Cuba, 2004

Every year at the United Nations, we go through the

same ritual. We attend the general debate knowing

beforehand that the clamour for justice and peace by

our underdeveloped countries will be ignored once

again. However, we persist. We know that we are right.

We know that one day we will accomplish social

justice and development. We also know that such assets

will not be given away to us. We know that the peoples

will have to seize them from those who deny us justice

today, because they underpin their wealth and

arrogance with disdain for our grief. It will not be

always like that, however. We say so today with more

conviction than ever before.

Having said this, and knowing as we do that some

powerful ones — just a few — present here will be

chagrined, and also knowing that they are shared by

many, Cuba will now tell some truths.

First, after the aggression on Iraq, there is no

United Nations, understood as a useful and diverse

forum based on respect for the rights of all and with

guarantees for the small States. It is experiencing the

worst moment of its nearly 60 years. It languishes, it

gasps for air, it keeps up appearances, but it does not

work. Who handcuffed the United Nations, named by

President Roosevelt? President Bush.

Second, United States troops will have to be

withdrawn from Iraq. Now that the lives of over 1,000

American youths have been uselessly sacrificed to

serve the spurious interests of a clique of cronies and

buddies, and following the deaths of more than 12,000

Iraqis, it is clear that the only way out for the occupier

faced with a people in revolt is to recognize the

impossibility of subduing them and to withdraw. In

spite of the imperial monopoly over information,

peoples always get to the truth. Someday, those

responsible and their accomplices will have to deal

with the consequences of their actions in the face of

history and their own peoples.

Third, for the time being, there will be no valid,

real and useful reform of the United Nations. It would

take the super-Power, which inherited the immense

prerogative of governing an order conceived for a

bipolar world, to relinquish its privileges. And it will

not do so.

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As of now, we know that the anachronistic

privilege of the veto will remain; that the Security

Council will not be democratized as it should be or

expanded to include third world countries; that the

General Assembly will continue to stand ignored; and

that, at the United Nations, there will be more actions

driven by the interests imposed by the super-Power and

its allies. We, as non-aligned countries, will have to

entrench ourselves in defending the United Nations

Charter, because if we do not it will be redrafted with

the deletion of every trace of such principles as the

sovereign equality of States, non-intervention and the

non-use or the threat of use of force.

Fourth, the powerful collude to divide us. The

130-plus underdeveloped countries must build a

common front for the defence of the sacred interests of

our peoples and of our right to development and peace.

Let us revitalize the Non-Aligned Movement. Let us

strengthen the Group of 77.

Fifth, the modest objectives of the Millennium

Declaration will not be accomplished. We will reach

the fifth anniversary of the Summit in a situation that

has worsened. We sought to halve by 2015 the 1.276

billion human beings in abject poverty that existed in

1990. There would have to be a yearly reduction of

more than 46 million poor people. However, excluding

China, between 1990 and 2000, extreme poverty rose

by 28 million people. Poverty does not decline, it

grows.

We wanted to reduce by half by 2015 the 842

million hungry people in the world. There would have

had to be a yearly reduction of 28 million. However,

there has been a reduction of barely 2.1 million hungry

people per year. At this rate, the goal will be attained

by 2215, two hundred years after what was envisaged,

and only if our species survives the destruction of its

environment.

We proclaimed the aspiration to achieve universal

primary education by 2015. However, more than 120

million children — or 1 in every 5 children of school

age — do not attend primary school. According to the

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), at the

current rate, the goal will be achieved after 2100.

We also proposed to reduce by two thirds the

mortality rate in children under the age of five. The

reduction has been symbolic: whereas 86 children died

per 1,000 live births in 1998, the figure is now 82.

Every year, 11 million children continue to die of

diseases that can be prevented or cured, and their

parents rightfully wonder what our meetings are for.

We said that we would pay attention to Africa’s

special needs. However, very little has been done.

African nations do not need foreign advice or models,

but rather financial resources and access to markets

and technologies. Assisting Africa would not be an act

of charity, but an act of justice, a settling of the historic

debt resulting from centuries of exploitation and

pillage.

We committed ourselves to halting and starting to

reverse the AIDS epidemic by 2015. However, in 2003,

it claimed nearly 3 million lives. At this rate, some 36

million people will have died of this disease by 2015.

Sixth, creditor countries and the international

financial agencies will not seek a just and lasting

solution to foreign debt. They prefer to keep us in

debt — in other words, vulnerable. Therefore, even

though we have paid off $4.1 trillion in debt servicing

over the last 13 years, our debt has increased from $1.4

trillion to $2.6 trillion. This means that we have paid

three times what we owed and now our debt is twice as

large.

Seventh, we, the underdeveloped countries, are

the ones that finance the wastefulness and the opulence

of developed countries. While in 2003 they gave us

$68.4 billion in official development assistance (ODA),

we delivered $436 billion to them as payment for the

foreign debt. Who is helping whom?

Eighth, the fight against terrorism can only be

won through cooperation among all nations, with

respect for international law, and not through massive

bombings or pre-emptive wars against dark corners of

the world. We must put an end to hypocrisy and double

standards. Sheltering three Cuban-born terrorists in the

United States is an act complicit with terrorism.

Punishing five young Cuban antiterrorists, together

with their families, is a crime.

Ninth, general and complete disarmament,

including nuclear disarmament, is impossible today. It

is the responsibility of a group of developed countries

that are the ones that sell and buy the most weapons.

However, we must continue to strive for this goal. We

must demand that the over $900 billion set aside every

year for military expenditures be used for

development.

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Tenth, the financial resources to guarantee the

sustainable development of all peoples on the planet

are available, but what is lacking is the political will of

those who rule the world. A development tax of merely

0.1 per cent on international financial transactions

would generate resources amounting to almost $400

billion a year. The cancellation of the foreign debt

incurred by underdeveloped countries would allow

them to have no less than $436 billion a year available

for their development, money which is currently used

to pay off the constantly-rising debt. If developed

countries complied with their commitment to set aside

0.7 per cent of their gross national product as ODA,

and not 0.2 per cent as they currently do, their

contribution would increase from the current $68.4

billion to $160 billion a year.

Lastly, I want to clearly express Cuba’s profound

conviction that the 6.4 billion human beings on this

planet — who have equal rights according to the

United Nations Charter — urgently require a new order

in which the world is not in suspense, as is the case

now, awaiting the outcome of the elections in a new

Rome, in which only half the voters will participate

and nearly $1.5 billion will be spent.

There is no discouragement in our words; I must

make that clear. We are optimistic, because we are

revolutionaries. We have faith in the struggle of the

peoples, and we are sure that we will achieve a new

world order based on respect for the rights of all — an

order based on solidarity, justice and peace, resulting

from the best of universal culture, not from mediocrity

or brute force.

With regard to Cuba — and neither blockades,

threats, hurricanes, droughts, nor human or natural

force can divert it from its course — I shall say

nothing. On 28 October, for the thirteenth time, the

General Assembly will discuss and vote on a draft

resolution on the blockade against the Cuban people.

Once again, morality and principles will defeat

arrogance and force.

I conclude by recalling the words spoken here 25

years ago by President Fidel Castro:

“The clashing of weapons, the threatening

language and the overbearing behaviour in the

international arena must cease. Enough of the

illusion that the problems of the world can be

solved by nuclear weapons. Bombs may kill the

hungry, the sick and the ignorant; but bombs

cannot kill hunger, disease and ignorance. Nor

can bombs kill the righteous rebellion of the

peoples.”