Miguel Diaz-Canel

Havana, July 14 (RHC)-- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel appealed Wednesday for peace, harmony, and respect among nationals, given last Sunday's riots, encouraged from abroad.

In a televised appearance, the President urged to multiply the feelings of solidarity, sensitivity, and social responsibility, make more efforts, achieve results and help each other, and overcome disagreements and seek solutions among all citizens.

He said that events had subsided island-wide and that on Wednesday, the island was pretty much back to normal.

Díaz-Canel related in detail the events of July 11,  and the social sectors involved in the situations of disorder generated in different parts of the national territory, where there were acts of vandalism and violence.

He said there were three core participants: those who want Cuba to be annexed to the United States, those who are criminals, and young people. On the latter, the President critically reflected on the insufficiencies that have led to their insatisfactions.

He commented that acts were committed against the Constitution endorsed by more than 86 percent of the citizenship. Hence the law will be enforced in its fair measure, with procedural guarantees, and taking into account, the young people involved.

"We will apologize if anyone was mistreated amid the situations experienced," he affirmed. Still, he vowed that everybody could rest assured that society's tranquility will be guaranteed.

The Head of State pointed out that his call to defend the streets was misinterpreted but remarked that revolutionaries must protect the patrimony of all and that these are constitutional precepts.

He pointed out the lessons drawn from these events, such as the need to improve the work, transforming the ways of doing things.

Likewise, he spoke of the need to address insufficiencies that have led young people to reach their current status, enabling them to be manipulated by campaigns that distort reality and respond to foreign, interventionist, and annexationist projects.

We have to learn from this, he emphasized. We have to reach out more to these neighborhoods with all the institutions, with all our structures, with the mass organizations, and among all of us, help each other attend to the social problems we have in the community.

The President called on the government to promote a deep social work based on solidarity, conciliation, and commitment to reach the most vulnerable.