‘Cuba proclaims here that it is opposed to renewed military action against Iraq’

SPEECH GIVEN BY FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE 57th SESSION OF THE UN GENERAL ASSEMBLY, NEW YORK, SEPTEMBER 14, 2002.

Mr. President:

One year ago this General Assembly had to be postponed due to the brutal crime perpetrated on September 11. A wave of solidarity with the U.S. people, especially with the families of the almost 3,000 innocent victims of that unjustifiable terrorist act, swept the world.

The conditions were established for a genuine international alliance under the auspices and direction of the United Nations Organization, with absolute respect for the ideas and principles consecrated in its Charter. Virtually all countries, irrespective of their ideological, political, cultural and religious differences, demonstrated their willingness to actively cooperate with this idea of unobjectionable common interest.

However, another vision was imposed. It was unwontedly proclaimed that those who did not second warfare being decided by one country alone would be seen as favoring terrorism. The Security Council was even informed that that country reserved the right to decide, by itself, to attack other nations in the future.

A unilateral war was then unleashed in which the number of victims is still unknown and whose most tangible consequence will probably be that of dealing a powerful blow to the UN’s credibility and to multilateralism as a way of confronting the complex challenges currently facing us.

What is the balance today? Feelings of hatred, revenge and insecurity are greater, which does not help the fight against terrorism. Dangerous xenophobic and discriminatory currents are threatening the existence of a pluralistic and democratic world. Public liberties and civil rights have suffered a setback.

Meanwhile, certain powers have lacked the political will to rigorously apply — in a non-selective and non-hypocritical way — the 12 international legal agreements related to combating terrorism. Nor have we advanced in what is currently an essential definition of state terrorism.

For its part, Cuba, the victim of acts of terrorism for over 40 years, has expressed its opinions in this Assembly with calmness and firmness, and unswervingly condemned the crime of September 11 and terrorism. But it has also opposed warfare on the basis of ethical considerations and respect for international law; it has signed and ratified the 12 international agreements against terrorism, approved national legislation against that scourge, and has fully cooperated with the labors of the committee created by the Security Council for those ends. At the same time, at a bilateral level, the island proposed the adoption of a program to combat terrorism to the U.S. government that, incomprehensibly, that government rejected.

To date, and despite the fact not having developed nor intending to develop nuclear weapons, Cuba has not been a member state of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, given that it is an inadequate and discriminatory instrument that has allowed a club of nuclear powers to be established without any concrete commitment to disarmament. However, as a sign of the Cuban government’s clear political will and commitment to an effective disarmament process guaranteeing world peace, our country has decided to adhere to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, thus reaffirming our aspiration for the total elimination of all nuclear weapons, under strict international verification.

In addition to and despite the fact that the only nuclear power in the Americas maintains a hostile policy towards Cuba that does not exclude the use of force, Cuba is also to ratify the Latin America and Caribbean Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Arms known as the Tlatelolco Treaty, which our country signed in 1995.

On a day like this, I shall repeat the words expressed by Cuba at the last General Assembly: “Only under the leadership of the United Nations can we defeat terrorism. Cooperation, not war, is the way. The coordination of actions and not their imposition is the method… Cuba reiterates its condemnation of terrorism in all its forms and manifestations. Cuba reiterates that it will never allow its territory to be used for terrorist acts against the people of the United States or of any other country.”

Mr. President:

Why have we not seen a zeal similar to that unleashed in the war in Afghanistan applied to seeking a just and lasting solution for peace in the Middle East? Why have some people not uttered a single word to condemn the aggression against the territory of Palestine and the crimes against its people? Why have the selective murders and use of military force against the civilian population not been condemned? Why has impunity been guaranteed for the Israeli Army’s actions, thus tying the hands of the Security Council? Why has firm action not been taken to implement the Security Council resolutions guaranteeing the proclamation of an independent and sovereign Palestinian state, with East Jerusalem as its capital? Why does the only superpower on the planet today act in one way in one case and a different way in another? Why is there no end to the suffering of Palestinian mothers whose children have also been killed, as were the innocent people of September 11?

Answers should be given to these questions by those in this room who bear the responsibility for what is happening in the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories.

Mr. President:

A new war against Iraq now seems inevitable, an escalation of the situation of constant aggression which that nation has experienced for the last 10 years. There is talk now of a “preventive strike” in plain violation of the spirit and letter of the UN Charter.

Cuba defends principles, not conveniences, and therefore, although that may displease its sponsors, is categorically opposed to this war. Cuba is not motivated by an anti-U.S. spirit, even though that government has maintained and strengthened a blockade of more than 40 years against our people.

However, not stating the truth out of cowardice or political calculation is not characteristic of the Cuban Revolution. Thus, Cuba proclaims here that it is opposed to renewed military action against Iraq. We do so while recalling that, at the time, it supported the Security Council resolution calling on the Iraqi government to withdraw from Kuwait.

We maintain that it would be insane to develop weapons of mass destruction today and we perceive the only possible way to world peace is through general and complete disarmament, including nuclear disarmament, and reorienting money currently spent on arms to confront humanity’s extremely grave economic and social problems.

The Arab countries have been categorical in their rejection of this war; the majority of the European countries are not seconding it; the international community is perceiving with growing concern how a new war is being announced on the basis of accusations that have not been proven and ignoring the evident reality that Iraq cannot be a danger to the United States.

If the U.S. government unleashes a new war against Iraq, imposing it on the Security Council or unilaterally opting for it against international public opinion, this will have marked the birth of the century of unilateralism and the enforced retirement of the United Nations.

It would then appear that the Cold War era, with its distant bipolarity, errors and contradictions were not as sterile and dangerous as the stage inexorably emerging today before the world.

Mr. President:

We must save the United Nations. Cuba defends both the need for its preservation and that of its radical reform and democratization. But this must be done respecting its Charter and not rewriting or distorting its purposes and principles. In the end, we must give the General Assembly its role established by the Charter. We must rescue the Security Council from the discredit and the doubts justifiably weighing it down today, and transform it into a truly representative organization – and I am speaking of the presence of the Third World nations and not military strength as a justification for membership — into a democratic organization – and I am speaking of eliminating the veto and other anti-democratic practices – into a transparent body – and I am speaking of an end to secret discussions and real decisions being made in secret by a few and imposed on the rest.

Today, when it is being more threatened than ever, Cuba all the more strongly defends the need to preserve multilateralism in international relations. For that reason, we have viewed with frustration the disappointing outcome of negotiations for establishing an International Crimes Tribunal, which Cuba supported, understanding it as a genuinely impartial body, non-selective, efficient and complementary to national justice systems, and genuinely independent. De facto amending the international treaty that gave life to the tribunal, validated by the Security Council, or imposing humiliating bilateral agreements on other countries to prevent them from fulfilling the international commitments derived from that agreement, is not only arrogant, but also irresponsible.

The International Crimes Tribunal being proclaimed today is not the body we needed and for which we fought, but one subordinated to hegemonic political interests and a potential victim of manipulation, tied from its birth to the decisions of some permanent member of the Security Council. What genuine international justice can be expected from a body lacking a definition of the crime of aggression, or that could receive instructions from the Security Council to suspend or indefinitely prorogue a case at the request of one of its permanent members? Who can guarantee that the Tribunal will not end up becoming an instrument in the service of interventionism and domination on the part of the more powerful countries?

Cuba reiterates here, today, what it already stated at the recent Johannesburg Summit: it is imperative to re-found the international financial institutions. It is imperative to create a legitimate substitute for the International Monetary Fund. It is imperative to direct the labors of the World Bank to support the real exercise of the right to development of more than 130 Third World nations. It is imperative to place new financial resources for combating poverty, underdevelopment, disease and hunger in the hands of the United Nations. It is imperative to rescue the World Trade Organization from the interests of a small number of rich and powerful countries, and convert it into an instrument in the service of a just and equitable international trade system.

The scant results of the Monterrey and Johannesburg Summits, Mr. President, and the wave of justified anger and questioning they have inspired, lays on the table once again the issue of a lack of political will on the part of the principle industrialized countries to give up some of their privileges to permit a real change in the unjust and unsustainable world order that is today submerging two thirds of the world population in poverty.

I recognize, Mr. President, that Cuba’s words might not be shared by some persons in this room. I also understand that they may be taken as an attack on one country in particular. However, that is not the reason. Words have to be used to defend the truth and that is what Cuba has done and will always do. We are a small and noble nation that proclaimed a long time ago that for us, the Cubans, “Homeland is humanity.”

Thank you very much.