[NYTr] Cuban FM's Statement on Human Rights Day
 
Date: Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:13:57 -0600 (CST)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Cuba - Dec 10, 2007
http://america.cubaminrex.cu/English/Speeches/FPR/2007/FPR_101207.htm

Statement by Felipe PC)rez Roque, 
Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Cuba, 
to the Local and Foreign Media, 
at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 
10 December, 2007

Felipe PC)rez: Good morning. We would like to thank all local and
foreign correspondents for being here with us today.

We have asked you to come to inform that, shortly, Cuba will become a
signatory to the International Covenant on Economic, Social and
Cultural Rights and to the International Covenant on Civil and
Political Rights. It is the political decision made by our country
today, 10 December, World Day of Human Rights, when we celebrate the
59th anniversary of the proclamation by the UN General Assembly of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

The rights contained in both covenants, which are some of the most
important international instruments in terms of human rights, are
extensively covered by our national legislation and, particularly, by
the work and performance of the Cuban Revolution right from its victory
on 1 January 1959.

This decision, which should materialize in the coming months, is
indicative that our country will always maintain close cooperation with
the UN system, on the basis of respect for our national sovereignty and
for the right of the Cuban people to self-determination.

While the manipulations against Cuba persisted in the field of human
rights; while the US Government turned the former Commission on Human
Rights into an Inquisition tribunal to persecute the countries that
rebelled against imperial domination; while attempts were made to
manipulate the human rights issue against Cuba to justify the blockade
and the aggressions against our country; while the anti-Cuban practice
in the area of human rights continued to prevail, particularly in
Geneva, at the former Commission, where the US imposed a resolution
every year through ruthless pressures and blackmail; while all of that
happened, there were no conditions whatsoever to assess new commitments
by Cuba to the UN machinery in the area of human rights. However, that
situation has changed radically with the inception of the new Human
Rights Council, of which Cuba was a founding member, with the vote of
over two-thirds of the members of the international community b and
because, as known, the spurious mandate imposed by the US to monitor
the Cuban situation was also discontinued.

Since a new situation has arisen, in which the issue is not manipulated
against Cuba, in which there has been failure after failure of the
anti-Cuban schemes by the US, after twenty years of battle by Cuba in
favor of the truth and in defense of our principles and our dignity,
conditions are now ripe to take new steps indicative of Cubabs
political will to cooperate with the UN and to make its contribution
and experience available to the international community in this matter.

Cuba has never acted and will never act under pressure. Once the Human
Rights Council decided and the Third Committee of the UN General
Assembly confirmed the discontinuation of that spurious anti-Cuban
mandate, our country then advanced several initiatives for
international cooperation in the field of human rights. Thus, we were
recently visited by the UN rapporteur for the right to food; thus, we
announce today the decision of the Cuban Government to sign, in the
first quarter of next year, these two human rights covenants: the
International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.

And, also, in the future, our country will extend invitations to other
figures that represent special procedures in the Human Rights Council,
as an indication that in a scenario in which there is no longer any
manipulation of the issue against our country, where the
twenty-year-long scheme by the US Government was utterly defeated, our
country can send clear signals and attest to its will to cooperate and
emphasize its commitment to the international defense of human rights.

The decision to move forward in enhancing the formal commitment b
because the real commitment has always existed and because it was the
Cuban Revolution that guaranteed the respect for the human rights of
the Cubans b by signing the two covenants is another example of what
our country can do without any political conditionalities and without
being subjected to that unfair practice.

So today, 10 December, World Day of Human Rights, our country b in a
free and sovereign fashion, without any outside pressures and keeping
in line with our own conscience, with the acts of our own free will,
exercising our sovereignty b announces, as a new step in Cubabs
commitment, the signing of these two important human rights instruments.

Pursuant to the commitment that we entered into by signing the
inception of the new Human Rights Council and its procedures, we are
also getting ready to report, in March 2009, on our performance and be
part of the universal periodic review mechanism established by the new
Council. Under the draw conducted on an equal footing for all
countries, ours has to report in March 2009. We are seriously getting
ready to reach that moment in a spirit of cooperation and with the will
to display our results, our accomplishments, our shortcomings and
difficulties, and also to hear the views and opinions of other players
on this issue.

This will of Cuba will remain as long as the current situation
prevails, which we hope will not change b of not being singled out, of
non-selectivity, non-discrimination and politicization of the human
rights issue to attack and justify the aggressions against those
countries that do not yield to the imperial diktat. As long as that
situation prevails, as now, our country will be free to move forward
down this path.

If, unfortunately and against our desire and our aspirations, the issue
is once again politicized and the atmosphere of cooperation and respect
for the countries now prevailing in the Human Rights Council becomes
rarified, our country would be compelled b and would not hesitate to
stand its ground again b to hoist the flags that we victoriously
defended for twenty years until we managed to utterly and definitely
defeat the practice orchestrated by successive US Administrations
against Cuba.

In addition to this announcement, on the 59th anniversary of the
proclamation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights by the UN
General Assembly and when we start the year to celebrate its 60th
anniversary, Cuba reiterates today its demand that the US Government
cease its ruthless economic, financial and commercial blockade, imposed
on our people for almost 50 years, which is a flagrant, massive and
systematic violation of the human rights of our people b as has been
overwhelmingly demanded by the UN General Assembly in 16 successive
resolutions.

On a day like today, it is worth recalling that our people will soon
move into its fifth decade of suffering from the brutal and genocidal
blockade that attempts to subdue us through starvation and disease.

On the day that the world commemorates the World Day of Human Rights,
we reiterate our demand that the US Government heed the opinion of the
international community and lift the blockade on Cuba.

Secondly, on behalf of the Cuban people, we demand that the US
Government immediately close, without any further delays or
justifications, the shameful torture center that it continues to
operate at its naval base in GuantC!namo, where all sorts of harassment
and vexation have been carried out, as well as cruel, inhumane and
degrading treatment against the prisoners, in breach of all the
guarantees provided for by International Law for detained people. In
addition to the closing of this shameful center, we demand that the US
Government return to our country the territory that it currently
occupies in an illegal manner against our will in GuantC!namo, taking
away from Cuba the practice of the right to sovereignty in that portion
of our soil.

We demand today, on the World Day of Human Rights, that the President
of the United States and that the US Government close down the torture
center in GuantC!namo and return to our homeland the territory that they
occupy illegally.

Thirdly, on a day like today, we demand the immediate release of the
Five Cuban Heroes: Gerardo HernC!ndez Nordelo, RamC3n LabaC1ino Salazar,
Fernando GonzC!lez Llort, Antonio Guerrero RodrC-guez and RenC) GonzC!lez
Sehwerert, political prisoners held in US jails, subjected to unjust
and harsh convictions, subjected to isolation cells for long periods of
time and to other cruel, inhumane and degrading actions for over nine
years b and we now demand, as they are going through their tenth year
in captivity, that they be released.

On behalf of the Cuban people, we particularly demand that Adriana
PC)rez ObConnor, the wife of Gerardo HernC!ndez Nordelo, and Olga
Salanueva Arango, the wife of RenC) GonzC!lez Sehwerert, be able to visit
their husbands, whom they last saw in 1998. We demand respect for their
rights and we challenge the President of the United States and the US
Government to allow these two women, daughters of our nation, to visit
their husbands in the prisons where they are now serving harsh
sentences.

Fourthly, on behalf of the Cuban families mourning the loss of their
loved ones, as a result of the acts of terrorism by Luis Posada
Carriles; on behalf of those families that lost children, parents and
siblings, we demand that the US Government detain international
terrorist Luis Posada Carriles, who is walking freely in the city of
Miami protected by the Bush Administration, and try him for terrorism
and send him to prison; or that he be extradited to Venezuela, as has
demanded that countrybs government.

Lastly, I would like to express our satisfaction over the news that the
Cuban Medical Brigade currently working in Guatemala, composed of some
300 health workers, stationed there since Hurricane Mitch swept through
Central America in 1998, was presented with the National Human Rights
Awards, bestowed by that brotherly country.

The Cuban doctors, since their arrival in the rural and mountainous
areas, in the farthest and most remote places of the Guatemalan
geography, have had over 22 million appointments and performed more
than 55,000 deliveries. In this recognition of their noble endeavor,
there is also recognition of all the Cubans who throughout the world
are currently making their generous contribution to the respect for
human rights; particularly, for the right of millions of people to life.

I would like to recall today, on the World Day of Human Rights, that as
we speak there are 37,000 Cuban health workers providing services in 79
countries. Of those, over 18,000 are medical doctors. There are 37,000
health cooperators in 79 countries and over 18,000 of them are doctors!
In a few days, we will hit the target figure of 1 million patients with
free surgeries through Operation Miracle. A million patients from 32
countries have regained their eyesight over the last few years as a
result of the implementation of Operation Miracle, fostered by our
country. These patients have been operated on by Cuban doctors, nurses
and technicians, either in Cuba or in their respective countries.

I would also like to underscore the fact that our universities have
provided government-sponsored scholarships to nearly 30,000 students
from 121 countries that are currently enrolled in them. These are
children from poor families, on many occasions from rural areas in
their countries. Of those nearly 30,000 students, some 23,000 are being
trained in Cuba as doctors.

In recalling that our country has graduated more than 45,000
Third-World youths in these years of the Revolution, of which almost
35,000 are from Africa, we must evoke Fidelbs remarks: bWithout
culture, there is no freedom possibleb. And we must recall MartC-, who
said that bBeing educated is the only one to be free.b And I must also
underscore b because of what I have just said b that with the Cuban
literacy method Yes, I Can, designed by Cuban professors and
implemented with the participation of thousands of Cuban pedagogical
advisers, some 2.7 million illiterate people in 22 countries have been
taught to read and write; and another 600,000 illiterate people are
currently studying, learning to read and write in the languages of
their countries, not only in Spanish.

In recalling these figures and confirming with modesty but with healthy
pride that the Cubans are not only fighting to build a society with all
fairness and full equality of opportunities for all its children, a
socialist society with equality of opportunity for all, where justice
can be attained, I must also express our pride in knowing that our
fellow countrymen and women did go to cure, to teach and to fight off
apartheid and colonialism in Africa b where over 350,000 Cuban
voluntary fighters, both men and women, went to defeat the troops of
apartheid, making it possible to obliterate, right in the midst of the
20th century, a brutal form of discrimination and exclusion of men over
skin color, where more than 2,000 sons and daughters of our nation laid
down their lives fighting and were instrumental in preserving Angolabs
territorial integrity, in the inception of Namibia as an independent
country, in the release of Nelson Mandela and the dismantling of the
cruel apartheid system, which was kept alive through the shameful
support of many who now try to forget that past in which they were
accessories to the apartheid regime, which they provided with weapons
and which they helped violate UN resolutions, the first of all being
the US Government. Therefore, in doing so, I would like to express our
pride that we are not only working for and defending in Cuba the civil,
political, economic, social and cultural rights for our people, but
that we are also fighting in other countries of the world so that these
can finally become real rights within everyonebs reach and stop being
rights just proclaimed in paper.

Today, we express our certainty that neither the manipulations schemed
by the US Government with the participation of a handful of
mercenaries, who they pay and instruct in our country, nor the threats
or its abundant money to pay for defections and disloyalty, nor its
media campaigns or its might over the international mass media, nor its
pressures against other governments to follow them in their anti-Cuba
campaigns, will cause our people to stay off course in defending human
rights for our country and for other countries.

Cuba celebrates this day, 10 December, World Day of Human Rights,
standing tall and with the conviction that its people has maintained
and will always maintain in victory a Revolution that truthfully
ushered in for our people the real enjoyment of human rights, of all
human rights for all the children of our homeland!

Thank you very much (Ovation).

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