Mr. President:

I have come to speak on behalf of the only country on the planet subjected to a blockade. Here, I represent a friendly and courageous nation that has earned the respect of the international public opinion on account of its steadfast, determined struggle for independence and the defense of the right of small, poor countries to have a place in the world.

On behalf of Cuba, I hereby submit to the General Assembly for consideration the draft resolution entitled "Necessity of Ending the Economic, Commercial and Financial Embargo Imposed by the United States of America against Cuba."

I do not find it necessary to repeat how, when and why the US blockade against Cuba was put in place – or the methods by means of which it has been reinforced and worsened every year. Nor do I believe it is fitting to once again reveal the countless pretexts with which the representatives of the US Government have unsuccessfully attempted to justify the unjustifiable year after year. This Assembly has enough information on the issue and has clearly supported the need to put an end to this irrational, inhumane policy for eight consecutive years.

However, I am particularly interested in stating that – contrary to what has been repeated with suspicious persistence – the economic, trade and financial blockade against Cuba has not only failed to be eased as a result of the recent legislative decisions adopted by the US Congress, but it has also been further tightened.

And how was that possible, you may wonder, if nobody argues anymore that – after seven months of an outstanding struggle in favor of the return of the child Elián González to his family in Cuba – the overwhelming majority of people in the US, the press, an ever-increasing section of the Cuban-born community in the United States, the businesspeople in this country and even a large number of Members of Congress are demanding the end of the blockade against Cuba? How could the powerful, extremist minority in the Cuban-born community benefiting from the blockade and its allies of the GOP leadership in Congress impose their obscure designs if Capitol Hill had already seen six overwhelmingly favorable votes in favor of changing the policy towards Cuba?

On 5 August 1999, the Senate adopted the so-called Ashcroft Amendment with 70 yeas and 28 nays – that would have allowed the sales of food and medicines to Cuba. However, the GOP leadership – in collusion with the Miami-based anti-Cuban sectors – managed to remove it from the final text of the law by resorting to pressures and outrageously anti-democratic practices.

On 23 March 2000, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee once again adopted the Ashcroft Amendment by consensus.

On 10 May 2000, the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives adopted the Nethercutt Amendment – aimed at allowing the sales of food and medicines to Cuba – with 35 yeas and 24 nays. It was never discussed on the House Floor either.

On 20 July 2000, the Dorgan-Gorton Amendment – similar in purpose to the previous initiatives – passed the Senate with 79 yeas and 13 nays.

That same day, another two significant votes took place in the House of Representatives: the Sanford Amendment – that would have enabled Americans to freely travel to Cuba – was adopted with 232 yeas and 186 nays; and the Moran Amendment – authorizing the sales of food and medicines – passed with 301 yeas and 116 nays.

With these elements, was it not logical to think then that a real change would come about in the arbitrary policy that the United States has imposed on Cuba for over forty years?

Nevertheless, the GOP leadership and the Cuban-American Congresspeople not only managed to prevent these proposals from being included – in violation of the rules of the US legislative process – but they also imposed other amendments that actually reinforce the blockade against Cuba. Both the House of Representatives and the Senate were later forced to adopt the poorly worked out plan because legislators were deprived of all possibilities to discuss or attempt to change these new amendments. Finally, on 28 October the US President signed the bill – thus codifying into law the new measures that tighten the blockade against Cuba, even though the following had been stated before:

"I hope I’m wrong, but what I’ve been told is that the embargo on food and medicines has been allegedly eased – although it probably won’t do much because it doesn’t offer any credits or financing facilities, which we give to poor countries. Besides, it definitely restrains the ability of the Executive to enhance the people-to-people contacts between Americans and Cubans, thus further punishing and increasing the hardships of the Cuban people […]. Certainly, this agreement is restrictive.

"I think that in a thoroughly unjustified manner it restricts the US ability to make decisions on the policy of travels […]. I think it’s incorrect.

"[…] I can’t believe that the majority supports this and I think it was a big mistake," the President concluded.

And it is fitting to tell the naked truth: the alleged authorization for US companies to sell food and medicines to Cuba is established under such restrictions and obstacles that render those activities practically impossible.

Is it by any chance feasible to consider the sales of food and medicines to Cuba if the complex, bureaucratic license-granting process for such transactions – expressly devised to render them impossible – remains in force; if any kind of sale-related government assistance and even private financing is prohibited; if Cuban-made products cannot be imported as payment? How could Cuba purchase food and medicines from the United States if maritime and air transportation between both countries is still banned; if direct relations between US and Cuban banking institutions are not allowed; if – inter alia – there are such prohibitions in place as the one preventing Cuba from using the US dollar in its foreign trade transactions?

But that is not all. Why do we also say that the blockade has been reinforced? Because not only are the sales of food and medicines to Cuba still prohibited, but from now on – for the first time ever in these four decades – US citizens are expressly barred under law from freely traveling to Cuba. Until now, authorizing such travels was a prerogative of the President. It has ceased to be so. No US President will be able to make a decision in that respect unless it is determined by Congress.

If there were still any doubts, here are two enlightening statements:

Republican Congresswoman from Florida Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, one of the masterminds behind the kidnapping of the Cuban child, stated the following about the legislation adopted: "It’s just smoke and mirrors […]. We have obtained a tremendous victory in freezing the ban preventing US tourists from going to Cuba."

The also Republican Congressman from Florida Lincoln Díaz-Balart, a close ally and relative of the Miami-based Cuban-born terrorist groups, gloated: "It’s the most important victory since the Helms-Burton Act […]. No barter trade, no granting of credits, no imports from Cuba, no public or private financing […]. Denying credits and tourism to Cuba is an extraordinary and important victory."

Anyone understands that those accountable for the reinforcement of the blockade against my country have likewise attempted to cynically deceive the international public opinion.

It is necessary to provide another precise element: recurrently, the US Government cites the authorization of donations to Cuba amounting to hundreds of millions of dollars per year in humanitarian aid. I can confirm that it is absolutely false. Actually, donations to Cuba from US non-governmental and religious organizations have averaged some US$ 4 million per year. What I am interested in underlining is that such donations – usually prepared in open defiance of the constraints, obstacles and persecutions imposed by the Federal Government on its organizers – are an unmistakable testimony to the spirit of solidarity and sensitivity of many of the best and most honest native sons and daughters of the American people.

Mr. President:

As if everything I have just said to this Assembly were not enough, I must now warn against the new aggression committed by the United States against Cuba. Last 28 October, the US President signed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act – whereby that country’s Government is authorized to appropriate US$ 161 million in frozen funds belonging to Cuban enterprises and banks. It also sets down the right to such dispossession in the future should any transactions come about once the blockade is lifted.

This money will be handed over to Miami-based terrorist groups and its lawyers – with the pretext of compensating the relatives of the pilots of one of these terrorist organizations, who died when engaged in one of the many acts of provocation against Cuba, jeopardizing the life of innocent people and air traffic in the area. The US Government is well aware of how that unfortunate incident happened and who should be held accountable for it.

This new action is another escalation in the policy of aggression against Cuba – while setting a negative international precedent that will most certainly cause problems in the future.

Cuba reiterates to this Assembly its determination to face this new aggression and its steadfast commitment to enforce the recent provisions adopted by our Government in reaction to the US legislative stunt.

Distinguished Representatives:

The General Assembly of the United Nations did not abandon Cuba in these tough years when it had to confront – in addition to its own hardships – the economic war that the United States reinforced when it believed that the time had come to launch the final attack on my country. While the United States relentlessly toughened its unprecedented blockade, Cuba received more solidarity and support from the General Assembly of the United Nations. However, while year after year a larger number of members of this Assembly asked the United States to change its policy, such repeated appeal was disregarded with imperial arrogance.

When back in 1992 the Torricelli Act was enacted (currently in force) – prohibiting, inter alia, trade transactions between Cuba and the subsidiaries of US companies based in third countries and seriously hindering international maritime transportation; and when former President Bush stated: "My Administration will continue to exert pressure on all the Governments of the world about the need to isolate Castro’s regime economically" – 59 members of this General Assembly voted against the blockade for the first time.

When in 1993 the United States declared that in order to provide economic assistance to any country all economic relations with Cuba must cease – further expanding the extraterritorial scope of the blockade – 88 countries in this Assembly demanded the end of such policy.

When in 1994 the United States increased its aggressive radio broadcasts against my country; banned the sending of remittances and packages of food and medicines to Cuba; and restricted family-related travels between both countries – with the aim of "further tightening the embargo on Cuba, thereby limiting the capacity of the Cuban Government to accumulate foreign exchange," as expressly declared by the Treasury – 101 countries voted in this Assembly against that policy.

When in 1995 this General Assembly knew – among other pieces of information disclosing the progressive reinforcement of the blockade – that the only two companies (both based in third countries) supplying pacemakers for patients with heart disease had discontinued such supply to Cuba – one because their equipment contained US-made components and the other because it had been bought by a firm located in the United States – and when this country was already debating new initiatives to internationalize the blockade, 117 countries supported Cuba’s right.

When in 1996 the Helms-Burton Act was signed and President Clinton himself stated: "Nobody in the world supports our policy towards Cuba," the General Assembly of the United Nations demanded the end of the blockade through the favorable vote of 137 countries.

When in 1997 the United States imposed its conditions on the European Union and prevented the issue of the blockade on Cuba from being discussed at the World Trade Organization – while sanctioning those companies and businesspeople that, in defiance of the blockade, had relations with Cuba – the number of countries voting in favor of the Cuban resolution at the General Assembly increased to 143.

When in 1998, on the one hand, the US Government stepped up its harassment against the enterprises that maintained relations with our country and stated that "twelve companies from over seven countries are being investigated for conducting activities in Cuba" with the aim of punishing them and, on the other, the US Association for World Health asserted that "the embargo of the United States has significantly increased Cuba’s suffering" and confirmed that "such embargo violates the basic international agreements and conventions that provide guidelines on human rights," the General Assembly once again condemned the blockade on Cuba through 157 votes.

When in 1999 the international agreements on trademarks and patents were arbitrarily infringed in the US Congress to tighten the blockade – and US farmers and even the Senate were already demanding authorization to sell food and medicines to Cuba – 158 countries then supported the end of the blockade against Cuba in this General Assembly.

That is how we have come to this day.

Nobody should be deceived. All laws and pieces of legislation adopted against Cuba throughout these years with irrational hatred and outright disrespect for International Law are still in force.

Distinguished Representatives:

The new President of the United States should decide whether to promote a change in this outdated policy in Congress or continue being held hostage to the mean interests and delusions of revenge of an extremist, unscrupulous minority long overridden by history.

The current US President is perhaps a case in point. He probably wanted in the beginning to transform the situation that was passed down to him. However, he will go down in history as the President who – being able to do so – was forced to act in a completely opposite direction. Perhaps after having normalized US relations with China and Vietnam, and even a number of countries once labeled terrorists; and when flying to the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea – a country with which the United States has still not signed the peace – he will ponder on his actions towards Cuba. There are men who make history for their courage and the conviction prevailing in their deeds; there are others who fail to make it for what they could not or did not want to do out of incapacity or fear.

The President-elect and the new US Congress must decide. Cuba, in the meantime – more determined and optimistic than ever in its decision to continue being a free nation – stands both ready to have normal and respectful relations with the United States, towards whose people it does not feel any hatred or hold any grudges for our suffering, and to face another century of blockade and acts of aggression. No wonder all my generation and 60 in every 100 Cubans have lived all their lives under the harshness of the blockade. Our children will also be capable of doing so.

Our adherence to man’s full independence, freedom and dignity – and the thorough enjoyment of human rights, attained forty years ago for the first time in our history – is far higher than the sanctions imposed by the blockade.

I would like to remind the Representative of Israel – whose Government, bound to the United States by ties of mutual complicity, has been the only one that together with the former has voted against our right to life for eight consecutive years, but whose people, persecuted and decimated by famine and diseases, surely understands and supports us – that our struggle against the blockade not condemned by his country is also in favor of the rights of the Cuban-Hebrew community that with all respect, freedom and consideration is currently living in our homeland.

I would like to confess to the Representative of the United States that I recognize how tough it must be for him to try and defend – without any arguments whatsoever – the right of his country to kill Cuban children through famine and diseases. After the voting, when the Honorable US Ambassador leaves this hall, he should recall what I will say to him now:

You can cause terror through the use of force, but never sympathy. You can be the strongest, but not loved or respected. You can impose power, but never moral authority. You can be the richest, but not the most virtuous. You can lie, but you cannot deceive everybody indefinitely. You can harass a people, but you cannot prevent it from fighting with all its might for the right to freedom and life.

The vote that you will cast today, dear Representatives, does not settle a bilateral difference between Cuba and the United States, but the staying power of the principles of International Law; the rejection of the extraterritorial implementation of laws; the respect for the sovereign equality of States and the freedom to engage in international trade and navigation.

On behalf of the people that invasions, blockades and acts of aggression have not caused it to lose its courage and optimism, whose inhabitants are willing to fight, teach, build or heal anywhere on Earth; on behalf of the people that feels every injustice or pain in the world as its own, for which its homeland has been humankind – and that is now expecting over there in our country with justified confidence that this General Assembly will vote against injustice and in favor of International Law – I ask you, distinguished Representatives, to once again express your support for the effective end of the economic, trade and financial blockade imposed by the United States against Cuba.

Thank you very much.