Raul Castro: Ready to Speak with Washington
He specified that discussion meant talking about issues in the United States as well as in Cuba. After affirming that there have been no cases of torture in Cuba since rebel forces led by his older brother Fidel Castro drove Fulgencio Batista from power in 1959, he corrected himself to note that there had been torture in the US Guantanamo Naval base—still considered an integral part of Cuba by the Castro government—and that he was willing to discuss that with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. He said the international demand for the closing of the prison in Guantanamo should be heeded but that Washington should not stop there. Guantanamo, Raul Castro stressed, should be returned "unconditionally" to Cuba.
Castro also said that those who are reportedly waiting for the "biological solution" to the Cuba issue - the death of its aging leadership—were mistaken to think it would provoke changes in the country's socialist system. Instead, he claimed, the younger generations were as committed as the revolution's historic leaders to maintaining their socio-political system. However, Castro noted at various points in his address that economic changes would have to be made to cope with the current crisis and those changes would include the elimination of the dual currency system imposed in the 1990s when the collapse of Cuba's socialist allies brought the island's economy to a virtual standstill.