with the president of Paraguay,
Fernando Lugo
HAVANA, Cuba, Sept 24 (acn) Cuban First Vice-President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura demanded a new and fairer world order as he addressed the 63 Period of Sessions of the UN General Assembly, in New York.
After congratulating Nicaraguan Miguel d’Escoto for having been elected to chair the assembly, Machado Ventura said that today’s world circumstances are crucial for the history of humankind, since the threats currently pending on the planet endanger the existence of the Human Race.
The Cuban First Vice-President said that the only way to secure the future is by promoting peace, solidarity, social justice and sustainable development. The current unfair and unsustainable world order must be replaced with a really democratic and equitable system, he said.
Machado Ventura pointed out that a new world order must be based on respect for international law and the principles of justice and solidarity to put an end to inequalities and the exclusion to which large majorities of the world population have been submitted.
He said that industrialized countries, and particularly the only superpower [the United States] must assume their responsibility in the current situation. It is not possible to keep wasting huge fortunes, while millions of people go hungry and die from curable diseases; neither the peoples of the world nor the planet itself will allow that reality to keep prevailing, without huge social uprisings and very serious natural disasters, Machado stressed.
The top Cuban government official denounced what he described as the most serious threats against peace and international security and he mentioned wars of conquest, aggression and illegal occupation of countries, military intervention and the bombardment of innocent civilians, the arms race, plunder and usurpation of Third World natural resources, and the imperial offensive to submit the resistance of the nations.
Concepts such as “limitation of sovereignty,” “pre-emptive wars” or “regime change” express the intention to mutilate the independence of our countries, he said.
The alleged “war on terror” or the so-called “promotion of liberties” serve as pretexts for aggression and military occupation, torture, arbitrary detention and the denial of the peoples’ free determination, he said.
The Cuban First Vice President denounced the existence of unfair blockades and unilateral sanctions, and he lashed out against the imposition of political, economic and social recipes, which pave the way for imperial domination in open contempt for history, cultures and the sovereign, will of nations.
The Non-Aligned countries are paying the cost of irrationality and speculation by a handful of developed countries of the North, concluded Cuban First Vice-President Jose Ramon Machado Ventura.
Source: http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2008/0924cubaunassembly.htm
Note: Highlights and Bolds added for emphasis. Arsenio.