Address by Raúl Castro Ruz
Summit of the Group of 77 and China
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
June 15, 2014
Translated by Charles McKelvey
Summit of the Group of 77 and China
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
June 15, 2014
Translated by Charles McKelvey
Comrade Evo Morales Ayma, President of the Multinational State of Bolivia and President of the Group of 77 and China.
Your Excellencies:
I thank Comrade Evo Morales Ayma, President and outstanding representative of the indigenous peoples of our region, for the convocation of this important Summit.
At the conclusion of the First Conference of the United Nations on Trade and Development, in June 1964, a group of countries in development, conscious of the enormous challenges that they would have to address, decided to join together in order to confront a world economic system that since then has shown itself to be unequal and unjust.
We are indebted to this group for its preparation, negotiation, and approval, on May 1, 1974, forty years ago, of one of the most important programmatic documents in the struggle against underdevelopment and for the attainment of international economic justice: the Declaration and Program of Action for the Establishment of a New International Order, “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest, and cooperation of all States, regardless of its social and economic system, that permits the correction of inequalities and the repairing of present injustices, eliminating the growing disparity between developed countries and countries in development, and guaranteeing present and future generations an accelerating economic and social development in peace and justice.”
A little later, the group attained the approval of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, which consecrated the exercise of sovereignty of States over the natural resources and economic activity in its territory.
These important documents continue in force, but the great paradox is that today no one speaks of them. They are considered “outdated” or “surpassed by events.”
However, the gap between the North and South today is widening, and a profound global economic crisis has become the longest and most complex crisis of the last eight decades, as a result of the irreversible failure of the neoliberalism imposed by the centers of power, with a devastating impact for our countries.
At a moment in which the time-period of the attainment of the Objectives of Development, which were accepted in the Summit of the Millennium of 2000, has nearly concluded, we find that:
• 1.2 billion persons live in extreme poverty. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of the poor has increased without interruption, increasing from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010.
• One in eight persons in the world suffers from chronic hunger.
• Among children who die before the age of five, 45% die from malnutrition.
• The external debt has reached unprecedented levels, in spite of the enormous payments that have been made in its service.
• Climate change has become worse, generated principally by the irrational and wasteful patterns of production and consumption of the industrialized countries, which to be maintained, would require by 2030 the natural resources equivalent to two planets.
Before these realities, the principle of common responsibility must be maintained in full force, with allowances for differentiated responsibilities with respect to climate change and other environmental challenges.
As comrade Fidel Castro Ruz has said, “The resources to finance development exist. What is lacking is the political will of the governments of the developed countries.”
It is necessary to demand of the guardians of capital, centered in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and of the defenders of neoliberalism, grouped in the World Trade Organization, which seeks to divide us, a new financial and monetary international order as well as just commercial conditions for producers and importers,.
Only unity will enable our ample majority to prevail.
We will have to unify if we desire that the Agenda of Development after 2015, which ought to include the Objectives of Sustainable Development, will offer responses to the structural problems of the economies of our countries, will generate changes that permit sustainable development, and will be universal as well as responsive to the different levels of development.
Comrade President:
In the current situation, the sovereignty of States is transgressed; the principles of International Law and the postulates of a New International Economic Order are violated in a blatant form; concepts that intend to legalize interference are imposed; force and the threat of its use are utilized with impunity; and the media are used to promote division. We still remember that threat against “60 or more dark corners of the world” of the President of the United States George W. Bush, all countries that are members of the Group of 77.
We ought to exercise our solidarity with those who are threatened with aggression. Today the clearest case is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, against which are employed the most sophisticated methods of subversion and destabilization, including attempts of coup d’état, in accordance with the concepts of non-conventional war that the United States today applies to overthrow governments and to subvert and destabilize societies.
For more than fifty years, we have been victims of a genocidal North American blockade and of terrorist actions that have cost the lives of thousands of our citizens and have provoked considerable material damage. The absurd inclusion of Cuba in the list of “States that Sponsor International Terrorism” is an affront to our people.
As we have denounced, the promotion of covert and subversive illegal action is growing, as is the use of cyberspace to destabilize not only Cuba, but countries whose governments do not accept interference or tutelage. In this manner, any nation can be the object of cyber-attacks that intend to incite distrust, destabilization, and potential conflicts.
During all these years the firm solidarity of members of the Group of 77 and China always has accompanied us, for which, in the name of the Cuban people, I thank you.
We take advantage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Group of 77 to renew our common commitment to coordinate our efforts and close ranks in order to construct a more just world.
Thank you very much.
Your Excellencies:
I thank Comrade Evo Morales Ayma, President and outstanding representative of the indigenous peoples of our region, for the convocation of this important Summit.
At the conclusion of the First Conference of the United Nations on Trade and Development, in June 1964, a group of countries in development, conscious of the enormous challenges that they would have to address, decided to join together in order to confront a world economic system that since then has shown itself to be unequal and unjust.
We are indebted to this group for its preparation, negotiation, and approval, on May 1, 1974, forty years ago, of one of the most important programmatic documents in the struggle against underdevelopment and for the attainment of international economic justice: the Declaration and Program of Action for the Establishment of a New International Order, “based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence, common interest, and cooperation of all States, regardless of its social and economic system, that permits the correction of inequalities and the repairing of present injustices, eliminating the growing disparity between developed countries and countries in development, and guaranteeing present and future generations an accelerating economic and social development in peace and justice.”
A little later, the group attained the approval of the Charter of Economic Rights and Duties of States, which consecrated the exercise of sovereignty of States over the natural resources and economic activity in its territory.
These important documents continue in force, but the great paradox is that today no one speaks of them. They are considered “outdated” or “surpassed by events.”
However, the gap between the North and South today is widening, and a profound global economic crisis has become the longest and most complex crisis of the last eight decades, as a result of the irreversible failure of the neoliberalism imposed by the centers of power, with a devastating impact for our countries.
At a moment in which the time-period of the attainment of the Objectives of Development, which were accepted in the Summit of the Millennium of 2000, has nearly concluded, we find that:
• 1.2 billion persons live in extreme poverty. In Sub-Saharan Africa, the number of the poor has increased without interruption, increasing from 290 million in 1990 to 414 million in 2010.
• One in eight persons in the world suffers from chronic hunger.
• Among children who die before the age of five, 45% die from malnutrition.
• The external debt has reached unprecedented levels, in spite of the enormous payments that have been made in its service.
• Climate change has become worse, generated principally by the irrational and wasteful patterns of production and consumption of the industrialized countries, which to be maintained, would require by 2030 the natural resources equivalent to two planets.
Before these realities, the principle of common responsibility must be maintained in full force, with allowances for differentiated responsibilities with respect to climate change and other environmental challenges.
As comrade Fidel Castro Ruz has said, “The resources to finance development exist. What is lacking is the political will of the governments of the developed countries.”
It is necessary to demand of the guardians of capital, centered in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, and of the defenders of neoliberalism, grouped in the World Trade Organization, which seeks to divide us, a new financial and monetary international order as well as just commercial conditions for producers and importers,.
Only unity will enable our ample majority to prevail.
We will have to unify if we desire that the Agenda of Development after 2015, which ought to include the Objectives of Sustainable Development, will offer responses to the structural problems of the economies of our countries, will generate changes that permit sustainable development, and will be universal as well as responsive to the different levels of development.
Comrade President:
In the current situation, the sovereignty of States is transgressed; the principles of International Law and the postulates of a New International Economic Order are violated in a blatant form; concepts that intend to legalize interference are imposed; force and the threat of its use are utilized with impunity; and the media are used to promote division. We still remember that threat against “60 or more dark corners of the world” of the President of the United States George W. Bush, all countries that are members of the Group of 77.
We ought to exercise our solidarity with those who are threatened with aggression. Today the clearest case is the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, against which are employed the most sophisticated methods of subversion and destabilization, including attempts of coup d’état, in accordance with the concepts of non-conventional war that the United States today applies to overthrow governments and to subvert and destabilize societies.
For more than fifty years, we have been victims of a genocidal North American blockade and of terrorist actions that have cost the lives of thousands of our citizens and have provoked considerable material damage. The absurd inclusion of Cuba in the list of “States that Sponsor International Terrorism” is an affront to our people.
As we have denounced, the promotion of covert and subversive illegal action is growing, as is the use of cyberspace to destabilize not only Cuba, but countries whose governments do not accept interference or tutelage. In this manner, any nation can be the object of cyber-attacks that intend to incite distrust, destabilization, and potential conflicts.
During all these years the firm solidarity of members of the Group of 77 and China always has accompanied us, for which, in the name of the Cuban people, I thank you.
We take advantage of the fiftieth anniversary of the Group of 77 to renew our common commitment to coordinate our efforts and close ranks in order to construct a more just world.
Thank you very much.