YouSaid · the spoken record

Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla

lines on the record: 86
first: 2009-09-24
most recent: 2014-09-24
sittings or episodes: 5
sources: un-general-debate

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“The Government of the United States desecrates the memory of the victims of 11 September when it continues the prolonged inhumane imprisonment of the five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters who were unjustly condemned, in spurious trials, to sentences of maximum severity for seeking information about the terrorist activities of groups that have operated with absolute impunity from United States territory against Cuba, leading to the death of or physical harm to 5,577 of our citizens. Once again, with all due respect, I urge President Obama to make use of his powers to release them as an act of justice or as a humanitarian gesture, which would be highly appreciated by their children, wives, mothers, fathers and all of our people.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“As always, Cuba made crystal-clear statements against terrorism and against war. Ten years later, the world is even more insecure, because instead of turning international consensus against terrorism into a system of international cooperation to confront it, the United States invaded and occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, causing the loss of life of hundreds of thousands of persons and pain to tens of millions. It was not possible to hide the use of deception, torture, extrajudicial executions or assassinations, disappearances of individuals, arbitrary detentions and the secret renditions and prisons of the Central Intelligence Agency in Europe and other regions.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“Our people harbour only fraternal feelings towards the Israeli people, who are also victims of this conflict. Cuba likewise proclaims that the United States has the moral, political and legal obligation to stop its continual veto of Security Council resolutions intended to protect the Palestinian civilians. The European Union should oppose this veto and abstain from supporting the empire’s brutal pressure on members of this Assembly and the Council itself. Europe should denounce it also because it is certain that those crimes would not be occurring without the military supplies, financial support and impunity that the United States provides to the Government of Israel. On 11 September 2001, we Cubans shared the pain of the American people at those atrocious terrorist acts. We offered selfless solidarity, encouragement and cooperation.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“If the inalienable right of the Palestinian people to independence, sovereignty and self-determination is recognized; if the need to re-establish the exercise of the human rights of Palestinians is recognized; if the blockade of Gaza, the economic coercion and segregation symbolized by the infamous wall are recognized as crimes; if the subjugation of a nation to conditions jeopardizing its very existence is described as genocide; if all Member States are supposed to adopt all legal measures within their reach to protect Palestinian civilians, then the General Assembly should take action now. 15 11-51390 Cuba, a country with a small Jewish community, condemns the historical injustice of anti-Semitism, the crime against humanity that was the Holocaust, and recognizes the right of the State of Israel to exist.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“We must see to it that international law and the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter prevail in the face of the brute force that aims to block them. It is necessary to re-establish the leading role of the General Assembly and to recast the Security Council. The General Assembly has the inescapable moral, political and legal obligation to ensure the recognition of an independent Palestinian State, with the boundaries established before 1967 and with East Jerusalem as its capital, as a full Member of the United Nations. This should be accomplished with or without the Security Council, with or without the veto of the United States and with or without new peace negotiations.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America is a small but morally powerful group of peoples, and the new Community of Latin American and Caribbean States is a fact. The full strength of the Andes will very soon be expressed in a summit, which will be an epoch-making event in Caracas — the epicentre of independence in the Americas, where a Bolivarian people has conquered power and a continental leader, President Hugo Chávez Frías, is ever growing. More than ever, we have to defend the United Nations, but the biggest challenge will be to turn it into an organization that serves the legitimate interests of all States, instead of catering to the arbitrary wishes and abuses of a few rich and powerful countries.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The social and political consequences are being felt on all continents. In the face of a global economic crisis and the depletion of the planet’s natural resources, what will be the response of the extremist right-wing forces that are already in power or may come to power as a result of the afflictions and hopelessness of voters? In the face of a growing and universal danger of war, of a new division of the world and of climate change, could we, the countries of the South, act together as an essential condition of our salvation? In the face of so many serious threats, Latin America and the Caribbean — the region of Bolívar and Martí — is coming together, determined to finish what they left unfinished. It is impossible to divide us or to turn us against each other.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The weakness of the global economy, particularly the economies of the United States and Europe, continues to show that the economic crisis that began in the year 2008 has not yet been overcome. In developed countries, the terrible burden of its consequences is borne by workers, the unemployed, immigrants and the poor, who are brutally repressed whenever they peacefully defend their rights. We, the countries of the South, repeatedly plundered, suffer the distortions of a world economic order that excludes our legitimate interests. We suffer under the onerous impact of protectionism and the steady increase in the prices of foodstuffs and hydrocarbons. The peoples of many developing countries are victims of the bankrupt neoliberal economic model and its sequel of plunder and exclusion.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“No one should doubt that Latin America and the Caribbean are included in that concept. The redeployment of the Fourth Fleet, the installation of American bases, troops and military means to intervene anywhere in the region, the coup d’état against Venezuela in 2002, followed by an oil coup, the sedition in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, the military coup in Honduras and the attempted coup in Ecuador all fit perfectly in the new strategy. Can the United States and NATO guarantee today that the use of force and this concept of regime change do not apply in the case of Latin American and Caribbean countries that do not submit to their interests? Can the European Union say something about it? What would the United Nations do in such a situation?”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The Bush Administration strategy considered occupation; the Obama Administration strategy is that of national liberation. The military intervention strategy in Libya could also be applied in other cases. With absolute cynicism, what is proposed is a military aggression without casualties or the use of infantry troops, the costs of which would be mainly borne by Europe. The destabilization of a country 11-51390 14 through subversion, covert operations and economic sanctions is described, according to this doctrine, as the development of a national movement. That new regime-change operations model shows that current United States and NATO military doctrines are even more aggressive than their previous ones, and that the so called Euro-Atlantic periphery comprises the entire planet.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The public should be have objective information and speak up against war. President Barack Obama, in his threatening, deceitful, rhetorical speeches of 20 and 21 September, described what happened in Libya as a new model. He said, “This is how the international community should work in the twenty-first century. More nations are assuming the responsibility and the costs of meeting global challenges. In fact, this is the very purpose of the United Nations. So every nation represented here today can take pride in the innocent lives we saved and in helping Libyans reclaim their country. It was the right thing to do.” A top White House official wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine that the new United States strategy is more efficient and less costly.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“It is up to the Libyan people alone to choose their destiny, without foreign intervention, in the exercise of their right to self-determination, independence and sovereignty over their natural resources and their country’s territorial integrity. The military intervention in Libya and the growing threat against Syria have been the opportunistic, defensive responses of the United States and Europe to the collapse of their system of domination and plunder in North Africa and the Middle East and to the emergence of genuinely popular movements in Tunisia, Egypt and other countries, in order to secure huge reserves of oil and water and to confiscate financial assets in times of global economic and social crisis. It is the responsibility of the General Assembly to exercise its full powers to prevent a military aggression against Syria.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“In this war, in addition to the most advanced and lethal military technologies, the means of communication have been used as weapons of war by financial and media businesses, which are profiteering from the war and the reconstruction operations, as if they were agents of crisis containment. As early as 21 February, Commander-in-Chief Fidel Castro Ruz warned that NATO was irrevocably preparing a war against Libya. Since then, Cuba has engaged indefatigably in the defence not of a Government but of a principle. It is unacceptable to assassinate thousands of innocent people under the dubious purpose of protecting other civilians. History has eloquently demonstrated that peace cannot be imposed either by war or by force.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“NATO imposed on the Security Council a dubious resolution authorizing “Member States … acting nationally or through regional organizations or arrangements … to take all necessary measures … to protect civilians and civilian populated areas under threat of attack” (resolution 1973 (2011), para. 4). Afterwards, NATO violated this same resolution in order to supply weapons, provide financing to one party and deploy operatives and diplomatic personnel on the ground. Now everybody has a better understanding of what the concept of responsibility to protect means and how it can be used.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“I am pleased to welcome the Government of South Sudan as a State Member of the United Nations. I also join the appeal by all African leaders for an urgent, effective and international response to the famine in the Horn of Africa. While we are engaged in debate here, in Libya another preventive war is taking place under the pretext of protecting civilians. The United States and NATO, supposedly to avoid a massacre, launched a military attack against a sovereign State without there being any threat whatsoever to international peace and security. They unleashed a regime change operation.”
2011-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 66 (2011)
“The seas, a source of human sustenance, are being depleted, and crucial non-renewable resources are being wasted on luxury and vanities … “The dream of having truly fair and sensible norms to guide human destiny seems impossible to many. However, we are convinced that the struggle for the impossible should be the motto of this institution that brings us together today.” (A/55/PV.4, p. 20) Despite everything, the fiftieth anniversary of the Cuban Revolution is being celebrated victoriously and with pride.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Thus this order is unsustainable and must be changed. Suffice it to say that the world has already more than 6 billion inhabitants, 80 per cent of whom live in poverty. Ages-old diseases of the third world — diseases such as malaria, tuberculosis and others equally lethal — have not been eradicated, while new epidemics like AIDS threaten to exterminate the population of entire nations … Meanwhile, wealthy countries keep devoting enormous amounts of money to military expenses and to buy luxury items, and a voracious plague of speculators exchange currencies, stocks and other real or fictitious values for trillions of dollars every day. “Nature is being devastated. The climate is changing under our own eyes, and drinking water is increasingly contaminated or scarce.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“We need a fully comprehensive and inclusive international dialogue with the active participation of all developing countries. We need to establish a new international economic order based on solidarity, justice, equality and sustainable development. The international financial architecture should be founded anew. The 19 09-52598 United Nations, particularly this General Assembly, is called upon to play a key role in this endeavour. In conclusion, I reiterate Cuba’s gratitude for the traditional and invaluable solidarity it has received from this General Assembly in its struggle against aggression and the blockade. Today, that solidarity remains as indispensable as ever. As Commander in Chief Fidel Castro Ruz said from this very rostrum nine years ago: “Nothing in the existing economic and political order serves the interests of humankind.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The developing countries are not to blame, but are the victims of the consequences of the unreasonable and unsustainable model of consumption, exploitation and speculation, the attack on the environment and the corruption in the industrialized economies. While the debates go on, the number of hungry people will reach a record figure of 1,020 million in 2009 — a sixth of the world’s population. This year, another 90 million will be cast into poverty and 50 million others into unemployment. During these months, another 400,000 children are expected to die as a result of the crisis. The measures that have been adopted are only palliative ones that perpetuate the serious deficiencies of an unjust, exclusive and ecologically unsustainable international economic system.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our Americas and the Petrocaribe cooperation scheme are prime examples. The optimistic forecasts from Pittsburgh on the progression of the global economic crisis, which predict a possible economic recovery early next year, are not based on solid data and, at best, only indicate relief from collapse for a very limited group of the world’s most powerful economies. It is worth noting that objectives have been set but not a word has been said about how to achieve them. No one should forget that what is involved is an unprecedented crisis of the capitalist system that encompasses the respective food, energy, ecological, social and financial crises. Nor should we overlook the danger of debt combined with inflation, of the bursting of other financial bubbles, or of a second collapse.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“It should be recalled that it was thus when atrocious aggression emerged and was instigated against our fatherland. The broader and clearer the policy towards that sister nation, the more it will contribute to the peace, independence and development of the peoples of Latin America and the Caribbean. Latin America and the Caribbean can advance and, to a certain extent, are moving forward to new and higher forms of integration. They have more water, land, forests and mineral and energy resources than any other region of the planet. Their population exceeds 570 million. The Rio Group, the Latin American and Caribbean Summit on Integration and Development and the Union of South American Nations are bodies set up by virtue of the ties that unite us.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The inviolability of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa must be respected and the siege of and the attacks on its property must stop. The Honduran people are valiantly resisting and will have the last word. Those events coincide with the renewed and aggressive interest of the United States in setting up military bases in Latin America and in re-establishing the Fourth Fleet, clearly with the aim of putting the region within only a few hours’ reach of American troops, threatening the revolutionary and progressive movements, in particular the Bolivarian revolution in the sister nation of Venezuela, and gaining control of the region’s oil and other natural resources. The slander and lies against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela are brutal.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Those who participated in the coup and the usurpers who kidnapped the legitimate President of that country are violating the constitution and brutally repressing the people, as happened in the dark years of the military dictatorships in Latin America propped up by the United States. Hundreds of thousands of assassinated, missing and tortured persons are stirring the conscience of our America in the face of impunity. It has still not been explained why the plane that kidnapped the constitutional President of Honduras made a stopover at the American Palmerola air base. The American fascist right, which Cheney symbolizes, openly supports and defends the coup. President José Manuel Zelaya must be fully, immediately and unconditionally reinstated to the execution of his constitutional duties.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Anyone who tries to stop the revolution and bend the will of the Cuban people is suffering from delusions. Patriotism, social justice and 09-52598 18 the resolve to defend independence are all part of our national identity. Latin America and the Caribbean are in a dramatic situation, characterized by the sharp contradiction between the large majorities — which, together with progressive Governments and broad social movements, are demanding justice and fairness — and the traditional oligarchies committed to preserving their privileges. The coup d’état in Honduras demonstrates that.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Ours is a stable country with a united, cultured and healthy people who have amply proven that, even under an embargo, they are capable of facing the consequences of the global economic crisis and the effects of climate change, which last year cost the national economy 20 per cent of its gross domestic product. Conditions in Cuba are such that it can face its own problems and find solutions to them. We do so in a just and fair society that relies on its own efforts and has been able to advance and guide its development in the most adverse conditions. We are ready to continue facing those challenges calmly and patiently, confident that no citizen has been or will be abandoned and certain that we are defending a cause of national independence and a socialist plan that have the huge support of the Cubans.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Furthermore, we have proposed to the United States to begin talks on setting up cooperation to tackle drug trafficking, terrorism and human smuggling, protect the environment and address natural disasters. In that spirit, the Cuban Government has held talks with that of the United States on migration and on the establishment of direct postal services. Those talks have been courteous and useful. Cuba enjoys extensive and fruitful relations in all parts of the world. With the single exception of the United States, Cuba has friendly relations with all countries of this hemisphere and counts on the solidarity of the region. We cooperate with dozens of countries of Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Those topics include the lifting of the economic, commercial and financial blockade; the removal of Cuba from the spurious list of terrorist countries; the revocation of the Cuban Adjustment Act and of the “wet foot, dry foot” policy; compensation for economic and human damages; the return of the territory occupied by the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base; the end of all radio and television aggression from United States territory against Cuba; and the cessation of American funding of domestic subversion. An essential item on that agenda is the release of the five Cuban anti-terrorism fighters who have been unjustly imprisoned in the United States for 11 years. President Obama has the constitutional prerogatives to free them as an act of justice and of his Government’s commitment against terrorism. The President returned to the Chair.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“He emphasized that we should mutually respect our differences and that Cuba does not recognize that the Government of that or any other country, or any other group of States, has any jurisdiction over our internal affairs. The Government of Cuba has suggested to the United States Government a set of essential topics it considers must necessarily be discussed during a future dialogue aimed at improving relations.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Two weeks ago President Obama instructed the Secretaries of State and the Treasury that, contrary to what is reflected in all American opinion polls, “it is in the national interest” to maintain economic sanctions against Cuba under the Trading with the Enemy Act — a law enacted in 1917 to address wartime situations and which is today applied only to Cuba. The United States blockade of Cuba is an act of unilateral aggression that should be unilaterally terminated. For many years Cuba has expressed its willingness to normalize relations with the United States. On 1 August 2009, President Raúl Castro Ruz publicly reiterated Cuba’s readiness to participate in a respectful dialogue, between equals, with the United States — a dialogue that assumes our independence, sovereignty and self-determination.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The Secretary-General’s report to the Assembly (A/64/97) abounds with examples. In the course of 2009 numerous fines, confiscations and other hindrances have been levelled at trade carried out by Cuba or by third countries with Cuba. As the United States Treasury Department itself has reported, since January this year almost half of the funds collected by its Office of Foreign Assets Control came from sanctions imposed on American and foreign companies for alleged violations of the economic blockade against Cuba. The true and indisputable fact is that the new American Government continues to ignore the international community’s overwhelming appeal, expressed in this Assembly year after year, to put an end to the blockade of Cuba.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The United States could allow Cuba to buy anywhere in the world products comprised of more than 10 per cent American components or technology, regardless of trademark or country of origin. The United States Department of the Treasury could refrain from pursuing, freezing and confiscating third-country transfers in United States dollars and other currencies to Cuban nationals or entities. Washington could lift the ban preventing third-country vessels from docking at any American port until 180 days after calling at any Cuban port. The Treasury Department’s persecution of financial institutions and companies that trade with or 17 09-52598 carry out operations in Cuba could also be suspended. President Obama could allow American citizens, by means of a license, to travel to Cuba — the only country in the world they are not allowed to visit.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“Nor has there been any sign that the United States Government is ready to put an end to the immoral practice — which has recently increased — of misappropriating Cuban funds frozen in American banks, as well as other goods, under the protection of venal judges who violate their own laws. The essential fact is that the economic, commercial and financial blockade of Cuba remains in place. The United States President, despite the existence of laws such as the Helms-Burton Act, still has broad executive powers, such as the granting of licenses, by means of which he could modify the implementation of the blockade. If there were a true desire for change, the United States Government could authorize the export of Cuban goods and services to the United States and vice versa.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The occupation troops in Iraq have not been withdrawn. The war in Afghanistan is expanding and is threatening other States. As for Cuba, which has suffered American aggression for half a century, last April the new United States Government announced measures to abolish some of the Bush Administration’s most brutal actions that prohibited contact between Cubans living in the United States and their relatives in Cuba, particularly the possibility to visit them and to send assistance without limitations. These measures are a positive step, but they are extremely limited and insufficient. The announced measures included authorizing American companies to carry out certain telecommunications operations with Cuba, but other restrictions that prevent the implementation of those operations have not been modified.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The most serious and dangerous aspect of this new situation is the uncertainty about the real capacity of the present authorities in Washington to overpower the sweeping political and ideological currents that threatened the world under the previous Administration. The neoconservative groups that placed George Bush in the presidency — the powers that promoted the use of force and domination under the protection of the colossal military and economic strength of the United States and that are to blame for crimes including torture, assassination and the manipulation of the American people — have quickly regrouped and retain immense resources of power and influence, contrary to the change proclaimed. The detention and torture centre at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base — which usurps Cuban territory — has not been shut down.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“The economic crisis has become intense and global. Social exclusion has increased. However, the international community reacted with profound optimism to the change of Government in the United States. It seemed that a period of extreme aggressiveness, unilateralism and arrogance in the foreign policy of that country had come to an end and the infamous legacy of the George W. Bush regime had crumbled in repudiation. As those in this very Hall can attest, novel and conciliatory words from the White House raised great hopes, and the world welcomed his repeated messages of change, dialogue and cooperation. Unfortunately, time goes by, and those words do not seem to be supported by concrete facts. The words do not coincide with reality.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)
“I would like to congratulate Mr. Ali Abdussalam Treki on his election to the presidency and reiterate our confidence in his ability to conduct our work and our deliberations successfully. I would also like to recognize the excellent leadership of Father Miguel d’Escoto Brockmann, President of the Assembly at its previous session. The ethical dimension and political scope of his presidency have enabled us to move forward towards the goal of restoring to this Assembly all its powers, and will stand as a benchmark for the future. Thanks to his example, it has become even clearer to us now that reforming the United Nations is about democratizing it and bringing it closer to the people. Since the general debate of one year ago important events have occurred in the international arena. Climate change is now more visible and dangerous.”
2009-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 64 (2009)