Cuba Addresses UN On Millennium Declaration

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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