Statement
Statement summary
“I reiterate the strongest possible solidarity with the Palestinian people,” underscored Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba. “As we meet”, 2.2 million human beings in Gaza are doomed to starve due to genocide, extermination and ethnic cleansing of the Zionist regime, [whose] impunity is guaranteed by the United States, he said. If the Security Council is left “impotent” by Washington D.C. threatening or using its veto, the General Assembly should “at least” unequivocally declare the right of Palestine to be a United Nations member. The world order reflects a bygone era, in which colossal inequalities hinder sustainable development, he said, calling to create a new one that guarantees peace, the right to development, sovereign equality, participation and representation of developing countries in global policy decisions.
He called for protecting and strengthening the United Nations and its intergovernmental nature, stressing: “Even with its limitations, the United Nations continues to be the most representative body of the international community.” He rejected the doctrine of “peace through strength”, describing it as an equivalent for “the arbitrary will of the United States imperialism […] at the cost of the rights of sovereign nations[…]”. Drawing attention to “an utterly unjustified” extraordinary naval and air deployment of an offensive nature in the Caribbean, he warned of the threat of a looming war. Reaffirming solidarity with Venezuela, he rejected the Monroe Doctrine and attempts at “militarization, intervention or imperialist domination in Latin America and the Caribbean.”
Turning to the issues faced by small island developing States, he voiced alarm about the growing climate crises, warned that foreign debt is becoming a “new form of colonization” and highlighted risks from the “dictatorship of algorithms” imposed by a few transnational corporations. Cuba has suffered from “economic suffocation” imposed by the United States for more than six decades, he said, describing it as “a comprehensive and prolonged economic war aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability of their existence”. He went on to accuse the United States of subjecting Cuba to acts of terror and for labeling his country a “State sponsor of terrorism”, calling it out as “a slander not shared by this Organization nor by any other of its Member States.”
Bruno Rodríguez Parilla, in his address to the General Assembly on Saturday, said that there can be no effective global response to serious challenges because the current world order "reflects a bygone era, when most developing countries did not even exist as independent states."
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Read also the UN News story in Kiswahili about the declaration made by the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba at the General Debate.
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Mr. Parilla began by expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning what he described as the “genocidal extermination and ethnic cleansing” of Palestinians by Israel.
He said that, at a time when “a handful of countries and individuals have amassed more wealth than the vast majority of all other countries combined,” the United Nations continues to be the most representative body of the international community and must be protected and strengthened.
Mr. Parilla called for a new international order that guarantees “the right to development, sovereign equality, participation and representation of developing countries in global policy decision.”
He referred to the Secretary-General’s UN80 reform initiatives which, he said, needs to strengthen the United Nations’ intergovernmental nature, and improve its capacity to better confront the urgent challenges of today.
Reject ‘peace through strength’
The international community, he argued, must reject the doctrine of “peace through strength” which is “equivalent to imposing the arbitrary will of US imperialism on everyone,” and would come at the cost of the values upon which the UN was founded.
The foreign minister also demanded an end to the economic blockade imposed on Cuba by the United States for more than six decades, which he described as "an economic war" aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability.
“Cuba faces a grave scenario of prolonged and daily blackouts, difficulties in affording food, insufficient availability of medicines, reduced public transport, limited community services and pronounced inflation, which is eroding real incomes.”
Mr. Parilla also warned of a looming threat of war in the Caribbean and said that the deployment of US military forces in the region to fight crime and drug trafficking was a pretext and “a dangerous situation that violates international law.”
Regarding climate change, the minister said that, from the podium of the General Assembly, science and "decades of collective work" to protect the planet are being questioned.
"If the unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of capitalism are not fundamentally changed, we will exceed the fateful threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2030," he declared.
Referring to new technologies, Mr. Parilla said that, with a small number of transnational corporations imposing their operation systems and controlling what content is seen, read and heard, "we suffer from the dictatorship of the algorithm."
He called on the UN to create common standards, in order to ensure that technology, especially artificial intelligence, benefit all.
