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Cuba Addresses UN on Millennium
Declaration
Scoop.co.nz,
New Zealand, 20 September 2005.
Speech: Cuba Government
Address by his excellency Dr. Ricardo Alarcon
de Quesada, speaker of the National Assembly
Of People's Power of The Republic of Cuba
at the high-level plenary meeting of the
60th session of the un General Assembly.
New York, September 16, 2005.
Mr. Chairman,
This meeting was called for the purpose
of reviewing the progress that has been
made "towards the commitments articulated
in the UN Millennium Declaration" and
"in the implementation of the outcomes
and commitments of the major UN Conferences
and Summits". This aim, however, been
completely distorted.
Eight objectives and 18 goals had been
set, most for the year 2015. They were far
from immodest. To reduce poverty and hunger
by a half, make primary education accessible
to everyone, encourage gender equality and
the empowerment of women, reduce infant
mortality, improve the health of mothers,
combat HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted
diseases, guarantee environmental sustainability
and develop global alliances for development.
Very little has been done to reach these
goals. In many of these areas, we have actually
moved backwards.
That was what we needed to discuss here,
today, to undertake resolute and urgent
actions which would allow us to move forward.
That was our obligation as participants
in this Summit.
What we witness, instead, is an unforgivable
sham. This meeting was hijacked through
tortuous manipulation. Those who fancy themselves
the world's owners do not even want to remember
those promises and the hypocritical fanfare
that came with them.
What is worse, they seek to impose alleged
reforms in the UN which only seek to subjugate
the organization completely and transform
it into an instrument of their global dictatorship.
They would have war and hegemony become
norms the world must accept unquestioningly.
Along the way, with the help of submissive
coryphaei, they tear the Charter to shreds,
seek to reduce the Secretariat to a tool
for their designs and insult the Assembly
and the world that it, and only it, represents.
In the name of what? A might whose limits
their ignorance keeps them from seeing?
A phony war on terrorism which massacres
entire populations and takes thousands of
young Americans to their death? A policy
that, all the while, hypocritically protects
a convicted and confessed terrorist like
Luis Posada Carriles and, in violation of
US law itself, keeps five innocent people
in prison, punishing them because they did
combat terrorism?
Greed, egoism and irrationally will bring
catastrophe upon us, and those who refuse
to accept the possibility of a different
world, born of solidarity and justice, will
not be spared.
A world without hunger or poverty, which
offers everyone a healthy life, education
and dignity, a world free of oppression
and discrimination, without wars or genocidal
blockades, where the exploitation of the
weakest has been done away with.
The powerful can pretend they do not believe
this, but poor nations have the right to
development and shall continue to fight
for it.
They shall continue to strive for it beyond
these walls, outside of this room. In spite
of the blockade, the harassment and threats,
the Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
emerges as a result of the historical leadership
and generosity of President Hugo Chávez
Frías, whose speech pronounced here
yesterday, echoed the voices of peoples
in his condemnation, which we fully support.
The Bolivarian Alternative for the Americas
is an example of solidarity among peoples,
returning hope to many, working towards
true integration and development , and announcing
a different world that all of us can build.
The Alternative, a new dawn, spreads to
the world from the South.
Thank you, very much.
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