New York, 10 September 2020. Peace is more than the absence of war. It cannot exist without economic and social development, justice and equity for all. Ambassador Ana Silvia Rodríguez Abascal, Deputy Permanent Representative, Chargé d´Affaires of Cuba to the United Nations expressed today during the High-Level Forum on the Culture of Peace that there can be no peace, nor can a culture conducive to it be consolidated, without strict compliance with the purposes and principles of the United Nations Charter and international law, in particular the prohibition of the use and threat of use of force, the non-interference in internal affairs, the respect for sovereignty and the self-determination.
Rodríguez Abascal stated that in the midst of the pandemic, unilateral coercive measures contrary to the UN Charter and international law continue to be applied. She affirmed that in the case of Cuba, the island had to face the unprecedented tightening of the unjust economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed by the United States for 6 decades, which is completely contrary to the culture of peace.
The Cuban diplomatic pointed out that the pandemic has very eloquently revealed the unjust international order in which we live, the inequality within and between countries, the rise of unilateralism and the lack of solidarity of the powers, towards the developing countries to face together, with a single voice, this and other challenges as urgent as they are common.
She claimed that, in this scenario, the culture of peace cannot be advanced nor can it be a progress in the implementation of the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, particularly when the current pandemic is used to promote supremacist, racist and xenophobic ideas; or actions that politicize the issue of human rights against developing countries.
The Cuban representative expressed Cuba´s commitment to peace, as it is a signatory and defender of 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, within the framework of the Second Summit of CELAC.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations