Castro on OAS

Here's Fidel Castro Ruz's criticism of the statement from the Organisation of American States on Cuba's Human Rights record.

In this hemisphere, the poor never had freedom of expression because they never received quality education and knowledge was reserved solely for the privileged and bourgeois elite. Don’t blame Venezuela now, which has done so much for education since the Bolivarian revolution, or the Republic of Haiti, crushed by poverty, diseases and natural catastrophes, as if any of these were ideal conditions for the freedom of expression proclaimed by the OAS. Do what Cuba is doing: first help to massively train quality healthcare personnel and send revolutionary doctors to the most remote corners of the country so that they may contribute to the saving of lives, and transmit to them educational programs and experiences; insist that the financial institutions of the developed and rich world send resources to build schools, train teachers, produce medicines, develop their agriculture and industries, and then talk about the rights of Man.

The right of freedom of expression means nothing when most of the people with that right have no means of asserting that right. That's not to say that Freedom of Expression will automatically fall, fully formed, out of a certain stage of development but it is an important part of all stages of development.