The United States desperately needs this resolution as a pretext to maintain the blockade

Press conference given by Felipe Pérez Roque, minister of foreign affairs of the Republic of Cuba, to the national and foreign press, at the Foreign Ministry, on April 11, 2002.

(Translation of the transcript of the Council of State)

Felipe Pérez: A very good day to you all and thank you for coming.

We would like to give you some fresh news, in addition that what has been published to date.

The main information is that finally, in the end, after great effort and heavy pressure, the U.S. government has found some countries prepared to present the draft resolution against Cuba at the Human Rights Commission in Geneva; in other words, there is now a draft resolution against Cuba that has been presented to the Human Rights Commission. That occurred yesterday, Wednesday (April 10), at 5:45 p.m. Geneva time — 11:45 a.m. in Havana — barely 15 minutes before the time limit established by the commission to present the resolution.

It was registered at the commission by the ambassador of Uruguay in Geneva. Uruguay registered that document within the Human Rights Commission just 15 minutes before the deadline in a suspense-movie finale, and it did so, of course, in the express interest and under the guidance of the U.S. government. It presented the draft resolution that, in real terms, has been in the making since October 2001.

Thus the Uruguayan government has assumed the inglorious role of presenting the resolution against Cuba, replacing the Czech government, which refused to continue doing so, given the taunts and public derision over its attitude for the last three years. So this year it is no longer the Czech Republic, but the Oriental Republic of Uruguay, the Uruguayan government that is presenting the anti-Cuba text.

This text should be put to the vote on April 19. April 19 is the date set to hold the vote on this resolution in the Human Rights Commission, composed of 53 countries.

Registered as cosponsors of this text, in first place are Peru and Guatemala, as well as Panama, Nicaragua, El Salvador and Honduras, which are not members of the Human Rights Commission, despite being registered as cosponsors. It seems to me that comments on these last four would be superfluous. Then come Argentina and Canada, which have also made themselves cosponsors and, finally, at a press conference in San José together with the Uruguayan president, the president of Costa Rica announced that Costa Rica would likewise cosponsor the text.

I have his statement here, a wire story from the EFE agency, datelined San José: "The president of Costa Rica, Miguel Angel Rodríguez, stated today that he is honored and proud to be on the side of Uruguay in the resolution that is to be presented." He stated it and, well, this morning the Costa Rican decision to cosponsor the text was formalized, which was no surprise to Cuba, of course.

Well now, I would like to stress, because nobody should be confused, that this is a U.S. government text, drafted in line with the interests of the U.S. government and meticulously guided throughout, from its birth to its final registration, by the U.S. government.

The Latin American countries that have been involved in this matter would not do something of this nature if they were not under brutal pressure from the U.S. government. Those who have done so have acted with the permission of and under directions from the U.S. government.

We would like to stress this. And I would like to comment, for example, on the official statement from the Peruvian Foreign Ministry.

For example, here is a wire story from Notimex, which states that the Peruvian government admitted today to having presented a draft resolution, along with another nine countries in the region. We have already seen that it was really Uruguay that presented the resolution, with the cosponsorship of Peru and other countries. That has an explanation because up until yesterday, we believed — as you recall — and it was published in the press, that it was going to be Peru. I will refer to that mystery in a few minutes.

A communiqué from the Peruvian Foreign Ministry states that this document is "a constructive formula for promoting democracy in the region," an initiative "based on a constructive formula," and this document is presented as something positive and new; and I would like to clarify this.

This whole history really began in October 2001. Everything began in October 2001.

I have here some documents that we are going to give you at the end. This is document number one that we are going to give you. (HE SHOWS IT)

This document, in English, was handed out to the Latin American foreign ministries by the U.S. government last October. It is an aide-mémoire from the State Department, with which it commences the organization of the anti-Cuba exercise. For example, it is stated in certain parts of the document — paragraphs of the document that I am going to read to you and that we are going to give you at the end — "We understand that some Latin American nations are working on a resolution" — they understand that because they had already talked with some of them, they were organizing the beginning of the process — "we think that a resolution presented by the region would have a very good chance of being approved by the commission" — the State Department said that in October 2001. "We estimate that a short, simple and non-confrontational resolution, possibly based on the Organization of American States Democratic Charter, which focuses on the human rights situation and which solicits a visit to the island to investigate the situation, would have the greatest possibility of success. We would like to support such a resolution," says the State Department. "We trust that you" — the Latin American governments — "will encourage the commission’s regional members to present a resolution of this type and to cosponsor a resolution if an acceptable draft is presented."

Thus began the U.S. pressure, attempting to get this year’s resolution on Cuba presented by various Latin American countries. This is the document, the proof; this was a confidential document handed over to the Latin American foreign ministries by the State Department, but to which we had access, and a copy of that original will be given out to the press afterwards, so that you can study its text.

That was the beginning of this process. The United States begins by giving instructions in Latin America that it is aspiring to a short, non-confrontational, simple text, based on the OAS Democratic Charter, which should be presented by a group of Latin American countries, and that was precisely the final result of all this hustle and bustle — yesterday, with 15 minutes left before the deadline. That’s where it began.

What was the second stage? Then came the U.S. government attempt to get Mexico to head the presentation of that apparently innovative Latin American initiative. That attempt failed when President Vicente Fox announced that Mexico would not present, cosponsor or support any resolution against Cuba at the Commission; that attempt, the golden dream that a country with the weight and authority of Mexico would be the one to head this exercise failed. And here I have then, document number two, which we are also going to give you. Document number two is the text, still in English, that the State Department drafted and which it wanted Mexico to present, and afterwards it proceeded to seek out other sponsors.

The content of this text that you will also be receiving still contains much of the old Czech resolution, which the United States drafted and handed to the Czechs to present, which they did up until this year. This one contains a lot of that; however, it includes two elements that are present in the final text that has just been presented: it calls on the high commissioner for human rights to visit Cuba to investigate the human rights situation, and calls, moreover, on the government of Cuba to allow the high commissioner the opportunity to fully exercise her mandate in Cuba.

In other words, this text that the United States has drafted and which dates back to the end of January or the beginning of February this year, already includes elements that have done away with a supposedly Latin American final initiative. Here it already talks of the high commissioner’s visit, of establishing the visit, which distinguishes it from the already exhausted schema of the Czech text. This is the second document, irrefutable proof of the hoax cooked up by the State Department, with the backing of certain Latin American governments subjected to brutal pressure by the U.S. government.

In the face of that failure by the United States to succeed in its objective, given that the president of Mexico stated that his country was not going to fulfill that role, the U.S. government began to pressure the Peruvian government. Given Peru’s particular circumstances, its situation at that moment, the U.S. government went for the Peruvian government’s jugular.

President Bush brutally pressured President Alejandro Toledo of Peru, as I already explained right here. However, U.S. diplomacy, shoddy and erratic, accustomed to obtaining what it wants by virtue of force rather than intelligence or political work, hurriedly distributed in Washington a text attributed to Peru, the text in English that you already know, and began to discuss it with the Latin American embassies. That was the moment when we informed public opinion and defended the right of the accredited press in Cuba and the international press to exercise their right to receive information on this matter, which was being manufactured in the strictest silence, in great secrecy, so as to prevent the press and public opinion in Latin America and other countries from having access to all this shady business. That is why we gave you that document. It is the document that the United States began to discuss with the Latin American embassies, claiming that it was Peruvian, that Peru was going to propose it and which the United States considered needed to be strengthened in some places.

That text is the document that we handed over to you at the time, with the commentaries by the State Department.

As you recall, the Peruvian government emphatically denied to us that that was the case, that at that point in time the text was a Peruvian one; and we believed it, indeed, we believed that explanation. It even charged the U.S. government with handing off the monstrosity — still not a Peruvian monstrosity but a U.S. text — to them.

Nevertheless, life, or the next few days, demonstrated that Peru was unable to withstand the tremendous pressure of the U.S. government; the Peruvian government ended up yielding to the pressure, force and threats through which the U.S. government imposed this task on them.

The text already contained new elements, the exercise had acquired its more complete form, the creature was approaching its final state and now not only talks of sending a representative from the high commission for human rights — at the beginning it talked sending of the high commissioner herself – but about calling on Cuba to sign the human rights pacts. Remember that the United States said that in all events this text needed to be tougher; it demanded, pressured, negotiated, because it felt that something more could still be done to the text.

Finally, on April 9, Tuesday of this week, the Peruvian government yielded to U.S. pressure and presented the text in an informal way in Geneva; for the first time a paper appeared in Geneva, as up to that moment no paper on the subject of Cuba had been seen over there, given that they were negotiating in Washington. They were still tying up the loose ends, and then came a secret dinner at the residence of the Peruvian ambassador in Geneva — to which Cuba was not invited, but Cuba knew about it, of course — followed by a working breakfast, likewise highly secret with a select group of invitees, and a Peruvian deputy foreign minister in attendance, and finally, a draft text.

That was the first time this was known about, on Tuesday night Geneva time — the afternoon here in Cuba — and that is this document number four which we are going to give you, which is the draft resolution that the Peruvian government presented to certain members of the Human Rights Commission, under U.S. pressure, which was still going on, with final attempts by the U.S. government to go on changing it, making it tougher, because that process was still not completed.

Curiously, in this document there was timid recognition of the progress obtained by Cuba in its people’s exercise of their social rights. It stated, for example, that the Human Rights Commission recognizes the progress obtained by the Republic of Cuba in realizing the population’s social rights, despite an adverse international climate. That’s a bit mysterious, but at least it talked of recognizing the advances obtained. That was the Tuesday variant, still consulting with the State Department; and curiously, included the U.S. draft almost word for word, although the Peruvian government had initially denied it authorship.

In other words, in practice Peru ended up assuming almost word for word that same draft whose authorship it had, rightly, first denied, but which was finally imposed on it; but well, there was at least the attempt to insert the recognition that Cuba had made some effort, some progress in guaranteeing its people’s social rights.

II PART