Human rights in Cuba.

STATEMENT DELIVERED BY THE REPRESENTATIVE OF THE DELEGATION OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA,
AT THE 59TH SESSION OF THE COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS, H.E. MR. JUAN ANTONIO FERNANDEZ PALACIOS,
IN EXPLAINING THE VOTE ON THE ANTI-CUBAN DRAFT RESOLUTION, CONTAINED IN DOCUMENT E/CN.4/2003/L.2
Geneva, 16 April 2003

Madame Chairperson:

The 59th Session of the Commission on Human Rights is taking place in one of the most critical moments in the history of humanity. This Commission today is going through a profound crisis of credibility. Many of its members have been terrorized by a world tyranny that a fascist extreme-right group is trying to impose on the rest of the peoples of the world from the fraudulently usurped power in the most powerful country on Earth.

The draft resolution against Cuba, tabled and adopted every year under huge and shameful pressures, this time has been publicly assumed by the Government of Peru and two equally disgusting lackeys: the Governments of Uruguay and Costa Rica. As everybody knows, such draft is made in the United States. It is a gross manoeuver - completely discredited and immoral, whose sole objective has been to concoct pretexts to justify the genocidal blockade and the policy of aggressions that the United States Government has practiced against Cuba for more than 40 years.

Our heroic people is waging today a hard struggle for its right to self-determination and independence.

On a day like yesterday, 16 April, exactly 42 years ago- the socialist character of the Cuban Revolution was proclaimed just a few hours after the beginning of the Bay of Pigs mercenary invasion, organized, armed and financed by the US Government, and which took place when our people was solemnly bidding farewell to the martyrs killed by the cowardly bombings on several airports in the capital.

Defeating the revolutionary project the Cuban people has embarked upon has been the sick obsession of successive US administrations and the Miami extremist and violent groups of Cuban origin since the very year 1959. In order to pursue that goal, they have not hesitated to resort to all kinds of plans of aggression, sabotages, and terrorism. They have encouraged illegal migration and attempted to murder Cuban leaders, and established a criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade as no people in history has ever endured.

It has been irrefutably proved that an essential element of that policy has been the US attempt to create in Cuba a fifth column of US-paid mercenaries at their service. They have been falsely labeled as so-called "human rights defenders" by the US-controlled propaganda machinery as well as by the disinformation transnational media.

Cuba has been forced to bring to trial and condemn, with all the guarantees necessary to secure due process, scores of agents of the US subversion in Cuba. These agents worked in favor of the blockade and the Helms-Burton Act, collected huge sums of the money supplied by the US Government. They obeyed the orders of US intelligence agents and diplomats. Why is Cuba attacked for defending itself, and why are those who try to put the Cuban people to its knees using hunger and diseases not brought to trial and condemned? Why is the victim condemned but not the aggressor? Despite the miserable lies- tirelessly repeated by their enemies, Cuba knows that in the long run nothing will prevent the truth from being known.

Those who dream of having a beachhead for their plans of aggression against Cuba are once again wrong. Today, we are stronger than ever and better prepared than ever before. Our armor is the ideas we uphold; our unbreakable shield is the unity of the Cuban people in support of its Revolution, a Revolution that continues to wave the banners of social justice and solidarity among all human beings.

Cuba steadfastly rejects the spurious attempt to be condemned by this Commission on Human Rights. Cuba knows that it is defending the right of respect for sovereignty and self-determination for its people and for all the peoples of the world.

Cuba knows that attempts are made to condemn it because it had fought to be free. And Cuba will continue fighting. No condemnations, no propaganda campaigns, no slanders, no blockades, or aggressions will make our people give up its unflagging decision to defend its Revolution and its independence.

Cuba feels nothing but scorn towards the double standards shown by some of the participants in this Commission. Why is it that those trying to condemn Cuba here have not uttered a single word about the prisoners that the United States keeps in the Guantánamo Naval Base- a Cuban territory usurped against our will? Why is it that they have not raised their voices in favor of the five Cuban political prisoners- whose families informed this Commission on the rigged trial and unfair sentences they are serving in the United States? Why is it that those who claim to be extremely upset by the death sentences Cuba imposed on three terrorist hijackers of a ferryboat, do not condemn here, in this room, the execution of minors and mentally sick people in the United States?

Madame Chairperson:

To conclude, I wish to add that a well-elaborate plan of destabilization and subversion against Cuba is underway, precisely when - after an unnecessary war which was rejected by the entire world- we witness innumerable new manifestations of imperial arrogance and heavy-handed threats. Attempts are made to create a migratory crisis or any incident that may create the conditions necessary to justify a war of aggression against Cuba.

However, we will defeat their plans. We will never mince words to defend the just and noble causes in this world. We will never give up our decision to offer our solidarity by alleviating pain, healing diseases and defeating ignorance in any part of the world. We will never be seen backing off. The words "surrender" or "defeat" will never be heard from us. We will defend our ideas and principles, our sense of honor and dignity, our right to build our own path until we achieve ALL the justice necessary to build a better world for all.
With regard to the amendment submitted by Costa Rica- which the US ambassador recognized to be drafted by his own Government- Cuba considers it a part of this despicable manoeuver, therefore, disowns it and rejects it.

For all the above reasons, Cuba will vote against Draft Resolution L.2 and thanks those who- regardless of pressures and threats- will be on its side.