I think that our people have been extensively informed about this matter, but, as comrade Fidel said, there is still a lot left to be said and analyzed. And there is also a lot that actually cannot be said, because there is sensitive information that we cannot reveal, so as to protect our friends and the many diplomats who are genuinely honest and loyal to the truth, and have provided us with information and support throughout this whole process.

We should establish, first of all, the very real fact that this exercise against Cuba in Geneva, which is one of the last weapons left for the United States government to use against Cuba, given the failure of all the others, like the military option, the economic blockade, and the campaigns of lies, is an exercise that has worn itself out. That is to say, everyone in the world is fully aware that the U.S. resolution against Cuba in Geneva has no foundation, no real explanation, no support other than the power of those who actually propose and impose it, namely the U.S. government. And getting this resolution adopted has become increasingly difficult, and has come at an ever higher political cost for them.

This is the basis for comrade Fidel’s assertion that this is but a pyrrhic victory, because the cost of achieving the condemnation of Cuba in Geneva is becoming increasingly difficult to pay for the United States.

The United States imposed this resolution for the first time in 1990, coinciding with the most difficult moments in the history of the Revolution. It managed to continue imposing it in more or less the same way up until 1997. In 1998, however, the United States failed to realize that this exercise had lost all credibility, and that year Cuba defeated the resolution. The United States then decided to stop directly submitting it. In 1999, it used the Czech Republic for this purpose, and managed to get the resolution adopted by a vote of 21 to 20, through the use of enormous pressure and blackmail. Last year it succeeded in getting it through with a vote of 21 to 18, taking advantage of the fact that the composition of the commission was more favorable to its interests, and using much the same procedures as the previous year, which we analyzed here at this round table. This year, prospects looked unfavorable for them, and this led Powell to make the comments that have given us such pride, when he said that this was a goal of the highest priority, that it was a tough battle, and that they were gathering forces against Cuba. This gives you a good idea of the way the U.S. administration approached this exercise in Geneva.

Finally, the draft resolution was submitted.

As all of our people already know, the Commission on Human Rights, with 53 member countries, of which a number are renewed every year, was to scheduled to vote April 18 on a draft resolution submitted by the Czech Republic, at the request and under the orders of the United States.

There were lengthy digressions beforehand, which we will not analyze here, because they have already been discussed. For the first time, the draft resolution submitted by the Czech Republic included a paragraph referring to the subject of the blockade against Cuba, a condition demanded of the Czechs by the European Union. The Czechs were therefore trapped between the pressure of the Yankees, on the one hand, to leave out any allusions to the blockade, and the pressure of the European Union, on the other hand, to try to include some mention that might justify a European vote in support of the United States’ condemnation of Cuba.

In the end, the European Union gave in, and the paragraph was ultimately left the way the United States wanted it, just as the text of the resolution as a whole was written the way the United States wanted it. The draft resolution was finally submitted the day before April 18, with just two minutes left before the time to do so ran out, and in the end it was cosponsored by 23 countries.

I am going to pause for a moment to briefly discuss the 23 countries that cosponsored this anti-Cuban resolution, to clarify who was involved in this maneuver, who participated in the most direct and emphatic way.

Of the 53 member countries of the Commission, eight cosponsored the draft resolution. To give you an idea of what this means, Cuba has submitted resolutions that have been backed with the cosponsorship of over 30 countries. Eight member countries of the Commission cosponsored the resolution: the United States, obviously, the Czechs, who submitted it, Germany, Latvia, the United Kingdom, Poland, Canada and Japan. The rest of the member countries, even the ones that voted in favor of the resolution, did not cosponsor it; they did not want to be seen as being too mixed up in the affair. The Yankees also managed to get 15 other countries to cosponsor the resolution even though they are not members. In other words, even though they play no part in the matter, they signed the paper. These countries are Hungary, the Netherlands, Iceland, Bulgaria, Nicaragua – the only Latin American country to participate – Sweden, Lithuania, Denmark, Slovenia, Albania, Israel, Australia, Slovakia and Finland. They have joined in all these past few years, they joined in last year, and this year there was a new addition, Switzerland. Nobody knows why, although one can imagine why. In total, 23 countries.

There are five countries that have always cosponsored the anti-Cuban resolution. You could say they are the vanguard in this respect. They are the United States, Germany, the United Kingdom, Denmark and the Netherlands. There are three countries that have been cosponsors 11 times, or rather, every year except for one: the Czechs, the Bulgarians and the Japanese. And there are four countries that have been cosponsors on 10 out of 12 occasions: Canada, Sweden, Finland and Iceland. I will comment on this a bit later.

These are the countries involved in the maneuver, the ones who provide their signatures for the draft resolution. Some of them also actively participate in the meetings prior to the submission of the resolution, and this is how it arrives at the discussion stage. I will discuss what the atmosphere was like a bit later. We already know that the resolution was adopted by a vote of 22 in favor, 20 against, 10 abstentions, and one absence.

We should mention that the United States managed to get one vote more than last year, after all this effort, the high priority placed on the matter, the gathering of forces and the use of blackmail we have described before. We will refer to all of this later.

We got two votes more than last year, and in reality, 31 countries did not join in with the United States, because of the 53 member countries, 22 backed the United States, but 31 did not vote in favor. Despite the pressure exerted by the Yankees right up until the last minute, those 31 countries either voted against the resolution or abstained. They make up 60% of the members of the Commission. In other words, of the 53 member countries, 60% did not accompany the United States in this anti-Cuban maneuver, despite the unprecedented pressure unleashed by the United States around the world, in capital cities, in Geneva, with the participation of the highest officials of the U.S. government.

Therefore, given these figures, we can maintain that this U.S. strategy has worn itself out, and the only way it manages to impose this resolution on the rest of the world is by resorting to these kinds of methods.

How many votes did the United States manage to get? Well, there are the 16 votes it has wrapped up: the United States and Canada, that makes two; Japan and South Korea, four; the eight countries of western Europe, 12; and four votes from eastern European countries, 16. These are the votes that the United States gets automatically. In addition to these, it got, in Latin America, the votes of Argentina, Uruguay and Costa Rica, which were predictable; it also got Guatemala’s vote at the last minute, as I will explain later, which brought it to 20. And it got the final boost it needed through the tremendous pressure that was exerted on Africa, which garnered votes from two African countries this time around: Cameroon and Madagascar. These were the 22 votes for the United States.

Cuba maintained the support of 10 countries that voted against the resolution last year and that stood firm against all the pressures to vote against it once again, namely Burundi, China, India, Indonesia, Liberia, Nigeria, Pakistan, Russia, Venezuela and Zambia.

Randy Alonso.- Incidentally, Felipe, in the case of Burundi, our people have seen the footage that we have televised and repeated of the direct pressure exerted right there, at the moment of voting, right at their seats.

Felipe Pérez Roque.- Randy, I do not think there is anyone who could fail to recognize the dignity with which the representative from Burundi refused to even look at the U.S. representative who was there threatening him, wheedling, making propositions. I cannot imagine how much they offered him, but the dignity with which he refused to even look at him is ample testimony to the fact that there are still a lot of people in the world with a sense of dignity and integrity.

In addition, seven countries that newly joined the Commission this year also voted against the draft resolution: Algeria, Libya, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria and Viet Nam. And two countries that abstained last year voted against the resolution this year: Swaziland and Qatar. So these were the 20 votes obtained by our country.

Now then, what can we say about the atmosphere in that room? I think it would be worthwhile for me to quickly go over, for the benefit of our people, the report submitted by our comrades in Geneva at 3:00 or 3:30 in the morning, Cuban time, or rather, the time at which we here in Havana were following the voting. When it is 3:00 in the morning in Havana, it is 9:00 in the morning in Geneva; in other words, it is six hours later there. We were all gathered here, the whole team at the ministry, the comrades who have been working on this matter, and they were over there, keeping us informed.

They said: "From the time our delegation arrived at the Palais des Nations," – at around 3:30 in the morning Cuban time, or 9:30 in the morning there – "we could see the heavy deployment of the U.S. delegation in the corridors, in the cafeteria and inside the hall, even before work began.

"Equally obvious was the committed cooperation of the United Kingdom delegation, which remained in constant communication with the U.S. delegation, passing on information about the movements of the Cuban delegation and the delegations we were speaking to, and above all, working in conjunction with the U.S. delegation on some of the African delegations.

"Once the hall began to fill up with delegates, a large number of U.S. delegates blatantly continued their activities." They had 38 people accredited as the official delegation, along with another 40 people, members of their mission, as reinforcements. The U.S. ambassador to Rwanda was sent to Geneva to head up the group in charge of pressuring the Africans; we have his name around here somewhere. We are not sure if that one there is the ambassador himself or one of the men acting on his orders to harrass, pressure and blackmail the Africans.

"They began to approach each delegation one by one, taking them out of the room to talk, pressuring them right at their seats. They followed our movements" – our comrades said – "down to the last detail. Whenever we finished talking to a delegation, they would immediately and obviously move in to talk to them as well.

"They even took these steps with delegations that have a very strong and clear stance against the resolution, or of abstaining, such as Nigeria, Zambia, Burundi, Indonesia and others. There was genuine harassment throughout the morning, obvious to all of the delegations."

Around 6:00 in the morning Cuban time, news suddenly reached the ministry of a rumor that the Yankees were working to get the voting postponed, which is what they had tried to do in 1998 when they saw they did not have enough votes. When they saw that it was already 12:00 noon there, 6:00 in the morning here, and they did not have the votes they needed, they got to work, and the rumor began to spread – we publicly denounced it and got ready to oppose the maneuver – that they were trying to see if they could have another 24 or 48 hours to continue exerting pressure in capital cities around the world and there in Geneva.

This was the atmosphere before and during the session.

What was the United States’ strategy? The United States’ strategy is simple, and it is the one they have always used. Since the United States has 16 votes wrapped up, the ones of its allies, which I mentioned, what do they do? They work on getting votes from Latin America, where there are a number of countries, not all, not even the majority, who are easily susceptible to U.S. pressure, or who agree with and are accomplices to the United States’ anti-Cuban maneuver. So they quickly picked up the backing of Argentina, which they had in advance, and of Uruguay and Costa Rica. That gave them 19 votes.

This is the truth of the matter: on the morning of the day of the vote, at 9:00 in the morning Cuban time, we had the commitment of 24 countries to vote against the resolution, and the United States had the votes of 19 countries. That is a fact. The only way the United States could impose the resolution was by doing what it did, unleashing brutal pressure in the final hours, when they realized – as the big bad she-wolf reported – that they did not have enough support in Geneva, and so began to exert pressure in the world’s capitals. It has already been noted that President Bush joined in, along with the vice president, the secretary of state, the State Department officials. They launched an operation that ultimately succeeded in getting seven countries to break down and change their position.

What did they manage to do, then, with 19 votes? They managed to pressure Cameroon into changing its position, first of all. They got Cameroon to vote in favor of the draft resolution. Cameroon had always abstained, and this year they forced it to vote in favor. I will comment later on how this was achieved.

Then they managed to get to Madagascar, which had voted against the draft resolution last year, and planned to abstain this year. They managed to force it to change its stance and vote in favor. That brought them up to 21.

Then they put the pressure on Guatemala – I will comment on this later – and that brought them up to 22 votes in favor.

Once they had 22 votes – Cuba had the support of 24 – what did they do then? They began to pressure the countries that had committed their support to Cuba, Third World countries with grave problems – I will comment on them one by one later. They managed to break down Senegal, which had committed to voting against the resolution and ended up abstaining. Then they got to work on Kenya, with decisive support from the British, and Kenya went from voting against the resolution to abstaining. Then they managed to get Niger, which had voted against the draft resolution last year, to abstain; Niger had committed to voting against it again this year. And finally they succeeded in getting the delegation from the Democratic Republic of Congo to leave the hall, so that they were not present for the vote. Last year, the Democratic Republic of Congo voted against the resolution.

That was how they managed to take away four votes that Cuba had a chance of getting from these delegations, and we ended up with the backing of 20 countries after they had succeeded in breaking down these four.

Now then, was this anything new to us? No, it was nothing new. Ms. Vicky Huddleston, the head of the U.S. Interests Section in Havana, had hosted a lunch here a while ago and invited the ambassadors of Latin American countries that are members of the Commission on Human Rights. She used the occasion to pressure them to vote in favor of the United States, and told them that for the United States it was key to work on the African countries, a number of which could potentially be pressured due to their weakness and the problems they faced. She also said they were counting on the support of the Latin American countries. And so, in other words, we already knew that this would be the United States’ strategy. And this strategy is even more cruel, even more shameless, when you realize that Africa’s problems are a in fact a consequence of colonialist and imperialist plunder. So they got the final boost they needed in Africa, in countries where the problems of the foreign debt, economic underdevelopment, total exclusion from the benefits of globalization, AIDS... I have an AIDS map here, which is really horrific, and some statistics that give you a good idea of the situation in Africa: 17 million Africans have died since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, and 3.7 million of them were children; almost 12 million children in Africa are orphans because of AIDS; of the 36 million people in the world who had AIDS in the year 2000, 70% were from sub-Saharan Africa.

On a continent with these weaknesses, these terrible problems, dependent on international aid and credits from the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, they sunk in their teeth and got to working pressuring these countries.

Now, how did they do this? Let us take a look at Cameroon, the first country they managed to break down. Cameroon has an infant mortality rate of 71 per 1000 live births before the age of one. Statistics, as you know, are always an underestimate, because you cannot precisely count every single case. Average life expectancy is 54 years, and the illiteracy rate is 26%. It is a country with severe economic problems and weaknesses.

What happened in Cameroon? In mid-March, our country’s deputy foreign minister, Guerra Menchero, visited Cameroon, and the highest authorities there had committed to maintaining their usual stance of not voting against Cuba. We expected them to abstain, because it would have been very difficult for them to withstand the Yankee pressure and vote against the resolution. But then, when Guerra Menchero left Cameroon on March 13, a U.S. State Department delegation arrived immediately; they practically bumped into each other in the corridors of the Cameroonian foreign ministry. And, well, the U.S. authorities had come to talk to them about the Commission on Human Rights resolutions.

The Yankee delegation – we know – was emphatic about getting Cameroon’s support. "They reminded Cameroon about the link between human rights and economic aid." I am reading what our diplomats reported being told by the diplomats from Cameroon.

The Yankees told them that "Amnesty International had concerns about Cameroon." As you know, Amnesty International, theoretically a non-governmental organization, is a transnational that lives off of the funding it gets from the United States and Europe. "There were concerns about human rights in Cameroon, and the United States was willing to help Cameroon solve the problem of being condemned for this in Geneva. But for the United States, the issue of Cuba was very important, and they hoped that Cameroon would understand that the issue of Cuba was a priority for the United States, and they suggested that the Cameroonian ambassador in Geneva remain in close contact with the U.S. mission in Geneva." They used this to pressure them, and a few days later... Well, we saw the results. The day before the vote, the Cameroonian ambassador in Geneva was really terrified, stuttering, indecisive. He would not come to the phone and did not want to see our diplomats; he had already been given his instructions.

There is a long account here, which I am not going to read. At 5:00 in the morning, Havana time, we received news of the first country to change its position. Our delegation informed us that the Cameroonian delegation had told them that they had been instructed to vote against Cuba. I spoke to the Cameroonian foreign minister three or four times, we called him from here. The first time he said no, that it was not possible, that he had just got back from a trip the day before, that Cameroon was not going to vote against Cuba. When I called him the second time, he told me, "I did not know that instructions had been given, the president has given direct instructions." We then confirmed the pressures they had been subjected to. I called him a third time, and he finally said that they could not change this position, that they were in a very difficult situation.

I remember how we passionately tried to explain that an abstention was a vote against Cuba, and that Cuba needed Africa’s support. But then we realized that the United States had blackmailed this country into changing its position.

Can this lead us to think, and our people to believe, that the government of Cameroon, and the people of Cameroon, are enemies of Cuba, that they do not feel grateful, deep down, for what Cuba has done for Africa, for our contribution to the fight against colonialism, against apartheid? We cannot think like this. We must understand that they have been victims of pressure and blackmail. And we cannot really view this as a sign of animosity or enmity towards Cuba. It is simply a matter of weakness unscrupulously exploited by the imperial superpower. That is what happened in Cameroon.

Madagascar, a country with an average life expectancy of 57 years, infant mortality of 86 per 1000 live births before the age of one, per capita GDP of 780 dollars, extraordinary dependence on foreign aid, on U.S. decisions, on credits that have to be approved by the World Bank, by the International Monetary Fund. They put on the pressure.

A special envoy from Cuba went there, comrade Raúl Roa Kourí. He arrived with a message from our government, requesting Madagascar’s cooperation. But in the end, they were severely pressured. We later confirmed that it was the Office of the President, after horrific pressure from the United States, that had directly decided to change Madagascar’s vote; last year they voted against the resolution, and this year they voted in favor.

On April 12, just a few days earlier, the acting foreign minister of Madagascar, who was filling in while the foreign minister was away on a trip, told Roa Kourí that Madagascar’s vote against the resolution would be maintained, since they saw no reason to change their position. That was April 12, and between April 12 and 18, the United States managed to pressure them into changing their vote. That is really why Madagascar changed its vote: the United States so brutally threatened it, and exerted so much pressure, that it ultimately changed its position, after voting in favor of Cuba last year.

As for the Democratic Republic of Congo, the United States pressured it into not voting at all. It was even worse than that: the United States pressured it into not supporting China, and not supporting Cuba, by leaving the hall. And when the moment arrived when the United States wanted to condemn Iraq, the representatives from the Democratic Republic of Congo took their seats, voted against Iraq, and then got up and left again. In other words, U.S. pressure made them go this far.

Now then, we are talking about a country that suffered the brutal dictatorship of Mobutu, who was supported by the United States and various European countries. This is a country with infant mortality of 102 per 1000 live births before the age of one, a country with an average life expectancy of 48, according to the United Nations. And I am not even going to get into social indicators, or the terrible wars this country has endured. Now then, what was the situation that the Yankees exploited in the case of the Democratic Republic of Congo? As you know, there is a conflict there involving various African countries, and the representatives of the Democratic Republic of Congo were subjected to heavy pressure and blackmail by the United States. We know, for example, that Secretary of State Colin Powell personally called President Kabila.

Any solution for peace in the Congo would have to be discussed and approved in the Security Council. As we know, in the Security Council, the United States has the right to veto, to boycott resolutions, and it used this pressure against the Democratic Republic of Congo. If the Democratic Republic of Congo did not give in, the United States would not back a peaceful solution for the conflict that is bleeding this country dry, and this is a priority for the Congolese authorities. The stability of the government led by the son of assassinated President Kabila depends on finding a peaceful solution, and even the territorial integrity of the Democratic Republic of Congo depends on it. And so the United States pressured them, and they caved in, despite the fact that they had given us their utmost guarantees.

We have a copy of the fax in which the minister of human rights, who is in charge of these matters in the Democratic Republic of Congo, instructed their delegation, two days earlier, to vote in favor of Cuba. We have the fax. Last year they voted in favor of Cuba, against the resolution.

What caused this to happen? Pressure from the United States, the call from Powell, the heavy pressure of the threat to withdraw U.S. support and block any solution for peace in the Congo, based on the United States’ power in the Security Council.

Randy Alonso.- As a matter of fact, Felipe, the matter of the Congo was being discussed today in the Security Council.

Felipe Pérez Roque.- The United States kept up the pressure on them until its goal was achieved. That is no secret to anyone.

I have a lengthy report here, which I am not going to read, that really gives you an idea of the running around that went on. The Congolese representatives were hiding on the eighth floor, hiding, because they could not enter the hall, due to the pressure from the U.S. delegation. The Chinese delegation was looking for them as well, so that they could vote in favor of China; they had also committed their support to them. The Chinese diplomats invited them to lunch so that they would not lose them again. The Congolese suddenly disappeared, but were caught again; a lookout who had been posted to keep an eye out for them saw them pass by, and the Chinese representatives went running after them, along with a member of our delegation.

At the entrance to the Palais des Nations, a last effort was made to convince them. They were terrified, they could not do it, they were leaving, they could not do it, they had instructions to be absent. It was a real struggle. "You have to stay, how can you do this to us now?" our comrades said to them. They ran out and jumped in a car. That is the fact of the matter.

Every time the Chinese representatives went near them... There was a point when the Chinese managed to convince them, and the Congolese took their seats, but as soon as the Chinese went back to their seats, two Yankees came and took the Congolese away again, the whole delegation ran out again. That was the degree of running around that went on. There is not enough time to fully analyze this here.

Call after call was made, calls from our comrades informing us about what was going on, calls to Deputy Minister Abelardo Moreno, to Deputy Minister Guerra Menchero, to me, relating all of the steps being taken, until there was nothing left to be done.

Our ambassador was received in the morning by President Kabila, over there in the Congo; but the U.S. pressure was impossible to overcome, and at the last minute, the Democratic Republic of Congo abandoned their previous position and were absent for the vote.

Here we have Kenya. With regard to Kenya, I am simply going to read this one news item.

"The International Monetary Fund issued an ultimatum to the government of Kenya for the application of the reforms it is demanding.

"The Monetary Fund stated that loans would be reinstated when the Kenyan authorities have complied with promised reforms on privatization and taken steps towards the establishment of good government.

"A statement from the Fund notes that they expect progress by the middle of May, and that talks may be continued then."

We are dealing here with a country suffering from a drought that has caused plummeted four million people into starvation, a country with 1.6 billion people infected with AIDS. And the United States put the pressure on.

What explanation did they give us? Kenya desperately needs the International Monetary Fund to approve a credit of 150 million dollars, and this will require U.S. approval. The Monetary Fund will not give them the money if the United States does not authorize it, and they used this to pressure them.

And listen to this report, which just happens to be from April 17, the day before the vote:

"The World Bank and other donors have promised some 98 million dollars to Kenya to curb the spread of AIDS. The source quotes the Kenyan minister of the presidential office, who said that the World Bank was granting another 50 million and the British government" – the British were the ones who directly pressured Kenya on the United States’ behalf – "through the Department for International Development would offer another 37 million dollars." They used this to pressure Kenya, a country with 1.6 million people infected with AIDS, a country where an estimated 12% of the adult population is infected with AIDS. They pressured them with the International Monetary Fund credit, with the money to fight AIDS, and they succeeded in getting Kenya, which had committed its support to Cuba, to ultimately abstain.

Senegal. Minister Cabrisas was in Senegal, and the president promised and guaranteed his country’s support for Cuba. That very morning, the Senegalese representatives showed us the instructions they had to vote against the resolution, until they got a call at the last minute from the president, telling them to abstain instead; they were being subjected to enormous pressures.

We called them, we talked to them. Deputy Minister Abelardo Moreno had spoken a day or two earlier with the foreign minister on my behalf. They had reiterated their intention to vote against the resolution, in favor of Cuba. We spoke with them again, but in the end it was impossible. I am not going to get into the details here. Senegal was pressured in the same way, with the same kind of pressures.

The same thing happened in the case of Niger. With regard to Niger, just listen to this. On a list of 174 countries ordered according to poverty, with the poorest at the bottom of the list, Niger is number 173; in other words, it is the second poorest country in the world. We are talking about a country with a per capita GDP of 190 dollars, that is the kind of country we are talking about. It is truly one of the poorest countries in the world. Average life expectancy, 49 years. Infant mortality, 166 per 1000 live births before one year of age. Niger was brutally pressured.

We are dealing with figures and statistics that never fully reflect the tragic reality, because every time I cite a figure you have to remember that it is actually an underestimate of the real figure.

And so what happened in the case of Niger? Well, last year Niger voted against the anti-Cuban resolution.

Then, the U.S. embassy in Niger recommended measures like these to the U.S. State Department: "We should reopen the USAID office here in Niger, to create the hope that we are going to resume development aid: we should promise them an economic aid package; we should invite the President to visit the United States." These were the kind of measures that the Yankee embassy was using in conjunction with the State Department, as we discovered on April 16.

The State Department exerted tremendous pressure in the end. I am going to read the report from our ambassador:

"The prime minister told our ambassador than the U.S. under-secretary of state for Africa had called him twice in the early hours of the morning, to tell him that if they did not vote against Cuba, Niger would not benefit from the African trade law, and that all of its plans for financial development with the Monetary Fund and the World Bank would be boycotted, which would make Niger’s future extremely difficult and uncertain. The prime minister told him that they could not vote against Cuba, and in an urgent meeting with the president, they ultimately adopted the decision to abstain, out of fear of reprisals from the United States.

This was how they pressured Niger; this is the explanation they themselves gave to our ambassador.

I think I have spoken extensively enough about how the pressure was applied in Africa. Nevertheless, I must mention - although I cannot tell you her name - a diplomat who afterwards, in tears, when we were alone, showed us the instructions she had received to vote for Cuba. Then she told us about the moment when they changed her instructions. She said that after the vote, the U.S. ambassador had come up to her to thank her, and she told him that he should not thank her, because she was only following instructions, but she did not agree with them, and she ended the conversation.

You could tell that she was really ashamed about this, hurt, and she told the Cuban diplomats the story with tears in her eyes.

There are examples of three or four African countries whose representatives came up to us after and told us about a lot of these things, and that allowed us to see the brutal and unscrupulous way in which the United States imposed this resolution.

We should remember that we talking about countries that are facing truly unbearable situations. You see a country that depends on being given 150 million dollars, another that depends on some other kind of aid, and the United States works on them with all of this information, using it for these kinds of pressures and phone calls.

There were foreign ministers who were woken up in the early hours of the morning. We know that the under-secretary of state for Africa called the prime minister of Niger in the middle of the night, at 4:00 in the morning, Niger time, and that’s why Niger agreed not to vote for Cuba and to change its vote to an abstention. That is the way they behaved.

There are countless stories like these, which I could go on telling you, but I won’t, because of time constraints; stories about all these countries woken up in the middle of the night.

I said at the Foreign Ministry that Secretary of State Powell called the president of a Latin American country ten times. Yesterday a U.S. diplomat in Uruguay said in a mocking tone to someone who then told us about it, that I had actually exaggerated, it was not ten times, it was six, and that the name of the country could be revealed because it was already public knowledge. He told this person it was Ecuador. In fact, I was not talking about Ecuador. In any case, we learned from this U.S. diplomat that they called Ecuador six times in the early morning, Secretary of State Powell did. But Ecuador stuck to its decision to abstain and did not give in to the pressure. And in Latin America it was not only Ecuador that abstained. Colombia abstained, Brazil abstained, Peru abstained. And on the morning of the vote, diplomats from more than one Latin American country told us that Bush himself was calling Latin American presidents who had not yet made up their minds to ask them to join in the condemnation of Cuba. And Secretary of State Powell was making phone calls and exerting pressure, too. I will give a few examples later.

I am going to comment on the Latin American vote.

Argentina. On January 19 - listen carefully, January 19 - the Argentine foreign ministry was already being asked by the State Department to support the anti-Cuban resolution. I think that enough has been said about this here already, and that everyone knows the meeting today between President de la Rúa and Bush is the prize - that plus the financial protection - for the Argentine position of taking the same stand as last year and joining in the condemnation of Cuba. I think that it is not even worth saying anything about the feeble excuses and the empty words the Argentine authorities have given us, because they explain absolutely nothing: "love for the Cuba people"; we all know that is a matter of carnal relations.

But remembering the time when comrade Fidel said that if the Argentine government once again voted with the United States, it would be acting as a Yankee bootlicker, I have to say that never before in history has an epithet described spineless behavior so well and in so few words. Really, on a day like today, one has to say that never before was that word so fittingly applied to a government.

I must also say that one does not really know who to talk to in Argentina, because in Argentina one does not really know who is in charge. I would imagine that one would have to talk to the Yankees, one would have to talk to minister Cavallo, it’s not really clear whom one would have to talk to. But, well, not for a moment did we ever count on the support of Argentina, and we knew that was what they were going to do.

The case of Costa Rica is curious, because the Costa Rican foreign ministry said all along that it had made no decision, just so it would not have to face any public debate. When we asked them if we could send an envoy to give our side of the story they said no, that it would be better that we did not go, so as not to stir things up, because that would make it more difficult to abstain, and that was what they were considering. Now, the Costa Ricans, the Costa Rican government and foreign minister, know very well that we know that the foreign minister’s advice to President Rodríguez was to abstain. He felt that Costa Rica’s image was at stake, because this was an exercise that had clearly worn itself out. The Costa Rican foreign ministry advised abstaining; President Rodríguez decided otherwise. He decided to vote in favor of the Yankee resolution, because he was under pressure from the counterrevolutionary Cubans in Costa Rica, who, as everyone knows, own nearly all the newspapers there. They are nearly all former Batista supporters, close blood relations of the Miami mob. So they were under this pressure, plus pressure from the United States, and the President, in the end, made that decision.

I said at the Foreign Ministry that one had to remember that Costa Rica was a Yankee colony as far as foreign policy went, and that it was a country that was incapable of acting independently.

"The government of Costa Rica," says a communiqué that they issued, "energetically and emphatically rejects the insinuations made by the Cuban minister of foreign relations." Now, I have to clarify something. I did not insinuate anything, I stated it outright and I repeat it today. I am not making insinuations, I clearly repeat my remarks that the Costa Rican government is a government subordinate to U.S. pressure and to pressure from the Miami Cuban mob and I am going to give you three reasons why. I am not going to leave this up in the air, I am going to give you three reasons.

First, Costa Rica has no diplomatic relations with Cuba, it is one of the three countries in Latin America that do not. It does not dare, it cannot. They have told us: "We would like to, but we cannot. We are going to establish relations at the consular level." And they opened a consulate here. They do not dare. They cannot buck Yankee pressure. I challenge them to clearly state if that is the way things are or not.

Secondly, President Rodríguez was one of those who did not come to the Ibero-American Summit. He could not come, they put pressure on him not to come. Other Latin American heads of state came, the majority, but he could not come. I challenge him to say if he is free to come to Cuba or if he gave in to U.S. pressure and pressure from the counterrevolutionary Cuban mob living there.

Thirdly, I have a question. If Costa Rica is so concerned about human rights and all that, would Costa Rica vote against the United States? Has Costa Rica ever promoted an initiative against the United States in a human rights matter? Would this Costa Rican government ever go against the United States in any decision concerning human rights and international relations? Please, please, everyone here knows what we are talking about. We are quite aware of it and we have talked about it with them on several occasions.

The Central American Commission on Human Rights said that child prostitution is a growing problem, according to Costa Rican government sources, and that San José, Costa Rica is one of the places most afflicted by the scourge of child prostitution.

According to this United Nations report, Costa Rica is thought to be the Central American country that launders the largest amount of drug money. And that of 925,000 children between five and 17 years of age, 121,000 work. Please, everybody here knows that the Costa Rican government does not have the independence to take a separate stand from the United States on Cuba. It should clean its own house.

Lázaro Barredo.- Felipe, if you will allow me to point something out. It is also true that the mob’s most criminal terrorist organization was founded in Costa Rica, the CORU. This is where Orlando Bosch and Mr. Posada Carriles came from, the ones who put the bomb in the plane. It was there, at a meeting in San José, Costa Rica, that the CORU was established by those Cubans, many of whom live there.

Felipe Pérez Roque. - And now I am going to tell you the latest. The communiqué say that, in anger, "the Costa Rican government, the ministry, has called the Consul General of Costa Rica in Cuba, Mr. Melvin Sáenz, back for consultations." They have sent for him to go to San José to express his anger over our statements. We have conversed with the consul here in Cuba, and we know he knows the truth about everything we have been talking about, and I imagine that he is explaining to them the sense dignity and national pride that exists here in Cuba.

Then there is the case of Guatemala. I have to clarify the following: the Guatemalan foreign minister said today that Guatemala’s decision to vote for the condemnation of Cuba was because the three Guatemalan citizens who are in jail in Cuba - that is a reference to the terrorists who contributed to the bomb attacks on Cuban hotels - have not yet been brought to trial, and the date on which the trial is to begin is not known. They say they have made many approaches to the authorities through the Guatemalan embassy here in Havana to try to have these people brought to trial, but that these efforts have been useless, and that therefore Guatemala had decided to support the resolution against Cuba.

The vice president also said that our countries were friends, but that principles took precedence over everything else, and Guatemala had no option but to support the resolution against Cuba.

Nevertheless, I have this document here which tells a different story. This document is a message from President Portillo to the head of the Guatemalan delegation in Geneva, and it reads:

"Mr. Chairman, head of the Guatemalan delegation: I am hereby instructing you, in your capacity as head of the Guatemalan government’s delegation to the Commission on Human Rights, that if a resolution against Cuba or the People’s Republic of China is proposed in the upcoming session, the Guatemalan position is to abstain or to support a motion to take no action. Please pass these instructions on to the Guatemalan ambassador in Geneva, Antonio Arenales.

"Having nothing further to add, I remain,

Yours sincerely,

Alfonso Portillo, President of Guatemala."

One would suppose that if this letter were sent at the end of March, - it is dated as received in the Guatemalan embassy on March 27 - and this is a copy, then the Guatemalan government could not have decided to vote against Cuba because of the three Guatemalans in jail, because, as it turns out, the Cuba Ministry of Foreign Relations gave the Guatemalan ambassador here in Havana this diplomatic note on April 4. It reads:

"In response to the concern expressed by the Guatemalan diplomatic mission and by officials from your foreign ministry, we" - the Cuban Foreign Ministry – "have the honor of informing you once again that the Cuban Attorney General has asked for sentences of 30 years for so and so, 25 for the other man and 20 for the third" - it gives the names of the Guatemalans. It also says, "The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has the honor of informing you that, according to information received, the trial of the above-mentioned Guatemalan nationals will began in the next few weeks.

" The Ministry will not fail to inform the Republic of Guatemala’s ambassador of the exact date when the trial is to begin."

That was April 4, this is a copy. Therefore, although the Guatemalan foreign minister says that they voted against Cuba because Cuba had not given them any information about the trial, we have right here a copy of this document in which we did inform them, on April 4.

So what is - let’s speak completely frankly - the true story here?

On February 2 of this year, President Portillo of Guatemala wrote a letter to comrade Fidel in which he says: "On behalf of the Guatemalan people and government, I would like to express to you" - meaning comrade Fidel – "our recognition and gratitude for the work that Cuban doctors, education experts and teachers are doing to help meet some of the needs of Guatemalans. Their efforts are a palpable demonstration of Cuban solidarity with sister countries.

"Guatemala feels honored that Guatemalan medical and physical education students are among that retinue of young people who are being trained in Cuban universities in the idea of serving others, and also receiving a solid academic education.

"We Guatemalans are proud that at this moment in history, your country and ours are walking hand in hand with but a single hope in our hearts and minds: the well-being of every Latin American and the consolidation of the brotherhood between our countries. And we feel even prouder when Cuba has said yes to the efforts being made by the government I have the honor of leading to fight for the eradication of poverty, illiteracy and maternal and infant morbidity and mortality.

"We live in a globalized world where economic objectives try to demean the humanity and richness of our cultures, putting selfishness before brotherhood and arbitrariness before justice. But there is no doubt, Mr. President, that the hospitality and the greatness of our peoples will allow us to move forward within the framework of our bilateral relations which promise to grow ever stronger, more intense, and more rewarding for both Cuba and Guatemala."

These are excerpts from a letter that the president of Guatemala sent to comrade Fidel in February, expressing his gratitude, his desire to further develop our bilateral relations. Then we have seen the instructions he sent.

Now, on March 29, the U.S. joint under-secretary of state for western hemispheric affairs went to Guatemala to analyze U.S. aid to Guatemala for the next three years. She had meetings with top ranking officials.

On April 10, the Guatemalan ambassador in Geneva was at a lunch for Congresspeople Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Lincoln Diaz-Balart in Geneva.

On April 13, reliable sources tell us that President Portillo seemed quite tense around the subject and that he seemed to be deciding between the pressure being put on him to vote for the U.S. resolution and his gratitude to Cuba.

On April 16, two days before the vote, our ambassador spoke with President Portillo and received a commitment that the Guatemalan government would abstain. The president said that this decision would cost him dearly, since the U.S. ambassador had advised him not to risk losing U.S. support, pointing out to him that this government was not like Clinton’s, that this government and Bush in particular were very vindictive - that is what the U.S. ambassador told him. She said that they would analyze the results of the voting in detail and would not forget anything. And he told our ambassador this. Nevertheless, he said that the decision to abstain had been discussed with the president of the Congress, Mr. Rios Montt, with the vice president of the republic, and with the foreign minister, and that they all agreed with it. He also said that he had been receiving phone calls, and was being subjected to pressure, but that he would stick to his decision to abstain.

On the night of April 17, the day before the vote, the Guatemalan deputy foreign minister assured our ambassador that things were still the same and that the information they had been given about the trial of the Guatemalan terrorists beginning in the next few weeks had cleared any other difficulty out of the way.

Nevertheless, on the morning of April 18, the signs that the president was trying to call our ambassador began. Then, deputy minister Moreno received a call from Geneva, from Juan Antonio, a member of our delegation, who said that the Guatemalan ambassador had said that he had still not received any instructions about not abstaining, that he still had every intention of abstaining. That was at 10:50 in the morning Cuban time. At 10:50 in the morning - the resolution was to be voted on at 3:00 in the afternoon - at 10 minutes to 11:00, the Guatemalan ambassador had instructions to abstain. But between 11:00 in the morning and 3:00 in the afternoon, the incessant U.S. phone calls and unceasing pressure prevented the Guatemalan abstention from being becoming a reality.

At 11:37 in the morning, we heard from Geneva that President Portillo had called the Guatemalan ambassador to tell him to vote for the resolution. That is when the deed was done.

We have a long story here, which we are not going to tell in full, of phone calls back and forth, approaches, and all sorts of maneuverings, and finally the report from our embassy that when the session in the Commission was over, U.S. Ambassador Moose went over to the Guatemalan ambassador and gave him a big hug.

That is the story of Guatemala’s vote. We really do have good reason to think that the pretext of the matter of the terrorists was not really the cause. It has to be said that the U.S. government put incredible pressure on the Guatemalan government, using the fragile internal economic situation in that country to make its pressure felt, and so managed to make them change their minds about abstaining.

Then there is Uruguay. I am just going to read this report of a conversation between a U.S. diplomat and a friend of Cuba: "The U.S. diplomat smiled and replied that he could neither confirm nor deny if it were true that the phone call from Secretary of State Powell to Foreign Minister Opertti was made to demand Uruguay’s vote against Cuba. He said he could neither confirm nor deny it and began to laugh."

But I also think that, in order to understand why the huge public demonstration in Montevideo demanding a change of vote was ignored, it is worth commenting on what the Uruguayan press printed, because I think explains clearly what we are talking about.

The daily La Republica, in an article called "Backroom dealings over a vote of condemnation" says that on Wednesday, April 11, Uruguayan Foreign Minister Opertti received a personal phone call from Colin Powell, in which the latter asked him to vote in favor of the U.S. resolution.

The same source told the press that, firstly, the technical team in the Uruguayan foreign ministry had recommended that Uruguay abstain.

Secondly, there was the Czech deputy foreign minister’s visit to Uruguay, during which Foreign Minister Opertti was evasive and did not tell him how he was going to vote. Then Opertti was summoned by parliament and he told them that the government had not yet decided what its position would be. No political forces in the Uruguayan parliament asked that Cuba be condemned, quite the contrary. Everything seemed to indicate they would abstain."

We know very well that the Uruguayan foreign ministry had advised President Batlle to abstain, and that foreign minister Opertti, even as he was about to leave for a trip to Japan, insisted Uruguay should abstain. But president Batlle -- and here comes the good bit - Powell called Opertti, and the day after Powell’s call, which was on April 11, President Batlle, who on April 7 had said this: "We want an agreement with the United States above anything else," - he was talking about the FTAA and all that stuff. Powell calls Opertti on April 11, and on April 12, Batlle says that Uruguay is going to vote against Cuba. It is crucial, he said, for the United States to have this vote of condemnation against Cuba passed, and for Uruguay it is important to send a positive signal to the United States."

I think that if anyone is still wondering about all this, about what the motivations were and where the explanations lie, they will find there is no other explanation.

I have explained what happened in Argentina, Uruguay, Costa Rica and Guatemala, and I think that to close I should talk briefly about Mexico’s vote. Mexico abstained; Mexico’s traditional position in the Commission has been one of abstention. One year Mexico even voted against the resolution, when there was a particular combination of circumstances.

What happened with the Mexican vote? At the end of January, the Mexican deputy minister of foreign affairs came to Cuba, sent by the foreign minister, Castañeda. He was accompanied by Mrs. Mariclaire Acosta, who is the head of the Mexican delegation to the Commission on Human Rights.

They brought a message for us from Foreign Minister Castañeda, in which he suggested that to make it easier for Mexico to not have to vote against Cuba, and to protect it from U.S. pressure, given that the president of the United States was going to be visiting Fox in the next few weeks, and given that this was a new era, they were asking us to make some concessions to Mexico with respect to human rights. For example, that we arrange for Mariclaire Acosta to meet in a public restaurant, in a public place, with people from the counterrevolutionary grouplets that work here in the service of the Yankee embassy. They asked us to let them have photos taken of them, to make it clear that Cuba had a special relationship with Mexico when it came to this matter. Of course, this and other proposals of a similar nature were rejected by us. We told them no, and we appealed to the spirit of dignity and independence of a country with Mexico’s historical tradition.

We later discovered that this Mariclaire Acosta herself had sent questionnaires to these grouplets, and during her speech, she said that she had Cuban sources, referring to the grouplets, who had informed her of the situation in Cuba.

It was confirmed throughout Latin American that Foreign Minister Castañeda was working to develop and alternative draft resolution to the Czech one, which was to be submitted by Latin America. We later learned through very reliable sources that Castañeda felt extremely frustrated because he had not been able to achieve a more prominent role for Mexico in this regard.

Then came another Mexican source, and I think it is worth reading this out. This was a very respectable source, very close to the matter and very reliable, who told us the following. This was the report issued by the ambassy. "He said" – meaning the person who was talking – "tht Foreign Minister Castañeda is susceptible to accepting pressure from the United Sttaes, because he has commitments to them. He is awed by the United States’ power and has a notorious political history of disloyalty." Cuba did not say this; we were told about this, that he was working on a condemnation of Cuba.

Other sources in the Foreign Ministry told us that Foreign Minister Castañeda was not happy with the idea of Mexico’s abstaining. They siad he was frustrated about not achieving a more prominent role for Mexico with regard to alternative proposition for the Cuban case in particular.

So what was the reason for Mexico’s abstention? A clear explanation must be given of why Mexico abstained. The real reason for Mexico’s abstention is that there was a large popular movement and a mobilization of public opinion in Mexico which insisted that Mexico not adopt an anti- Cuban stance.

On April 10, both houses of the Mexican congress declared themselves against this maneuvering. The Mexican senate unanimously adopted a declaration in which it urged the Mexican president to ensure that the Mexican delegation cast its vote against any kind of resolution infringing on the Republic of Cuba’s sovereignty. The lower house passed a declaration stating that relations between Cuba, Mexico and the United States must be ruled by the principles of self-determination, equality and non-intervention. That is to say, the Mexican congress established a position which was the expression of the popular movement and of public opinion, and which made it truly impossible to vote against Cuba.

In the second place, there was an open letter sent to President Fox by several dozen of the most respected Mexican intellectuals, which genuinely reflected the feelings of the country’s intellectuals, writers and public opinion, and supported the idea that Mexico should not take part in a condemnation of Cuba. That is what happened.

In Mexico’s case, we came up against the insistence, the efforts and the frustration of that country’s foreign minister. Lamentably, he did everything possible to try to ensure that Cuba was condemned in Geneva and to get Mexico to change its position. In the end, however, he failed to achieve a Latin American resolution, and subsequently failed to convince the president to vote against Cuba, because of the unquestionable fact that Mexican public opinion, the congress, the intellectuals, and most of the press were against this. And in the final analysis, this was the reason for Mexico’s abstention.

Therefore I think that it should be said that Mexico’s abstention was not really a result of the efforts and the position of the Mexican foreign minister, but rather that it was an abstention that came about in spite of his position and in opposition to his energetic attempts to have Cuba punished.

In other words, Mexico’s abstention was really brought about by Mexican public opinion, by Congress. It was not the result of the Mexican foreign minister’s personal position, nor of his efforts - this has to be said completely openly, there are things that have to be said openly - it was the result of a movement against the Mexican foreign minister’s opinion. That is the truth, and the Cuban people should know, because they are a mature people and a politically knowledgeable people, that this was the question up for discussion and that it was only the widespread feelings of solidarity towards Cuba and the brave statements made by all the political groups and parties in Mexico that prevented Mexico from joining in the condemnation of Cuba.

I am not going to comment here, you have already done so, on what the Mexican representative on the Commission said, which was to basically express her frustration at not having been able to vote, as some of them wanted, in favor of the resolution. And that is a fact.

Our country wants to have relations with Mexico, we have a history of good relations, our country is in solidarity with Mexico. We are the country that has most often expressed its solidarity with Mexico against the unjust treatment of Mexican immigrants, 500 of whom died last year on the U.S. border, the victims of either murder or starvation. These immigrants are subjected to the most flagrant violation of human rights conceivable. But the truth must be known, and the truth is that this is what happened.

And so, to conclude, I think that our people should have no doubt that the only thing the United States achieved in this worn-out exercise, imposed on the basis of brutal pressure, was in fact a pyrrhic victory.

The moral victory, prestige and authority belong to our country. We have received countless messages from the United Nations congratulating us, expressing that this has been a victory for Cuba. No one can deny the worthy effort and courage of a small country that has stood up to and fought back against the imperial superpower. I believe that the young Cuban diplomats who have been there together with Ambassador Amat, who represent the generation made by the Revolution, have earned the admiration of our people, and are certainly a worthy example of the generation made by the Revolution.

On a day like today, we could say that the current generations of Cubans defend the Revolution with as much passion, as much conviction, as much revolutionary enthusiasm as the generation that defeated the Yankees at the Bay of Pigs 40 years ago.