The nation that intends to judge the world dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, invaded Cuba through the Bay of Pigs, and waged a war in Vietnam that killed almost four million sons and daughters of that courageous people. It is the country that invaded the Dominican Republic, Grenada, Panama and Somalia; it is the country that waged a dirty war in Central America, supported the most genocidal dictatorships in our region and in CIA schools trained their most bloodthirsty leaders in methods of torture. The nation that intends to judge the world has unilaterally decided to make war and launched missiles in any direction then perhaps only later clarify any wrongdoings.

The blockade and the economic war constitute a true genocide. Universal consciousness cannot tolerate the attempt to annihilate a people from hunger and disease. Our homeland has endured it for 40 years. Has such a monstrous crime ever been subjected to analysis in this Commission?

It is very likely that in a few hours NATO, under the United States aegis, will undertake brutal air strikes against Serbia whose people was the one to fight most heroically in Europe against the nazis hordes during World War II. The use, and abuse, of force cannot be the solution to the world problems. Who will defend the human rights of the innocent people who die under the missiles and bombs that would be falling on a small country in the cultured and civilized Europe?

If the world were to become a court, the United States would not be able to leave the dock for some centuries.

The US government that portrays itself as a champion of human rights is aware of the existence of terrorist organizations based in its territory acting against Cuba; it keeps ties with them and benefit from their money. I will now elaborate on this assertion.

Recently, two court cases in Havana heard irrefutable witness and documentary evidence that executives of the well-known Cuban American National Foundation and its paid assassin Luis Posada Carriles have been involved in terrorist activities and other actions against Cuba, and are connected with US institutions and authorities. It must be recalled that Luis Posada Carriles, currently based in El Salvador, and Orlando Bosch, based in Florida, neither of whom have served their sentence, masterminded a sabotage against a Cubana airliner in midair that killed 73 people in October 1976.

Two Salvadoran nationals hired by notorious counterrevolutionaries of Cuban origin, with proven ties with both the CIA and the Cuban American National Foundation were indicted for planting several explosive devices in hotels in Havana, one of which killed a young Italian tourist and injured other Cubans and foreigners. The purpose was to damage Cuba's growing tourist development. They also planned to set off bombs at sacred historical sites of our homeland, including the mausoleum where the remains of Ernesto Guevara have been laid to rest. The CIA killed Che Guevara, but it could not kill his ideas. He was buried together with his fallen comrades in unidentified grounds. Humanity rescued most of them from their neglected and scattered graves. Now, they intended to blast their remains.

We are aware that these trials and their resulting denunciations were scarcely covered by the media and had insufficient international repercussion.

This is why it must be reiterated here that the Cuban American National Foundation, a "non profit, philanthropic and educational" US registered organization, is in fact a terrorist Mafia whose large fortune of highly dubious origin has been amassed through fraud, misappropriation, perquisites and government support. This organization has covered the cost of expensive political campaigns to help elect United States Mayors, Congressmen, and even Senators and Presidents.

This organization, which has contributed funds to both the Republican and Democratic Parties, lobbies, promotes and causes the passage of genocidal laws against Cuba. It brings together and supports the worst CIA-trained terrorists, organizes and bears the cost of plans to assassinate Cuban leaders and hatches and commits crimes against workers and tourists. This organization has never refrained from supporting whatever project of aggression and military intervention could be devised against Cuba. This is its "biography."

The terrorist groups acting from the US to overthrow the Cuban Revolution find shelter in that country’s growing hostility against ours. From 1992 to date, the US has passed more than 21 statutory provisions, including the Helms-Burton and Torricelli Acts. Warning letters have been sent and US entry visas have been denied to scare off foreign businessmen with investments in Cuba. Those trading with Cuba have been black-listed and licenses for flight connections with Cuba and exhibitions of medical equipment and medicine in Cuba have been withheld. Criminal lawsuits have been filed, threats have been made, and fines have been enforced against US firms and individuals for their relations with Cuba, and even medical donations have been turned down.

Can a country sit idle by while its neighbor passes legislation time and again, and enforces measures time and again to colonize it anew?

Incredibly enough and in spite of the above, reference has been made to an easing of the policy towards Cuba. The purpose is to stem a growing rejection against the blockade by the public opinion, both inside and outside the US. Also, demobilize the increasingly strong movement of solidarity with our country, nullify the patriotic content of our resistance and deceive those who may want, or find it in their interest, to be deceived.

That is the real objective of the measures announced by President William Clinton on 5 January last that purposefully or not, many press agencies, governments and personalities have welcomed and described as a gesture to moderate the blockade.

As the US President has no executive power on this issue because he relinquished it, the White House spokesman was categorical when he made it clear that these measures did not represent changes in the policy towards Cuba and even the Secretary of State herself quickly moved to ratify it.

It would be fitting to recall that months before, in March 1998, the US Administration had announced a new series of measures, also of a delusive and deceptive nature.

The alleged easing of restrictions is but a plan to finance and support their agents in the island and to try to subvert domestic order in our country. They have not sold us a single aspirin nor has the Western Union Company been able to open a bureau in Havana as expected to organize the sending of family remittances. Neither can these remittances be sent out without restrictions nor have the trips of citizens of Cuban origin been facilitated and, furthermore, even the phone calls between both countries are being hampered.

In the face of such a criminal, failed and ridiculous policy, with the old war over and enjoying absolute hegemony, many in the world wonder why the United States does not put an end, once and for all, to such an obstinate policy and turns this sordid page of history.

The true reason is the corruption of the US political system, the same they want to impose upon us as a model as well as the prevalence of shady politicking interests over, and above, basic ethical principles that the policy of a country which pretends to set itself up as a paradigm should not renounce under any circumstances.

Simple equations suffice: Congressmen to be re-elected or congressional hopefuls are compelled to raise substantial resources to finance their electoral campaigns. As an average, the cost of a Senate race in the United States is no less than three million dollars. Who contribute them? All sorts of enterprises and organizations. Some of the same kind as the Cuban-American National Foundation, that later on, in the best style of the "Mafia godfathers", will claim a vote in favor of a Bill or an amendment, the signing of another, the condemnation of the inconceivable, tolerance towards organizing and training for terrorist action and the fabrication of "shows" at international agencies. A give and take, like a child's game. That is the usual procedure, except honorable and well known exceptions that, given their prestige, overcome such adverse circumstances, or those who have enough personal resources to finance their campaigns.

Otherwise, what could one think of an article published in El Nuevo Herald's issue of 5 March last, under the heading "The Foundation meets with Clinton", reporting on a fund raiser "for the political campaign of Democratic Senator Robert Torricelli in New Jersey"? How could one understand this audience given by the President of the United States to members of the Board of the Cuban-American National Foundation, when the US officials and institutions know best who they are and what they do? What could the Cuban people think of a President who befriends such people?

Is it so that these facts and this complicity will not be condemned? At times it would seem as if condemnations against United Nations member states are only reserved for, and successful against, underdeveloped countries.

Many more falsehoods could be disclaimed and injustices denounced in this hall, which has witnessed successive and outrageous vendettas against Cuba, based on the politicized and selective manipulation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with which the powerful victors of the cold war have decided to subjugate our people and lacerate its sovereignty and self-determination.

It already happened once that, a paralytic invented by US propaganda was walking briskly through the corridors of this very same hall, a man who, in addition, was handed the title of poet and Ambassador. Only his Muse was never able leave the wheelchair.

Those who are a bit familiar with the history of the Cuban Revolution know that, from the very days of the liberation struggle, we have never lied.

Truth has always been our main weapon. With it, we have won the respect even of our enemies. It is for the sake of truth that we are here. The truth had been weakening the United States’ vicious stand until 1998 when, after seven years, 19 Member States of this Commission rejected the anti-Cuban resolution.

But we knew that would not be the end of the battle and that the United States would continue to extort other States to resume its shameful efforts against Cuba.

And it searched for and found a good go-between to take on the immoral objectives and assume the blame for whatever results: an embarrassing defeat or a Pyrrhic victory. We are not surprised at the one chosen. There always has to be someone who, in return for alms, will carry out any despicable act, forgetting that in certain occasional alliances, "he who plants winds, harvests storms".

Many representatives present here will find it difficult to stand in favor of a text that condemns Cuba, for they are not foreign to all that has been done in Cuba in favor of the human rights of its people. They know that to accuse us of violating them is an infamy because they have more than enough examples of how, being a country without large material resources, and even in the present stage of difficulties and shortages, it has managed to extend solidarity.