Cuba Answers Rights Charges: Truth vs Lies

Via NY Transfer News * All the News That Doesn't Fit

Remarks by Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque
before the UN Commission for Human Rights, Geneva, March 27, 2001

Mister President:

I speak on behalf of Cuba.

We come here to accuse those who lie, and to tell our truth. And we have
come here armed with reasons: an arsenal of just ideas and the history of
the struggles of our people, who have never swayed in their effort to obtain
justice, and whose will has not been crushed by any aggressions, blockades
or slanders -- none of which can threaten their full independence.

The Commission on Human Rights is today more divided than ever and has
reached an almost-irreversible point of disrepute. On one side, there is us:
the representatives of the Third World, victims of the unjust disorder
imposed on the world, the owners only of our misery and poverty; we are the
ones who supply millions of the hungry, the illiterate, the children and
mothers who die, those who have guaranteed with their suffering the opulence
of their exploiters. We are always the accused at this Commission. On the
other side, there are the representatives of the developed and rich
countries: they are the creditors, those who consume everything that is
produced, those who waste, contaminate and forget that they owe their wealth
to us. And they are the ones who presume to be accusers and judges of our
countries.

It is long past time to sweep away from the work of this Commission the
hypocrisy and the double-dealing. Could the US explain why it votes against
considering hunger -- which today affects almost a billion people -- an
outrage and a violation of human dignity? Could it explain why, while it
presumes to accuse Cuba, it pretends at the same time to condemn the flagrant
and massive violations of human rights committed by the Israeli army against
the courageous Palestinian people?

The moment has come to demand a complete reform and democratization of this
Commission. Each year we discuss and have approved several resolutions on
that subject. But the truth is that the Commission on Human Rights continues
to serve as an instrument in the service of the US and its allies, in the
interests of their domination.

Could this situation change? Of course it can change. But we require that
you, the representatives of the developed countries, accept with modesty the
justice of our demands. It is necessary for you to acknowledge that you are
not the sole owners of the truth. It is necessary for you to give up the
racist notion that the poor cannot also be right.

We need a more democratic and tolerant world. Why does a small group of
powerful and wealthy countries want to dictate a world all the time less
democratic and diverse? Why is it that we donīt fight for more tolerance,
not only within nations but also in their relations with other nations? Why
is it not possible to accept the existence of other models of civil and
political order? Why is only one type of democracy enshrined? Haven't we
already agreed at the World Conference on Human Rights that all peoples have
the right of free self-determination and by virtue of this right, the right
to freely establish their political conditions? Only from a respectful
collaboration can the work of this Commission be effective -- never from
dogmatic imposition and arrogance.

Cuba will continue to demand that this Commission cease being a hostage of
illegitimate interests. Cuba will never give up the struggle as long as the
rights of all countries are not respected, as long as the work of this
Commission is not governed by rules that are transparent, objective and
democratic.

Mr President:

The United States accuses Cuba of violating human rights. As we all know,
this accusation does not come from a genuine concern for the situation of
human rights in Cuba. The question, really, is whether a small country of
the Third World can or cannot choose its own way and build, in its own way,
a future of equality and well-being for its children.

I vehemently reject the accusation against Cuba, fabricated by the United
States and imposed with savage pressure on this Commission.  I firmly
contend, looking each one of you directly in the eye, that there are no
violations of human rights in Cuba; that there is absolutely no
justification for this attempt to single out Cuba in this Commission; that
the only possible explanation for this is the pathological inability of the
United States to accept Cuba as an independent country, which it cannot
own.

After more than forty years of genocidal blockade and economic warfare,
invasions, acts of terrorism, attempts at subversion and sabotage, plots to
assassinate Cuban leaders, biological warfare, and countless other
aggressions, the Commission on Human Rights is the most recent battlefield
for the United States's oppressive plans against Cuba and our wishes for
full independence, justice and development.

I am not going to take up your time explaining Cuban reality, or proving
the unjust and selective nature of the US accusations. In reality, there is
no need. You all know it perfectly well. I'll limit myself to saying
that the United States is the country with the least moral authority to
judge Cuba in terms of human rights and democracy.

But I can't refrain from asking: Have any of you ever seen the Cuban police
clubbing workers or students in a public demonstration, shooting them with
rubber bullets, setting dogs on them, using horses or teargas, as happens
today in almost every corner of the world? You know that in Cuba the leaders
march alongside the people in public demonstrations.

Even in the recent report of the US State Department on the situation of
human rights in the world -- to which of course I donīt give any legitimacy,
and in which, as you know, the only country not mentioned is the United States
-- it is admitted that there are no political murders or disappearances in
Cuba.

Despite their visceral hatred against our country, their obsession with
condemning us, the United States has not dared to lie at least on this
matter. Our record is so clean and humane that it is impossible to deny it! 
Can anyone in this room name even one case of torture, murder, or
disappearance in Cuba? Does anyone in this room know of a single case of a
journalist assassinated in Cuba, or the kidnapping of a child -- other than
the failed attempt at kidnapping a little Cuban boy in the United States --
or the selling of children, or of child slavery? Has anyone ever heard of a
deathsquad in Cuba? Has anyone even seen in Cuba a demonstration of mothers and
grandmothers crying out for their murdered or disappeared children and
grandchildren? Has any of you heard that the Cuban Government has, through
deception, imposed an International Monetary Fund "structural adjustment
program" or given away the country's riches to transnational corporations?
Have you not wondered why, after forty years of blockade and ten years of
dire economic constraints, we enjoy the overwhelming support of our people?

The answer is that the Revolution belongs to the people, not to an elite
obsessed with power.

Leaders in Cuba see our responsibility as a duty -- as an attitude toward
life, and not as a way of life. Our authority is based not only on our
democratic and transparent elections, with no money or corruption involved,
but also on our people's conviction that we do not steal, that we do not
hold ourselves above their needs and dreams, that we share their
difficulties, that we will not stop living an austere and ethical life.

Should this be interpreted to mean that we feel we have a perfect society?
No, we are not satisfied. We are only beginning. We are trying to erase
centuries of marginalization and injustice. We are trying to raise our 
educational and cultural levels to the highest standards ever achieved
by our people. 

We will do everything possible to keep improving, to make our political
system -- which we know is already incomparably more democratic that that of
our fallacious accusers -- even more efficient and participatory. 

In Cuba, we struggle for a more just society, a society that is more
tolerant and humane. We dream of an increasingly educated and cultured
population -- which means a freer population. We want to make the highest
level of knowledge possible for all our people, not just for an elite group.
We dream of a people with a profound social sensibility, free of
selfishness, with deep-rooted humanist convictions.

We dream -- and we come closer every day to reaching that dream -- of a
people for whom "homeland" means "humanity." A society like ours, in which
people and their dignity are at the center, does not indulge in violence,
repression or deceit.

It is time for some definitions. Those who back the United States in their
evil proceeding against Cuba do not have the moral authority to talk to
us about human rights. You cannot reject the blockade against Cuba and at
the same time continue to support the United States in a maneuver clearly
intended to justify it.

We have the support of the peoples of Latin America who know perfectly well
that we are also fighting for them, who remember Cuba's solidarity and support
at a time when US-sponsored dictatorships tortured, murdered and disappeared 
hundreds of thousands of people in Our America.

We also know that Cuba's struggle is on behalf of respect for the rights of
all the peoples of the Third World, an end to the mistreatment and
injustice, and for our right to have a more just and equitable world, for
our right to our own development and life.

Mr. President:

The United States is disturbed that Cuba wants to be a free and independent 
state. And Cuba will never stop being ever more free, and more independent!

The United States is disturbed that Cuba is socialist. And Cuba will be more
socialist!

The United States is disturbed that in Cuba, the people are in charge. And 
the Cuban people will be ever more in charge of their own destiny!

The United State is disturbed that Cuba has interfered with its
imperialist and hegemonic plans. And Cuba will increase its anti-imperialism
in solidarity with the cause of justice!  The United States wants to
organize, in a fragmented and weak Cuba, a party calling for annexation to
the United States. And in Cuba, there will remain the Party of unity and
independence, of social justice and dignity, of genuine equality and true
solidarity among all peoples, without which there will never be liberty,
democracy or peace!

Forty years of heroic resistance are the foundation for ideas, our truth,
our invincible strength, our unwavering and indestructible liberty. The
government of the United States doesn't know what to do about Cuba. In one
way or another, theyīll continmue suffering defeat after defeat. What they
are trying to achieve in this Commission, by means of humiliating pressure
on its members and with a very high political cost, demonstrates that they
forget what King Pyrrhus said: "Another victory like this, and I'm ruined."

They have turned us into the freest people on the Earth, who do not depend
on them anymore for their trade, their credits or their investments. Today
we enjoy the rare privilege, almost alone in the world, of being able to
speak the truth, and to demolish each and every one of their lies, in this
or any other forum.

We do not accuse the American people, who are capable of being noble and
idealistic; we accuse their hegemonic system of domination and their
rapacious and selfish economic and political order, which the whole world
knows cannot be sustained.

Some have asked us to make a conciliatory gesture toward the United States. The
gesture that I make now, in the name of my people, is to raise my fist and
proclaim at the top of my voice the words that Cubans have been saying for
forty years in the face of each one of their crimes and aggressions against
Cuba:

Patria o Muerte! Venceremos!
Homeland or Death! We Shall Overcome!

Translation (c) 2001, NY Transfer News.
 
=================================================================
  NY Transfer News Collective   *   A Service of Blythe Systems 
           Since 1985 - Information for the Rest of Us          
              339 Lafayette St., New York, NY 10012             
  http://www.blythe.org                  e-mail: nyt@blythe.org 
=================================================================
 
nytcari-03.28.01-22:31:32-4755