serious talks with the U.S. government. On January 2, Maduro said in an interview with a Spanish journalist, “We must start to speak seriously [about oil investment], with the facts in hand.”

[3] José Martí, born in Havana in 1853, was a poet and essayist who died in battle in 1895 fighting for Cuba’s independence from Spain. His patriotism and martyrdom made his name a symbol for liberty throughout Latin America. He is considered Cuba’s national hero.

[4] “Integration” refers to the historic goal of uniting the peoples of Latin America for the mutual protection of their sovereignty and economic resources. The roots of the concept can be found in Simon Bolivar’s advocacy of a united front against Spain during the wars of independence (1808-1825) in the Americas.

[5] Jose Antonio Maceo was a leader of the fight for Cuba’s independence from Spain and the end of slavery on the island. In 1878, the Pact of Zanjon, which granted amnesty for insurgents, but failed to grant full independence for Cuba or the immediate abolition of slavery, was signed by a group of Cuban rebels; Maceo, then in command of the independence forces in eastern Cuba, refused to sign during an historic meeting in the town of Baragua.

Juan Almeida Bosque (1927-2009) was one of the original commanders of the rebel forces during the revolutionary war in Cuba; he went on to serve in leadership roles in Cuba’s revolutionary government until his death.

[6] Reference to Trump’s statement, “I don’t think you can have more pressure other than going in and blasting the hell out of the place,” during an interview with Hugh Hewitt on January 8, 2026.

[7] Fidel Castro was the central leader of the Cuban revolution. He served as Cuba’s president from 1976 until his retirement in 2008. He died in 2016.

Raúl Castro, a lifelong leader of the Cuban Revolution, was the former Commander of Cuba’s Revolutionary Armed Forces and served as the country’s president prior to Díaz-Canel. He holds the title General of the Army, Cuba’s highest military post.

Both Fidel and Raul were part of the “heroic generation” that fought against the dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and led the revolution that toppled that regime in 1959.

[8] In 2014, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC) declared the Caribbean and wider Latin American region a Zone of Peace. The agreement represented a commitment among these states to resolve differences peacefully, respect sovereignty, and reject foreign military intervention and bases.

[9] The Sierra Maestra is the mountain range where the guerrilla forces led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara began the final military campaign that led to the fall of the Batista regime; the “underground” refers to the network in the urban centers that worked in conjunction with the guerrilla forces.

In this context, Africa is a reference to the role of Cuban fighters in the war in Angola from 1975 to 2002, which is credited with helping bring about the fall of apartheid in South Africa.

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