Cuba, 2009

I would like to congratulate Mr. Ali

Abdussalam Treki on his election to the presidency and

reiterate our confidence in his ability to conduct our

work and our deliberations successfully. I would also

like to recognize the excellent leadership of Father

Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the

Assembly at its previous session. The ethical

dimension and political scope of his presidency have

enabled us to move forward towards the goal of

restoring to this Assembly all its powers, and will stand

as a benchmark for the future. Thanks to his example,

it has become even clearer to us now that reforming the

United Nations is about democratizing it and bringing

it closer to the people.

Since the general debate of one year ago

important events have occurred in the international

arena. Climate change is now more visible and

dangerous. The economic crisis has become intense

and global. Social exclusion has increased.

However, the international community reacted

with profound optimism to the change of Government

in the United States. It seemed that a period of extreme

aggressiveness, unilateralism and arrogance in the

foreign policy of that country had come to an end and

the infamous legacy of the George W. Bush regime had

crumbled in repudiation. As those in this very Hall can

attest, novel and conciliatory words from the White

House raised great hopes, and the world welcomed his

repeated messages of change, dialogue and

cooperation. Unfortunately, time goes by, and those

words do not seem to be supported by concrete facts.

The words do not coincide with reality.

The most serious and dangerous aspect of this

new situation is the uncertainty about the real capacity

of the present authorities in Washington to overpower

the sweeping political and ideological currents that

threatened the world under the previous Administration.

The neoconservative groups that placed George Bush

in the presidency — the powers that promoted the use

of force and domination under the protection of the

colossal military and economic strength of the United

States and that are to blame for crimes including

torture, assassination and the manipulation of the

American people — have quickly regrouped and retain

immense resources of power and influence, contrary to

the change proclaimed.

The detention and torture centre at the

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base — which usurps Cuban

territory — has not been shut down. The occupation

troops in Iraq have not been withdrawn. The war in

Afghanistan is expanding and is threatening other

States.

As for Cuba, which has suffered American

aggression for half a century, last April the new United

States Government announced measures to abolish

some of the Bush Administration’s most brutal actions

that prohibited contact between Cubans living in the

United States and their relatives in Cuba, particularly

the possibility to visit them and to send assistance

without limitations. These measures are a positive step,

but they are extremely limited and insufficient.

The announced measures included authorizing

American companies to carry out certain

telecommunications operations with Cuba, but other

restrictions that prevent the implementation of those

operations have not been modified. Nor has there been

any sign that the United States Government is ready to

put an end to the immoral practice — which has

recently increased — of misappropriating Cuban funds

frozen in American banks, as well as other goods,

under the protection of venal judges who violate their

own laws.

The essential fact is that the economic,

commercial and financial blockade of Cuba remains in

place. The United States President, despite the

existence of laws such as the Helms-Burton Act, still

has broad executive powers, such as the granting of

licenses, by means of which he could modify the

implementation of the blockade.

If there were a true desire for change, the United

States Government could authorize the export of Cuban

goods and services to the United States and vice versa.

The United States could allow Cuba to buy anywhere

in the world products comprised of more than 10 per

cent American components or technology, regardless of

trademark or country of origin. The United States

Department of the Treasury could refrain from

pursuing, freezing and confiscating third-country

transfers in United States dollars and other currencies

to Cuban nationals or entities. Washington could lift

the ban preventing third-country vessels from docking

at any American port until 180 days after calling at any

Cuban port. The Treasury Department’s persecution of

financial institutions and companies that trade with or

17 09-52598

carry out operations in Cuba could also be suspended.

President Obama could allow American citizens, by

means of a license, to travel to Cuba — the only

country in the world they are not allowed to visit.

The Secretary-General’s report to the Assembly

(A/64/97) abounds with examples. In the course of

2009 numerous fines, confiscations and other

hindrances have been levelled at trade carried out by

Cuba or by third countries with Cuba. As the United

States Treasury Department itself has reported, since

January this year almost half of the funds collected by

its Office of Foreign Assets Control came from

sanctions imposed on American and foreign companies

for alleged violations of the economic blockade against

Cuba.

The true and indisputable fact is that the new

American Government continues to ignore the

international community’s overwhelming appeal,

expressed in this Assembly year after year, to put an

end to the blockade of Cuba. Two weeks ago President

Obama instructed the Secretaries of State and the

Treasury that, contrary to what is reflected in all

American opinion polls, “it is in the national interest”

to maintain economic sanctions against Cuba under the

Trading with the Enemy Act — a law enacted in 1917

to address wartime situations and which is today

applied only to Cuba. The United States blockade of

Cuba is an act of unilateral aggression that should be

unilaterally terminated.

For many years Cuba has expressed its

willingness to normalize relations with the United

States. On 1 August 2009, President Raúl Castro Ruz

publicly reiterated Cuba’s readiness to participate in a

respectful dialogue, between equals, with the United

States — a dialogue that assumes our independence,

sovereignty and self-determination. He emphasized

that we should mutually respect our differences and

that Cuba does not recognize that the Government of

that or any other country, or any other group of States,

has any jurisdiction over our internal affairs.

The Government of Cuba has suggested to the

United States Government a set of essential topics it

considers must necessarily be discussed during a future

dialogue aimed at improving relations. Those topics

include the lifting of the economic, commercial and

financial blockade; the removal of Cuba from the

spurious list of terrorist countries; the revocation of the

Cuban Adjustment Act and of the “wet foot, dry foot”

policy; compensation for economic and human

damages; the return of the territory occupied by the

Guantánamo Bay Naval Base; the end of all radio and

television aggression from United States territory

against Cuba; and the cessation of American funding of

domestic subversion.

An essential item on that agenda is the release of

the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters who have been

unjustly imprisoned in the United States for 11 years.

President Obama has the constitutional prerogatives to

free them as an act of justice and of his Government’s

commitment against terrorism.

The President returned to the Chair.

Furthermore, we have proposed to the United

States to begin talks on setting up cooperation to tackle

drug trafficking, terrorism and human smuggling,

protect the environment and address natural disasters.

In that spirit, the Cuban Government has held talks

with that of the United States on migration and on the

establishment of direct postal services. Those talks

have been courteous and useful.

Cuba enjoys extensive and fruitful relations in all

parts of the world. With the single exception of the

United States, Cuba has friendly relations with all

countries of this hemisphere and counts on the

solidarity of the region. We cooperate with dozens of

countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the

Caribbean.

Ours is a stable country with a united, cultured

and healthy people who have amply proven that, even

under an embargo, they are capable of facing the

consequences of the global economic crisis and the

effects of climate change, which last year cost the

national economy 20 per cent of its gross domestic

product.

Conditions in Cuba are such that it can face its

own problems and find solutions to them. We do so in a

just and fair society that relies on its own efforts and

has been able to advance and guide its development in

the most adverse conditions. We are ready to continue

facing those challenges calmly and patiently, confident

that no citizen has been or will be abandoned and

certain that we are defending a cause of national

independence and a socialist plan that have the huge

support of the Cubans. Anyone who tries to stop the

revolution and bend the will of the Cuban people is

suffering from delusions. Patriotism, social justice and

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the resolve to defend independence are all part of our

national identity.

Latin America and the Caribbean are in a

dramatic situation, characterized by the sharp

contradiction between the large majorities — which,

together with progressive Governments and broad

social movements, are demanding justice and

fairness — and the traditional oligarchies committed to

preserving their privileges. The coup d’état in

Honduras demonstrates that. Those who participated in

the coup and the usurpers who kidnapped the

legitimate President of that country are violating the

constitution and brutally repressing the people, as

happened in the dark years of the military dictatorships

in Latin America propped up by the United States.

Hundreds of thousands of assassinated, missing and

tortured persons are stirring the conscience of our

America in the face of impunity.

It has still not been explained why the plane that

kidnapped the constitutional President of Honduras

made a stopover at the American Palmerola air base.

The American fascist right, which Cheney symbolizes,

openly supports and defends the coup. President

José Manuel Zelaya must be fully, immediately and

unconditionally reinstated to the execution of his

constitutional duties. The inviolability of the Brazilian

Embassy in Tegucigalpa must be respected and the

siege of and the attacks on its property must stop. The

Honduran people are valiantly resisting and will have

the last word.

Those events coincide with the renewed and

aggressive interest of the United States in setting up

military bases in Latin America and in re-establishing

the Fourth Fleet, clearly with the aim of putting the

region within only a few hours’ reach of American

troops, threatening the revolutionary and progressive

movements, in particular the Bolivarian revolution in

the sister nation of Venezuela, and gaining control of

the region’s oil and other natural resources.

The slander and lies against the Bolivarian

Republic of Venezuela are brutal. It should be recalled

that it was thus when atrocious aggression emerged and

was instigated against our fatherland. The broader and

clearer the policy towards that sister nation, the more it

will contribute to the peace, independence and

development of the peoples of Latin America and the

Caribbean.

Latin America and the Caribbean can advance

and, to a certain extent, are moving forward to new and

higher forms of integration. They have more water,

land, forests and mineral and energy resources than any

other region of the planet. Their population exceeds

570 million. The Rio Group, the Latin American and

Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development

and the Union of South American Nations are bodies

set up by virtue of the ties that unite us. The Bolivarian

Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas and the

Petrocaribe cooperation scheme are prime examples.

The optimistic forecasts from Pittsburgh on the

progression of the global economic crisis, which

predict a possible economic recovery early next year,

are not based on solid data and, at best, only indicate

relief from collapse for a very limited group of the

world’s most powerful economies. It is worth noting

that objectives have been set but not a word has been

said about how to achieve them.

No one should forget that what is involved is an

unprecedented crisis of the capitalist system that

encompasses the respective food, energy, ecological,

social and financial crises. Nor should we overlook the

danger of debt combined with inflation, of the bursting

of other financial bubbles, or of a second collapse. The

developing countries are not to blame, but are the

victims of the consequences of the unreasonable and

unsustainable model of consumption, exploitation and

speculation, the attack on the environment and the

corruption in the industrialized economies.

While the debates go on, the number of hungry

people will reach a record figure of 1,020 million in

2009 — a sixth of the world’s population. This year,

another 90 million will be cast into poverty and

50 million others into unemployment. During these

months, another 400,000 children are expected to die

as a result of the crisis.

The measures that have been adopted are only

palliative ones that perpetuate the serious deficiencies

of an unjust, exclusive and ecologically unsustainable

international economic system. We need a fully

comprehensive and inclusive international dialogue

with the active participation of all developing

countries. We need to establish a new international

economic order based on solidarity, justice, equality

and sustainable development. The international

financial architecture should be founded anew. The

19 09-52598

United Nations, particularly this General Assembly, is

called upon to play a key role in this endeavour.

In conclusion, I reiterate Cuba’s gratitude for the

traditional and invaluable solidarity it has received

from this General Assembly in its struggle against

aggression and the blockade. Today, that solidarity

remains as indispensable as ever.

As Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz said

from this very rostrum nine years ago:

“Nothing in the existing economic and

political order serves the interests of humankind.

Thus this order is unsustainable and must be

changed. Suffice it to say that the world has

already more than 6 billion inhabitants, 80 per

cent of whom live in poverty. Ages-old diseases

of the third world — diseases such as malaria,

tuberculosis and others equally lethal — have not

been eradicated, while new epidemics like AIDS

threaten to exterminate the population of entire

nations … Meanwhile, wealthy countries keep

devoting enormous amounts of money to military

expenses and to buy luxury items, and a

voracious plague of speculators exchange

currencies, stocks and other real or fictitious

values for trillions of dollars every day.

“Nature is being devastated. The climate is

changing under our own eyes, and drinking water

is increasingly contaminated or scarce. The seas,

a source of human sustenance, are being depleted,

and crucial non-renewable resources are being

wasted on luxury and vanities …

“The dream of having truly fair and sensible

norms to guide human destiny seems impossible

to many. However, we are convinced that the

struggle for the impossible should be the motto of

this institution that brings us together today.”

(A/55/PV.4, p. 20)

Despite everything, the fiftieth anniversary of the

Cuban Revolution is being celebrated victoriously and

with pride.