I have been following U.S. imperialism's blatant attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of Venezuela in a vain attempt to overthrow the democratically elected government of Venezuela and in other parts of Latin America, as well as U.S. imperialism's continued economically stifling blockade against Cuba, in order to exert U.S. imperialism's control and hegemony over countries in the central and southern part of the Western Hemisphere.
U.S. imperialism claims this this gross interference in other countries internal affairs, either through domestic proxies to be in the name of "democracy", "human rights" and so forth, which are blatant lies.
The world today in 2019, is an even more dangerous place, with greater risk of war, possibly world war and possibly nuclear.
I stand in solidarity with the people of Cuba, Venezuela and of Latin America against this aggression.
At the same time, I also oppose those U.S. imperialist proxies in Malaysia, including U.S. imperialist funded NGOs, who wittingly or unwittingly serve U.S. imperialist interests.
Below are several statements in the United Nations on by Ambassador Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo. Permanent representative of Cuba to the un, at the Security Council and a statement by the Foreign Affairs of Cuba on U.S. imperialism's revival of imposition of the Helms-Burton Act.
Charles F. Moreira
73 AGNU: Statement by Ambassador Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo. Permanent representative of Cuba to the un, at the Security Council. 26 January 2019.
Mr. President,
Latin America and the Caribbean is today the scenario of persisting threats, inconsistent with the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace signed by the Heads of State and Government at the Second Summit of the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States in January 2014.
This commitment implies fully respecting the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, not intervening, directly or indirectly, in the internal affairs of any other State and observing the principles of national sovereignty, equal rights and self-determination of peoples.
The current U.S. administration has proclaimed the validity of the Monroe Doctrine and, in a new deployment of its imperial policy in the region, threatens Venezuela with special fury and declares that it has "all options on the table".
The region resembles a large meadow in times of drought. A spark could generate an uncontrollable fire that would harm the national interests of all.
Mr. President,
We regret that the United States government intends to use the Security Council to legitimize the international campaign against the constitutional government presided over by Nicolás Maduro Moros.
The main threat to peace and security in Latin America and the Caribbean is the harassment by the United States and its allies against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, in open disregard of the popular will and the institutionalism of that country expressed in the elections of 20 May 2018, from which the Venezuelan opposition excluded itself.
We reiterate our full support for the Bolivarian and Chavez's Revolution, for the civil-military union of the Venezuelan people and for their legitimate and democratic government, led by the constitutional president Nicolás Maduro Moros.
We strongly condemn the attempt to impose through a coup d'état a government at the service of the United States in Venezuela and the recurring calls to the Bolivarian military to join this onslaught.
The sovereignty of our peoples is resolved today in the attitude towards Venezuela. Supporting the legitimate right of the sister nation to define its destiny is to defend the dignity of all.
Mr. President,
Other attempts should not be forgotten, such as the military coup of 2002 and the oil coup of 2003, the aggressive Executive Order of the United States that qualifies Venezuela as "an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy" of the superpower, the unilateral coercive measures, the call to a military coup against the constitutional Government of Venezuela, the warning of the President of the United States to use "a possible military option" and the attempted assassination on 4 August against President Maduro.
Mr. President,
The acts of a group of countries and the shameful role of the OAS constitute a new and desperate attempt to implement an unsuccessful policy of regime change, which has not been imposed due to the unwavering resistance of the Venezuelan people and their willingness to defend the national sovereignty.
We reaffirm our steadfast respect for the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations and international law, for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of States, for the non-use or threat of use of force in international relations and for non-interference in the internal affairs of States.
The sovereign will of the Venezuelan people will prevail over imperialist intervention. History will judge those who encourage and recognize coup usurpation.
Thank you very much.
Reply by Ambassador Anayansi Rodríguez Camejo, Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations
CANCILLERÍA DE CUBA·LUNES, 28 DE ENERO DE 2019
Mr. President,
We have again asked for the floor to reply to the slanderous statements of United States Secretary of State Michael Pompeo and Mr. Elliot Abrams, which I reiterate that we utterly reject. Both deliberately lie and ignore that the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela is a free, independent and sovereign nation that makes its own decisions.
In response, I would only dare to ask the United States Secretary of State or his representative in this room whether it is not true that the attempt to impose on Venezuelans an illegitimate President that nobody knew until a few days ago was orchestrated and promoted from Washington; if it was not their government that organized and immediately recognized the coup junta that for a few hours took power in Venezuela in April 2002, at the cost of many lives; if it is not their government that for years has imposed on Venezuela a relentless economic war aimed at damaging the living standards of the population, restricting its development potential and causing suffering and social instability.
The U.S. delegation should make clear whether it was not their government that deliberately sabotaged the prospects for a negotiated solution in the Dominican Republic when the Bolivarian government and representatives of the opposition were preparing to ratify a mutually acceptable negotiated settlement.
They should make clear to those who encourage violence today what their attitude will be, what responsibility they will assume, if their irresponsible actions were to result in a scenario of uncontrolled instability for Venezuela and for the entire region, of which the peoples will be the victims.
Cuba's cooperation in solidarity with Venezuela, such as that being provided in almost all Latin American and Caribbean countries, and many others in the so-called Third World, is dedicated to contributing to essential lifeline services, especially health and education. This is known to everyone here, including the representatives of the United States. This is recognized by this Organization and by many specialized agencies of the system.
To speak otherwise, as the Secretary of State did this morning, shows a crude assault on the truth and demonstrates the little respect of their government for this Council, for the United Nations.
Venezuela is not and could not be anyone's satellite. They have their own institutions and a people that overwhelmingly supports the Bolivarian and Chavez's Revolution and its constitutional president Nicolás Maduro Moros.
We reiterate that the main threat to peace and security in our region is United States interventionism, the return of the Monroe doctrine and the harassment against the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela with the declared purpose of a regime change and with the imperialist objective of looting the world's largest oil reserve.
Let us remember that the United States, and not Cuba, established military dictatorships and organized bloody coups d'état in Latin America. It is the U.S. government, not the Cuban government, that intervenes unscrupulously in the electoral processes and internal affairs of most of the States of the planet, tries to overthrow by force the legitimate Government of the Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela and uses against it a brutal defamation campaign and military threat, while calling for violence and a coup d'état.
Review history, Mr. Secretary of State Michael Pompeo, and do not blame others for the pretensions of the United States to exercise its imperial domination in Our America, once again invoking the outdated, aggressive and dangerous Monroe doctrine and "gunboat diplomacy".
Thank you very much.
Declaration of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs
On January 16, 2019, the US State Department announced the decision to suspend, only for 45 days, the implementation of Title III of the Helms-Burton Act, "in order to conduct a careful review …in light of the national interests of the United States and the efforts to expedite a transition to democracy in Cuba, and include factors such as the Cuba's regime's brutal oppression of human rights and fundamental freedoms and its indefensible support for increasingly authoritarian and corrupt regimes in Venezuela and Nicaragua."
President Donald Trump's administration threat to take a new step that would dangerously tighten even further the blockade against Cuba would be a flagrant violation of International Law and a direct attack on the sovereignty and interests of third countries.
Cuba strongly, firmly and categorically rejects such a threat, which is construed as an extremely arrogant and irresponsible hostile action, and repudiates the disrespectful and slanderous language used in the public announcement made by the State Department.
The Helms Burton Act was entered into force in 1996. It was conceived to codify and tighten the economic, commercial and financial blockade policy officially imposed in 1962 with the purpose of subverting and overthrowing the Cuban government and imposing a regime to the liking of the US government.
It consists of four titles and has been implemented since its enactment. It is characterized by having an extreme extraterritorial scope, violating the rules and principles of International Law, contravening the rules of trade and international economic relations and being harmful to the sovereignty of other States, particularly because of the implementation of its provisions against companies and individuals established in their territories.
This Act has been rejected almost unanimously by the international community at the United Nations, specialized international bodies and regional organizations, such as the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States and the African Union. Several countries have passed their own national laws to cope with the extraterritorial effects of this Act.
One of the main objectives pursued by the Helms-Burton Act has been to hamper Cuba's economic, commercial and financial relations with third countries as well as its capacity to attract direct foreign investments to support its development. Titles III and IV of this Act are expressly devoted to pursue that.
Title III authorizes US nationals to bring action before US courts against any foreign citizen that is "trafficking" in US properties that were nationalized in Cuba in the 1960's by means of a legitimate process, as was recognized by the US Supreme Court, that was carried out by the Cuban government, in full adherence to its national legislation and International Law.
Among the most notorious aberrations, the aforementioned Title makes that authorization extensive to owners that were not US citizens at the time when nationalizations were carried out and whose alleged properties no one has certified.
By virtue of the very Helms-Burton Act, all US presidents since 1996, including Trump in 2017 and 2018, have consistently made use of the executive power to suspend the implementation of Title III every six months, for they have recognized that it is the most gross and unacceptable aspect of it, contrary to International Law and the sovereignty of other States; and also because they have realized that its implementation will bring about insurmountable obstacles to any prospective solution to claims and compensations to legitimate US owners.
On November 2, 1999, Havana's People's Provincial Court, for its part, upheld the Demand against the US Government for Human Damages and sanctioned it to provide the Cuban people with reparation and compensation worth 181.100 billion dollars; and on May 5, 2000, that same court sentenced the US government to pay 121 billion dollars also for Economic Damages Caused to Cuba.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has reiterated Cuba's willingness to find a solution to mutual claims and compensations.
This decision that the US government is threatening to implement would mean that, contrary to what is established by International Law and the praxis of international relations, foreign individuals and entities with legitimate businesses in Cuba could find themselves putting up with the threat of having to face up to unfounded claims void of legitimacy before the US courts. The politically motivated and venal behavior of some courts in Florida, very often used as a weapon against Cuba, is too well known.
To our people it means to stand up, once again, in a firm, conscientious and categorical way, to the US imperialism's efforts to submit the destiny of the Cuban nation to its domination and tutelage.
If Title III were to be applied as established by this law and as threatened by the US State Department, each and every Cuban and community in the country will bear witness to the way in which the lawsuits are filed before US courts claiming for the ownership of the house they live in, the workplace they work at, the school their children attend, the polyclinic where they are provided with medical care, the parcels where their neighborhoods have been built; and they will be able to corroborate their attempt to deprive Cubans from the country's wealth, infrastructure, arable lands, industries, mining resources, energy potential as well as the foundations to develop science and technology and provide services to the population.
We should all remember the aberrant contents of the Bush Plan which thoroughly describes and organizes the way in which Cuban families and the whole country would be stripped of almost everything.
For more than twenty years, the Helms-Burton Act has guided the interventionist efforts of anti-Cuban sectors in the US to attack the Cuban nation and undermine its sovereignty. By virtue of its implementation, hundreds of millions of dollars have been allocated to subvert Cuba's internal order, and countless measures have been proposed to bring about a change of regime. Its economic impact has seriously affected the country's development efforts as well as the population wellbeing. Its humanitarian impact has not been greater thanks to the social justice system that prevails in Cuba.
The attempt to fully implement Title III has been promoted against the opinion of important US government agencies and as a consequence of the power and influence achieved within the government by persons whose political career has been marked by an impotent resentment against Cuba and relied on the use of lies and blackmail.
Most of the US public opinion has consistently opposed the economic blockade, according to highly qualified polls.
History records with sufficient clarity that neither the economic blockade policy nor the bilateral problems between Cuba and the United States originated from the fair nationalizations that were carried out by the revolutionary government, according to the law and its legitimate right. The US government military, economic and terrorist aggressions against Cuba started before the fundamental actions of nationalization of US properties started.
It is a well-known fact that the nationalization of all foreign properties, including American properties, included the legal commitment to pay a compensation, which the US government even refused to discuss, which was accepted instead by the governments of claimants from other countries, all of whom received an appropriate compensation.
The Ministry of Foreign Affairs reiterates the postulates contained in the Law to Reaffirm the Cuban Dignity and Sovereignty (Law No. 80) and emphasizes that the Helms-Burton Act is illegal, inapplicable and is void of any value or legal effect.
Consequently, any claim filed under this law by a natural or juridical person, regardless of their citizenship or nationality, will be rendered null.
The Cuban government reserves the right to respond in due time to this new aggression.
Havana, January 17, 2019.
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