GENEVA, Switzerland. – Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez Parrilla presented Cuba´s report to the Universal Periodic Review of the United Nations Human Rights Council, which was in session in Geneva.
In his speech, the Minister noted that Cuban civil society has grown and is currently made up of more than 2 200 organizations, which have a broad participation and propositional capacity.
As in other countries, in Cuba it is not possible to violate legality by putting in the service of an external force that wants to change the political system, Rodriguez Parrilla highlighted, and added that those who try to do it are agents in the service of a foreign power.
The Cuban Minister of Foreign Affairs highlighted the island´s growing cooperation with the human rights mechanisms of the United Nations Organization.
Cuba Meets Its Commitments
We have fulfilled our international commitments and obligations, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez asserted in presenting Cuba’s report to the Universal Periodic Review of Human Rights.
He recalled that Cuba has signed 44 of the 61 Human Rights Council conventions, which makes us one of the States with the greatest acceptance of these international pacts.
Rodriguez Parrilla reviewed Cuba’s activity since the previous Universal Periodic Review to date, when several senior officials of the Human Rights Council and other UN mechanisms visited the country.
Cuba will continue to promote initiatives in this area, including the right to development and peace, the Chancellor remarked, and reiterated that the country will oppose manipulation and double standards in the analysis of human rights.
In Cuba No One Will Be Helpless
Our people, who have made the greatest sacrifices and faced the greatest dangers to preserve their sovereignty, deserves that their institutions work effectively to raise the welfare of all, Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez said in Geneva.
In introducing Cuba’s report to the Universal Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council, he referred to efforts to improve access to food, housing and public transport, while ensuring the quality of education and health.
The Chancellor reiterated that in Cuba no one will ever be helpless, despite being a small, developing country, immersed in an unfavorable environment where irrational patterns of production and consumption and undemocratic market rules prevail.
In addition to all that, he said, there are the adverse effects of climate change and the impact of high-intensity natural disasters on economy.
Advances… Despite the Blockade
Cuba’s priorities include further progress in updating the economic and social development model, and strengthening the institutional legal framework for the promotion and protection of human rights, Chancellor Bruno Rodriguez ratified in Geneva.
He said that other objectives are the refinement of the political system and the Cuban model of socialist democracy, and to this end a process of reform of the Constitution will be undertaken in the near future.
Rodriguez Parrilla insisted that the intensification of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against Cuba, and its extraterritorial application, causes deprivation and is the main obstacle to the development of the country.
This unfair policy, rejected by the international community, represents a massive and systematic violation of the human rights of our people and qualifies as an act of genocide, the Cuban chancellor asserted.
Towards a More and More Fair Society
In introducing Cuba’s report to the annual Periodic Review of the Human Rights Council, Bruno Rodriguez claimed the return of Guantanamo-usurped territory by the naval base where the United States maintains a detention and torture center.
The political-media campaigns against Cuba, which distort our reality, seek to discredit the country and omit the indisputable achievements in the field of human rights, the Minister of Foreign Affairs denounced.
He ratified that Cuba will continue progressing on the basis of political will and the commitment of the Government and the people, towards the construction of an increasingly free, democratic, participatory, fair and solidarity-based society.
We are open to dialogue from the respect that must characterize this exercise, without double standards or attempts at manipulation for political purposes, which we will not accept, the Cuban Chancellor said.