Raul Castro's welcome speech to Pope includes demand that US return Guantanamo Bay

Brett T. | 7:57 PM on September 19, 2015

As Twitchy reported, Pope Francis landed in Cuba today and praised the normalization of relations between the United States and Cuba, calling it an example for the entire world to follow. Cuban President Raul Castro also had his own welcome message for the Pope, which was helpfully translated in full by WPLG in Miami.

Castro’s speech also included plenty on the normalization of relations with the United States, which in Castro’s view includes the demand that the U.S. return Guantanamo Bay to Cuba.

We have expressed our appreciation for your support to the United States-Cuba dialogue. The reestablishment of relations has been a first step in the process toward normalization of the relationship between the two countries, which will demand resolving problems and correcting injustices. The blockade, which causes human damages and privations to the Cuban family, is cruel, immoral and illegal, and it should cease. The territory usurped by the Guantanamo Naval Base should be returned to Cuba and other issues resolved, too. Such fair claims are shared by the peoples and the overwhelming majority of governments in the world.

Castro also appreciated the Pope’s lessons on economic equality and predatory nations.

An increasing global impact has resulted from your analysis on the causes of these problems and the call to safeguard the planet and the survival of our species; to cease the predatory action of the wealthy nations and the big transnationals; and, to remove the dangers threatening us all due to the depletion of resources and the loss of biodiversity.

As his Holiness has rightly indicated: “Humanity should become aware of the necessity to change life styles as well as production and consumption patterns.”