Dear Volker Türk, United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights:
Dear Alena Douhan, Special Rapporteur on the negative impact of unilateral coercive measures on human rights:
Distinguished participants in this important Conference:
Cuba is currently the victim of collective punishment aimed at bringing its people to their knees through hunger, disease, and severe shortages of basic supplies.
The United States government is responsible for the fact that Cuba has received no fuel supplies in the last three months, due to the energy blockade imposed on January 29 by Executive Order of President Donald Trump.
This policy of suffocation adds to 65 years of the most severe and prolonged economic, commercial, and financial war ever waged against any country, which has been codified through a meticulous and perverse system of unilateral coercive measures, designed to provoke social unrest and violate the constitutional order legitimately established by Cubans in the exercise of our right to self-determination.
By preventing fuel from reaching Cuba, the U.S. government is flagrantly, deliberately, and unjustifiably violating the human rights of an entire people, as well as the freedom of trade of third countries.
In Cuba, people are experiencing prolonged daily power outages, as well as shortages of water and liquefied gas, making it a struggle to carry out daily household tasks.
More than 96,000 Cubans, including 11,000 children, are awaiting surgery due to the lack of electricity. More than 16,000 patients who need radiation therapy and 2,888 who depend on hemodialysis are affected by the shutdown of services that require a stable power supply.
Schools and universities have had to adjust their curricula and switch to virtual formats to ensure the continuity of the educational process. Public and private transportation is practically paralyzed due to a lack of fuel.
The business sector and food production have been severely impacted and are unable to guarantee basic supplies.
Beyond these figures, it is impossible to quantify the physical and psychological exhaustion, the daily hardships, the postponement of dreams, and the media war to which a people as noble, resilient, and supportive as ours is subjected—simply out of malice.
What country can survive and develop under such pressure? What right does the world’s leading economic power have to commit such an abuse against a small developing country?
Will the United Nations and sovereign states allow international law to be violated and attempts to return to eras of vassalage, barbarism, colonization, and slavery?
From within international institutions, we must do much more to denounce and confront the unilateral coercive measures that are being imposed and reinforced, not only against Cuba, but also against numerous developing countries.
This International Conference is an opportunity to highlight their impact and put forward action-oriented proposals.
From Cuba, we advocate for the creation of a Human Rights Council Working Group, composed of various experts, to provide broader and more specialized attention to this issue.
We also advocate for the adoption of a legally binding international instrument demanding the immediate lifting of these measures and accountability for those responsible.
Despite the current adverse context, Cuba remains confident in and committed to multilateralism and diplomacy as the only effective tools for maintaining peace, civilized coexistence, and sustainable development.
From this small, unyielding island, I am deeply grateful for the expressions of international solidarity and support we have received during these difficult times.
I thank High Commissioner Volker Türk, and mandate holders Alena Douhan, George Katrougalos, Attiya Warris, Ben Saul, among other international experts, for their firm opposition to the blockade against Cuba and their systematic denunciation of its illegality and incalculable impact on the human rights of Cubans.
I assure you that the Cuban people will not forget those who, in the face of oppression and blackmail, stood on the side of justice and raised their hands and voices, without fear, to defend a people’s right to live and to choose their destiny in a sovereign manner.
Likewise, I assure you that our people will defend every inch of our soil against the voracious appetite of the empire that attacks us. Our determination to defend absolute sovereignty is absolute.
Thank you very much.
(EmbaCubaFiyi-Cubaminrex)