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Washington has recruited its docile allies

• Speech made in Geneva by Deputy Foreign Minister María de los Angeles Flórez

Madam president,

One year has gone by since, in this same hall, the Human Rights Commission decided to put an end to the extraordinary procedure concerning the poorly named "Human rights situation in Cuba."

By defeating the draft resolution presented by the United States against Cuba in 1998, thus eliminating the unjust and insubstantial "special procedure" of a rapporteur for my country, the Commission voted for good sense over lack of sense, for cooperation over confrontation, for the integrity of our procedures over an attempt to convert them into a charade and to reduce this important UN forum's credibility to zero.

That vote was, moreover, a clear warning to those who want to turn the theme of human rights into the ideological weapon of the new world order they are attempting to impose.

Seven years of manipulation in the heart of this Commission and the Special Rapporteur's reports disseminating lies about Cuba and bringing water to the mill of the powerful propaganda machine owned by the United States, were incapable of changing to the slightest degree either my country's cooperation with UN agencies in this sphere, or the firm decision of our people and its political leadership to exercise its inalienable right to build the society which it has freely, with no foreign tutelage, decided to construct, and to defend - even at an extremely high price - its political, economic and social institutions. All that has been done on the basis of its unforsakable attributes of sovereignty and independence and its right to self-determination. It is worth recalling and once again underlining in the unipolar world in which we are living today  that these principles are fully recognized in the United Nations Charter.

The United States, its arrogance wounded, and fearing a second defeat this year, has recruited two docile military allies to do its dirty work, as straw men of the worst kind, in an attempt to utilize this maneuver against Cuba once again. The Czech Republic and Poland, at the end of the day, are dancing from the strings manipulated by their puppeteers.

That, of course, has not prevented U.S. diplomats from unmasking themselves over the last two weeks, transforming themselves into the most militant lobbyists for draft resolution L.14, thus assuming - in the eyes of all those present and in their respective capitals - their true role as the parents of this slanderous creature. We have all been witness here to their racing around corridors and constant secret meetings in a desperate search for accomplices as co-sponsors. It is worth stressing that the blackmail and arm-twisting have been unprecedented this year.

That has left their straw men in their rightful place, their moral nakedness fully revealed, further justifying the generalized condemnation of such activity, and making the pretense of its "own concerns" about my country's situation all the more farcical. This is an attempt to condemn Cuba rather than turning its attention to the situation of millions of human beings in the world, in particular children, women and the elderly, who are losing their most important right, that of life, in bomb attacks or as a result of conditions that could be eliminated with the cost of just one air strike of the most sophisticated type.

It is being totally ignored that, while such maneuvers are in play here, thousands of Cuban doctors are caring for the health of millions of people and saving the lives of thousands of children, adults and old people every year in Third World nations. Our people likewise cooperate with many countries in the educational and sports fields. Equally, it is cooperating at a higher per capita level than any other country in the training, free of charge, of skilled personnel in its universities and technical training centers. And Cuba does this with the scant resources it has available, while suffering the consequences of an implacable, criminal and illegal blockade imposed by the United States for the last 40 years.

It is legitimate to ask if any of those countries associated with this monstrosity could say the same, in spite of the vast economic resources most of them have.

It is an attempt to condemn Cuba, a country in which even our enemies have to acknowledge that there are no disappeared persons, nor political crimes, nor death squads. It is an attempt to condemn it this year, when genocidal air strikes are taking place in the heart of cultured and civilized Europe.

We will be voting against this text with the conviction that ethics still have a place within the Human Rights Commission, and that it is not possible to promote and protect such rights outside of it, or in a situation dominated not by ethical motives, but by debt or commitments that could impose political or military alliances on its members.

We shall likewise be voting against draft resolution L.14 because of the evident futility of once more placing Cuba in the dock, whatever the terms used for that might be and whatever the "recognition" reluctantly included in its text to give it a gloss of "balance" and "objectivity."

Finally, it should be stressed that we shall vote against this text given its apparent and notorious selectivity. If there are shameless and notorious "concerns" about the situation in Cuba, how can one justify their absence in relation to a country like the United States, about which there has been much published in recent months related to horrendous events and social abuses - by sources which are not influenced in the slightest by Cuba - and when numerous charges have been heard in this Commission authentically demonstrating the existence of repugnant violations of human rights?

The world's principal human rights violator to date - as indisputably proven in Viet Nam, Panama, Iraq, Yugoslavia, by the tens of thousands of disappeared persons in Latin America and by its criminal economic blockades against entire peoples - has no moral right whatsoever to portray itself as a universal judge. What nation in the world has been put on trial for taking measures to prevent traitors from collaborating with foreign powers in subversive activities? Who has been condemned for adopting antidote legislation against the Helms-Burton Act? What people has been condemned for defending its nationality and national identity, which would be infringed if the annexationist plans espoused by the real authors of the resolution we are now considering were to triumph?

This double standard of conduct is seeking to condemn Cuba solely because it makes sovereign decisions.

The legislation recently approved by the Cuban National Assembly is nothing more than a response to continuing U.S. aggression toward Cuba, in particular the 1992 Torricelli Act, the 1996 Helms-Burton Act, the economic blockade and the measures adopted by the United States to subvert our country's internal order and constitutionality.

Cuba has every right, by virtue of its sovereign faculties, to defend itself from extraterritorial legislation passed against it by the United States. Similarly, it has every right to judge according to its own laws - not those passed in Washington - citizens who, utilizing moneys received from the U.S. government, undertake actions designed to aid the application of interventionist plans that are in violation of international law. It not only has the right to defend itself, but to exercise that right with all due dignity and firmness.

For violations of blockade regulations against Cuba, the U.S. courts can impose sanctions of up to 10 years' imprisonment and a fine of 250,000 dollars.

Madam President:

However conciliatory the terms of this text may appear, they implicitly convey a condemnation that we will never accept because it is unjust and shameless. Cuba, which will never accept being accused in any form whatsoever for having fulfilling the duty imposed on it to defend its people's achievements, calls on member states to oppose such an opprobrious maneuver by voting against it.

Today it is Cuba, but tomorrow any nation could be the victim of identical manipulations.

That is why, in the name of our sovereignty and our right to self-determination, and in defense of human rights, Cuba will vote against  draft resolution L.14, and requests you to proceed to a roll call vote.

Thank you very much.

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