GRANMA INTERNATIONAL 1998. ELECTRONIC EDITION.
Havana, Cuba
The blockade is the most serious,
massive and systematic
violation of our people's human rights
• Declares Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina before Human
Rights Commission
GENEVA (PL).- Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto
Robaina delivered a forceful denunciation of the U.S. blockade against the island at the
54th session of the UN Human Rights Commission.
"For the first human right, which is the right to live like human
beings, Cuba will continue fighting, resisting and winning for as long as necessary,"
Robaina stressed, as he addressed representatives of the world's governments and
non-governmental organizations on March 20.
In his 30-minute speech, followed with a degree of attention seldom seen
in these forums, the Cuban foreign minister told his listeners not to be fooled by recent
events that appear to reflect a flexibilization in this war of economic and psychological
erosion, which has now lasted four decades, and does not allow any kind of flexibilization
except a total lifting.
Robaina said that the United States has not only turned a deaf ear to
his country's protests, but has also openly defied the international community by adopting
new measures with a marked extraterritorial and interventionist character, aimed at
reinforcing the blockade. At the same time, he stressed that Cubans are proud of their
democracy, which is based on the direct participation of the people.
Noting that this year's session of the Human Rights Commission is taking
place in the midst of the festivities for the 50th anniversary of the adoption of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, he said that this could serve as grounds for a
major celebration.
"Nevertheless," he added, "neither the greatest glitter,
nor rivers of champagne, nor a festival of vain flattery would constitute the kind of
homage deserved by this universal document, if the necessary salutations are not
accompanied by the crucial need to meditate on and discuss the very essence of the
Declaration and of human rights, in light of current circumstances."
Robaina maintained that during this half century, millions of people
throughout the world have died without having been able to live a full 50 years, and
without even knowing that there was a universal document meant to protect them.
This is why Cuba believes that while acknowledging the reach of the
Declaration, there should also be efforts aimed at the development of an International
Charter of Human Rights for the new millennium, one which reflects all of the human beings
living in the 185 member states of the UN, in the current context of rampant
globalization.
According to Robaina, Cuba also believes that today, five years after
the World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, while some of the recommendations,
challenges and principal goals put forward there may have been applied, they continue to
be a pending task in which all must participate.
Alluding to two important documents that the United States has not
ratified, he stated that "we have not reached the desired and just goal of universal
ratification of the Convention on the Rights of Children, foreseen for 1995, just as we
will fail to fulfill the same objective in the year 2000 with regard to the convention on
the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women."
In this sense, he noted that it is impossible to talk about real
international cooperation on the issue of human rights while it continues to be affected
by political manipulation. "Let us say it clearly: the most dangerous fundamentalism
of the current era stems from the attempts of the countries of the North to impose their
model of political, economic and social development on those of the South," he
declared.
Robaina paraphrased Uruguayan writer Mario Benedetti, noting that
"the South also exists, and, above anything else, it has every right to demand
respect for the rights of others, which is what constitutes true peace."
He then referred to the trampled rights of the millions of beggars, the
unemployed, abused and exploited women and children, and indigenous and minority groups
who live in misery to the south of opulent societies that define themselves as models of
democracy and human rights.
At various points during the Cuban foreign minister's speech, he drew
particularly close attention, and even smiles and comments, from those in attendance, many
of whom later approached the Cuban representatives to express their agreement and
solidarity with what he had stated.
One of those points was when Robaina referred to an African proverb,
which says that as long as lions do not have their own historians, the history of hunting
will continue to glorify the hunter. He then added, "the lions are lucky, because at
least they have hidden glories, while the poor, weak and dispossessed of this world have
never had the right to recount their own history, and know of no other glories than those
of their own hunters."
With regard to the campaigns designed to distort the truth about his
country, and without directly mentioning the recent visit by the Pope to Cuba, an event
widely covered by the international press, Robaina said that the world was able to
discover a bit about the true Cuba, "that Cuba which loves, works, dreams, dances,
and wants to live in peace."
He added that in the United States, the denunciations and open
challenges to the irrationality of the blockade against Cuba grow stronger every day.
Nevertheless, "the mean-spirited interests of a few very small but very powerful
economic and political sectors in that great country continue to constitute the principal
wall, and any reasonable decision with regard to Cuba, and also to the United States
itself, are bound to hit up against it."
Recalling the words of the Pope, Robaina declared, "Our country,
let there be no doubt, continues opening up to the world with its magnificent
possibilities, but with the same dignity and loyalty to its unrenounceable principles as
always."
Robaina said that Cuban society is a wonderfully imperfect one, in which
women and men have the same rights and the same duties; a society in which children are
the first of the state's concerns, and where all of the elderly have a real right to a
dignified and safe old age.
To provide an example, he noted that in this year's state budget,
approved by the Cuban national assembly, close to 70% of spending has been earmarked for
public health care, education and social security and assistance, while the amounts spent
on defense and domestic order remain at the same levels as last year.
In Cuba today, he said, there is a doctor for every 169 inhabitants, and
a teacher for every 42. The infant mortality rate was 7.2 per 1000 live births in 1997,
while the average life expectancy has now surpassed 75 years. "These are some of our
magnificent possibilities, the same ones attested to every day by the thousands of
tourists, businesspeople and other visitors who come to the country," he stressed.
"We don't need crumbs disguised as humanitarian aid, we don't ask
for imperial pardon in exchange for concessions on our principles, we do not accept
blackmail, impositions, or conditions of any kind, no matter where they come from,"
he concluded. |
