Cuba's four proposals at Johannesburg

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(Imaginative political education made
by the Cuban Foreign Minister at the
Earth Summit. Raises new points in
ways that could be clearly grasped
by the governmental represenatives
of many third world countries present,
as well as to the many NGO activists.

(Clearly attentive to the concerns of the
many participants in these events, his
remarks are a fine follow-up to the great
statement presented by the Cuban NGO.
Short, sweet, succinct and to the point.)

Read the Cuban NGO statement here:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/CubaNews/files/
===========================

GRANMA
September 4, 2002
CUBA'S FOUR PROPOSALS
FOR THE JOHANNESBURG SUMMIT
Two things missing: political will and
access to financial resources

SPEECH GIVEN BY FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE,
CUBAN MINISTER FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS,
AT THE WORLD SUMMIT ON SUSTAINABLE
DEVELOPMENT,

JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

SEPTEMBER 3, 2002

Your Excellencies:

Unavoidable obligations in our country, derived from a
colossal effort for our people's social development,
particularly in the educational, cultural, health and
scientific spheres, which is multiplying its capacity to
face the blockade and the effects of the international
economic crisis, preserve the Revolution and guarantee its
independence in the midst of bellicose policies, threats and
risks, have prevented our president from traveling to
Johannesburg on this occasion.


Ten years ago, President Fidel Castro noted the following
ideas:

"An important biological species: the human being, is at
risk of disappearing due to the rapid and progressive
liquidation of its natural living conditions.

". We are becoming aware of this problem, as it is becoming
almost too late to prevent it.

". Consumer societies are fundamentally responsible for the
atrocious destruction of the environment.

"The solution cannot be to halt the development of those who
need it most.

"If we want to save humanity from this self-destruction,
wealth and available technology must be better distributed,
there has to be less luxury and squander in a few countries
in order to decrease poverty and hunger on a large part of
the earth.

"Let the ecological debt be paid and not the foreign debt.

"Let hunger rather than people disappear.

"Now that the alleged threat of communism has disappeared
and there is no longer a pretext for cold wars, arms races
and military costs, what is preventing us from immediately
devoting those resources to promote Third World development
and combat the threat of the planet's ecological
destruction?"

After 10 years of more insanity and extravagance for
some -the minority- and more poverty, illness and death for
others - the majority - those words in this room resonate on
our conscience. His questions remain unanswered.

However, it is fitting to ask three new questions:

First: what results have we achieved since the Rio Summit?

Virtually none. One decade later things have not improved.
On the contrary.

The environment is more threatened than ever.

While the Kyoto Protocol is being shipwrecked, victim of an
arrogant boycott, carbon dioxide emissions, far from
diminishing, have increased by 9%, and in the most polluting
country by 18%. Today, the seas and rivers are more
contaminated than in 1992; the air is more contaminated; 15
million hectares of forest are devastated every year, almost
four times the surface area of Switzerland. The way of life
in the developed nations, as the main predators, is as
unsustainable as that of the others. The North contaminates
by squandering, the South in order to survive.

A large part of the planet's population is living in
critical conditions: 815 million hungry, 1.2 billion people
in extreme poverty, 854 million illiterate adults and 2,400
million people without basic sanitation are proof of this.
Forty million suffering from or infected by the AIDS virus,
two million deaths from tuberculosis and one million from
malaria per year, are further proof. Eleven million
under-fives will die this year from preventable causes,
which in addition to being yet more proof, is also a crime.

The world is more unjust and unequal than 10 years ago.

The breech, far from closing, has widened. The income gap
between the rich and poor countries was 37-fold in 1960,
60-fold when we met in Rio and is currently 74-fold.

Second question: who is responsible for this state of
affairs?

The economic and political order imposed on the world by the
powerful. This is not only profoundly unjust, but also
unsustainable. The heritage of colonialism and the fruit of
imperialism continue to privilege a small number of
countries that were developed on the blood and sweat of the
immense majority of the world's peoples. Their international
financial institutions and especially the International
Monetary Fund (IMF) respond to the interests of the
governments of a few developed nations, particularly the
most powerful ones; to various hundreds of transnationals;
and to a group of politicians whose electoral campaigns have
been financed by them. In order to defend these illegitimate
and minority interests the majority of the world's
population is subjected to poverty and desperation.

The IMF, a public institution born of an explicit
acknowledgment of the role of the state, given that the
market was unable to solve problems, has paradoxically
become the main instrument via which neoliberalism was
imposed on a globalized world. The poor countries -the
majority - had to accept the infamous Washington Consensus.
The rich and developed countries - the minority - have given
themselves the luxury of defaulting on it; they have not
opened up their economies, nor have they eliminated
subsidies.

We, the developing countries, the principal victims in this
new lost decade, have been unable to struggle in unison to
defend our rights, we have not known how to ally millions of
workers, non-governmental organizations, and intellectuals
in the developed nations who have also called for major
changes.

Third question: What should we do?

There are two things that we lack today: political will and
access to financial resources.

Hypothetically assuming that the political will is going to
break forth as a result of this Summit and the idea that
time is running out, and that if this new Titanic sinks then
we will all perish, the question then rests on guaranteeing
the resources that will allow our countries to obtain fresh,
stable finances on concessionary and unconditional bases.

The Cuban proposals to obtain this are:

. To introduce a development tax of just 0.1% on
international financial transactions. This would generate
almost $400 billion USD per year, which, through good
administration by the UN and its system of institutions
could change the current situation.

. To immediately condone the foreign debt of the developing
countries, which have repaid the amount more than once over.
This would mean that our countries would not have to spend
$330 billion USD each year on this, a quarter of our income
from the export of goods and services.

. To take the immediate step of agreeing that 50% of
military spending budgets will be placed in a fund made
available to the UN for sustainable development. This would
mean a sum of almost $400 billion USD, half of which would
originate from one country alone - the most powerful and
wealthy one, and also the one most responsible for
contaminating the environment.

. To guarantee the immediate fulfillment by the developed
countries of their commitment to dedicate 0.7% of their GDP
as official development aid. This would up their
contribution of $53 billion USD in 2000 to almost $170
billion in 2003.

These are only a few ideas. If we then add the establishment
of a new international financial structure that includes
demolishing the current IMF and replacing it with an
international public institution that would respond to the
interests of all, the development of a fair and equal trade
system guaranteeing special and differentiated treatment for
the developing countries, plus the strengthening of
multi-lateralism and the role of the UN based on
unrestricted respect for its Charter, we may than say that
this Summit has been worthwhile.

Thank you very much.





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