DOWNING OF PLANES SOVEREIGN ACT IN DEFENCE OF BORDERS, CUBA TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
Press Release
GA/9052
DOWNING OF PLANES SOVEREIGN ACT IN DEFENCE OF BORDERS, CUBA TELLS GENERAL ASSEMBLY
19960306 Citing Long History of Provocative Acts, Foreign Minister Gives Detailed Account of Cuban PositionThe Foreign Minister of Cuba, Roberto Robaina Gonzalez, told the General Assembly this morning that his country's downing of two planes flown over Cuban airspace on 24 February by the organization "Brothers to the Rescue" was a sovereign act in defence of its borders, taken after a long history of provocative acts by that organization.
Addressing the Assembly at a special meeting held at Cuba's request, he said the group's aggressive plans left no room for doubt that it was a paramilitary, terrorist organization in open war against his country. "Cuba has more than enough proof that this organization made plans to dynamite high tension towers in Havana, to sabotage the Cienfuegos oil refinery and to carry out attempts on the lives of the main Cuban leaders, among other actions", he stated.
"Today we are asking this Assembly if the sovereign right to defend the borders and national security of countries is only a prerogative of the powerful and not of poor and small countries", he continued. "If the world tolerates what has happened to Cuba, it would be tantamount to giving a license to freely violate national sovereignty and to convert all nations of the international community into potential victims."
He said the Cuban-American ultra-right, in complicity with extremist sectors of the United States Congress, had initiated a "mean conspiracy", both against Cuba and against that country's own Administration, in the midst of a ferocious electoral fight for the presidency. Despite irrefutable evidence that the United States Government had also been concerned about the actions of "Brothers to the Rescue", the Administration was now being dragged into serious contradictions, which had led to passage of a bill intensifying the blockade against Cuba.
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"We are not interested in any sort of confrontation, nor is that our attitude", he said. "If the Government of the United States is really interested in eliminating or reducing the points of friction or conflict between our two countries through discussions and negotiations, we emphatically reiterate here that Cuba is and always will be ready to advance in this direction."
Drawing attention to the immediate aftermath of the downing, he said units of Cuba's border guard had immediately begun search and rescue efforts and had accepted the request of the United States Coast Guard to enter its territorial waters to participate in them. The Cuban Government had also been the first to publicly regret the loss of life that resulted from the irresponsible and criminal actions against its people.
"The United States did not, and does not, seek a confrontation with Cuba" the representative of the United States said in exercise of the right to reply. Her Government and its people wished that the incident had not occurred, but it could not be silent when its citizens were murdered. It would not allow the Cuban Government, which had ordered that crime, to transfer the blame to the victims.
She had listened in vain for a simple unqualified apology from the Cuban Foreign Minister, but "all we have heard from the Cuban Government thus far is propaganda", she said. Behind the smokescreen of Cuban rhetoric, the incident was a simple matter of right and wrong, of what was legal and what was not. The fundamental issue was whether it was acceptable for Cuba to shoot down two unarmed civilian aircraft.
"It was preposterous to believe, as the Cuban representatives would have us do, that the young men in those unarmed planes were enemies of the Cuban people", she added.
Also this morning, the Assembly took note of a letter from the Secretary-General stating that the following countries had made the necessary payments to reduce their arrears below the amount by specified in article 19 of the Charter: Guinea-Bissau, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Suriname, Syria, Turkmenistan and the United Republic of Tanzania.
[Article 19 states: "A Member of the United Nations which is in arrears in the payment of its financial contributions to the Organization shall have no vote in the General Assembly if the amount of its arrears equals or exceeds the amount of the contributions due from it for the preceding two full years ..."]
Assembly Work Programme
The General Assembly resumed its fiftieth session this morning, to reopen discussion of agenda item 140, "United Nations Decade of International Law". The resumed session was requested by the Permanent Representative of Cuba on behalf of the Minister for Foreign Affairs of Cuba, Roberto Robaina Gonzalez in a letter dated 29 February (document A/50/883/Rev.1).
Annexed to the letter is a memorandum which states that international law and its progressive development and codification "are under threat from unilateral interpretations by a super-Power which is seeking to impose its bilateral policy interest not only on the political action of the Organization but also on the legal thinking of States Members of the international community".
The memorandum calls attention to "a situation which undermines respect for the basic norms of international law and compliance with one of the most important principles of international law" -- the sovereignty of States over their land, territorial waters and airspace. The memorandum asserts that the United States has set itself up as an international judge and invoked its own "fanciful interpretation" of international aeronautical law -- the 1944 Convention on International Civil Aviation and its 1984 Montreal Protocol.
The 1984 Protocol calls on every State to refrain from the use of weapons against civil aircraft in flight and that, in the case of interception, the lives of persons on board and the safety of the aircraft must not be endangered. It also calls on each contracting State to keep airplanes under its jurisdiction from violating the airspace of other State.
The memorandum charges that "on countless occasions over a period of more than 37 years, Cuba's sovereignty and territorial integrity have been irresponsibly violated through acts of flagrant and perfidious air piracy" including the use of civilian ships and aircraft in acts of terrorism against the Cuba. On 24 February, it continues, allegedly civilian aircraft from the United States violated Cuba's airspace. The United States manipulated the facts and, overstepping its position as a permanent member and then president of the Security Council, forced the adoption of a presidential declaration which judged and condemned the Government of Cuba.
On 27 February, the Council strongly deplored the shooting down by the Cuban air force of two civil aircraft and requested the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) to investigate the incident (document S/1996/9). The ICAO, a specialized agency of the United Nations, was established by the Convention to promote the safe and orderly development of civil aviation in the world. It is scheduled to meet this morning in Montreal at the request of the United States and the Security Council to consider the shooting down of the aircraft. Also on its agenda is a request by Cuba inviting the Organization to carry out an "exhaustive investigation into the violations, repeated over the years, of Cuban airspace by aircraft coming from the United States".
According to a letter dated 1 March from the Permanent Representative of Cuba addressed to the Secretary-General (document S/1996/154), neither the
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United States nor Cuba has ratified the 1984 Protocol. Moreover, the letter asserts, the 1984 Protocol is not international law but "recommendations". Thus, Cuba has not violated international law, but in fact, "international law reaffirms Cuba's right to act as it did", according to the letter.
Statement by Foreign Minister of Cuba
ROBERTO ROBAINA GONZALEZ, Foreign Minister of Cuba, said his Government had requested the resumption of the General Assembly to inform it of the repeated violation of Cuba's sovereignty by airplanes coming from the United States territory and to give notice to the international community of the inadmissibility of those actions and their dangerous implications. Cuba's critical position concerning the role of the main bodies of the United Nations and particularly of the Security Council, was well known. It was therefore coming to the Assembly, which represented the international community much more fully.
He said that, in the case of the incident that took place off Cuban shores on 24 February, tremendous pressure was placed on Council members by the United States, in order to get a fast and undeserved condemnation of Cuba, "abusively taking advantage of the fact that it was then holding the rotative presidency of that body". Cuba appreciated the position those Council members who disagreed with the evident manipulation and made it impossible for the United States delegation to achieve the absurd and unjust condemnation it intended.
The history of aggressions against Cuba and actions in violation of her sovereignty and territorial integrity did not start this 24 February, but 37 years ago, he said. One of the first acts of violence against the Cuban Revolution took place on 21 October 1959, when small pirate airplanes dropped subversive propaganda and bombed the capital of the country, an aggression that cost our people valuable lives. In the Opa Locka base, under the cover of a civil agency, part of the air force that went into action during the Bay of Pigs invasion in April 1961, was trained and prepared, almost 35 years ago. This was a military air force, it had painted on its planes the emblem of the Cuban air force -- something as fraudulent as the repeated use of civilian airplanes for military aggression.
Throughout the years, there have been innumerable expressions of a hostile policy towards Cuba by consecutive United States administrations, he said. Those included attempts at diplomatic isolation, a systematic policy of
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blockade and economic aggression, the promotion of domestic subversion, illegal radio and television broadcasts, infiltration of spies and saboteurs, plans to murder Cuban leaders, the encouragement of terrorist activities, biological warfare, the support of armed counterrevolutionary gangs, and giving shelter to incursions of planes and boats coming to Cuba from United States territory to carry out aggressions. That aggressive policy included the armed invasion of Cuban territory, organized by the Central Intelligence Agency of the United States in April 1961, which later ended in a naval blockade and a threat of nuclear war, as a consequence of the measures Cuba had been compelled to take in the face of the danger of a direct military invasion by the United States.
With the disappearance of the former Soviet Union and the socialist block, the violent attempts against Cuba by groups of Cuban origin established in the city of Miami grew stronger, he said. Since 1990, 14 infiltrations and pirate attacks had taken place against Cuba, carried out with boats coming from the south of the United States, while dozens of terrorist plans were aborted by Cuban action. Some of the participants in the last serious actions were captured and soon will be able to explain in court how and with whose support they got weapons, explosives, boats and advanced location and communications equipment. In addition to all that, the anti-Cuban radio broadcasted a total of 4,480 hours monthly in 1995 from the United States, including inciting people to violence and subversion. Cuba has the distinction of being the only country in the world with a television station aimed against it, financed with federal funds of the United States.
The most recent incident in that long history of aggressions had been the provocations by the airplanes belonging to the so-called "Brothers to the Rescue" organization, which during the past 20 months had violated Cuban airspace 25 times -- always from the territory of the United States, he said. In September 1994, a bilateral meeting between the civil aviation administrations of Cuba and the United States took place, at which that country expressed its concern about the violations of the Cuban airspace and admitted that those flights threatened the security of efforts by the United States Coast Guard to rescue Cuban illegal emigrants. Yet violations continued to take place, even after that meeting.
For example, he said, on 10 November 1994, two Cessna 337 airplanes, which took off from the naval base occupied by the United States in the Cuban territory of Guantanamo, flew over the eastern end of the country and dropped subversive flyers. On 4 April 1995, another Cessna 337 aircraft entered Cuban waters north of the city of Havana and flew over more than 40 kilometres along the coast, at a distance of from 5 to 10 nautical miles off shore. On 13 July 1995, two airplanes again entered the Cuban waters north of the capital, entered a zone forbidden to air traffic and flew over the city at a very low altitude. They dropped propaganda in support of the flotilla of boats carrying anti-Cuban elements which, having departed from Miami, had joined
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together at some 22 kilometres northeast of Havana and had also entered Cuba's jurisdictional waters.
On 2 September 1995, five Cessna airplanes and five helicopters flew again in support of a similar flotilla, which was supposed to come from Miami to the north of the beach resort of Varadero in Matanzas province, he said. However, the aircraft left the operations zone when the aggression was aborted due to the negligence of the participants, which caused the sinking of a boat and one death.
On 9 and 13 January 1996, two actions of particular relevance and importance occurred, which constitute the immediate precedent of the 24 February incident, he said. Airplanes belonging to "Brothers to the Rescue" dropped over the city of Havana tens of thousands of flyers with subversive propaganda, exhorting the population to carry out actions against the Cuban constitutional order. The Cuban Government officially notified the Government of the United States of that serious violation, as it had done in other instances. It was also highly publicized by its own perpetrators in the United States media.
The situation had now reached an intolerable point, he said. The Cuban population reacted with indignation and concern about the flagrant violations of its airspace. Right after those events, the Cuban Government gave instructions to its air force that what happened on 9 and 13 January could not be tolerated. It also conveyed to the United States Government, through serious and reliable channels, the risk of a serious incident, given the increasingly aggressive and irresponsible actions of the airplanes which were violating Cuban airspace.
"We actually begged the United States Government to do all in its power to prevent those flights, which violated not only our laws, but also the laws of the United States", he said. It was an additional and special request. Nothing was left for us to do to prevent the incident, except giving up our dignity and the sovereignty of our country. Cuba's persistent request reached even to the highest levels of the United States Government, and assurances were given that everything possible would be done to prevent such violations. Only the United States Government, from whose territory the aggression originated, had the power to do that.
He drew attention to "irrefutable evidence" that the United States Government was also concerned about the actions of the above-mentioned organization. In Note Number 577 from the United States Interest Section in Havana, dated 18 October 1995, Cuba was informed that members of the above- mentioned organization intended to approach the limits of the Cuban airspace on 21 October with the purpose of "broadcasting television and short-wave radio signals to Cuba from boats located outside Cuban territorial waters, for a period of time of about a half-hour". In the same note it was pointed out
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that "Officials of the United States have warned the flotilla organizers of the provisions of international law and of the United States law regarding non-authorized broadcastings from ships or airplanes registered in the United States, and have urged them not to perform illegal broadcasting".
Earlier, in a State Department note delivered on 28 August 1995, the Cuban Government was informed that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was investigating the possible violation of Annex 2 of the Civil Aviation International Convention by the head of the organization in question. On 5 October of the same year, by way of Note 553 of its Interest Section in Havana, Cuba was notified that the Federal Aviation Administration was accusing that person of "having violated federal aviation regulation (FAR 91.703) by piloting an airplane with a United States registration number within a foreign country without complying with the regulations of that country, and regulation 91.13 by negligently or recklessly piloting an airplane, thus endangering other people's lives and property". That same Note added that "the Federal Aviation Administration requests from the Cuban Government evidence which may prove relevant to these accusations" against the main leader of that organization.
On 16 February 1996, a week before the incident in question besides thanking the Cuban Government for the information it had supplied, the United States Government, by means of a State Department note, informed it that the Federal Aviation Administration was continuing its investigations concerning the head of the aforementioned organization, who "is facing the charges of violating federal aviation regulation (FAR 91.703)". Clearly, the United States authorities were fully aware of the existence of a group organized in its territory, in possession of airplanes, engaged in carrying out activities different from the legal rendering of international air service, who were using these airplanes with clearly provocative purposes, failing to recognize Cuban sovereignty and ignoring the very regulations of the State where those airplanes are registered and where the licenses to fly them were issued to their pilots, he said. "If we are to be blamed for any mistake concerning our behaviour in the events of last February 24, that mistake would be to have trusted that a country as powerful as the United States had the ability to stop groups of irresponsible people from performing perfectly avoidable actions which could even drag it into a genocidal war against our people", he said.
On the morning of 24 February, airplanes belonging to "Brothers to the Rescue" flew north of Havana and entered Cuban airspace, he said. Those flights did not conform to international and national civil aviation standards, since their take-offs and flight patterns had at no time been reported. In addition, before entering the Cuban flight information region, no communication was established with Cuban aeronautical authorities. For that reason, at 10:40 a.m. Cuban authorities requested information from the Miami Air Traffic Control Center, which said it had no information whatsoever.
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As a result, aircraft of the Cuban air force took off and the pirate airplanes withdrew.
MADELEINE K. ALBRIGHT (United States) said she had listened in vain for an apology for the breaking of international law, for a simple unqualified expression of regret at the death of four young men, for an offer of compensation to the families and for a promise to comply in the future with the obligations by which all nations must live.
"The United States did not, and does not, seek a confrontation with Cuba", she said. The Government and its people wished that the incident had not occurred, but it could not be silent when its citizens were murdered, and it would not allow the Cuban Government, which had ordered that crime, to transfer the blame to the victims.
She said the United States had waived normal visa requirements to allow the Cuban Foreign Minister to travel promptly to New York. As President of the Security Council, she had offered him an opportunity to speak to that body as soon as he had arrived but he had declined that offer. "Unfortunately", she said, "all we have heard from the Cuban Government thus far is propaganda".
On 24 February, she continued, the Cuban military had knowingly, wilfully and in broad daylight, shot down two aircraft that were unarmed and clearly marked as civilian. As Cuban officials were aware, those aircraft had posed no threat to the Cuban people or Government. They were destroyed intentionally and in clear violation of international law. The shootdown violated the prohibition under customary international law against the use of weapons in those circumstances against civil aircraft in flight. That prohibition was long-standing whether or not the 1984 Protocol to the Chicago Convention was in force. The incident was currently being discussed before the ICAO. The United States would cooperate with that Organization and was pleased to hear that the Cuban Government would also do so.
She said that behind the smokescreen of rhetoric offered by the Cuban Government, the incident was a simple matter of right and wrong, of what was legal and what was not. The MIG fighters that shot down the planes never attempted to establish radio contact; the fighters did not approach or signal the planes to land; no warning shots were fired; and no warning was given to the United States aircraft that an attack was imminent.
She went on to say that Cuban complaints regarding flights by the organization "Brothers to the Rescue" had been handled by the United States in a manner consistent with the Chicago Convention. Her Government had taken the matter seriously because it did not want an international incident to occur.
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Last Saturday, she said, she had met with the families of the four men who were killed. They had said that the men were not filled with bitterness and hate but with concern for the survival of those who might be tempted to flee Cuba's despotic regime. "It was preposterous to believe, as the Cuban representatives would have us do, that the young men in those unarmed planes were enemies of the Cuban people", she said.
The fundamental issue, she declared, was a question of whether it was acceptable for Cuba to shoot down the two unarmed civilian aircraft.
Right of Reply
Mr. ROBAINA GONZALEZ (Cuba), speaking in exercise of his right to reply, said he had hoped to hear something different from the United States delegate. Instead the Assembly had heard a statement that showed the view the United States wished to portray of events. The Cuban Government had not put up a smoke screen. They had explained their position and they had the full right to be heard. The United States continued to present the events as something that had resulted from the Cuban position and as a simple aggression provoked by the Cuban Government. It was important to find out if all the evidence that Cuba had supplied had reached the highest levels of the United States Government. The situation was not as simple as the United States presented it.
He said Cuba had expressed a readiness to clarify the situation. The United States Ambassador had met the parents of the downed pilots but Cubans had been meeting with the victims of United States aggression including hundreds of Cuban children.
He went on to say that the United States delegation believed it had the right to close the investigation. Cuba had asked that the investigation be opened. It was not the United States that had the truth to present. The United States said investigation by its intelligence facilities had been concluded and it had presented a picture which it would have the ICAO reach as its conclusion. Cuba did not ask the Assembly to investigate the incident but to listen to its presentation. The United States did not seem to want the Assembly to listen. The United States should also understand that it was not the country that could launch an investigation. Cuba could not allow the United States to dictate what could be done. The United States needed a lesson in humility and should learn to listen to the world.
On the afternoon of that same day, again three aircraft, violating their flight plan, began to penetrate a dangerous activated zone, despite warnings given by the Havana Traffic Control Center, he said. The chief of the band, which was taking part in the action, answered that he knew it was prohibited to fly in that zone, but that they would do so nevertheless. From another plane, it was pointed out that they were heading for Havana. Two intercepting
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fighters of the Cuban air force then took off, performed the preventive warning pass, he said. There was no response. According to the Cuban pilots and air command, two of the pirate planes were at a distance of from five to eight miles from Cuba's coasts, possibly to repeat the actions of 9 and 13 January. The Command Post of anti-aircraft defence, in view of the instruction that had been received in mid-January and the powers vested in it, therefore, ordered the fighters to shoot down the two planes. The third one, which by then was out of Cuban airspace and flying away, was not pursued any further.
"The Cuban Government fully assumes the responsibility of the patriotic action carried out in legitimate defense of the sovereignty and security of our country", he said.
He said that helicopters and surface units of Cuba's border guard immediately began search and rescue efforts for possible survivors, which continued through 25 February. The Cuban Government was the first to publicly regret the loss of life which resulted from the irresponsible and criminal actions against its people. The same day the events took place, the Foreign Ministry's first statement on the matter said that Cuban had immediately accepted the request for units of the United States Coast Guards to enter its territorial waters to join Cuban units in search and rescue activities at the place where the two planes had been shot down. From that, it could be inferred that the United States authorities themselves realized from the very first moment that the event had taken place within Cuban territorial waters. "We do not really think that the United States Government wished to provoke the February 24 incident and the conflict that might have resulted from these developments", he said. What is affirmed was that the United States did not take the effective and timely measures to prevent those events from occurring. The decisions adopted by President Clinton in the past few days and carried out by the United States authorities on 2 March were able to prevent another provocation planned by the very same perpetrators of the previous violations. If those decisions had been adopted and executed earlier, the events in question would not have taken place.
"Brothers to the Rescue", founded in 1991 and officially registered as a "non-profit organization without any political interests", was actually financed by the shady money of the extremist Miami mobsters, he said. It would be interesting to investigate the links between the Cuban-American National Foundation and that group, or to go deeper into the intense negotiations carried out by Congressperson lleana Ros-Lehtinen so that the United States Defense Department would donate or cheaply sell the group three planes of the type used against Cuba. "Cuba knows the main leader of that organization, Jose Basulto, quite well", he said. He was recruited by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), trained in Panama and Guatemala, and later infiltrated into Cuba before and after the Bay of Pigs invasion. In 1963, he was again infiltrated as the radio operator of a terrorist commando, and in
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1966 he worked for the CIA in Brazil. The Cessna 337 airplane, which he personally used in his misdeeds against Cuba, had the number 2506 painted on it in big characters, the number of the mercenary brigade which, under United States orders, invaded Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961. All this gave Cuba an idea of his political and moral caliber. That was the record of the individual who wants to present himself as a champion of humanitarian causes.
After Cuba and the United States signed the migratory agreements which put an end to illegal emigration, the apparent purpose of the aforesaid organization -- to promote illegal emigration to the United States -- ceased to exist, he said. That was how the provocation, planning and execution of terrorist actions became its sole, evident purpose. The group began to use its planes in more overt, hostile and dangerous ways in Cuban territory, employing twin-tail Cessna airplanes of military design from the United States armed forces, which were used for exploration and combat actions in the Viet Nam War. If any doubts remained on that matter, one could consult the 19 July 1992 issue of El Nuevo Herald of Miami and observe the photo of a "Brothers to the Rescue" airplane which still bore the acronym of the United States Air Force. "Cuba has more than enough proof that this organization made plans to dynamite high tension towers in Havana, to sabotage the Cienfuegos oil refinery and to carry out attempts on the lives of the main Cuban leaders, among other actions", he said. All those antecedents must be borne in mind in order to understand the reasons for Cuba's decision to prohibit its planes from flying over Cuba with impunity. "This band's aggressive plans leave no room for doubt that it is a paramilitary, terrorist organization in open war against our country", he said. Its provocative actions were flagrant violation of the sovereignty and integrity of a State. They also constituted violations of the norms which regulated international civil aviation and, consequently, might endanger the lives and safety of many people and airplanes. Their intention of making radio and television broadcasts from international airspace was proof of this, as was the altering of the flight plans which they must present to the aeronautical authorities of the originating country, the flights at low altitudes or over unauthorized zones of the very territory of the United States; the use of radio communication for purposes other than those for which said communications were intended; and the dangerous, irresponsible, unregulated intrusion of its planes into a zone where one of the most active international air corridors of the western hemisphere was located.
"Around 400 regular commercial flights go through the Cuban air corridors every day, to which our aeronautical services offer the necessary support and cooperation", he said. Thousands of American citizens and those of other nations crossed Cuban skies daily without any risks or difficulties. There had never been a single incident which had affected civil transportation through Cuban airspace. In short, Cuba rendered aeronautical services to the companies and travellers of the country which not only blockaded it, but also hindered the normal development of Cuban activities in this sphere, and from
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whose territory hostile actions violating international air navigating standards had been carried out throughout the years and still continued.
He said that Cuba was a founder of the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) and its airline was one of the oldest in the world. Cuba had never been taken to task by that organization for any reason whatsoever. On the contrary, Cuba gave adequate and satisfactory aeronautical services to airplane companies and their passengers from around the world. In the entire history of aviation, Cuba had never violated the airspace of any country, much less the airspace of the United States. In fact, Cuba was prohibited from using the international air corridors that cross over the United States.
In judgement of Cuba's legitimate defence of sovereignty over its airspace, a legal instrument was invoked which had never been ratified in the required time frame and was completely without legal force. Only 82 of the required 102 members of ICAO had ratified the Chicago Convention. Nine members of the Security Council had never signed it; neither had it been signed by Cuba or the United States.
Official United States statements on the incident of 24 February stressed the civil status of the downed planes, he said. However, Havana and other places in Cuba had been bombarded and machine-gunned on many occasions with allegedly civilian aircraft. With allegedly civilian aircraft, spies and saboteurs were introduced in its territory, and incendiary devices and explosives were dropped on its cane fields and other economic targets. With alleged civilian aircraft, biological warfare had been waged against Cuba.
"Would the United States have tolerated provocations of the sort that Cuba has had to tolerate"?, he asked. "Would the United Stats authorities have accepted aircraft coming from Cuba -- or any other country for that matter -- entering illegally in their airspace to drop subversive flyers? What would have happened if civilian aircraft coming from Cuba had disobeyed the instructions of United States air traffic controllers? Could Cuban civilian aircraft penetrate with impunity the security zones of Andrews or Fort Meade air bases close to Washington, D.C.? Would the United States have permitted the implicit threat to its air defences and to the protection of its borders? What would have been the reaction of the United States public opinion in the face of such a boast of impunity by such incursions? The answer does not require a big effort of imagination." In fact, a spokesperson of the United States Defense Department had recently declared that they would not have permitted it.
"My country has every right to not tolerate the inadmissible", he said. "We exercise the same sovereign right of all States to defend the territorial integrity of our country, its sovereignty and the peace of our citizens. No one has the right to play with the freedom and independence of Cuba, much less belittle and make fun of them with impunity."
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He said the United States protected within its borders the material and intellectual authors who masterminded and executed the bombing in 1976 in Barbados of a Cuban civilian aircraft, resulting in 73 deaths. The same country went out of its way to prevent the Security Council from examining the case.
"Today, we are asking this Assembly if the sovereign right to defend the borders and national security of countries is only a prerogative of the powerful and not of poor and small countries", he said. "If the world tolerates what has happened to Cuba, it would be tantamount to giving a license to freely violate national sovereignty and to convert all nations of the international community into potential victims."
He said the events in question "suspiciously converge" on one point: the passing in the United States Congress of the legislation aimed at blockading Cuba from the rest of the world. What was happening constituted "a mean conspiracy of the Cuban-American ultra-right, in complicity with the most extremist sectors of the Congress of the United States, not only against Cuba, but also against that country's Administration". It was intended to drag that Administration into serious contradictions and problems, even of a warlike character, in the midst of a ferocious electoral fight for the presidency of that nation.
"The first serious consequence would be their passing of the criminal Helms-Burton bill", he said. Such measures as the Helms-Burton bill represented an open challenge to the majority condemnation that the General Assembly had made in recent years against the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed upon Cuba. The Helms-Burton bill was directed against all those who desired to exercise their right to have relations with, trade with, and invest freely in Cuba. It also constituted a probe of how far the agenda of the ultra-right could be imposed on the political system and society of the United States.
The extraterritorial dimensions of the Helms-Burton bill violated the laws of many countries which had had nothing to do with promulgating the law, he said. It also curtailed the freedom of commerce, which seemed to be a sacrosanct principle of the contemporary economic system, and created legal international precedents from which no country on earth would seem to be able to escape. Each of the measures taken recently "seem to satisfy the political appetite of the Cuban-American mobsters of Miami" who raved in frustration at the results Cuba was obtaining in the strengthening of its democratic institutions and its dignity and the recovery of its economy, in the consolidation of socialism. "We have no doubt that this Cuban-American mafia will continue to be against everything we do and, for it, everything done by us will be insufficient."
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That mafia was outraged that the world was opening itself up to Cuba, and that Cuba had done so to the world, he said. They were offended that the community of nations condemned year after year, in ever-growing numbers, the flagrant and massive violation of the right to life of 11 million Cubans, entailed in the blockade.
"We are steadfast and confident in our position. We learned a long time ago that, faced with an arrogant and bullying neighbour, there is no place for weakness. Living without fear is what has allowed is to survive up to now. We know very well that that challenge is a price we have to pay in order to live free and without a master. We do not raise our voice, we do not make use of unjustified insults, name-calling and vulgarity, we have no need of hysteria or mendacious rantings. We know very well, after 37 years of resistance, that the force of truth lies not in the tone in which it is proclaimed, but rather in the convictions and the principles on which it is based. We are a small country, but our sky, our sea, our soil and our flag will never be violated, humiliated or mocked by anyone ever ... We will never renounce our vigilance in maintaining our sovereignty", he stated.
He said Cuba's readiness to enter into dialogue with the United States had been repeatedly demonstrated. Cuba had given ample proof of good faith and its desire to make headway in the search for ways to resolve the conflicts in their relationships, as well as its willingness to comply with all commitments. For example, it had scrupulously complied with the accords reached at the termination of the war in Angola. It had also complied with the travel arrangements between Cuba and the United States and other forms of communication, by furthering the establishment and development of relationships with the Cuban community abroad, and by following the accords reached on migratory issues.
It was perfectly clear that the problems in bilateral relations between Cuba and the United States could be resolved if there was a will to do so through appropriate procedures, he said. Cuba maintained that will. "We are not interested in any sort of confrontation, nor is that our attitude. If the Government of the United States is really interested in eliminating or reducing the points of friction or conflict between our two countries through discussions and negotiations, we emphatically reiterate here that Cuba is and always will be ready to advance in this direction. But if, on the contrary, the pretense here is to try to pressure or threaten Cuba with sanctions or condemnations, let it be understood that we have never retreated in the face of pressures or threats. We did not do so when our people were faced by the imminent threat of nuclear annihilation in the October Missile Crisis of 1962. We will not do so now", he said.
The role of the United Nations was not to serve as an instrument for the powerful to promote their political options, he said. Its true objective should be to forge a world in which the right to life with peace and dignity
General Assembly Plenary - 16 - Press Release GA/9052 102nd Meeting (AM) 6 March 1996
was respected by all countries equally, and where the development took the place of the poverty, human misery and ignorance that affected the vast majority of the human race. Its goal should be a world where cooperation was common practice; where justice and equality in international relationships was the highest law; where peace did not result from the force of arms but from the equal development of all countries; where international law was applied equally to all nations; and where principles of sovereignty, territorial integrity, national independence, sovereign equality and non-interference in the internal affairs of States were respected without limitations or restraints.
"Why does the Security Council act so diligently in the case of the two planes that violated our airspace, shot down on February 24, and has never acted to consider the blockade against Cuba which has been condemned no less that four times by overwhelming vote in the General Assembly?", he asked. "Why does the Security Council not deem it worthy to discuss the present plans within the United States Government to harden and extend the blockade against Cuba and to criminally aggravate its brutal effects on Cuba's people? Why does it not analyse the behaviour of a Member State that disregards, disdains and rebuffs the decisions of the General Assembly of the United Nations?" He expressed the trust that, this time, an attempt would be made to condemn and sanction the victims and not the aggressors.
Mrs. ALBRIGHT (United States) said the United States was a nation of laws. It had followed its laws and could would continue to do so. Cuba had violated international law and she was still waiting to hear an expression of regret for having done so. The Security Council, on behalf of the international community, had made clear that the shooting down of the planes was an international crime and nothing the Foreign Minister had said or could say would change that fact.
Mr. ROBAINA GONZALEZ (Cuba) said it was alarming to hear a country like the United States speak of another country violating international law. The five minutes allotted for this right of reply would not be enough to go through the long list of international violations committed by the country that was trying to condemn Cuba now. He wished to make clear that the security of his country did not depend on a body that offered absolute insecurity. He asked that the United States not assume the presidency of the Assembly. It would appear, he added, that the United States would like to continue in the post of president of the Security Council.
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