Statement by Bruno Rodriguez
Parrilla, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Geneva, March 1, 2011. Published by Granma International on March 2, 2011.
Mr.
President:
Humanity’s conscience is repulsed by the deaths of
innocent people under any circumstances, anyplace. Cuba fully shares
the worldwide concern for the loss of civilian lives in Libya and
hopes that its people are able to reach a peaceful and sovereign
solution to the civil war occurring there, with no foreign
interference, and can guarantee the integrity of that nation.
Most
certainly the Libyan people oppose any foreign military intervention,
which would delay an agreement even further and cause thousands of
deaths, displacement and enormous injury to the population.
Cuba
categorically rejects any attempt whatsoever to take advantage of the
tragic situation created in order to occupy Libya and control its
oil.
It is noteworthy that the voracity for oil, not peace or
the protection of Libyan lives, is the motivation inciting the
political forces, primarily conservative, which today, in the United
States and some European countries, are calling for a NATO military
intervention in Libyan territory. Nor does it appear that
objectivity, accuracy or a commitment to the truth are prevailing in
part of the press, reports being used by media giants to fan the
flames.
Given the magnitude of what is taking place in Libya
and the Arab world, in the context of a global economic crisis,
responsibility and a long-term vision should prevail on the part of
governments in the developed countries. Although the goodwill of some
could be exploited, it is clear that a military intervention would
lead to a war with serious consequences for human lives, especially
the millions of poor who comprise four fifths of humanity.
Despite
the paucity of some facts and information, the reality is that the
origins of the situation in North Africa and the Middle East are to
be found within the crisis of the rapacious policy imposed by the
United States and its NATO allies in the region. The price of food
has tripled, water is scarce, the desert is growing, poverty is on
the rise and with it, repugnant social inequality and exclusion in
the distribution of the opulent wealth garnered from oil in the
region.
The fundamental human right is the right to life,
which is not worth living without human dignity.
The way in
which the right to life is being violated should arouse concern.
According to various sources, more than 111 million people have
perished in armed conflicts during modern wars. It cannot be
forgotten in this room that, if in World War I civilian deaths
amounted to 5 percent of total casualties, in the subsequent wars of
conquest after 1990, basically in Iraq, with more than one million,
and Afghanistan with more than 70,000, the deaths of innocents stand
at 90 percent. The proportion of children in these figures is
horrific and unprecedented.
The concept of “collateral
damage,” an offense to human nature, has been accepted in the
military doctrine of NATO and the very powerful nations.
In
the last decade, humanitarian international law has been trampled, as
is occurring on the U.S. Guantánamo Naval Base, which usurps Cuban
territory.
As a consequence of those wars, global refugee
figures have increased by 34 percent, to more than 26 million
people.
Military spending increased by 49 percent in the
decade, to reach $1.5 trillion, more than half of that figure in the
United States alone. The industrial-military complex continues
producing wars.
Every year, 740,000 human beings die, not only
on account of conflicts, but as victims of violent acts associated
with organized crime.
In one European country, a woman dies
every five days as a result of domestic violence. In the countries of
the South, half a million mothers die in childbirth every
year.
Every day, 29,000 children die of hunger and preventable
diseases. In the minutes that I have been speaking, no less than 120
children have died. Four million perish in their first month of life.
In total, 11 million children die every year.
There are
100,000 deaths a day from causes related to malnutrition, adding up
to 35 million a year.
In Hurricane Katrina alone, in the most
developed country in the world, 1,836 people died, almost all of them
African Americans of few resources. In the last two years, 470,000
people died throughout the world as a result of natural disasters, 97
percent of them of low income.
In the January 2010 earthquake
in Haiti alone, more than 250,000 people died, almost all of them
resident in very poor homes. The same thing occurred with homes swept
away by excessive rainfall in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo in
Brazil.
If the developing countries had infant and maternal
mortality rates like those of Cuba, 8.4 million children and 500,000
mothers would be saved annually. In the cholera epidemic in Haiti,
Cuban doctors are treating almost half of the patients, with a
mortality rate five times lower than those being treated by
physicians from other countries. Cuban international medical
cooperation has made it possible to save more than 4.4 million lives
in dozens of countries in four continents.
Human dignity is a
human right. Today, 1.4 billion people are living in extreme poverty.
There are 1.2 billion hungry people, and a further two billion are
suffering from malnutrition. There are 759 million illiterate
adults.
Mr. President:
The Council has demonstrated its
capacity for approaching human rights situations in the world,
including those of an urgent nature which require attention and
action on the part of the international community. The usefulness of
the Universal Periodic Review, as a means of sustaining international
cooperation, of evaluating the undertakings of all countries without
distinction in this context has been confirmed.
The spirit
which animated our actions during the review process of this body was
to preserve, improve and strengthen this Council in its function of
effectively promoting and protecting all human rights for
everyone.
The results of this exercise express a recognition
of the Council’s important achievements in its short existence. While
it is true that the agreements reached are insufficient in the light
of the demands of developing countries, the body has been preserved
from those whose aim was to reform it to their convenience in order
to satisfy hegemonic appetites and to resuscitate the past of
confrontation, double standards, selectivity and imposition.
It
is to be hoped from the debates of the last few days that this Human
Rights Council will continue constructing and advancing its
institutionalism toward the full exercise of its mandate.
It
would be very negative if, on the pretext of reviewing the Council’s
institutional construction and in abuse of the dramatic juncture
which is being discussed, it should be manipulated and pressured in
an opportunist way in order to establish precedents and modify
agreements.
If the essential human right is the right to life,
will the Council be ready to suspend the membership of states that
unleash a war?
Is the Council proposing to make some
substantial contribution to eliminating the principal threat to the
life of the human species which is the existence of enormous arsenals
of nuclear weapons, an infinitesimal part of which, or the explosion
of 100 warheads, would provoke a nuclear winter, according to
irrefutable scientific evidence?
Will it establish a thematic
procedure on the impact of climate change in the exercise of human
rights and proclaim the right to a healthy atmosphere?
Will it
suspend states which finance and supply military aid utilized by
recipient states for mass, flagrant and systematic violations of
human rights and for attacks on the civilian population, like those
taking place in Palestine?
Will it apply that measure against
powerful countries which are perpetrating extra-judicial executions
in the territory of other states with the use of high technology,
such as smart bombs and drone aircraft?
What will happen to
states which accept secret illegal prisons in their territories,
facilitate the transit of secret flights with kidnapped persons
aboard, or participate in acts of torture?
Can the Council
adopt a declaration on the right of peoples to peace?
Will it
adopt an action program that includes concrete commitments
guaranteeing the right to alimentation in a moment of food crisis,
spiraling food prices and the utilization of cereal crops to produce
biofuels?
Mr. President:
Distinguished Ministers and
Delegates:
What measures will this Council adopt against a
member state which is committing acts that are causing grave
suffering and seriously endangering physical or mental integrity,
such as the blockade of Cuba, typified as genocide in Article 2,
Paragraphs B and C, of the 1948 Geneva Convention?
Thank you
very much.
Translated by Granma International
