Castro's Speech to the UN millenium summit

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hope no one else posted this and I missed it.
    Cheers, Ken Hanly

Speech given by Fidel Castro Ruz, first secretary of the Central
Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba, at the Millennium Summit,
United Nations, New York, on September 6, 2000, Year of the 40th
Anniversary of 'Patria O Muerte.'

TRANSLATION OF THE TRANSCRIPT OF THE COUNCIL OF STATE

Your Excellencies:

In our world, chaos reigns within and beyond borders. Blind laws are
presented as divine norms that will bring the peace, order, well-being
and security so much needed by our planet. That is what they want us
to believe. The 30 developed and wealthy nations which have the
monopoly over economic, technological and political power are meeting
here with us to offer us more of the same prescriptions that have only
served to make us steadily poorer, more exploited and more
dependent. There has not even been any mention of radically reforming
this longstanding institution, which came into existence more than 50
years ago when there were only a few independent countries, of
converting it into an agency which is truly representative of the interests
of all the peoples of the world, without anybody having access to
irritating and undemocratic veto power, and of initiating a sane process
to extend the number of members and the the representativity of the
Security Council, and convert it into an executive body subordinate to
the General Assembly, which should make the decisions on issues as
vital as intervention and the use of force.

We have to state with total conviction that the principle of sovereignty
cannot be sacrificed to an exploiting and unjust order in which a
hegemonic superpower, with the backing of its power and force,
attempts to decide everything. Cuba will never accept that. The
fundamental causes of current conflicts are to be found in the poverty
and underdevelopment prevailing in the immense majority of countries,
and in the unequal distribution of wealth and knowledge reigning in the
world. It should not be forgotten that this underdevelopment and
poverty are the direct consequence of the colonial powers' conquest,
colonization, slavery and plunder of most of the earth, the emergence of
imperialism and bloody wars fought in order to carve up the world again
and again. Today they have the moral responsibility to compensate our
countries for the damage they have inflicted on them over centuries.
Humanity must become aware of what we have been and what we
continue to be.

Today, our species has acquired sufficient knowledge, ethical values
and scientific resources to advance toward a new historical stage of
genuine justice and humanism. Nothing in the existing economic and
political order is of service to humanity. It cannot be sustained. It has to
be changed. It is enough to recall that we are now six billion inhabitants,
80% of whom are poor. Centuries-old diseases like malaria,
tuberculosis and other equally mortal illnesses have not been overcome
in the Third World nations; new epidemics like AIDS are threatening to
extinguish entire populations, while the rich nations are investing
fabulous sums in military spending and luxuries, and every day a
voracious plague of speculators are exchanging currencies, stocks and
other real or fictitious assets valued at trillions of dollars. Nature has
been destroyed, the climate is visibly changing, water for human
consumption is contaminated and insufficient, the oceans' source of
food for humans is being exhausted, nonrenewable and vital resources
are being squandered on luxuries and vanities.

Anyone can comprehend that the fundamental objective of the United
Nations in the century which is upon us is that of saving the world, not
only from warfare, but from underdevelopment, hunger, disease,
poverty and the destruction of the natural resources indispensable for
human existence. And this must be done in haste, before it is too late!
The dream of attaining norms that are truly just and rational to rule over
human destiny would appear to many as an impossible one. Our
conviction is that the struggle for the impossible should be the theme of
this institution which has brought us together today!

Thank you very much. (PROLONGED APPLAUSE)