YouSaid · the spoken record

Roberto Robaina González

lines on the record: 141
first: 1995-09-24
most recent: 1998-09-24
sittings or episodes: 4
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

“Those who attempt today to cross that new iron curtain risk $250,000 dollar fines and up to 10 years in prison. Despite those threats, about a thousand young men and women from the United States challenged the veto on their freedom — no one could prevent them — and attended the Havana festival anyway. Such policies and concepts also affect the vast majority of our countrymen living in the United States, for years victims of criminal organizations and their hirelings based in Miami, used in the dirtiest deals and electoral manoeuvres, and even used as cannon fodder against their own people and their own motherland. Among them, a silent majority of immigrants is emerging ever stronger every day, rejecting the genocide against their motherland.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Similar measures already affect more than 35 sovereign States — that is, 2.3 billion people, accounting for 42 per cent of the world’s population and a potential market of $790 billion. These data, provided by the United States President’s Advisory Council on Export 30 Control and the American Institute for International Economy, prove that such extraterritorial policies also result in harm to the American people themselves, who in one year alone lost half a million jobs and more than $1 billion in salaries because of them. Insane politicians and legislators end up by restricting the very values of freedom upon which that great country was founded and, in its name, prevent millions of American youth from gaining access to information about a world festival of youth and students held in Havana last summer.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“It was such impunity that gave free rein to those who expedited the enactment of the criminal Helms- Burton Act as a new escalation of the blockade and as additional and convincing proof of a threat that goes beyond all borders. It is extraterritorial from top to bottom, because it was conceived and implemented against another sovereign State, with which they hypocritically maintain they are not at war; at the same time, it is extraterritorial against the rest of the world, upon which they are attempting to impose the narrow jurisdiction of a clumsy national legal artifice. This abhorred and oft-condemned imperial recipe has not met with any actions forceful enough to stop it. Its adoption gave rise to other aberrations, such as the D’Amato-Kennedy Act; and state and federal legislation of the same kind proliferates in that country.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Every new charge made by Cuba is supported by more than $60 billion in losses — and that is not a full assessment — by an economy distorted by the war conditions imposed on us, and by the incalculable human, physical and psychological damage we have sustained. Every year sees an increase in the number of countries that vote by an overwhelming majority to put an end to that dirty, savage and silent war. Yet the blockade not only remains in effect, but has been cruelly and arrogantly strengthened before the very eyes of the world, which remains hamstrung in the face of the power of the Empire. Where are the courage and bravery that turned our species into a giant? Why should we tolerate the diplomacy of intimidation and blackmail? For how long will the world sit on its hands and watch so merciless a crime?”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“It suffers them first, contemplates them afterwards, and always exposes them with a calm sense of responsibility. The tale of a giant Goliath against a small David could have been taken from the Bible, but the minstrels and chroniclers of the next millennium will find plenty of inspiration in the conflict between the United States and Cuba. Almost 40 years of resistance and of defence of our bold ideals of independence against our brutal neighbour who covets and loathes us provide us with the authority to speak. More than 35 years of struggle against the cruel and inhumane economic, commercial and financial blockade by the United States of America support our arguments.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Despite its very limited income, Cuba continues to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in price differences, surcharges, freight and other additional charges in its imports of fuel, food, medicines and other basic products. Financial credits crucial for the economic recovery and growth were suspended or postponed or became more expensive, while all markets labelled us as a “risk” for fear of the unilateral punishment that could fall on Governments and banks if they lent us money. On top of all of that, and because of the protectionism of pharmaceutical patents, Cubans have been deprived of free access to medicines that have appeared on the market since 1979, including third-generation antibiotics and other drugs to treat AIDS and cancer. Cuba has no need to exaggerate the facts.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“By confronting these abuses together, we will prevent the coercive policies and unilateral measures generated by certain States from becoming multilateral. I know a teenager who is the pride of his parents. He likes baseball, is a good student and dreams an ocean of dreams. But it has recently been discovered that he suffers from leukaemia. The medicines to cure him exist, and the treatment could cost less than $15,000 if we act in time. Cuba has been forced to arrange a discrete transaction to obtain through friendly third parties, and at a total cost of $60,000, the medicines to save that child’s life. That is the blockade: for the price of four treatments, we could afford only one. With the money to save four lives, only one will be saved. But this is not the only example.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Hence the importance of reforming the 29 composition and procedures of the Security Council, and of rectifying the largest existing imbalance, by enabling developing countries to become members based on equitable geographical representation and simultaneity of accession by new members. The Council will never be secure until transparency, democracy and the participation of non-member States forever take the place of the present dangerous and concealed manoeuvres. Peace will never be guaranteed until the obsolete and antidemocratic institution of the veto disappears, or is at least restricted pending its final elimination. That is the only way to prevent the abuses of power that today prevail in this Organization and in the Security Council.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“While some of the richest and most powerful States are already taking long strides towards any new seats that might appear, there are attempts to mislead, and even to deny the right of the third world to its due representation on the Council on an equal footing with the rest of the permanent members. Worse yet, the saw of division is once again cutting through the body of the poor to the benefit of the big industrialized countries. Let us reach agreement once and for all. If we want real security, what we agree upon must not further increase the appalling imbalances that today insult and exterminate us.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“The approval of a budget for each programme reflecting the total resources required for the Organization to carry out all its activities will be a cornerstone of that endeavour. Along these lines, we oppose any formula based on the extortion and pressure that are exerted by some countries, particularly by the country which is the main contributor to the United Nations — as well as its deepest debtor, economically and morally speaking. But to achieve the more democratic, efficient and dynamic United Nations we are dreaming of, it is essential that the reforms reach the heart of one of its principal organs: the Security Council must stop being a bunker impenetrable to the General Assembly’s demands for an equitable and fair expansion.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“The simplification, rationalization or reorientation of those structures must be the result of a process that always guarantees full completion and implementation of all programmes, mandates and activities in those areas. The United Nations should recover its real decision- making capacity in other critical issues, such as those related to free trade, development financing and other monetary topics. Any measure handing that role over to the main contributors must be blocked. Further, we should all endorse again the Charter obligation to contribute to stable and unconditional financing, making possible the effective and efficient implementation of all programmes, priorities, mandates and activities approved by the General Assembly.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“The reforms must permit the General Assembly to really exercise its prerogatives, including those which have been usurped, while preserving the principle of equality of all Member States, whose genuine political will is essential to advance. Intergovernmental participation in considering and adopting decisions on any reform package should be a fundamental precondition if we really want to tend to the needs of the historically forgotten majority in the world. Likewise, our peoples, especially the poorest ones, will understand only those decisions that are reflected in their lives and homes — not those that satisfy only their Governments. Cuba also advocates reform that especially strengthens United Nations structures and activities that are related to the promotion of economic and social development.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“That could be dreamt of, if at least the reform started with a comprehensive and inclusive endeavour, democratizing all its bodies while preserving its universal character, its political essence and its intergovernmental nature. It is high time to go beyond the rhetoric in which we have been immersed for two years, since we celebrated the fiftieth anniversary of the Organization with talk of reform, with talk about transformations, without saying what, who, how and when. If we are to be occupied, and not only preoccupied, with reform, let us reject, as incompatible with this Organization, the corporate and transnational approach promoted by some of the main United Nations contributors, as if this building were a stock exchange and the just desires of the peoples were mere merchandise.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Under the impulse of this globalization, vaunted new technological and scientific displays are poisoning the environment, crushing biodiversity and condemning to extinction the most precarious and wonderful of all species: mankind. It would be good if that global interdependency could stop the frantic consumption, balance national development patterns, make economies sustainable and multiply the riches of the peoples. Even better, if ideas are to be truly globalized, let us welcome the clamour for urgent reform of this United Nations, as remote from its own origins as it is unable to cope with the era in which we are living.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“As long as the world is guided by those principles, as long as the world is guided by those concepts, which have universal 28 validity, because they are universally accepted and enshrined by the peoples, we will not accept being deprived of any of those rights; we will not relinquish any of those rights.” For us there is absolutely no doubt that sovereignty continues to be a concept and a prerogative of independent States, and that in today’s unipolar world that principle has even more force and validity than ever before. Economies, cultures and peoples are subjugated under the drum roll of globalization; development becomes as remote as stars to which we cannot travel, and wealth is increasingly polarized.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“That is why Cuba asserts our right to differ, and why we reiterate the position expressed by our President more than three decades ago: “As long as the concept of sovereignty exists as a prerogative of nations and independent peoples, as a right of all peoples, we do not accept the exclusion of our people from that right.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“A handful of the rich will never be able to represent the vast multitudes of human beings, deprived every day of their right to know that they are human, multitudes on whom cultural transnationalization imposes an information order capable of homogenizing even the news of their very lives. Nor can one accept that the select club should decree in a totalitarian way the political and juridical order of the peoples, without even asking who we are, where we are coming from and what we rely upon to go where we sovereignly wish. Those belonging to that club, and they alone, are the ones primarily responsible for the fact that today cardinal principles of international law, such as self-determination, national independence, non- interference in domestic affairs, and particularly respect for the sovereignty of States are questioned.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“We should ask ourselves once again when we will actually conclude the agreements on nuclear disarmament, and when the use of force or threats will be once and for all banned in international relations. Why allow certain Powers to pursue with impunity the arms race, their military hegemony and the defiant nuclear tests in laboratories and computers while they try to ban them for the rest? How can we stop those who split whole nations apart, prevent their peaceful reunification and finance and arm regimes that violate human rights? All the endeavours to establish a new, just and equitable economic world order, free of humiliating conditions and restrictive and onerous practices, are brutally challenged by a powerful minority that reserves the worst and cruellest of the infernos for the rest of the planet.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“We also wonder how there can be talk of multilateralism when we see an endlessly increasing unilateralism and when the so-called de-ideologized world imposes on us a sole and exclusive ideology. Something is wrong when speeches on plurality are made while attempts are made to impose uniformity on the world; things are even worse if, instead of everyone having the same rights and duties — as should be the case — in fact, a few have more and more rights whereas the vast majority only get more and more duties. We dedicated the decade which is just concluding to international law with a view to honouring it with concrete actions. However, in this very building there have been talks and negotiations about, and even votes against, these principles and international law itself.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Just one detail: were it not for the 2.5 billion people doomed to sacrifice, it would be very unlikely that the other 285 people could survive, regardless of how much more wealth they would be able to accumulate. All these problems belong to this world, not another. They are ours, as much as these “Disunited Nations”, which we are unable to cast into a true gathering of Governments and peoples designed to change and save our planet. In the light of these problems, many of us wonder whether the words of a powerful minority are worth more than the lives of that overwhelming majority of human beings who for many reasons are not only deprived of their right to say a word, but also lack the resolution and the power to exercise that right when they do have it.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“On the contrary, consumerism, environmental deterioration, illiteracy, xenophobia, terrorism, drug addiction, famine, AIDS, prostitution and all those visible symptoms of the human rationality immunodeficiency syndrome that our planet is suffering from will devour us. Can it be, as one poet says, that people are mean and undeserving and we should therefore accept the idea that the already foreseen end of history will be followed by the end of the human race? If we resign ourselves to the fact that 285 people can possess riches equal to the ill-apportioned wealth of 2.5 billion other human beings, it might be that a doomsday of similar proportions awaits us should we fail to change the course of events.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“The only form of concerted action that seems to be fully consolidated is the one that, from here, proposes and undertakes humanitarian interventions and operations aimed at enforcing, maintaining or consolidating peace and democracy in the wake of conflicts; preventive and early-warning actions; and all those various ways of disguising new wars. If we fail to stop this, the upcoming third millennium will not find peaceful and generous comity among nations. Nor will it bring any closer the anticipated miracle of multiplying loaves and fishes for all through development and rational exchange.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Likewise, an absurd hypocrisy allows military expenditures to be the number one business in the world, with close to $900 billion in circulation, followed by drug smuggling, with upwards of $500 billion, while as much money is invested in a modern bomber as would be required to relieve the foreign debt of the 20 countries most heavily burdened by that scourge. “Divide and conquer”: the Roman maxim for subduing the ancient world is increasingly and ever more forcefully becoming the slogan of the era of outer space 27 and information superhighways.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“As many people have become the victims of violence and armed conflicts in the wake of the fall of the Berlin Wall as were killed in the 15-year Viet Nam war. Our memory has become so short that those same people who raised their voices against the German capital’s concrete wall now justify, promote and even stand up for a 10-times larger and much more heavily fortified wall that would divide the poor South from the developed North, along the Rio Grande all the way to Baja California, and which very few dare to denounce.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“With it, we are losing also our opportunities to save our planet, which is sick and beset in a thousand ways because the men and women who have been gathering here for the last 52 years on behalf of our peoples have in many cases been unable consistently to translate words into deeds. Why, on the threshold of a new century, should we allow such a crime to take place? Where is that promised land, that higher society, that paradise craved by millions of human beings? How can we dream today, when the overwhelming majority of human beings cannot even sleep because violence, hunger and disease keep them awake? Over five decades ago, the nations of the world decided to unite against war and to work in peace for progress and cooperation among peoples. But since then, no one has enjoyed real and lasting peace.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Although missions to Mars are widely publicized and assurances are given that the world economy is growing, the distressing truth remains that today in the world a billion people are illiterate; as many are unemployed or underemployed; and more than 2 billion are living under subhuman conditions. Among these, we note with dismay, are the 425,000 children worldwide who, since Tuesday, 16 September, when this session started, have died from preventable diseases. Those 425,000 children were sacrificed in the name of efficiency, quality and consumption — a pattern of consumption that today requires an irrational and unsustainable development, to which those children never even had access. Time is not just slipping by; we are letting it slip through our fingers.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“That reality contravened the principle that humans are the source of development, as well as its agents and beneficiaries, and should be considered, above all, as the justification and purpose of development. As the years went by, the situation worsened. Today, not only are the industrialized nations imposing conditions on or denying outright a meagre share of their plentiful resources as official development assistance for the development of the poorest nations, but some of them, like ostriches, are burying their head in the sand and disregarding that obligation.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“Ernesto Che Guevara, Commander, Minister and head of the Cuban delegation to the nineteenth session of the General Assembly, stated 33 years ago, from this very rostrum: “We wish to see this Assembly stretch its limbs and march forward; we want the Committees to begin their work, which should not stop at the first confrontation.” [Official Records of the General Assembly, Nineteenth Session, Plenary Meetings, 1299th meeting, para. 81] And, as if he could already see the present, he added: “Imperialism seeks to convert this meeting into a pointless competition in oratory, to prevent it from solving the serious problems of the world; that design we must frustrate.” (Ibid.) At that time, on our planet some 700 million people were illiterate; 200 million were unemployed; and over 1 billion were eking out a precarious existence.”
1997-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 52 (1997)
“But let us be clear: Cuba is not and never will be willing to sacrifice, under pressure from anyone or in exchange for anything, the independence, sovereignty and self-determination that it has achieved and defended at such a high price. Today, in that blue Caribbean that shelters us, we Cubans will continue with our heads held high, with our feet on the ground and with our eyes on the future. Thus do we defend our choice: to live in the free and sovereign homeland dreamed of by our founding fathers and achieved by our fathers and grandfathers. Let there be no doubt. We shall overcome.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“A country that has overcome a serious economic crisis, that maintains its governability, that grows and develops with the solidarity of many, that expands its relations throughout the world and that grows stronger — this is a country with a future. The socialism we have chosen for our homeland is our only emancipatory, moral and ethical alternative, with roots firmly planted in the history of our nation. It is a path that we chose in freedom and sovereignty, a path that we shall not renounce and that no one imposed on us. We wish to live in harmony with all the countries of the world, including the United States. Cuba wants and needs peace.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“What have we come to when United States diplomats, on the ugliest mission since the Viet Nam war, tell the world that they are granting it a few months’ sovereignty before trampling upon it if the world does not join their war on Cuba? I am fulfilling the mandate bestowed on me by the free people of Cuba to proclaim in front of the international community of nations that we will persevere in our efforts to defend our social, political and economic actions aimed at ensuring equality, justice and well-being for all Cubans. Our own experience is the best contribution we can make as a nation towards meeting the enormous challenges facing humanity, as has been shown by Cuba’s economic, political and social achievements in the last year.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“With the Helms-Burton Act, it has become even clearer that it is not just an embargo, because in the last few months, the United States, through its words and deeds, has sent the world sure signals that what is really being waged against my country is a long and dirty economic war for total control over our sovereignty and our markets. The criminal blockade, as part of its frightening network of measures created over 35 years, has now a Draconian law that publicly calls for a world crusade to change forcibly the Cuban constitutional order and undo a revolution defended by our people at the cost of their lives.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“Let us be frank: the North is not as rich as it seems, nor is the South as poor as they want to make it. Almost all the wealth of the North comes from the wealth and resources of the South. And all the hunger and poverty of the South is nothing other than the legacy of over 500 years of exploitation and disregard for our human rights. If we cannot reverse this situation collectively, by sharing the burden and improving living conditions in the developing countries, no one will be able to stop the waves of migrants attracted by the siren’s song of wealthy and opulent societies. The United Nations has a vast arsenal of documents, resolutions and initiatives conceived for those purposes 27 but never implemented. Soon it will be too late. Today we can still act. While all this is happening, the blockade of Cuba continues.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“Who is responsible for the fact that the recently adopted Treaty to ban all nuclear tests does not cover simulated laboratory tests in which new lethal weapons will be perfected by those who monopolize them, or any commitment to the destruction of arsenals? Unless we discover life in other galaxies, where will the enemies endangering the big Powers come from? Fifty-one years after the creation of the United Nations, instead of seeing wealth and development extend from the North to the South, we see the growing threat of underdevelopment moving inexorably from the South to the North. It is said that hunger and poverty are on the rise. In fact, what has also happened is that wealth is more and more concentrated, increasingly exclusive and limited, while walls higher than the one that fell in Berlin are being built.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The poor are already falling into the immense and ever wider chasm separating them from the rich, who continue to grow disproportionately and irresponsibly without realizing that sooner or later their own weight will also drag them down into the same pit. And, in this aberrant context, what are we to say about the arms race? The rivalry between the big Powers and the arms race have supposedly disappeared. Why, then, in spite of the adoption of international instruments supposedly to that end, is there such resistance to real nuclear disarmament that will free humanity for ever from that scourge?”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“One should check the statistics and compare annual reports, not just between one country and another, but also between indicators for the third world from one year to the next in areas such as infant mortality, poverty, education, life expectancy, access to drinking water, human settlements, schooling for children, and doctors per number of inhabitants. All these falsities, many of them recorded in United Nations documents, hide the bankruptcy of development prospects for most of the poor countries, which is already threatening world stability and aggravating the ecological deterioration we all recognized several years ago at the historic Rio Conference.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“It is false that social justice and equity always have to be sacrificed for the sake of commercial efficiency. It is false that the total removal of protection for national industries in the developing countries will yield higher productivity, wealth, employment and well-being for their peoples. It is false that the sovereignty of nations is an outmoded principle of international coexistence and that Governments and countries are ready to abandon it because of the strength of transnational capital and the social- political models exported by the North. Finally, it is false that the neoliberal models that have been sold to us will raise the indicators or levels of human development set as objectives by the United Nations.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“It is false that absolute privatization, which can benefit only the few, brings well-being to the legions of the poor and the wretched living in the third world. It is false that geography determines the economic power of peoples. It is false that genetics determines which human beings are born to be poor and wretched and which are born under the shining star of wealth and extravagance. It is false that the State or Government is the main source of corruption and inefficiency and should renounce responsibility for welfare, health and education, leaving these obligations mainly in private hands whose motivations will always be limited and discriminatory and are frequently based on greed. It is false that the poor, the oppressed and the exploited should have a lesser role in ultra-modern societies.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“Although these models have generated deceptive, apparently attractive macroeconomic indicators, in practice they go hand in hand with an increase in poverty, marginalization, environmental degradation, disease, ignorance, social conflict, a loss of national resources and sovereignty — in short, with the most brutal and increasingly irreversible underdevelopment. This neoliberal school of thought is based on artificial paradigms that should be unmasked. It is false that the market, with its magical invisible hand, is the definitive solution for the immense disruptions affecting the international economy and that it is the miraculous 26 remedy that would liberate many countries, home to the vast majority of the earth’s population, from underdevelopment and poverty.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The social and economic consequences of these conflicts have no parallel in contemporary history, but we cannot simply pretend that military imposition, coercion and sanctions are a universal panacea that can solve the numerous humanitarian problems of the world. Inequalities, rampant underdevelopment, globalization and the interdependence that is increasingly turning into the worst form of dependency should disappear so that these new conflicts may, in turn, be eradicated for ever from this world, which, based on injustice, is becoming increasingly ungovernable. Economic models based on neoliberal philosophy have spread throughout much of the third world with the support of the international financial institutions.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“We are not trying to convince this forum that the United States is the source of all the evils of the planet, but it would be a mistake to ignore reality and not to take timely preventive actions — preferably collective ones — to admonish to sanity the persons charged with guiding that country politically, to do so with a minimum of responsibility and to understand that the power of any nation, important as it might be, has its limits. The world is more plagued by uncertainty today than when the new world order was demagogically proclaimed. On the threshold of the new millennium, the numbers of armed conflicts between States, ethnic groups and religions have increased. What we see everywhere is not a new order but, rather, a disquieting world in perfect disorder.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“What would happen if the world, truly concerned by the scourge of drugs, were to decertify unanimously the greatest drug consumer? To put it another way, people who live in glass houses should not throw stones, and he who has a beam in his eye should not be so concerned about the mote in another’s. No one can disregard the immense influence of the United States in the so-called post-cold-war period, but mankind would be making a mistake if it were to look with indifference upon the currents of thought within that country that entertain the possibility of governing the rest of the world or of acting with utter disregard for the rights and interests of other peoples. We are facing a King Kong escaped from his cage, destroying and crushing everything around him, aimlessly and out of control.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The drug issue should not be transformed into an instrument of pressure against underdeveloped countries, many of which do not have sufficient resources to tackle this scourge. This problem has taken on global dimensions and can be confronted only by sharing responsibilities and using the mechanisms offered by the United Nations. The policy of conferring arbitrary certifications is unacceptable, and even more so is its use as a pretext to interfere in the internal affairs of sovereign nations. The country whose enormous rates of consumption have become the main market for and driving force behind this criminal industry, the country in whose territory the greatest profits of this business are generated, does not have the moral authority to assign responsibility to or demand it from others.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“Cuba — which has been the victim of many terrorist actions and has for many years faced repeated attempts on the lives of its political leaders, as well as sabotage, biological warfare, the destruction of a passenger plane in flight and the hijacking of aircraft, and which suffers even today from armed infiltrations and which has been, above all, the victim of brutal economic terrorism — expects a joint and conscious effort from the international community to address the terrorism that has its origins in Langley, Virginia — that is to say, at the Central Intelligence Agency — and later spreads to many countries of the world. Drug trafficking, in our opinion, should be dealt with in the same manner.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“This does not negate any people’s right to use weapons against its oppressors: to fight cleanly, yes; to kill innocents, never. A State cannot be allowed to arrogate to itself the right to accuse, condemn and sanction other nations and to impose by force an illegitimate crusade that often serves to disguise the real terrorists.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“Another instance of unipolarity and of the attempt to dictate the conduct of sovereign States is the law known as D’Amato-Kennedy, which has also received universal repudiation. It repeats the philosophy of imposition and ratifies the tendency to apply United States law beyond its borders. The argument for this is the alleged war against terrorism, when, in fact, the United States was the main promoter of terrorism in its dirty wars in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Angola and South Africa, against the 25 Palestinian patriots and in many other countries — the United States has always supported the bloodiest regimes that have ever existed in this world. There are just causes and unjust causes. No one will ever have the right to kill innocent people, regardless of the objectives being pursued.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The extraterritorial ambitions of our neighbour, its attempts to question the sovereign decisions of another State and its violation of the universally recognized principles of international trade are realities with which Cuba has been familiar for a long time. When we denounced the crime that was about to take place, it was neither to frighten nor to play with anyone. The Helms-Burton Act, the most sophisticated bungle of the economic war against Cuba, attacks many countries and compels them to experience in their own sovereignty what we Cubans have been facing for a long time. The world can now better understand what so many years of continuous offences and extraterritorial acts have meant for my homeland.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The Helms-Burton Act, aimed against everyone’s sovereignty and against Cuba, a sovereign State, was conceived as an additional effort to subdue our people through hunger and poverty. It is an eloquent example of the absurd will to impose imperial designs on sovereign and independent countries in the conduct of their own international and trade relations. For that reason, it has been unanimously rejected by the international community. That law, ignoring the General Assembly resolutions on the issue, is intended to strengthen further the blockade against our country. For a century — and especially during the last 37 years — the Cuban people have had to face the hegemonic vocation of successive United States Governments.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“And all this has taken place while the political experts of the aggressor country could not agree on which was its strongest motivation: the wretched oil interests or the frenzy of the ongoing carnival-like electoral campaign in the United States. It is incredible that world politics can be paralysed, that foreign ministries postpone decisions and that Governments advance or delay responses to national or international dilemmas, thinking only of their repercussions in that North American simulacrum of democracy. Anything can happen, and no country, legal precept or moral principle seems to be safe. Fortunately, the super-elections are held only every four years, because if they took place annually, like the sessions of the General Assembly, living on this planet would be true madness.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)
“The Security Council did not yield to that unilateral aggression, but it has not been able to formulate a clear position on the matter because of its well-known structural and procedural deficiencies and also because of the tolerance and impunity with which the international community has recently accepted the haughty arrogance of a Government that assumes the right to punish sovereign nations at its whim under spurious pretexts. There is no justification for trampling the territorial integrity of a full-fledged Member of this Organization, and even less for that action to be taken by a single Government, nor for threatening the peace and security of a region inhabited by tens of millions of persons.”
1996-09-24 · UN General Assembly · General Debate, Session 51 (1996)