[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [SRRTAC-L:14755] Cuban Perspective at the UN

[Alfred Kagan]

FYI

>Date: Wed, 29 Sep 2004 21:10:10 -0700
>From: Mary Rushfield <mrushfield at surfside.net>
>X-Accept-Language: en
>To: SRRT Action Council <srrtac-l at ala.org>
>Subject: [SRRTAC-L:14755] Cuban Perspective at the UN
>X-Declude-Sender: mrushfield at surfside.net [66.81.183.235]
>Reply-To: srrtac-l at ala.org
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>
>Below,  a sobering view from Cuba.
>
>Mary Rushfield
>
>********************************************************
>
>
>STATEMENT BY H.E. MR. FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER OF
>FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE 59TH
>SESSION OF THE UNITED NATIONS GENERAL ASSEMBLY. NEW
>YORK, 24 SEPTEMBER 2004.
>
>Mr. President:
>
>Every year at the United Nations we go through the
>same ritual. We attend the general debate knowing
>beforehand that the clamor for justice and peace by
>our underdeveloped countries will be ignored once
>again. However, we persist. We know that we are right.
>We know that one day we will accomplish social justice
>and development. We also know that such assets will
>not be given away to us. We know that the peoples will
>have to seize them from those who deny us justice
>today, because they underpin their wealth and
>arrogance on the disdain for our grief. But it will
>not be always like this. We say so today with more
>conviction than ever before.
>
>Having said this and knowing – as we do – that some
>powerful ones, just a few, present here will be
>chagrined, and also knowing that they are shared by
>many, Cuba will now tell some truths:
>
>FIRST: After the aggression on Iraq, there is no
>United Nations Organization, understood as a useful
>and diverse forum, based on the respect for the rights
>of all and also with guarantees for the small States.
>
>It is living through the worst moment of its already
>forthcoming 60 years. It pales, it pants, it feigns,
>but it does not work.
>
>Who handcuffed the United Nations named by President
>Roosevelt? President Bush.
>
>SECOND: US troops will have to be withdrawn from Iraq.
>
>After the life of over 1,000 American youths was
>uselessly sacrificed to serve the spurious interests
>of a clique of cronies and buddies, and following the
>death of more than 12,000 Iraqis, it is clear that the
>only way out for the occupying power faced with a
>revolting people is to recognize the impossibility of
>subduing them and to withdraw. In spite of the
>imperial monopoly over information, the peoples always
>get to the truth. Someday, those responsible and their
>accomplices will have to deal with the consequences of
>their actions in the face of History and their own
>peoples.
>
>THIRD: For the time being, there will be no valid,
>real and useful reform to the United Nations.
>
>It would take the superpower, which inherited the
>immense prerogative of governing an order conceived
>for a bipolar world, to relinquish its privileges. And
>it will not do so.
>
>Since now, we know that the anachronistic privilege of
>the veto will remain; that the Security Council will
>not be democratized as it should or expanded to
>include Third World countries; that the General
>Assembly will continue to stand ignored and that at
>the United Nations there will be more actions driven
>by the interests imposed by the superpower and its
>allies. We, as non-aligned countries, will have to
>entrench ourselves in defending the United Nations
>Charter – because, otherwise, it will be redrafted
>with the deletion of every trace of principles such as
>the sovereign equality of States, non-intervention and
>the non-use or the threat to use force.
>
>FOURTH: The powerful collude to divide us.
>
>The over 130 underdeveloped countries must build a
>common front for the defense of the sacred interests
>of our peoples, of our right to development and peace.
>Let us revitalize the Non-Aligned Movement. Let us
>strengthen the G-77.
>
>
>FIFTH: The modest objectives of the Millennium
>Declaration will not be accomplished. We will reach
>the fifth anniversary of the Summit in a worse
>situation.
>
>·        We endeavored to halve by 2015 the 1.276
>billion human beings in abject poverty that existed in
>1990. There had to be a yearly reduction of 46 million
>poor people. However, excluding China, between 1990
>and 2000 extreme poverty rose by 28 million people.
>Impoverishment does not decline, it grows.
>
>·        We wanted to halve by 2015 the 842 million
>starving people recorded in the world. There had to be
>a yearly reduction of 28 million. However, there has
>barely been a reduction of 2.1 million hungry people
>per year. At this rate, the goal would be attained by
>2215, two hundred years after what was envisaged – and
>only if our species survives the destruction of its
>environment.
>
>
>·         We proclaimed the aspiration to achieve
>universal primary education by 2015. However, more
>than 120 million children, 1 in every 5 in that school
>age, do not attend primary school. According to
>UNICEF, at the current rate the goal will be
>accomplished after 2100.
>
>·        We endeavored to reduce by two-thirds the
>mortality rate in children under five years of age.
>The reduction is symbolic: out of 86 children who died
>per 1,000 live births in 1998, now the figure is 82.
>Every year, 11 million children continue to die of
>diseases that can be prevented or cured, whose parents
>will rightfully wonder what our meetings are for.
>
>·        We said that we would pay attention to
>Africa’s special needs. However, very little has been
>done. African nations do not need foreign advice or
>models, but financial resources and access to both
>markets and technologies. Assisting Africa would not
>be an act of charity, but an act of justice; it would
>be tantamount to settling the historical debt
>resulting from centuries of exploitation and pillage.
>
>·        We undertook to put a halt to and start
>reverting the AIDS pandemic by 2015. However, in 2003
>it claimed nearly 3 million lives. At this rate, by
>2015 some 36 million people will have died of this
>cause.
>
>SIXTH: Creditor countries and the international
>financial agencies will not seek a just and lasting
>solution to the foreign debt.
>
>They prefer to keep us in debt; that is, vulnerable.
>Therefore, even though we have paid off US$ 4.1
>trillion in debt service over the last 13 years, our
>debt increased from US$ 1.4 trillion to US$ 2.6
>trillion. It means that we have paid three times what
>we owed and now our debt is twice as much.
>
>SEVENTH: We, as underdeveloped countries, are the ones
>that finance the squandering and the opulence of
>developed countries.
>
>While in 2003 they gave us US$ 68.400 billion in ODA,
>we delivered to them US$ 436 billion as payment for
>the foreign debt. Who is helping who?
>
>EIGHTH: The fight against terrorism can only be won
>through cooperation among all nations and with respect
>for International Law, and not through massive
>bombings or pre-emptive wars against “dark corners of
>the world.”
>
>Hypocrisy and double standards must cease. Sheltering
>three Cuban-born terrorists in the United States is an
>act of complicity to terrorism. Punishing five Cuban
>youths who were fighting terrorism, and punishing
>their families, is a crime.
>
>NINTH: General and complete disarmament, including
>nuclear disarmament, is impossible today. It is the
>responsibility of a group of developed countries that
>are the ones that most sell and buy weapons.
>
>However, we must continue to strive for it. We must
>demand that the over US$ 900 billion set aside every
>year for military expenditures be used on development;
>and
>
>TENTH: The financial resources to guarantee the
>sustainable development for all the peoples on the
>planet are available, but what is lacking is the
>political will of those who rule the world.
>
>A development tax of merely 0.1% on international
>financial transactions would generate resources
>amounting to almost US$ 400 billion per annum.
>
>The cancellation of the foreign debt incurred by
>underdeveloped countries would allow these to have
>available for their development no less than US$ 436
>billion on a yearly basis – money which is currently
>used to pay off the debt.
>
>If developed countries complied with their commitment
>to set aside 0.7% of their Gross National Product as
>ODA, their contribution would increase from the
>current US$ 68.400 billion to US$ 160 billion per
>annum.
>
>Finally, Excellencies, I want to clearly express
>Cuba’s profound conviction that the 6.4 billion human
>beings on this planet – who have equal rights
>according to the United Nations Charter – urgently
>need a new order in which the world is not left in
>suspense, as is the case now, awaiting the outcome of
>the elections in a new Rome in which only half the
>voters will participate and nearly US$ 1.5 billion
>will be spent.
>
>There is no discouragement in our words, I must say so
>clearly. We are optimistic because we are
>revolutionaries. We have faith in the struggle of the
>peoples and we are certain that we will accomplish a
>new world order based on the respect for the rights of
>all; an order based on solidarity, justice and peace,
>resulting from the best of universal culture and not
>from mediocrity or gross force.
>
>About Cuba, which cannot be detoured from its course
>by blockades, threats, hurricanes, droughts or human
>or natural force, I will not say anything.
>
>Next 28 October, for the 13th time, this General
>Assembly will debate and vote on a resolution about
>the blockade imposed against the Cuban people. Once
>again, morality and principles will defeat arrogance
>and force.
>
>I would like to conclude by recalling the words spoken
>right here 25 years ago by President Fidel Castro:
>
>“The noise of weapons, of the menacing language, of
>the haughtiness on the international scene must cease.
>Enough of the illusion that the problems of the world
>can be solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the
>hungry, the sick and the ignorant, but bombs cannot
>kill hunger, disease and ignorance. Nor can bombs kill
>the righteous rebellion of the people
”
>
>Thank you very much.
>
>
>
>---
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu