An Information Service of the Cuba Transition Project Institute for Cuban and Cuban-American Studies University of Miami

Text of amendments excerpted from the official English translation provided by the Cuban national news agency AIN, June 10, 2002. Original Spanish text published by the Cuban communist party's daily, Granma, June 11, 2002. Fidel Castro quoted in "De punta a cabo la Patria entera se levanta," Granma, June 11, 2002 and "Convoca Fidel marcha masiva en todo el pais," AIN, June 10, 2002.

On Monday evening, June 10, 2002 in an extraordinary session presided over by

Fidel Castro and defense minister Raúl Castro, the leadership of all government

mass organizations approved a resolution that petitions the National Assembly

(parliament) to ratify Cuba's 1976 socialist constitution as "untouchable."

Castro labeled President George W. Bush's speech as "unfortunate and absurd."

"They are dull-witted (torpe) and employ language that not even Hitler used," said

Castro in reference to the Bush administration.

"Such an insulting, vulgar and menacing speech as the one [given by President Bush]

at West Point, with its demands and Nazi style, deserved a bruising (contundente)

response."

The proposed amendments to be submitted to the National Assembly are as follows:

"FIRST: To ratify our people's identification with each and every one of the

principles on which the Constitution of the Republic is founded, particularly with its

economic, social and political foundations consecrated in Chapter I,

underlining that:

"Cuba is an independent and sovereign socialist State of workers organized by all its

people for the well-being of all, as a unitary and democratic Republic, for the

enjoyment of political freedom, social justice, individual and collective well-being,

and human solidarity."

"SECOND: To expressly set forth the will of the people that the economic, political

and social system consecrated in the Constitution of the Republic is untouchable.

"THIRD: To ratify that economic, political and diplomatic relations with any other

state will never be negotiated under aggression, threat or pressure from a foreign power.

"FOURTH: That the above-mentioned requests, once approved by the relevant legal

procedure, should be expressly included in the Constitution of the Republic, as

part of its set of rules and with the clarification that they result in the annulment

of any previous provision that may run in contradiction or opposition to it."