Speech given by Army General Raúl Castro Ruz, President of the Councils of State and Ministers at the Rio-20 Summit in Rio de Janeiro, June 21, 2012, Year 54 of the Revolution

 Cuba aspires to good sense and human intelligence prevailing over irrationality and barbarity

Mr. President;

Your Excellencies:

Twenty years ago, on June 12, 1992, in this same conference hall, the leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz stated, and I quote, “An important biological species is at risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive liquidation of its natural living conditions: humanity.” End of quote.

What could have been considered alarmist, today constitutes an irrefutable reality. The inability to transform unsustainable models of production and consumption is threatening the balance and regeneration of natural mechanisms which sustain life forms on the planet.

The effects cannot be hidden. Species are becoming extinct at a speed one hundred times faster than those indicated in fossil records; more than five million hectares of forests are lost every year; and close to 60% of ecosystems are degraded.

In spite of the landmark signified by the United Nations Convention on Climate Change, carbon dioxide emissions increased by 38% from 1990 to 2009. We are now moving toward a global increase in temperature which will place at risk, in the first place, the integrity and physical existence of numerous developing island states and will produce serious consequences in the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

A profound and detailed study undertaken during the last five years by our scientific institutions is in basic agreement with reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and confirms that, during this century, if current trends are maintained, a gradual and considerable rise in average sea levels will take place in the Cuban archipelago. This forecast includes the intensification of extreme meteorological events, such as tropical hurricanes, and an increase in the salinity of underground water sources. All of this will have serious consequences, especially for our coastal areas, so we have initiated the adoption of appropriate measures.

Equally, this phenomenon will have serious geographic, demographic and economic implications for the Caribbean islands which, moreover, must confront the inequalities of an international economic system which excludes the smallest and most vulnerable.

 The paralysis of negotiations and the lack of an agreement which could make it possible to halt global climate change are a clear reflection of a lack of political will and the inability of developed countries to act in accordance with obligations concomitant with their historical responsibility and current position. This has been demonstrated in this meeting, despite the extraordinary effort made by Brazil, for which we are grateful.

Poverty is increasing, hunger and malnutrition are growing and inequality is expanding, aggravated in recent decades as a consequence of neoliberalism.

During these 20 years, wars of a new kind have been launched, focused on the conquest of energy resources, as was the case in 2003, on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction which never existed, and the recent war in North Africa. Acts of aggression against Middle Eastern countries which can now be discerned will be compounded by others, with the objective of controlling access to water and other resources in the process of being exhausted. It must be made clear that attempting a new division of the world will unleash a spiral of conflicts of incalculable consequences for a planet already seriously insecure, and moreover, sick.

In the last two decades, military spending has grown to the astronomical sum of $1.74 trillion, almost double that of 1992, which is leading to an arms race in other states which feel threatened. Two decades after the end of the Cold War, against who will these arms be used?

Let us stop the justifications and egoisms and seek solutions. This time, everyone, absolutely everyone, will pay for the consequences of climate change. Governments of industrialized countries which are acting in this manner should not commit the serious error of believing that they can survive a little longer at our cost. The waves of millions of hungry and desperate people from the South toward the North will be uncontainable, as will the rebellion of the peoples in the face of such indolence and injustice. No hegemonism will be possible then. End the plunder, end war, let us advance toward disarmament and destroy the nuclear arsenals.

We are required to make a transcendental change. The only alternative is to build more just societies; to establish a more equitable international order based on respect for the rights of all; to ensure the sustainable development of nations, especially those of the South; and place advances in science and technology at the service of the salvation of the planet and human dignity. 

Cuba aspires to good sense and human intelligence prevailing over irrationality and barbarity.

  

Thank you very much

A Cruel and Unusual Record

By Jimmy Carter

THE United States is abandoning its role as the global champion of human rights.
Revelations that top officials are targeting people to be assassinated abroad, including American citizens, are only the most recent, disturbing proof of how far our nation’s violation of human rights has extended. 

This development began after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and has been sanctioned and escalated by bipartisan executive and legislative actions, without dissent from the general public. As a result, our country can no longer speak with moral authority on these critical issues.

While the country has made mistakes in the past, the widespread abuse of human rights over the last decade has been a dramatic change from the past. With leadership from the United States, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights was adopted in 1948 as “the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world.” This was a bold and clear commitment that power would no longer serve as a cover to oppress or injure people, and it established equal rights of all people to life, liberty, security of person, equal protection of the law and freedom from torture, arbitrary detention or forced exile.

The declaration has been invoked by human rights activists and the international community to replace most of the world’s dictatorships with democracies and to promote the rule of law in domestic and global affairs. It is disturbing that, instead of strengthening these principles, our government’s counterterrorism policies are now clearly violating at least 10 of the declaration’s 30 articles, including the prohibition against “cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”

Recent legislation has made legal the president’s right to detain a person indefinitely on suspicion of affiliation with terrorist organizations or “associated forces,” a broad, vague power that can be abused without meaningful oversight from the courts or Congress (the law is currently being blocked by a federal judge). This law violates the right to freedom of expression and to be presumed innocent until proved guilty, two other rights enshrined in the declaration.

In addition to American citizens’ being targeted for assassination or indefinite detention, recent laws have canceled the restraints in the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 to allow unprecedented violations of our rights to privacy through warrantless wiretapping and government mining of our electronic communications. Popular state laws permit detaining individuals because of their appearance, where they worship or with whom they associate.

 Despite an arbitrary rule that any man killed by drones is declared an enemy terrorist, the death of nearby innocent women and children is accepted as inevitable. After more than 30 airstrikes on civilian homes this year in Afghanistan, President Hamid Karzai has demanded that such attacks end, but the practice continues in areas of Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen that are not in any war zone. 

We don’t know how many hundreds of innocent civilians have been killed in these attacks, each one approved by the highest authorities in Washington. This would have been unthinkable in previous times.

These policies clearly affect American foreign policy. Top intelligence and military officials, as well as rights defenders in targeted areas, affirm that the great escalation in drone attacks has turned aggrieved families toward terrorist organizations, aroused civilian populations against us and permitted repressive governments to cite such actions to justify their own despotic behavior.

Meanwhile, the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, now houses 169 prisoners. About half have been cleared for release, yet have little prospect of ever obtaining their freedom. American authorities have revealed that, in order to obtain confessions, some of the few being tried (only in military courts) have been tortured by waterboarding more than 100 times or intimidated with semiautomatic weapons, power drills or threats to sexually assault their mothers. 

Astoundingly, these facts cannot be used as a defense by the accused, because the government claims they occurred under the cover of “national security.” Most of the other prisoners have no prospect of ever being charged or tried either.

At a time when popular revolutions are sweeping the globe, the United States should be strengthening, not weakening, basic rules of law and principles of justice enumerated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But instead of making the world safer, America’s violation of international human rights abets our enemies and alienates our friends.

As concerned citizens, we must persuade Washington to reverse course and regain moral leadership according to international human rights norms that we had officially adopted as our own and cherished throughout the years.

Jimmy Carter, the 39th president, is the founder of the Carter Center and the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize.

Time for regime change in the USA

By Rodney Shakespeare

With breath-taking arrogance, the USA opposed the presence of Iran at the discussions about Syria in Geneva.

Turkey - now openly playing the sectarian card and deliberately causing a Phantom jet to fly in fast and low in order to provoke a reaction and so involve NATO - can be present. The USA - supplying arms to al-Qaeda; organizing Salafists, Wahhabists and death squads; broadcasting lying propaganda - can be present. Russia and China can be present. But not Iran.

Yet Iran has political, religious and cultural links with the Alawite (Shia sect) government of Syria. Iran is the one country - not the USA, not Russia, not China, not Turkey, Saudi Arabia or Qatar - which can have frank talks with Syria. Iran is the one country which Syria can trust as understanding its situation. And Iran is the only country which can give hope of avoiding a civil war bloodbath, at the very least, or a probable decade-long regional war.

But Iran is not to be at Geneva because the USA, riddled with bigotry and an example of Ancient Greek hubris if there ever was one, hates any country which wants to be independent. It particularly hates Iran. Indeed, so extreme is the hatred that anything (including war) can be done to achieve regime change in Tehran. It is therefore no surprise that, at all times, the USA quickly side-lines democracy and justice if there is any likelihood that Iran might be involved in the solution. And just to spell out the point, in Syria, the USA is co-operating with Saudi Arabia - a vicious, totalitarian tyranny supplying guns and money - and with Qatar - an anti-democratic country, supplying guns and money.  

Furthermore, bent on regime change in Syria, the USA is comprehensively ignoring the Kofi Annan Peace Plan just as the referendum and election held by Syria are also being ignored. When the USA wants regime change, anything goes - particularly the torturing and slaughter of Shia women and children which, by twisting the facts to their opposite, are blamed on the government when they were really the work of the American-backed Wahhabi and NATO death squads who, when not killing, like to ransack Christian churches.

Nor is Iran banned only from a solution for Syria. It is also banned from the solution for Afghanistan. Iran is next to Afghanistan. It has linguistic, religious, cultural and trading links with Afghanistan. If ever there was a country which can talk to all parties in Afghanistan, it is Iran. However, the USA - full of self-important haughtiness and the major cause of the problem - determines that Iran can never be part of the solution and, by doing so, condemns Afghanistan to many more years of misery.

Yet the world is turning: change is afoot and Russia, wanting Iran to be at Geneva, is one of the countries which is not only sensing the change but is actively doing something about it. Right the way round the globe countries are quietly banding together. They can do so because they are directly experiencing a decline in the economic and political power of the USA. 

On top of which the USA’s moral authority went out of the window long ago so countries are quietly plotting a new course for themselves - one which involves breaking free from Western hegemony. Thus the Shanghai Co-operation Organisation brings together Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and others, with India, Pakistan and Iran as observer members. China and Japan have decided to trade in their own currencies and not the dollar - there’s a sign of the times! And in South America a number of countries are beginning to band together to run their own international bank (the Banco del Sud) thus causing the diminution of American financial and political influence.

Indeed, the amazing thing is that the USA is completely failing to see what is going on. It was completely caught off balance by the Arab Spring so perhaps it is not surprising that it does not understand that it is hated more than it knows; that its traditional mixture of bullying, bribery and attack are not quite as impressive as it thinks; and that, in short, others are fed up with a short-sighted arrogance and even more short-sighted stupidity which is always prepared to go to war (even if that means that the USA is now virtually bankrupt because of its military spending).

All in all, it’s time for all sensible people and all sensible countries (there’s quite a lot of them) to consciously question any assertion by the USA that this or that regime is at fault and needs to be overthrown. Instead all sensible people and countries should start to say that the world is fed up with war-mongering as well as angry at the Wall Street machinations which are destroying the world economy.

Then the way will be opened for impressing on the American people what the situation really requires - regime change in the USA.