Cuba

“To be or not to be.” Never before has Shakespeare?s famous dilemma been so valid. Half the world is shuddering with the collapse of the stock exchanges, from Tokyo to Rio, from Moscow to Buenos Aires, from London to Johannesburg, and even right here in New York. We, the other half, are also shuddering, not because of stock exchanges and securities that we do not possess, but because the entire burden of the global financial crash falls mercilessly on us, and nobody, absolutely nobody, is safe. The long-predicted Armageddon has arrived, and not just in a Hollywood movie. The huge global trap that our increasingly distressed planet has become does not issue licences for survival to countries or businesses. It does not provide protection from acid rain or the impacts of El Niño, nor does it abide by or believe in ideologies and cultures. It does not offer life jackets to speculators or mega-owners. As in the times of slavery, human beings have become mere commodities, engrossed in buying and selling each other instead of learning how to enjoy and defend their rights, while poisonous luxuries, the enemies of liberty, corrupt individuals and societies and deprive entire peoples of their national identity. The inevitable globalization that we should have reached through fraternity, solidarity and cooperation has come upon us in such neoliberalized form that the liberal economic thinking that gave rise to it cannot even be recognized in this new dogma. 34 The process of globalization and neoliberal internationalization of the world economy has today multiplied the advantages for developed countries to the detriment of the increasingly underdeveloped economies. This makes them more vulnerable to external factors beyond their control, such as the excruciating burden of foreign debt, increasingly unequal rates of exchange, the widening technological gap and the persistent decline in the price of commodities, in the context of a ruthless, speculative and hopelessly inhuman market. The inequitable trade relationship between rich and poor, more akin to theft or swindle than trade, is a basic element that explains this. According to International Monetary Fund (IMF) data only 0.2 per cent annual growth rate has been seen in non-fuel commodities between 1989 and 1998, while manufactured products grew at a rate of 0.9 per cent. How could economies whose terms of trade deteriorated, during that same period, at an annual rate of 0.4 per cent and whose currencies were severely devaluated be expected to grow? The excruciating weight of foreign indebtedness — a phenomenon that has become eternal with the increase of inequitable trade — rose from $1.118 trillion in 1989 to $1.875 trillion in 1998, for an annual average increase of 6 per cent. What counts is money and finance, not development or human well-being. Neoliberal globalization and some of its basic components, such as the liberalization of trade and free competition, do not in themselves mean that there will be an acceleration of economic growth or development in underdeveloped countries. At the same time, unrestrained deregulation and privatization have removed from the agenda the required protection for goods, services and workers in the third world. Unfair equal treatment is being granted to economies that by their very nature, characteristics and volume are unequal. Tariff barriers are being replaced with more subtle and politically optional methods of protectionism, while a club of selected owners, transnational corporations and Governments negotiate, behind the backs of the vast majority, a multilateral investment agreement that gives the definitive seal of approval to subservience and exclusion. There is no need for any special telescope to find the famous black holes that swallow stars in outer space. The worst black hole of them all can be found right here on Earth, right before our very eyes, where there was first a gap and then an abyss, where the wealth of the rich grew in step with the poverty of the poor. International cooperation and official aid for development, funnelled through different organizations of the United Nations system, are tending to decrease, considerably affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of the system?s work in the field of development. Even worse, we see attempts to further condition such aid to political demands that injure national States and undermine the sovereignty of countries and peoples. Furthermore, such attempts erode the authority of Governments by determining their development policies, which directly affects democratic governance. They also bring about the resurgence of diseases that we thought had been eradicated, generating high mortality rates and premature aging of the world population. These are so illegitimate that no one should support them. We, the victims, cannot be expected think as our victimizers do. As Comrade Fidel Castro said only a few weeks ago at the twelfth Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, “it is not possible to acquiesce in a world order which embodies to the utmost the highest principles and purposes of a system that for centuries colonized, enslaved and plundered us all”. Because these nations are so disunited, we have not been able to elude the ravages of neoliberal globalization, which is so alien in spirit to the groundbreaking Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen and contrary to the very letter of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which in a few weeks will be 50 years old. Against all logic, it is in our meetings, committees and other forums that the prerogatives to which we are entitled as human beings are being reduced to mere caricatures in an insane race to alter the very foundations of international law. We are constantly asked why we so stubbornly call for the genuine democratization of the United Nations and for far-reaching reform of its institutions. What does it take to understand that, when we are on the verge of bidding farewell to the second millennium, the world can no longer be forced to follow Bretton Woods norms, patterns and schemes that are consistent with a world order born out of a war and that are now obsolete. 35 The Dow Jones average sways and plummets just a few blocks away from this building. Uncertainty and hopelessness are rampant in the markets. Countries are going bankrupt — and so are their Governments. Hundreds of millions die of famine, disease, violence, terror and war. Some even become living dead, as they are deprived of their national identity. But we are expected to accept that here in the General Assembly those who unleashed this madness are destroying the only truly democratic space where we can act together. How much longer are we going to allow them to continue imposing conditions, unilaterally launching missiles, improving their nuclear arsenals and testing new “smart weapons”, while they demand disarmament from the poor and the illiterate? And further, they are preventing us from doing away with the dictatorship of a Security Council which refuses to expand or to give up or modify the power of veto? There can be no talk of a Security Council that provides legitimacy, let alone security, so long as that body fails to abide by the powers conferred upon it in Article XXIV of the Charter; so long as it ignores the powers of other United Nations bodies; so long as its composition remains inequitable; so long as each and every member does not enjoy identical rights; so long as we in the third world, the overwhelming majority of the world?s population, are not duly represented. For Cuba, the one steadfast and sincere thing to do is to alert the world to which we belong, and to struggle for the values of freedom, justice, dignity and humanitarianism that we believe in and uphold. These are the values that should prevail for the sake of our endangered human species. It is for this end that the resources made available to the United Nations by its Member States should be used. Enough of politicizing budgets under the pretext of alleged cost-effectiveness — as if the millions of African children dying of curable diseases, the millions of illiterate people in Latin America, or the millions of people displaced by conflicts in Asia and the Middle East were bolts of cloth, raw materials or spent fuel. Enough of the appalling facts cited in the latest Human Development Report, issued two weeks ago, which affirms that the barest consumption needs of over a billion people are not being met at all, and that more than 4 billion people lack essential health services and 2 billion suffer from anaemia, including 55 million in industrialized countries. Enough of accepting that the indicators of human consumption in 70 countries have dropped below the levels of 25 years ago. Enough of accepting that a child born in a developed country will consume and pollute in his or her lifetime as much as 50 children born in an underdeveloped country. Enough of accepting that three individuals in this world have amassed fortunes equivalent to the total gross domestic product of 48 States. Enough of accepting that the most powerful and wealthy nation on Earth, with the highest per capita income, should, according to the report, have the highest rates of human poverty. Enough of demagogy. Let us make way for ethics, generosity and humanitarianism. Let the debts be paid and the current scale of assessments maintained. Let us put an end to special United Nations peacekeeping operations and to the arms market they have generated, and let us strengthen the actions of the World Health Organization, the United Nations Children?s Fund, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the United Nations Development Programme, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the many other agencies that have truly endeavoured throughout their existence to assert the rights of every human being. That is the only really fair, responsible and humane thing to do. In other words, let us not allow so many children to die in the next few hours, days, months and years — such as the 108,217 infants under five years of age, who have died of preventable causes in the underdeveloped world since we opened the fifty-third session last Monday, without the Assembly or the international community of nations being able to do anything about it. Let us keep the voice and mandate of the peoples and Governments that make up the United Nations from being drowned out by the inhumane interests of the masters and their partners grouped in the “Washington consensus”, which is how chaste, scholarly jargon currently defines the alliance of countries and international financial institutions that have dragged us all into disastrous unipolar neoliberalization ruled by a unique and criminal way of thinking which hypocritically boasts of being pluralistic. 36 Let us prevent heinous and disgusting phenomena such as terrorism from being fostered in that way; both the terrorism that constantly takes innocent lives — which many seek to compare with the fight of other peoples that have employed humanitarian and worthy methods in their resort to weapons in order to win their rights — and the other much more sophisticated, computerized and globalized terrorism that turns the economy, politics and ideas into a lethal weapon to secure the interests of a restricted circle of selfish people who believe it is their prerogative to unilaterally impose their laws and their punishments on others. We recognize that drafting and implementing international treaties are instrumental in our struggle against terrorism. But if we are truly committed to achieving that goal, then the power to investigate, prevent and punish these acts must be assumed seriously by States as an obligation which may not be delegated. There must be genuine cooperation to apprehend perpetrators, and States must prevent by all means possible terrorist acts against other States being organized, encouraged, funded or tolerated within their territory. Cuba, which has suffered from terrorism and to which nothing that is human is alien, cannot but unequivocally condemn such actions, methods and practices. Above all, we denounce those responsible for fomenting, supporting, funding, masterminding, propagating or tolerating these loathsome actions, which, as recent events have illustrated, turn their perpetrators into heinous Saturns, capable of devouring their own children. For almost 40 years our homeland has had to defend itself from aggression and harassment of all kinds: dirty war, mercenary invasions, nuclear threat, veritable hunts organized in attempts to murder our main leaders, pirate attacks, constant acts of sabotage against our industry, our agriculture and our economy, blowing up of airliners in flight — as occurred in Barbados on 6 October 1976; over a thousand hours a week of subversive radio and television transmissions which illegally invade our radio-electronic space; and biological warfare. Our tourist facilities have endured terrorist attacks, employing Central American mercenaries, organized and financed from the United States, with the full awareness and tolerance of the authorities of that country. Furthermore, we are also currently facing further American criminal legislation aimed at intensifying the dirtiest and longest economic war ever perpetrated against any country. This is why we can speak about these issues with absolute morality. I must say at least a few words about recent accusations by the United States of alleged Cuban espionage activities in Florida, which have been widely disseminated by the mass media as something extraordinary. I am sure the Assembly understands that the most ridiculous and laughable thing to occur in recent days in this nation of scandals is that the world?s biggest spy, the United States, has accused of espionage the world?s most spied upon country, Cuba. The reality we live in is not recognized in the current Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Nobody denies that this is a document of universal scope, the outcome of the most progressive thinking of its time and the international culmination of certain trends and values that emerged from the horrors of the Second World War. However, it should not be forgotten that when we embraced it in 1948 almost two thirds of humanity still lived under the colonial and neo-colonial yoke. All those countries had been reduced to mere objects of international law. For them, the most traumatic experience was not the war but underdevelopment, political exclusion and the new and even more catastrophic economic battles imposed upon them. While we uphold the values of our 50-year-old Declaration, values which cannot be renounced, and reject attempts to cause confusion over it and give it an ideological and political nature, we must have the courage and awareness to recognize its historical and conceptual limitations, which illustrate that the time has come to draft a new international charter of human rights capable of meeting the requirements of the new millennium. If we do not do this now, what will be the use of all the efforts made five years ago at the Vienna World Conference on Human Rights to adopt a Declaration and a Programme of Action? What will we tell our peoples? Is it not the duty of democratic Governments to be accountable to their voters for the discharge of their international obligations? Will we finally recognize the right to development as a fundamental, universal and inalienable human right? Will unrelenting reality persuade us that the universality, indivisibility and interdependence of all human rights requires the acknowledgment of national and regional characteristics and diverse historical, cultural and religious heritages, as well as the need to strengthen international cooperation concerning this issue objectively and without selectivity? 37 The establishment of the Office of the High Commissioner and other steps taken in this regard are just fig leaves that fail to conceal all the embarrassing parts. Many goals have yet to be reached, such as the demand of the Vienna Conference that all States abstain from adopting unilateral measures contrary to international law and the Charter of the United Nations which hinder trade relations and impede the full realization of the rights set forth in the Universal Declaration and its international instruments, particularly the right of all people to living standards adequate for their health and well-being — including nourishment, health care, housing and basic social services. What will we do to those who violate this mandate? Do we summon them to an international criminal tribunal? Under what charges: contempt for democratic decisions; State terrorism; war Crimes; genocide? It would seem that the disturbing words of the writer and humanist John Milton are true: “They who have put out the people?s eyes, reproach them of their blindness.” I say this because the United States Government has ignored all those complaints in the same way as it has drafted lists of presumed violators. In a blatant challenge to the international community, the advocates of open markets and the end of ideologies have taken additional and distinctly extraterritorial actions aimed at reinforcing their blockade. I ask the interpreters to be accurate: I mean blockade and not embargo. It is an economic, trade and financial blockade against Cuba that ignores six consecutive calls by the Assembly to put an end to what has rightly been fairly described as the grossest, most serious and systematic violation of the human rights of a whole people. On the contrary, those concerned insist on continuing their failed policy, one of whose instruments was exemplarily dismantled by the international community at the fifty-fourth session of the Commission on Human Rights, when it was decided to put an end to the extraordinary procedure on the so-called situation of Cuba and to get rid of the Special Rapporteur. That was a conscious and considered decision, the ultimate assertion of the growing rejection of a politicized resolution that should never have existed in the first place. It was recognition of the truth and a result of the weariness caused by calumny and lies. It was also the way out of a discriminatory, unwarranted and selective exercise targeted on Cuba that consecrated the imperial will to dictate a kind of international law where the powerful and wealthy judge and we, the poor, are doomed to sit on the defendants? bench. Nevertheless, we have amassed enough evidence to indicate that a new vendetta is under way. The failed attempts last July in the Economic and Social Council to imposed a so-called joint statement on the presumed human rights situation in Cuba, and subsequent initiatives to engage high United Nations authorities or particular countries in the preposterous and unsuccessful task of the late Special Rapporteur, foreshadow new and unwarranted conflicts that will again divert the Organization from its main concerns. I am referring to documents and guidelines such as these, which I could quote and which will be made available to the press, and which have been forwarded to almost all participants in this room by senior officials of a Government that, in keeping with its imperial philosophy, seems to think that they are entitled to speak but not required to listen humbly and respectfully. I quote from the document: “Multilateral efforts suffered a serious setback last April when the United Nations Commission on Human Rights voted against a resolution on Cuba by a margin of 19 to 16, with 18 abstentions.” “Maintaining international focus on the human rights situation in Cuba is a high priority for Secretary of State Albright. She has asked me to speak with you our interest in pursuing a joint statement on Cuba at ECOSOC.” “We feel that the most effective approach would be a joint statement of like-minded countries. The statement could call on the United Nations system to keep the human rights situation in Cuba under review. One mechanism for doing so could be the establishment in Havana of an office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights”. The general thrust is clear. We take full responsibility in asserting that reconsidering the issue will only mean opening yet another, even more unacceptable chapter in the political manipulation of human rights mechanisms. This would be 38 detrimental to the authority of the body or the relevant office, because our country would not accept the reimposition of any new procedure or discriminatory treatment. Everything we do in Cuba, whether some like it or not, whether agreed or not, is done for the sake of the human being. We are proud of our reality and, as we have said before, we do not believe it is perfect. We do not want it to be perfect. We do not want to be bored with perfection. We do not take it as an endorsement or export it as a model, and above all we do not impose it on anyone, so no one will attempt to impose their reality on us. We do not use our agreements or disagreements with others, including our differences with the very harsh, silenced reality of our accusers, to humiliate or condemn anyone. We prefer to discuss them by means of civilized dialogue, which we are at all times prepared to engage in, believing that what really matters is cooperation and not the imposition of a dubious convergence in positions. Cuba is among the few Members of this Organization that has consistently submitted its reports systematically and in good time to the treaty bodies to which it belongs. Evidence abounds of the transparency and sincerity of our actions and of the strength with which we uphold impartiality and objectivity in the Committees on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, the Committee against Torture, the Committee on the Rights of the Child and the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. We have similar credentials in our systematic cooperation with the various mechanisms of the Commission on Human Rights and with the Office of the High Commissioner, since its inception. Let me mention also our growing bilateral cooperation in this area with various States in an atmosphere of respect and on an equal footing, each one of us with our respective virtues and flaws. For these reasons, while we denounce these new intentions and forewarn the Assembly against unwarranted, diversionist and fruitless exercises, we reiterate Cuba?s unrestricted willingness and preparedness for dialogue and for multilateral and bilateral cooperation with all States. No imposed solution can settle a problem. The international community should never allow a cause as noble and compelling as that of human rights to be held hostage to petty political interests. Cuba is confident that dialogue will prevail over confrontation and recalls, as a token of its goodwill, the invitations it has extended to the thematic rapporteurs on violence against women, on children, on mercenary practices and on other matters, so they can become acquainted with the realities of a socialism that has never needed to proclaim its intrinsic humanity. Unfortunately, however, on occasions when it has broadly disseminated the required information with transparency, that information has at times been manipulated and used to serve the interests and objectives of our aggressors. So long as Cuban children suffering from leukemia are denied access to Oncaspar and L-Spar to prolong their lives; so long as Cuban AIDS patients are denied access to AZT; so long as urgently needed purchases of respirators for newborn babies in intensive care units are hampered; so long as it is forbidden to sell to Cuba a single pound of metrotrexate to test important medicines against cancer; so long as a 33 per cent drop in the population?s daily consumption of calories and a 39 per cent drop in the consumption of proteins is artificially and intentionally provoked by a ban on food exports, by excessive freight costs and prices, and by the harassment of suppliers; so long as attempts are made to starve us to death and to kill us with diseases, while speculation and manipulation is under way with feigned official aid presented as a humanitarian gesture, which we refuse because we believe it to be insincere; as long as letters such as the one I am holding — I feel compelled to show them, and they will be made available to all — unilaterally justify confusing, contradictory and threatening understandings aimed at globalizing extraterritorial laws, it would be absolutely outrageous, immoral and even shameful to question Cuba?s just and sovereign limits, legitimized by the 1948 Universal Declaration itself, that our Government and people are forced to place on those who, wielding human rights in the abstract, defame their homeland, disown their people, foster division and serve the interests of a foreign Power. I quote from the letter from Mrs. Albright to Senator Jesse Helms: “The understanding is an important step forward in our ongoing efforts to encourage greater respect for property rights of United States citizens abroad. “We expect the full cooperation of the Europeans in carrying out the understanding. 39 “It is important that we not miss this unique and historic opportunity to advance the goals of the Libertad Act and to establish broad new protections for the property rights of United States citizens in Cuba and throughout the world.” Certainly, this is worthy of note. What Mrs. Albright calls the Libertad Act in her letter is nothing but the regrettably notorious Act that has often been repudiated by the international community: the Helms-Burton Act. I am clarifying this because I know that for most of the members of this Assembly it would be difficult to equate a juridical instrument of this type with a lofty but often misused word such as “freedom”. A self-respecting nation does not allow its dignity and intelligence to be offended. A people that has fought and endured such a barbaric onslaught will never be brought to its knees. A people that exists today because it has learned to overcome its difficulties will never be shattered, let alone convinced of the urgency of any cause besides the revolt of the united. We the poor are so many and our poverty so great that if we unite, the unity of our poverty will become our greatest asset. This will be our wealth, and we have more than enough poverty to become immensely rich. Let us set aside our differences. Let us carry on our shoulders the salvation of humanity. Let us gather those who, resourceful and wealthy though they may be, can still feel in their hearts the urgent call for survival in the global era. Let the world recognize our sincere vote as poor people, and if there is no other choice, let it hear our veto as well. Let us all unite in the struggle. As President Fidel Castro has said, Cuba will never tire of calling for this. Let us unite and globalize our opposition to every boastful act of hegemony. Let us globalize respect for our human condition, which is the first and foremost right to be claimed. Let us globalize the efforts to save from ecological catastrophe a planet that has been ruined by neoliberalism and consumerism. Let us globalize ethics, culture and the spirituality of peoples in their immense and wonderful diversity, so that each of us can drink from his own spring and we can pour our clearest waters into the great river of human thought. Let us globalize, without excluding anyone, science, technology, development and cooperation between nations. Let the rich share their wealth. Let the poor grow, the illiterate learn to read and write, the sick heal. Let the healthy remain healthy and the hungry have food. Let us globalize generosity and eradicate plundering, selfishness and greed. Let us globalize respect for the rights of others as a guarantee of peace for all races, ethnicities and religions, so that we may bid farewell to arms. Let us globalize human freedom as the most sacred trait of our species. Let this be a responsible freedom, with peace and independence, dignity and sovereignty, without humiliation or conditions, without alterations or renunciations — a freedom emerging from the rebellion of human beings against a world that no longer meets their needs and that they are determined to change, as set out in the preamble and article 28 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. We do not want these freedoms ever to be politicized; we want them to remain entirely human. In a few days it will be 40 years since the dawn of Cuba's knowledge of that freedom that re-established the rights of Cubans and enshrined our humanity, because that freedom was born in our own breasts and nourished by the blood, sweat, efforts and sacrifices of so many generations. That freedom is still alive today, shielded by an all- enduring unity. It encourages our rebelliousness in the face of a world that deserves to be and can be changed for the sake of all mankind. As the book of Ecclesiastes commands: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” (The Holy Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:1) Now is the time and the exact hour that we must act.