[Peace-discuss] Cuba and human rights

[Morton K.Brussel]

I found this interesting, even stirring. -mkb

ZNet | Central America & Caribbean

Human Rights and Cuba

by Felipe Pérez Roque; March 19, 2005

Statement Delivered By H. E. Mr. Felipe Pérez Roque, Minister Of 
Foreign Affairs Of The Republic Of Cuba, At The High-level Segment Of 
The 61st Session Of The Commission On Human Rights

Excellencies:

  The Commission on Human Rights – despite the efforts by those who 
honestly believe in its importance and wage a battle to return it to 
the spirit of respect and cooperation of its founders – has lost 
legitimacy. It is not credible. It allows the impunity of the powerful. 
It is handcuffed. In it, there are plenty of lies, double standards and 
empty speeches by those who, while enjoying their wealth, squander and 
pollute, look the other way and pretend not to see how millions of 
human beings endure the violation of the right to life, the right to 
peace, the right to development, the right to eat, to learn, to work; 
in brief, the right to live in dignity.

  We all knew that the Commission on Human Rights was victim to the 
political manipulation of its work because the Government of the United 
States and its allies have used the Commission as if it were their 
private property – and have turned it into some sort of inquisition 
tribunal to condemn the countries of the South and, particularly, those 
who actively oppose their strategy of neocolonial domination.

  But in the course of the last year, two events took place that change 
the nature of the debate that we will hold these days.

  The first was the European Union’s refusal to co-sponsor and vote in 
favor of the draft resolution that proposed to investigate the massive, 
flagrant and systematic human rights violations still committed today 
against over 500 prisoners at the naval base that the United States 
keeps, against the will of the Cuban people, in the Harbor of 
Guantánamo. The European Union, that always objected to no-motion 
actions, was willing this time to present it in order to even prevent 
any investigations whatsoever against its ally. In terms of hypocrisy 
and double standards, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. 
What will it do this year, after the dissemination of the heinous 
pictures of tortures at the prison of Abu Ghraib?

  The second event was the release of the report presented by the 
High-Level Group on Threats, Challenges and Change, set up at the 
initiative of the UN Secretary-General. It categorically states that 
“the Commission cannot be credible if it is seen to be maintaining 
double standards in addressing human rights concerns.” Should we then 
wait for the representatives of the United States and its allies to 
come up with self-criticisms at this plenary session and undertake to 
work with us, Third World countries, to rescue the Commission on Human 
Rights from disrepute and confrontation?

  Mr. Chairman:

  The guarantee of the enjoyment of human rights today depends on 
whether you live in a developed country or not – and it also depends on 
the social class that you belong to. Therefore, there will be no real 
enjoyment of human rights for all as long as we fail to achieve social 
justice in the relations among countries and within countries 
themselves.

  For a small group of nations represented here – the United States and 
other developed allies – the right to peace has already been achieved. 
They will always be the attackers and never the ones under attack. 
Their peace rests on their military power. They have also achieved 
economic development, based on the pillage of the wealth of the other 
poor countries that were former colonies, which suffer and bleed to 
death for those to squander. However, in those developed countries, 
incredible as it may seem, the unemployed, the immigrants and the 
impoverished do not enjoy the rights that are most certainly guaranteed 
for the rich.

  Can a poor person in the United States be elected Senator? No, they 
cannot. The campaign costs, on average, some US$ 8 million. Do the 
children of the rich go to the unjust and illegal war in Iraq? No, they 
do not go. None of the 1,500 American youths killed in that war was the 
son of a millionaire or a Secretary. The poor die there defending the 
vested interests of a minority.

  If you live in an underdeveloped country the situation is worse, 
because the overwhelming majority, poor and hopeless as it is, cannot 
exercise their rights. As a country, there is no entitlement to peace. 
It can be attacked under the accusation of being terrorist, of being an 
“outpost of tyranny” or under the pretext that it is going to be 
“liberated.” It is bombed and invaded to “liberate it.”

  Nor can the over 130 countries in the Third World exercise the right 
to development. Beyond their efforts, the economic system imposed on 
the world prevents so. They have no access to markets, to new 
technologies; they are handcuffed by a burdensome debt that has already 
been paid off more than once. They just have the right to be dependent 
countries. They are led to believe that their poverty is the result of 
their mistakes. In those countries, the poor and the indigent, who 
account for the majority, do not even have the right to life. For that 
reason, every year we see the death of 11 million children under five 
years of age, a portion of which could be spared with barely a vaccine 
or oral rehydration solutions – and also the death of 600,000 poor 
women at childbirth. They have no right to learn to read and write. It 
would be dangerous for the owners. They are kept in ignorance to keep 
them docile. That is why this Commission should be ashamed of the 
nearly 1 billion illiterate people in the world. That is why in Latin 
America 20 million children endure ruthless exploitation as they work 
on the streets instead of going to school.

  The Cuban people strongly believe in freedom, democracy and human 
rights. It took them a lot to achieve them and are aware of its price. 
It is a people in power. That is the difference.

  There cannot be democracy without social justice. There is no possible 
freedom if not based on the enjoyment of education and culture. 
Ignorance is the cumbersome shackle squeezing the poor. Being 
cultivated is the only way to be free! – that is the sacred tenet that 
we Cubans learned from the Apostle of our independence.

  There is no real enjoyment of human rights if there is no equality and 
equity. The poor and the rich will never have the same rights in real 
life, proclaimed and recognized as these may be on paper.

  That is what we Cubans learned long ago and for that reason we built a 
different country. And we are just beginning. We have done so despite 
the aggressions, the blockade, the terrorist attacks, the lies and the 
plots to assassinate Fidel. We know that the Empire is chagrined by 
this. We are a dangerous example: we are a symbol that only in a just 
and friendly society; that is, socialist, can there be enjoyment of all 
rights for all citizens.

  Therefore, the Government of the United States attempts to condemn us 
here at the Commission on Human Rights. It is afraid of our example. It 
is strong at the military level but weak on the moral front. And 
morality, not weapons, is the shield of the peoples.

  Perhaps this year President Bush will find some Latin American country 
– of the few docile ones that are left – to present the notorious 
resolution against Cuba. Or perhaps it will return to an Eastern 
European government like the Czech, which enjoys as nobody else its 
condition of satellite of Washington and Trojan Horse within the 
European Union. Or perhaps it will be presented by the very Government 
of the United States, which is now blackmailing, threatening and 
counting endorsements to know if Cuba’s condemnation can be achieved.

  Everybody in this hall knows that there is no reason to present a 
resolution against Cuba at this Commission. In Cuba, there is not a 
single – and there has not been ever in 46 years of Revolution – an 
extrajudicial execution or a missing person, not even one! Let anyone 
come up with the name of a Cuban mother who is still looking for the 
remains of her murdered son or daughter! Or a grandmother searching for 
her grandchild handed over to another family following the parents’ 
murder! Let anyone here come up with the name of a reporter killed in 
Cuba – and 20 of them were murdered in Latin America only in 2004! Let 
anyone come up with the name of a prisoner vexed by his keepers, a 
prisoner ordered down on his knees, prey to terror, in front of a dog 
trained to kill!

  Excellencies:

  President Bush has a plan for Cuba, but we Cubans have a plan of a 
different sort. We Cubans have a clear idea about our course. And 
nobody will move us away from it. We will build an even more just, more 
democratic, more free and more cultivated society. In brief, more 
socialist.

  And we will do so although President Bush threatens us with 
aggressions, to return to colonized Cuba, to oust Cubans from their 
homes, their land and their schools to turn them over to the former 
Batista-style owners who would come back from the United States. We 
will do so despite his plan to privatize health and turn our doctors 
into unemployed beings; we will do so despite the plan to privatize 
education and make it accessible only to the elite, as it was in the 
past; we will do so despite the plan to auction off our wealth and the 
heritage of all the people to US transnational corporations. Despite 
the plan to remove the rewards from our retirees and pensioners to 
force them back on a job, according to the so-called Plan of Assistance 
to a Free Cuba.

  The Cuban people are entitled to defend themselves from aggression and 
they will. And I must say it clearly: in Cuba, we will not allow the 
establishment of organizations and mercenary parties financed by and at 
the service of the US Government. We will not allow newspapers and TV 
networks funded by the US Government to uphold its policies of blockade 
and its lies among ourselves. In Cuba, the press, the radio and the TV 
are owned by the people and serve and will serve their interests.

  We will not cooperate with the Representative of the High Commissioner 
or with the spurious resolution behind her. Why is it not such a 
prestigious lawyer appointed Special Representative of the High 
Commissioner to the Guantánamo Naval Base? Why is she not asked to 
investigate the flagrant violations of the rights of five courageous 
and pure Cuban youths imprisoned in the United States and their 
families? Because it cannot be done. Because it is about the human 
rights violations committed by the United States and they are 
untouchable. It can be done against small Cuba but not against the 
United States.

  But Cuba will not give up on its fight, Excellencies. Nor will it 
surrender. Nor will it make concessions or betray its ideals.

  And we will see if a free, cultivated and united people can be 
defeated! We will see if they can overthrow a government of the people, 
whose leaders walk among them with the moral authority derived from the 
total absence of corruption and the full dedication to their duties!

  We will see if they can deceive everybody all the time!

  Excellencies:

  The Commission on Human Rights before us today is illustrative of the 
unjust and unequal world in which we live. There is no longer nothing 
left in it from the friendly and respectful spirit that brought its 
founders together after the victory over fascism.

  Therefore, the Cuban delegation will cease to insist that we must 
transform the Commission. What we have to change is the world, go to 
the roots. A Commission on Human Rights without selectivity, 
politicization, double standards, blackmail and hypocrisy will only be 
possible in a different world.

  Cuba does not consider that to be a dream, but a cause well worth 
fighting for. That is why it fights and it will continue to do so.

  Thanks.



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