New York, 1 December 2020. Ambassador Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, participated today in the debate of agenda item 15 “Culture of Peace”. He reflected on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic around the world and how it has added new challenges and made existing ones more complex. He pointed out that the pandemic has highlighted the unjust nature of the international order in which we live, which multiplies the privileges of rich countries and perpetuates the shortages of the poor.
The highest representative of Cuba to the United Nations denounced how in said scenario, as inequality, poverty and hunger are advancing in a world with all the resources, knowledge and technologies to prevent these phenomena, the application of unilateral coercive measures that are contrary to the UN Charter and international law which further hinder the ability of affected countries to fight COVID-19 has been strengthened.
He underscored that in the case of Cuba, we have faced for six decades the effects of the criminal economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States, tightened in times of COVID-19; as well as its unconventional warfare actions and subversion agenda against our people.
This, the Cuban diplomat expressed, is totally contrary to a culture of peace, whose importance and value are recognized by Cuba. In addition to that, he affirmed that as long as supremacist, racist and xenophobic ideas which are scientifically false and morally unacceptable continue to be promoted, the concept of culture of peace will not advance.
He declared that Cuba is committed to the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, as well as the Declaration of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted in 2014 in Havana, during the Second CELAC Summit.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations