|
Statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
Yesterday, the United Nations General Assembly’s
Committee on Socio-Humanitarian Affairs adopted,
with 168 yeas and only 7 nays, the draft
resolution presented by Cuba, on behalf of the
Non-Aligned Movement, endorsing the agreement on
the constitutional building of the Human Rights
Council and definitively removing the mandate
that the United States had imposed against Cuba
at the now-defunct Commission on Human Rights.
In June of this year, the Human Rights Council,
gathered in Geneva, had decided to submit for
the UN General Assembly’s consideration a
document that defined the way in which such body
would operate, which superseded the discredited
Commission on Human Rights. In such document,
the Human Rights Council recommended the removal
of the mandate against Cuba, which the US
Government had adopted year after year for two
decades through blackmail, threat and coercion.
That proposal was now endorsed at the United
Nations.
This decision solidifies the victory of our
people in its tenacious opposition of the
manipulation of the human rights issue that our
country was a victim of for twenty years; and it
once again reaffirms the international isolation
of the US Government’s policy against Cuba.
Within less than a month of the overwhelming
rejection, by the UN General Assembly, of the
blockade against our country, this proves to be
a historic victory.
The United Nations has recognized the
righteousness and fairness of the arguments
that, without any compromises whatsoever, we
have upheld for so many years in order to put a
fight in Geneva against the politicized,
selective and discriminatory nature of the US
Government’s actions against Cuba.
Particularly significant is the fact that Cuba,
in its capacity as Chairman of the Non-Aligned
Movement, had the responsibility to present the
resolution that was adopted despite the nays of
the United States, Israel, Canada, Australia,
the Marshall Islands, Palau and Micronesia.
Another eleven countries, China and Russia among
them, co-sponsored the text of the adopted
resolution together with the Movement.
Today’s decision has dealt a striking blow to
the imperial designs of the Bush Administration
against Cuba.
The Washington Government, which was nearly the
only one to vote against the inception of the
Human Rights Council in 2006, has not been able
to muster the necessary support to run as a
candidate for such body.
Nor had the US been able to include an amendment
in condemnation of Cuba as part of the blockade
resolution that was recently adopted or to
present a resolution against our country at the
UN General Assembly.
In turn, Cuba, which voted in favor of the
inception of the Human Rights Council and was
elected as a founding member of it with over
two-thirds of the votes of the UN countries, has
maintained, with ever-increasing prestige, an
active participation in the deliberations of
such body, even in its process of institutional
building, thus defending the legitimate
interests of the Third-World countries.
Times have changed. There is an ever-increasing
number of countries rising up against imposition
and lies.
However, we know that the US Government will not
give up on its attempts to manipulate the human
rights issue in order to justify its policy of
economic war and aggressions against Cuba. But
such endeavors are doomed for failure.
This historic victory is the reward for twenty
years of battle by our people under Fidel’s
guidance, for its heroic resilience, for its
unbreakable unity and for its faithfulness to
the principles of the Revolution.
Havana, 17 November 2007 |
