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To
save the UN and its collective security mechanisms
from collapse; to confront the deliberate flouting
of the principles of its Charter
• Speech
given by Felipe Pérez Roque, Minister of Foreign Affairs
of the Republic of Cuba, to the senior-level sector
of the 59th session
of the Human Rights Commission.
GENEVA,
MARCH 20, 2003
Madam
President:
First
of all, I wish to offer you the government of the
Republic of Cuba’s sincere congratulations on your
election as president of the 59th session of the
Human Rights Commission. That not only constitutes
an important recognition on the part of the
international community of your rich professional
development and confirmed competence, but — and in
particular — is evidence that the arrogance and
interests of hegemonic domination can be defeated
when unity and a cooperative spirit among the
majority of its members prevail. We hope that our
decision to elect yourself, against obdurate
opposition and pressure from the U.S. delegation
does not convert the Human Rights Commission into
another "forgotten corner of the world."
I
equally extend our congratulations to Mr. Sergio
Vieira de Mello on his appointment as UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights. He will have to take
on an arduous task at the most dangerous and complex
point in the history of this Commission. I assure
him that from now on he can count on Cuba and its
will to fully cooperate to aid the success of his
functions.
Madam
President:
The
world has dramatically changed in the last year.
More than half a century of experience and
unquestionable contributions from the United Nations
and the multilateral system founded at the end of
World War II are being subjected to unjust and
unnecessary humiliation and are on the way to being
destroyed.
As we
should clearly acknowledge: the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights is in danger of becoming
a dead letter precisely on the 55th anniversary of
its proclamation. Let us recall that the visionary
authors of the text that would become a landmark in
the collective aspiration to build a world of
freedom, justice and peace, left established in
Article 28 the right of all peoples to an
established social and international order in which
fundamental liberties and human rights would be made
fully effective. Let us say it clearly: that order
does not currently exist and would been more distant
with every passing day.
This
time we are not going to dwell on the issues that
have traditionally been the object of our concern.
We will not be talking today of the hypocrisy and
double standards that have been holding back our
labors for years. We will not be calling for
profound reform and democratization within this
commission. Today, we will not even be defending the
right of all peoples to freely elect their own civil
and political model and their own way to economic
and social development. Neither will we be
reiterating the need to grant equal importance to
the defense of civil and political rights and the
promotion of those always-postponed economic, social
and cultural rights. On this occasion we are not
going to indict how rights proclaimed in the
Declaration, such as: "all human beings are
born free and equal in dignity and rights," or
"all people have the right to participate in
the government of their country," or "all
people have the right to work," or "all
people have the right to education," "all
people have the right to an adequate standard of
living that will assure health and well-being, and
especially alimentation, clothing, housing, medical
care and the necessary social services for them and
their families," are not being met today for
the overwhelming majority of the planet’s
inhabitants.
Although
this might cause surprise, neither are we going to
use these minutes to denounce the arbitrary and
disparaged attempt to fabricate and impose by force
a condemnation of Cuba within this Commission, in
order to continue justifying the genocidal blockade
that successive U.S. governments have imposed on our
people for more than 40 years.
Today,
our priority has to be another: to save the collapse
of the United Nations Organization and its
mechanisms of collective security; and to confront
the deliberate flouting of principles enshrined in
its Charter.
Madam
President:
The
illegal, unjust and unnecessary aggression against a
Third World country, Iraq — already unleashed with
total brutality despite the unanimous rejection of
world public opinion — is making the right of
nations to unfettered self-determination and
sovereignty a mere illusion. The end of that war
will see a new world order in which our long-held
aspiration that the planet should be ruled by the
empire of law will have been crushed by the
imposition of an order ruled by the law of the
empire. Not even the former allies in NATO who
accompanied the United States for years during the
cold war, are now exempt from military aggression.
Can you imagine that that one day the United States
could proclaim its right even to invade the city of
the Hague, right in the heart of Europe, in the
event of a U.S. soldier being taken before the
International Court of Justice? Can we expect that
not even the European Union, a wise and patient
exercise in integration, and now visibly split, will
be able to halt the bellicose and hegemonic excesses
of the U.S. government?
The
consequences of consistent aggression towards
international law, unwonted declarations and
doctrines, and the constant use of threats and
military blackmail that we have seen during the last
year still have to be comprehended in their full
extension and significance. An entire planet has
become the hostage of the capricious decisions of an
unbridled power that ignores any and every
international commitment and acts only in line with
its own interests and its peculiar concept of
national security. We are moving towards a new world
order in which agreement is being replaced by threat
and threat by fear. That, Madam President, is our
dilemma and our challenge: to confront in a unified
way a danger that threatens us all.
Well,
it might be fitting to wonder whether in fact there
are any motives for optimism. Cuba firmly believes
that there is a powerful reason for feeling
optimistic: in the history of humanity great crises
have always opened the way to great solutions. No
dictatorship, no empire with hegemonic intentions
has been able to impose itself all the time on
aspirations to justice and freedom for the peoples.
It is a fact that on many occasions fear of
confronting the powerful, disheartenment and apathy
have made the cost of victory a higher one. That is
why, today, while it is still not too late, I repeat
with all respect the words which, on behalf of Cuba,
I expressed to the Commission last year: "Cuba
considers that, despite the political differences
among us, there is nevertheless, a danger that is
common to all of us: the attempt to impose a world
dictatorship in the service of the mighty
superpower, which has declared without any
circumlocutions that one is with it or against
it."
At
that time the political dangers and actions of the
current U.S. government had not been revealed and my
words could have been taken as inflammatory
rhetoric. However, and lamentably, very recent
events have occurred to confirm them. That is why I
reiterate today with greater force and conviction
our call of last year:
Do the
Western nations — until yesterday the allies of
the United States in a bipolar world, but today
victims like us of this dangerous and unsustainable
order that they are trying to impose on us — not
believe that the time has come to fight side by side
for our rights? Why not attempt a new alliance for a
future of peace, security and justice for all? Why
not attempt a coalition that once again proclaims
the aspiration of liberty, equality and fraternity
for all the peoples on its banner? … Why not
believe that a better world is possible?"
Cuba
believes that the workings of this Commission have
to move from a sterile confrontation between the
North and South to a joint struggle for a world of
peace, justice and equity, the existence of which is
today under threat, not only for the nations of the
South, but also for those of the North.
We are
not alone and, moreover, we are the majority. We
also have the decisive support of growing sectors of
the U.S. people themselves, whose idealist and just
sentiments when they know the truth have been proved
to the Cuban people. Are not the huge mobilizations
today opposed to an unjustifiable and unnecessary
war on Iraq genuinely heartening? And how they
continue being opposed to the imposition of the
neoliberal model on a globalized world that is
impoverishing our countries and preventing them from
their dreams of development? Does not the valiant
position of France and other countries allow us to
optimistically consider the possibility of a world
governed by law and not by war?
To sum
up, ms. delegates, Cuba is now issuing an invitation
to collective reflection, and not to let ourselves
be beaten by confusion and pessimism. Cuba invites
all members of the Commission to support the
initiative to promote a democratic and equitable
international order; to support an initiative that
proclaims the right of all peoples to peace. Cuba
invites you to support the proclamation in this
forum of the right to solidarity, of the need for a
global, durable and sustainable solution to the
problem of the external debt; to support the
implementation and application at international
level of the Declaration on the Right to
Development. Cuba invites you to support a draft
resolution that proposes popular participation,
equity, and social justice without discrimination as
essential bases for democracy. Finally, Cuba invites
you to construct a new way of working within this
Commission to rectify the practice by a small number
of countries of promoting condemnatory resolutions
against the underdeveloped countries based on
selective criteria and ideological positions that
have nothing to do with the cause of human rights.
Madam
President:
The
world urgently needs peace in order to concentrate
all its intelligence and resources on combating the
real enemies of our species: hunger, poverty,
underdevelopment, the destruction of the
environment, illiteracy, disease, and the growing
marginalization to which the overwhelming majority
of the planet’s population is being subjected.
Let us
fight side by side to save the United Nations, to
save the principles of multilateralism, and to
create the conditions that would give meaning to the
workings of this Commission.
Let us
build a coalition for justice and peace. Let us
concentrate our efforts, over and above our
differences today transcended by a greater danger
that threatens us all, so that a better world, which
will not be given to us on a plate, is possible. But
our duty is to fight, and we shall fight for it.
Thank
you very much.
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