28 September 2024
Mr. President;
Mr. Secretary General;
I dedicate these first words to ratify Cuba’s solidarity and support to the brotherly people of Palestine, victim of more than 75 years of colonial occupation, flagrant violations to their legitimate rights as a nation, submitted to cruelty, aggressions, collective punishments and apartheid.
It is an unacceptable tragedy, plain for all to see; it’s a wound in human consciousness.
During the last eleven months, the Israeli army has massacred more than 40 thousand civilians. That indiscriminate and disproportionate massacre has killed more boys and girls than men and women. They die with the complicity and the weapons contributed by the United States, with the complicit silence of others. We pay tribute to the more than 220 aid workers of this Organization who have also been killed.
Cuba’s position is clear and unequivocal. President Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez has said, and I quote: “History will not forgive the indifferent. We will not be among them.”
The genocide against the Palestinian people must end unconditionally and without further delay!
Excellencies;
Israel, with the complicity of the United States, has placed the world before an imminent risk of a major world conflict. The irresponsible aggressiveness against Lebanon, Iran and the Middle East peoples will have consequences that are hard to predict.
Seventy nine years after the creation of this Organization, the continued violations of the United Nations Charter and International Law; aggressions; interference in the internal affairs of States and the imposition of unilateral coercive measures for political purposes have become facts of life.
Aggressive, expansionist and supremacist military doctrines of domination, based on the “philosophy of dispossession, are alarmingly undermining international Peace and Security.
The risk of a nuclear hecatomb is real and imminent. The world military expenditure has continued to increase for the ninth consecutive year. In 2023 it reached the record figure of 2.44 trillion dollars, which includes the development of nuclear weapons.
There has been a regression, despite the huge efforts made by State Parties and Signatories of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons and enlightened and broad sectors of international society.
There will be no “peace without development” either.
Developed countries, which inhabit the same planet, blindly refuse to invest even minimally on its own prosperity and security. They fail to comply their always insufficient Official Assistance for Development. The selfish figure, boastfully promised in 2023 and quickly forgotten, represents less than 0,37 per cent of national incomes.
The aspiration of achieving the Sustainable Development Goals has vanished.
Only during the last four years, the collective patrimony of the richest persons in the world has grown by around 114 per cent, while 5 billion human beings continue to live in poverty.
These are structural complications and crises, determined by the imperialist system and the international order imposed on us. None of these problems will be solved by undermining the intergovernmental character of the United Nations, as some expect, or by weakening its essential role in the promotion of sustainable development for all.
Mr. President;
In July, 2024, scientists announced that the planet had endured 13 straight months of record-high temperatures. Climate change is an unquestionable fact.
If the irrational and unsustainable production and consumption patterns of capitalism are not changed in an urgent and significant manner, it would be impossible to control the global average temperature increase by 1.5º C with regard to pre-industrial levels.
Responsibilities should be shared by all, but not all should bear the same responsibilities, nor is it fair for this to be so.
However, a step in the right direction could be taken at COP29 in Azerbaijan and adopt a New Collective Quantified Goal. The countries of the North will have a new possibility to begin closing the climate finance gap. We, the countries of the South, will have to design a sufficient goal that responds to their own needs, with guarantees for development and social justice, despite the huge obstacles and challenges they face.
Excellencies;
Delegates;
Everything confirms the thesis stated by President Fidel Castro Ruz in 1992: “An important biological species is at the risk of disappearing…: humankind.”
It could only be ultimately saved by overcoming imperialism and capitalism and, in this process, the foundation of a new international order; a new “world balance.”
An international just and democratic order ensuring peace and balance in the world; the exercise of the right to development by all States based on sovereign equality, without any interference or foreign impositions, alien to the philosophy of dispossession, that expands and strengthens the participation and representation of developing countries in decision-making and policy-making processes in the world; that guarantees the general good and prosperity of all peoples, in harmony with Nature, and the sustainable management of natural resources.
A new civilized coexistence among nations in which solidarity, international cooperation, integration and the peaceful settlement of disputes prevail as an alternative to the philosophy of dispossession, war, the use or threat of use of force, aggression, occupation, domination and the political, financial and military hegemony or any other manifestation threatening the peace, independence and sovereignty of States. A world without unilateral blockades or sanctions, based on multilateralism, fully abiding by the United Nations Charter and International Law.
Mr. President;
The government of the United States has clearly continued to engage in the pernicious and unrealizable attempt to determine and control Cuba’s destiny. It is an old ambition anchored in the Monroe Doctrine, which defines the imperialist and hegemonic nature of the US policy towards Cuba and the region of Our America.
The economic, commercial and financial blockade is also a political, technological and communication blockade.
It has been conceived to destroy the Cuban economy, this being one of its main aggressive weapons. It seeks to cut off the country’s financial revenues; bring about the collapse of the economy and create a situation of political and social instability. The damage it causes is visible and undeniable. It has an impact on the life of all Cubans.
It is accompanied by the most ferocious disinformation and slanderous campaign, perennial attempts to interfere in Cuba’s internal affairs and the complicit tolerance of groups which, from the US territory, perpetrate violent and terrorist acts against Cuba.
These actions violate International Law. They run counter to the purposes and principles of this Organization and numerous resolutions adopted by the General Assembly.
The siege so conceived has been reinforced with Cuba’s inclusion in the US State Department arbitrary list of countries that allegedly sponsor terrorism.
It is a fraudulent designation, void of any international authority or mandate. However, by virtue of this, reprisals of an extraterritorial character, exceeding the sovereign jurisdiction of the United States, are taken against Cuba and are manifested in and against any country.
In May this year, the US State Department itself recognized that Cuba was fully cooperative with the US anti-terror efforts. This mere recognition of a universally established truth has not led to a relaxation of the blockade coercive measures, but it does make the presence of Cuba in that illegitimate list to be ever more inconsistent, confusing and unjustifiable.
Soon there will be new presidential elections in the United States. No one knows what party will win, a matter that is only incumbent on the US people, only incumbent on them, despite the nefarious and historical habit of the government of that country of interfering in the elections and the internal affairs of almost all member States of the United Nations, even its allies.
History has taught us that, no matter the results of these elections, the anti-Cuban sectors and politicians who have turned the attacks against Cuba into a profitable business, will continue to be vocal and influential. They are the ones who have learned to manipulate the US political system to pursue a particularly narrow and hostile agenda, which is of the interest of a well defined elite sector.
They do not represent the will of the majority of the people of the United States nor that of the Cubans who live here.
Whatever the results of those elections, Cuba will continue to defend its sovereign right to build socialism the way we Cubans have decided, without any foreign interference. We will also continue to advocate a respectful and constructive relation with the United States.
Mr. President;
In 2014, the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, gathered in Havana, decided to proclaim our region as a Zone of Peace. That historical commitment is becoming ever more relevant each day.
We defend peace and multilateralism against the unilateral coercive measures that seriously damage Syria, Belarus, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Iran, Russia, Cuba and several other nations.
We strongly reject any attempt to undermine the legitimate constitutional order of our countries through putschist methods. It has already happened in Bolivia on June 26 this year and there are attempts to do the same again in Honduras.
We denounce the attempts to generate violence and destabilization in Venezuela. We reiterate our firm support and solidarity to the Bolivarian and Chavista government headed by President Nicolás Maduro Moros and the civic and military unity of the Venezuelan people. The calls made not to recognize the electoral results are irresponsible and disrespectful towards the people’s will and their legitimate institutions.
The destabilizing actions against the National Unity and Reconciliation Government of Nicaragua must cease. The brotherly people of Sandino will continue to count on our full support.
We reiterate our support to Puerto Rico’s legitimate right to self-determination and independence.
Caribbean countries deserve a just, special and differentiated treatment that will help them face their challenges. We support their just demand of reparation for the damages and cruelty of colonialism and slavery.
We welcome the efforts made by the Caribbean Community, CARICOM, to find a sustainable solution to the dramatic situation in Haiti, with respect for the full independence and sovereignty of that sister nation. The international community has a historical debt with Haiti, which carried out the first independence revolution against slavery in this continent.
We support Argentina’s legitimate sovereignty right over the Malvinas, South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands and the surrounding maritime areas.
We reaffirm our support and commitment to the peace efforts in Colombia which Cuba will continue to further up in every possible way from its condition as Guarantor.
Africa, the cradle and the future of humanity, will always be able to count on Cuba in its efforts to move towards the achievement of the goal of development.
We reaffirm our invariable solidarity with the Saharan people.
Cuba strongly rejects the actions aimed at harming the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the People’s Republic of China; it condemns the interference in its internal affairs and reiterates its unswerving support to the “One China” principle, as was decided by this General Assembly in its historical resolution 2758, which recognized the People’s Republic as the one and legitimate representative of the Chinese people.
We advocate a serious, constructive and realistic diplomatic solution, by peaceful means, to the current war in Ukraine. In that context, Cuba supports the joint proposal presented by Brazil and China to find a political solution to that crisis.
Mr. President;
Let us put together our efforts to achieve effective multilateral institutions that could respond to the interests of the humble, the poor, the needy and the exploited, who are the overwhelming majority, based on just equality, the exercise of human rights by all human beings and respect for the sovereign rights of every nation.
Thank you, very much.
(Cubaminrex)
