I would like to congratulate Mr. Ali
Abdussalam Treki on his election to the presidency and
reiterate our confidence in his ability to conduct our
work and our deliberations successfully. I would also
like to recognize the excellent leadership of Father
Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the
Assembly at its previous session. The ethical
dimension and political scope of his presidency have
enabled us to move forward towards the goal of
restoring to this Assembly all its powers, and will stand
as a benchmark for the future. Thanks to his example,
it has become even clearer to us now that reforming the
United Nations is about democratizing it and bringing
it closer to the people.
Since the general debate of one year ago
important events have occurred in the international
arena. Climate change is now more visible and
dangerous. The economic crisis has become intense
and global. Social exclusion has increased.
However, the international community reacted
with profound optimism to the change of Government
in the United States. It seemed that a period of extreme
aggressiveness, unilateralism and arrogance in the
foreign policy of that country had come to an end and
the infamous legacy of the George W. Bush regime had
crumbled in repudiation. As those in this very Hall can
attest, novel and conciliatory words from the White
House raised great hopes, and the world welcomed his
repeated messages of change, dialogue and
cooperation. Unfortunately, time goes by, and those
words do not seem to be supported by concrete facts.
The words do not coincide with reality.
The most serious and dangerous aspect of this
new situation is the uncertainty about the real capacity
of the present authorities in Washington to overpower
the sweeping political and ideological currents that
threatened the world under the previous Administration.
The neoconservative groups that placed George Bush
in the presidency — the powers that promoted the use
of force and domination under the protection of the
colossal military and economic strength of the United
States and that are to blame for crimes including
torture, assassination and the manipulation of the
American people — have quickly regrouped and retain
immense resources of power and influence, contrary to
the change proclaimed.
The detention and torture centre at the
Guantánamo Bay Naval Base — which usurps Cuban
territory — has not been shut down. The occupation
troops in Iraq have not been withdrawn. The war in
Afghanistan is expanding and is threatening other
States.
As for Cuba, which has suffered American
aggression for half a century, last April the new United
States Government announced measures to abolish
some of the Bush Administration’s most brutal actions
that prohibited contact between Cubans living in the
United States and their relatives in Cuba, particularly
the possibility to visit them and to send assistance
without limitations. These measures are a positive step,
but they are extremely limited and insufficient.
The announced measures included authorizing
American companies to carry out certain
telecommunications operations with Cuba, but other
restrictions that prevent the implementation of those
operations have not been modified. Nor has there been
any sign that the United States Government is ready to
put an end to the immoral practice — which has
recently increased — of misappropriating Cuban funds
frozen in American banks, as well as other goods,
under the protection of venal judges who violate their
own laws.
The essential fact is that the economic,
commercial and financial blockade of Cuba remains in
place. The United States President, despite the
existence of laws such as the Helms-Burton Act, still
has broad executive powers, such as the granting of
licenses, by means of which he could modify the
implementation of the blockade.
If there were a true desire for change, the United
States Government could authorize the export of Cuban
goods and services to the United States and vice versa.
The United States could allow Cuba to buy anywhere
in the world products comprised of more than 10 per
cent American components or technology, regardless of
trademark or country of origin. The United States
Department of the Treasury could refrain from
pursuing, freezing and confiscating third-country
transfers in United States dollars and other currencies
to Cuban nationals or entities. Washington could lift
the ban preventing third-country vessels from docking
at any American port until 180 days after calling at any
Cuban port. The Treasury Department’s persecution of
financial institutions and companies that trade with or
17 09-52598
carry out operations in Cuba could also be suspended.
President Obama could allow American citizens, by
means of a license, to travel to Cuba — the only
country in the world they are not allowed to visit.
The Secretary-General’s report to the Assembly
(A/64/97) abounds with examples. In the course of
2009 numerous fines, confiscations and other
hindrances have been levelled at trade carried out by
Cuba or by third countries with Cuba. As the United
States Treasury Department itself has reported, since
January this year almost half of the funds collected by
its Office of Foreign Assets Control came from
sanctions imposed on American and foreign companies
for alleged violations of the economic blockade against
Cuba.
The true and indisputable fact is that the new
American Government continues to ignore the
international community’s overwhelming appeal,
expressed in this Assembly year after year, to put an
end to the blockade of Cuba. Two weeks ago President
Obama instructed the Secretaries of State and the
Treasury that, contrary to what is reflected in all
American opinion polls, “it is in the national interest”
to maintain economic sanctions against Cuba under the
Trading with the Enemy Act — a law enacted in 1917
to address wartime situations and which is today
applied only to Cuba. The United States blockade of
Cuba is an act of unilateral aggression that should be
unilaterally terminated.
For many years Cuba has expressed its
willingness to normalize relations with the United
States. On 1 August 2009, President Raúl Castro Ruz
publicly reiterated Cuba’s readiness to participate in a
respectful dialogue, between equals, with the United
States — a dialogue that assumes our independence,
sovereignty and self-determination. He emphasized
that we should mutually respect our differences and
that Cuba does not recognize that the Government of
that or any other country, or any other group of States,
has any jurisdiction over our internal affairs.
The Government of Cuba has suggested to the
United States Government a set of essential topics it
considers must necessarily be discussed during a future
dialogue aimed at improving relations. Those topics
include the lifting of the economic, commercial and
financial blockade; the removal of Cuba from the
spurious list of terrorist countries; the revocation of the
Cuban Adjustment Act and of the “wet foot, dry foot”
policy; compensation for economic and human
damages; the return of the territory occupied by the
Guantánamo Bay Naval Base; the end of all radio and
television aggression from United States territory
against Cuba; and the cessation of American funding of
domestic subversion.
An essential item on that agenda is the release of
the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters who have been
unjustly imprisoned in the United States for 11 years.
President Obama has the constitutional prerogatives to
free them as an act of justice and of his Government’s
commitment against terrorism.
The President returned to the Chair.
Furthermore, we have proposed to the United
States to begin talks on setting up cooperation to tackle
drug trafficking, terrorism and human smuggling,
protect the environment and address natural disasters.
In that spirit, the Cuban Government has held talks
with that of the United States on migration and on the
establishment of direct postal services. Those talks
have been courteous and useful.
Cuba enjoys extensive and fruitful relations in all
parts of the world. With the single exception of the
United States, Cuba has friendly relations with all
countries of this hemisphere and counts on the
solidarity of the region. We cooperate with dozens of
countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Ours is a stable country with a united, cultured
and healthy people who have amply proven that, even
under an embargo, they are capable of facing the
consequences of the global economic crisis and the
effects of climate change, which last year cost the
national economy 20 per cent of its gross domestic
product.
Conditions in Cuba are such that it can face its
own problems and find solutions to them. We do so in a
just and fair society that relies on its own efforts and
has been able to advance and guide its development in
the most adverse conditions. We are ready to continue
facing those challenges calmly and patiently, confident
that no citizen has been or will be abandoned and
certain that we are defending a cause of national
independence and a socialist plan that have the huge
support of the Cubans. Anyone who tries to stop the
revolution and bend the will of the Cuban people is
suffering from delusions. Patriotism, social justice and
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the resolve to defend independence are all part of our
national identity.
Latin America and the Caribbean are in a
dramatic situation, characterized by the sharp
contradiction between the large majorities — which,
together with progressive Governments and broad
social movements, are demanding justice and
fairness — and the traditional oligarchies committed to
preserving their privileges. The coup d’état in
Honduras demonstrates that. Those who participated in
the coup and the usurpers who kidnapped the
legitimate President of that country are violating the
constitution and brutally repressing the people, as
happened in the dark years of the military dictatorships
in Latin America propped up by the United States.
Hundreds of thousands of assassinated, missing and
tortured persons are stirring the conscience of our
America in the face of impunity.
It has still not been explained why the plane that
kidnapped the constitutional President of Honduras
made a stopover at the American Palmerola air base.
The American fascist right, which Cheney symbolizes,
openly supports and defends the coup. President
José Manuel Zelaya must be fully, immediately and
unconditionally reinstated to the execution of his
constitutional duties. The inviolability of the Brazilian
Embassy in Tegucigalpa must be respected and the
siege of and the attacks on its property must stop. The
Honduran people are valiantly resisting and will have
the last word.
Those events coincide with the renewed and
aggressive interest of the United States in setting up
military bases in Latin America and in re-establishing
the Fourth Fleet, clearly with the aim of putting the
region within only a few hours’ reach of American
troops, threatening the revolutionary and progressive
movements, in particular the Bolivarian revolution in
the sister nation of Venezuela, and gaining control of
the region’s oil and other natural resources.
The slander and lies against the Bolivarian
Republic of Venezuela are brutal. It should be recalled
that it was thus when atrocious aggression emerged and
was instigated against our fatherland. The broader and
clearer the policy towards that sister nation, the more it
will contribute to the peace, independence and
development of the peoples of Latin America and the
Caribbean.
Latin America and the Caribbean can advance
and, to a certain extent, are moving forward to new and
higher forms of integration. They have more water,
land, forests and mineral and energy resources than any
other region of the planet. Their population exceeds
570 million. The Rio Group, the Latin American and
Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development
and the Union of South American Nations are bodies
set up by virtue of the ties that unite us. The Bolivarian
Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas and the
Petrocaribe cooperation scheme are prime examples.
The optimistic forecasts from Pittsburgh on the
progression of the global economic crisis, which
predict a possible economic recovery early next year,
are not based on solid data and, at best, only indicate
relief from collapse for a very limited group of the
world’s most powerful economies. It is worth noting
that objectives have been set but not a word has been
said about how to achieve them.
No one should forget that what is involved is an
unprecedented crisis of the capitalist system that
encompasses the respective food, energy, ecological,
social and financial crises. Nor should we overlook the
danger of debt combined with inflation, of the bursting
of other financial bubbles, or of a second collapse. The
developing countries are not to blame, but are the
victims of the consequences of the unreasonable and
unsustainable model of consumption, exploitation and
speculation, the attack on the environment and the
corruption in the industrialized economies.
While the debates go on, the number of hungry
people will reach a record figure of 1,020 million in
2009 — a sixth of the world’s population. This year,
another 90 million will be cast into poverty and
50 million others into unemployment. During these
months, another 400,000 children are expected to die
as a result of the crisis.
The measures that have been adopted are only
palliative ones that perpetuate the serious deficiencies
of an unjust, exclusive and ecologically unsustainable
international economic system. We need a fully
comprehensive and inclusive international dialogue
with the active participation of all developing
countries. We need to establish a new international
economic order based on solidarity, justice, equality
and sustainable development. The international
financial architecture should be founded anew. The
19 09-52598
United Nations, particularly this General Assembly, is
called upon to play a key role in this endeavour.
In conclusion, I reiterate Cuba’s gratitude for the
traditional and invaluable solidarity it has received
from this General Assembly in its struggle against
aggression and the blockade. Today, that solidarity
remains as indispensable as ever.
As Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz said
from this very rostrum nine years ago:
“Nothing in the existing economic and
political order serves the interests of humankind.
Thus this order is unsustainable and must be
changed. Suffice it to say that the world has
already more than 6 billion inhabitants, 80 per
cent of whom live in poverty. Ages-old diseases
of the third world — diseases such as malaria,
tuberculosis and others equally lethal — have not
been eradicated, while new epidemics like AIDS
threaten to exterminate the population of entire
nations … Meanwhile, wealthy countries keep
devoting enormous amounts of money to military
expenses and to buy luxury items, and a
voracious plague of speculators exchange
currencies, stocks and other real or fictitious
values for trillions of dollars every day.
“Nature is being devastated. The climate is
changing under our own eyes, and drinking water
is increasingly contaminated or scarce. The seas,
a source of human sustenance, are being depleted,
and crucial non-renewable resources are being
wasted on luxury and vanities …
“The dream of having truly fair and sensible
norms to guide human destiny seems impossible
to many. However, we are convinced that the
struggle for the impossible should be the motto of
this institution that brings us together today.”
(A/55/PV.4, p. 20)
Despite everything, the fiftieth anniversary of the
Cuban Revolution is being celebrated victoriously and
with pride.