This is abridged from a statement delivered by Cuban foreign minister Felipe Perez Roque to the UN Human Rights Commission meeting in Geneva on March 17.
The Commission on Human Rights has lost legitimacy. It is not credible. It allows the impunity of the powerful. There are plenty of lies, double standards and empty speeches by those who, while enjoying their wealth, squander and pollute, look the other way and pretend not to see how millions of human beings endure the violation of the right to life, the right to peace, the right to development, the right to eat, to learn, to work; in brief, the right to live in dignity.
We all know that the commission was victim to the political manipulation of its work because the government of the United States and its allies have used it as if it were their private property, and have turned it into some sort of inquisition tribunal to condemn the countries of the South, particularly those who actively oppose their strategy of neocolonial domination.
The European Union refused to co-sponsor and vote in favor of the draft resolution that proposed to investigate the massive, flagrant and systematic human rights violations still committed today against more than 500 prisoners at the naval base that the United States keeps, against the will of the Cuban people, at Guantanamo Bay. In terms of hypocrisy and double standards, it was the straw that broke the camel's back. What will it do this year, after the dissemination of the heinous pictures of tortures at the [US-run Iraqi] prison of Abu Ghraib?
The guarantee of the enjoyment of human rights today depends on whether you live in a developed country or not. It also depends on the social class that you belong to. Therefore, there will be no real enjoyment of human rights for all, as long as we fail to achieve social justice in the relations among countries and within countries.
For a small group of nations represented here — the United States and other developed allies — the right to peace has already been achieved. They will always be the attackers and never the ones under attack. Their peace rests on their military power. They have also achieved economic development, based on the pillage of the wealth of the poor countries that were former colonies, which suffer and bleed to death. However, in those developed countries, incredible as it may seem, the unemployed, the immigrants and the impoverished do not enjoy the rights that are most certainly guaranteed for the rich.
Can a poor person in the United States be elected senator? No, he or she cannot. The campaign costs, on average, some US$8 million. Do the children of the rich go to the unjust and illegal war in Iraq? No, they do not go. None of the 1500 US youths killed in that war was the son or daughter of a millionaire. The poor die there defending the vested interests of a minority.
If you live in an underdeveloped country the situation is worse, because the overwhelming majority, poor and hopeless as it is, cannot exercise their rights. As a country, there is no entitlement to peace. It can be attacked under the accusation of being terrorist, of being an "outpost of tyranny" or under the pretext that it is going to be "liberated." It is bombed and invaded to "liberate it".
Nor can the more than 130 countries in the Third World exercise the right to development. Beyond their efforts, the economic system imposed on the world prevents them. They have no access to markets, to new technologies; they are handcuffed by a burdensome debt that has already been paid off more than once. They just have the right to be dependent countries. They are led to believe that their poverty is the result of their mistakes. In those countries, the poor and the indigent, who account for the majority, do not even have the right to life. For that reason, every year we see the death of 11 million children under five years of age, a portion of which could be spared with barely a vaccine or oral rehydration solutions, and also the death of 600,000 poor women at childbirth.
They have no right to learn to read and write as this would be dangerous for the [elites]. They are kept in ignorance to keep them docile. That is why this commission should be ashamed of the nearly 1 billion illiterate people in the world. That is why in Latin America 20 million children endure ruthless exploitation as they work on the streets instead of going to school.
The Cuban people strongly believe in freedom, democracy and human rights. It took them a lot to achieve them and they are aware of their price. It is a people in power. That is the difference.
There cannot be democracy without social justice. There is no possible freedom if not based on the enjoyment of education and culture. Ignorance is the cumbersome shackle squeezing the poor. Being cultured is the only way to be free! There is no real enjoyment of human rights if there is no equality. The poor and the rich will never have the same rights in real life, proclaimed and recognised as these may be on paper.
This is what we Cubans learned long ago, and for this reason we built a different country. And we are just beginning. We have done so despite the aggressions, the [US economic] blockade, the terrorist attacks, the lies and the plots to assassinate Fidel [Castro, Cuba's president]. We know that the [US] Empire is chagrined by this. We are a dangerous example: we are a symbol that only in a just and friendly society — that is, a socialist society — can there be enjoyment of all rights for all citizens.
Therefore, the government of the United States attempts to condemn us here at the commission. It is afraid of our example. In Cuba there has never been, in 46 years of revolution, an extrajudicial execution or a missing person, not even one! Let anyone come up with the name of a Cuban mother who is still looking for the remains of her murdered son or daughter! Or a grandmother searching for her grandchild handed over to another family following the parents' murder! Let anyone here come up with the name of a reporter killed in Cuba — and 20 of them were murdered in Latin America in 2004 alone! Let anyone come up with the name of a prisoner [mistreated] by his keepers, a prisoner ordered down on his knees, prey to terror, in front of a dog trained to kill!
President Bush has a plan for Cuba, but we Cubans have a plan of a different sort. We will build an even more just, more democratic, more free and more cultured society. In brief, more socialist.
The Cuban people are entitled to defend themselves from [US] aggression and they will. And I must say it clearly: in Cuba, we will not allow the establishment of organisations and mercenary parties financed by and at the service of the US government. We will not allow newspapers and TV networks funded by the US government. In Cuba, the press, the radio and the TV are owned by the people and serve their interests.
Cuba will not give up on its fight, nor will it surrender. Nor will it make concessions or betray its ideals. We will see if a free, cultured and united people can be defeated! We will see if they can overthrow a government of the people, whose leaders walk among them with the moral authority derived from the total absence of corruption and the full dedication to their duties!
The Cuban delegation will cease to insist that we must transform the commission. What we have to change is the world. Cuba does not consider this to be a dream, but a cause well worth fighting for. That is why it fights and it will continue to do so.
From Green Left Weekly, May 4, 2005.
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