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Cuba’s Minister of Foreign Affairs at the UN:
‘We will accomplish social justice’
Below we reprint the address to the UN General
Assembly by Cuba’s foreign affairs minister, Felipe
Perez Roque, on Sept. 24.
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’ll 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Second: U.S. troops will have to be withdrawn from
Iraq. After the life of over 1000 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—200 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, one in every five 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 1000 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 whom?
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 preemptive 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$900 billion set aside every
year for military expenditures be used on development.
Tenth: The financial resources to guarantee the
sustainable development for all the peoples on the
planet are available, but what is lacking is the
political will of those who rule the world. A
development tax of merely 0.1 percent on international
financial transactions would generate resources
amounting to almost US$ 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 percent 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.
This article first appeared in the October 2004 issue of Socialist Action newspaper.
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