Cuba, 2025

I now give the floor to His Excellency Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Barrera, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba. Madam President of the General Assembly, Secretary General, As we meet here, 2.2 million human beings in Gaza are condemned to hunger by the genocidal extermination and ethnic cleansing actions of the Zionist regime, which enjoys the military and financial supplies and the impunity guaranteed by the Government of the United States. On behalf of the Government and people of Cuba, I reiterate our firmest solidarity with the Palestinian people and with their just cause for freedom, independence and an end to the Zionist occupation. If the Security Council proves itself impotent because of the veto that the United States wields or threatens to wield, and is incapable of adopting effective measures to halt the barbarity, then this General Assembly has the duty and the capacity to put forward concrete measures without delay. At the very least, it must unequivocally declare Palestine's right to be a UN member state within the pre-1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital, and with the right of refugees to return. 11 million people, 3 million of them children, die every year from hunger and associated diseases. The climate crisis is destroying nations and lives, devastating communities and economies. A handful of countries and individuals have amassed more wealth than the vast majority of all other countries combined. Colossal inequalities stifle and prevent sustainable development. There has been no effective global response to today's serious challenges. There could not be, because the current world order reflects a bygone era, when most developing countries did not even exist as independent states. Eighty years ago, the United Nations was founded with only 51 member states. Today we are 193. The most urgent priority is to create a new international order that guarantees peace, the right to development, sovereign equality, participation and representation of developing countries in global policy decisions, that provides for the common good and prosperity in harmony with nature, and ensures the exercise of all human rights for all people. Let us aspire to a new civilized coexistence, in which solidarity, international cooperation and the peaceful settlement of disputes prevail as alternatives to war, the use of force, aggression and occupation, opposed to unipolar domination and hegemonism. An order without blockades or universal coercive measures, based on multilateralism and full respect for the United Nations Charter and international law. Even with its limitations, the United Nations continues to be the most representative body of the international community. We have the duty to protect and strengthen it in its intergovernmental essence, in its democratic foundations that cannot be diluted into generalized agendas subject to arbitrary priorities and rules imposed by the largest funders. What we must do is emphasize the central role of the General Assembly as its most democratic and representative organ. The UN80 initiative launched by the Secretary General must have as its main objective the strengthening of the intergovernmental nature of the United Nations and its capacity to better confront the urgent challenges of the present. We must reject the threatening proposal of a new doctrine that they call peace through strength, which is equivalent to imposing the arbitrary will of U.S. imperialism on everyone through threat, coercion and aggression. This is a doctrine conceived to satisfy the ambitions of a unipolar power already in decline, which by the way serves the interests of big transnational corporations at the cost of sovereign nations and their peoples and to the cost of the values upon which this organization was founded. In the Caribbean, today we're seeing the looming threat of war with an extraordinary naval and air deployment of an offensive nature, utterly unjustified, involving missiles, landing and assault craft and nuclear submarines. Test missiles with nuclear capacity are being launched. The United States brandishes the pretext of fighting crime and drug trafficking. This is a tale which no one in this chamber believes. The attack and destruction of unidentified boats, the assassination or extrajudicial execution of civilians, the interception of fishing vessels and aggressive actions by the United States generate a dangerous situation that violates international law, threatens peace and regional security. We reaffirm our energetic rejection of threats of aggression against Venezuela and our full support for the Bolivarian and Chavista government of this sister Latin American and Caribbean nation and for the People's Military Union led by the legitimate President Nicolas Maduro Moros. We repudiate the Monroe Doctrine and any attempt at militarization, intervention or imperialist domination in Latin America and the Caribbean, proclaimed as a zone of peace in 2014 in Havana with the signatures of the heads of state and government of the community of Latin American and Caribbean states. The accelerated arms race leads to competition in the field of death and destruction, employing extraordinary financial and material resources that could instead be dedicated to poverty alleviation, development and cooperation. Meanwhile, most of the meager goals of the 2030 agenda will not be met. Commitments of official development assistance are being ignored and climate financing is decreasing. In 1960, before this very assembly, the historic leader of the Cuban revolution, Fidel Castro, stated and I quote, eliminate the philosophy of plunder and the philosophy of war will disappear. Madam President, climate change is advancing inexorably and quickly. The first six months of this year have been the hottest ever recorded. Last year was already the hottest. From this very podium, science and decades of collective work to protect the planet are now being questioned. If we don't change the unsustainable production and consumption patterns of capitalism and address their root causes, then by 2030 we will surpass the fateful threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius. The external debt of developing countries, already paid several times over, continues to grow, accumulating astronomical interest as a new form of colonization. What we need to do is implement the commitments undertaken at the fourth international conference on financing for development, with additional resources and a specific multilateral mechanism for debt negotiation. We're suffering the consequences of powerful cultural domination in an era when digital technology increasingly impacts our lives across the board. A few transnationals, almost all of them from the U.S., impose their operating systems and control the content that is seen, read and heard, manipulating human behavior. We are suffering from the dictatorship of the algorithm. What we need to do is establish at the UN, as soon as possible, common norms in order to unlock the transformative potential of new technologies, especially artificial intelligence, for the benefit of all, whilst at the same time mitigating the risks. Beyond the challenges that Cuba faces as a small island developing state, our country suffers from the devastating and accumulated impact of the policy of hostility and economic suffocation that has been imposed by the United States for more than six decades. The blockade against Cuba persists and is being tightened to the extreme. It is really a comprehensive and prolonged economic war aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability of their existence as a supportive, educated and joyful people. Anyone who claims otherwise deliberately lies. The very promoters of this war boast of its destructive effect and its ability to strike anywhere in the world and affect the standard of living of an entire people. The aggression has escalated to unprecedented levels in the last eight years, including increasingly acts of persecution and economic pressure on third parties. The countries that you represent and that increasingly are elaborate, surgical and extraterritorial in nature, they affect productive capacity and have commercial and financial effects affecting services and policies that guarantee social justice and life itself. Today Cuba faces a grave scenario of prolonged and daily blackouts, difficulties in affording food, insufficient availability of medicines, reduced public transport, limited community services and pronounced inflation which is eroding real incomes. In 1960, the U.S. Undersecretary of State, Lester Mallory, drafted the infamous Memorandum of Coercion and Blockade against Cuba and it is this that has guided U.S. policy ever since and currently governs the policy of the U.S. He wrote, and I quote, ìAll possible means must be promptly used to weaken the economic life of Cuba, a line of action that achieves the greatest progress in depriving Cuba of money and supplies to reduce its financial resources and real wages, provoke hunger, desperation and the overthrow of the government.î The current Secretary of State of the United States is the reincarnation of that macabre figure. Madam President, Cuba is a country that is a victim of terrorism and for decades we have been subject to state terrorism from the U.S. For years and still today, terrorist acts against our country are organized and financed from U.S. territory and these people live here in total impunity and they are recognized as perpetrators of horrendous acts of aggression against the Cuban people, causing thousands of deaths, mutilations and significant material damage. In compliance with our counter-terrorism responsibilities and with U.N. efforts against this scourge, the Cuban government has officially shared with the U.S. government in recent years the names and information relating to 62 individuals and 20 organizations based in this country who have been responsible for violent and terrorist acts and who continue from U.S. territory participating in such acts against Cuba. No response has been received, nor is it known if the U.S. authorities have taken any action against any of them. It is cynical that the U.S. government, for purposes of political and economic coercion, labels Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism, a slander not shared by this organization nor by any other of its member states. Many national institutions, both banking and financial as well as commercial, of nearly all the countries represented here, are intimidated by this false designation of the U.S. government and because of this, their banks very often avoid engaging with Cuban entities offering us credit, supporting our commercial activity or channeling our transfers. Added to this is intimidation against citizens of more than 40 countries whom the U.S. government threatens with reprisals if they decide, by right, to visit Cuba. The United States has unleashed a virulent campaign of accreditation and persecution against Cuban medical cooperation and of harassment and coercion against the authorities of countries that receive it. This is a strategy directed by the State Department, directly. It seeks to disparage this cooperation, which has saved millions of lives and, in many cases, has been the only option for access to health care for large population groups. This altruistic and supportive cooperation rests on entirely legitimate bilateral agreements and aligns fully with international standards of this organization in the field of cooperation as it does with the standards of other organizations. I confirm once again that Cuba will maintain its commitments with all countries with which we have bilateral medical cooperation agreements and programs and we will remain willing to expand them with all governments who are prepared to develop such cooperation respecting international law, national legislation and all of this for the well-being of their peoples. Since 1963, almost going back to that time of Mr. Mallory's declaration, 605,000 doctors from Cuba, doctors and specialists, have carried out in dozens of countries more than 17 million surgeries and brought more than 5 million children into the world. At this moment, over 24,000 health professionals provide services in 56 countries. The aggression against Cuba is reinforced by a powerful machinery of destabilization that from U.S. territory and with funding from that country's federal budget mounts an offensive aimed at disturbing public order, promoting acts of violence, disorienting the population and discrediting our country. It is a strategy of unconventional warfare that combines emotional manipulation with informational intoxication in order to impose an atmosphere of despair and political demobilization. Faced with such an asymmetric onslaught, our people's determination is strengthened. We are aware of the great challenges that we face and of the need to direct with creativity and with everyone's contribution economic recovery and the strengthening of social policies. Last July, President Miguel Díaz-Canel said, and I quote, we are not an accident of history, we are the logical consequence of a history of resistance and rebellion against abuse and injustice, end of quotation. We will not desist in our effort to build our dreams of a socialist country, better and more prosperous for all, based on the constitutional order chosen freely by our people, guaranteeing sovereignty, national and cultural identity and reflecting the dream of José Martí summarized in his memorable aspirations, and I quote, the worship by Cubans of man's full dignity and to conquer all justice. We have designed a realistic program of economic recovery which is adapted to the very particular and extraordinary conditions of our country, aware as we are that we must overcome the devastating impacts of the economic blockade, correct the deficiencies of the current economic structure and, I quote, change everything that must be changed. We don't have any illusions, but results are already beginning to be felt at the macroeconomic level, although they have not yet been reflected in daily life for families. Cuba is a nation of peace. Despite all of the harm that the United States has and continues to inflict upon us, we have always been willing to engage in dialogue without preconditions and to attempt to move toward a respectful and civilized relationship with that country without subordination or limits on our sovereign prerogatives. Both peoples would benefit from that opportunity. A considerable number of Cubans live here in the United States, many of whom today feel threatened, having been vilely betrayed by politicians, especially in Miami, who have built careers and enriched themselves by supposedly representing them. With the constant sowing of hatred and political manipulation, these politicians are now opportunistically supporting xenophobic, racist and repressive measures of intimidation and reprisals unjustly applied against them. This is happening particularly in the State Department. We must not forget that the vast majority of Cubans came to this country over more than 60 years ago. They were driven by the conditions created by the blockade, and they were attracted by politically motivated laws and practices of stimulus, reception and protection, regardless of whether they emigrated regularly or not. Madam President, We reaffirm our commitment as a partner country of BRICS. We reject the application of unilateral coercive measures which are intended to subjugate the sovereign will of peoples. We express our support for Belarus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Iran, Russia and other nations victimized by them. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Government of Reconciliation and National Unity of Nicaragua. We reiterate our support for the inalienable right of the people of Puerto Rico to self-determination and independence. The sister nations of the Caribbean deserve fair and differentiated treatment, as well as reparations for the horrors of colonialism and slavery. The international community bears great responsibility toward the Haitian people. We maintain our modest cooperation in health with this brotherly country, and Cuba will join any international effort to support it, based on respect for its sovereignty, without imposition or military intervention. We support Argentina's legitimate and sovereign right over the Malvinas Islands, South Sandwich Islands, South Georgia Islands and the surrounding maritime areas. Cuba remains committed to peace in Colombia, and we feel solidarity with President Gustavo Petro today. Africa, the cradle of humanity, will always be able to count on Cuba and the solidarity of Cubans. We support its just claim for reparations for the damage of colonization. We reaffirm our solidarity with the Sahrawi people and their right to self-determination. We reaffirm our support for the One China principle. We oppose NATO's aggressive military and nuclear doctrines. We firmly believe, without utopia, that a better world is possible. We believe it is our duty to struggle and work to achieve it. I reiterate the words of President Raúl Castro Ruz, spoken from this podium in September 2015, and I quote, The international community will always be able to count on Cuba's sincere voice against injustice, inequality, underdevelopment, discrimination and manipulation, and for the establishment of a more just and equitable international order centered truly on the human being, their dignity and well-being. Thank you very much. Muchas gracias. I thank the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba.