Statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba
THE Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba has learned of, with profound concern, the statement made on
August 31 by Barack Obama, President of the United States, in which he announced his decision to launch a military
action against the Syrian Arab Republic.
Without leaving any margin whatsoever for attempts underway to reach a political solution to the conflict, or presenting
any kind of evidence, and with total disrespect for the opinions of many countries – including some of his principal
allies – and the United Nations, the President of the United States has announced his intention to engage in actions in
violation of international law and the UN Charter. These will inevitably provoke more death and destruction and will
unavoidably lead to an intensification of the existing conflict in this Arab nation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba calls on members of the UN Security Council to fulfill their
mandate to prevent any rupture of the peace and to stop a military intervention which threatens international security
in this volatile region of the world.
In the view of Cuba, the General Assembly, the sole United Nations body in which all countries are represented, likewise
has a responsibility to halt the aggression, and particularly so when it is foreseeable that the Security Council, given
the preeminence of the United States on this Council, will be unable to make a decision. In the exercise of its
authority, the General Assembly must urgently meet and take essentially needed measures.
The UN Secretary General must directly involve himself in preventing actions which the President of the United States
has presented as virtually inevitable. It is his responsibility to make diplomatic, urgent and vigorous gestures to the
U.S. government in order to try and save the immense responsibility of his position in relation to peace and world
stability.
The Group of 20 is to meet in Saint Petersburg, Russia, September 5-6. This meeting, in which many of the principal
world leaders will be participating, cannot evade its obligation to discuss the situation created with the President of
the United States and adopt concrete action in this context.
If the truth were not hidden from them and they were not constantly inundated with tendentious, manipulated and
incomplete information, the American people who, in successive wars from Vietnam to date, have had to suffer the death
of tens and thousands of their young people, would not remain indifferent to a new conflagration which would produce
more loss of life and, when the moment comes, would demand that corrupt politicians and the lying press act with
responsibility.
The question arises as to what the United States Congress will do when it opens its sessions next September 9 and must
choose between the initiation of another war or the preservation of world peace, between life or death. If, as the
British Parliament has done, members reject the attempts at aggression announced by the President, it will have made a
surprising and valuable contribution to world peace and questioned the political system of the country. If it approves
such actions, it must assume the consequences before the implacable records of history.
Cuba also calls on leaders of world opinion in the United States and the world to prevent the law of the jungle
prevailing over good sense, in relation to illegal and illegitimate attacks being launched against other countries and
diplomacy being supplanted by war.
At the same time, Cuba urges peace and religious leaders, youth and students, workers, artists and academics, social
movements, progressive forces and all those who reject war, to mobilize in opposition to the decision made by the
President of the United States to attack the Arab nation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also calls for the preservation of Syria’s sovereignty, independence and territorial
integrity and the right to self-determination of its people, and the promotion of a solution to the conflict via
diplomatic routes, without further bloodshed.
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba.
Havana, September 1, 2013
ENDS