New York, 6 December 2021.“While we meet in this room to speak about peace and the promotion of a culture and an environment which contributes to it, the use and the threat of use of force in international relations continues, unconventional warfare activities are conducted and interference with the internal affairs of sovereign States is carried out in order to quench the Empire´s appetites for domination’’, affirmed today Ambassador and Permanent Representative of Cuba to the United Nations, Pedro Luis Pedroso Cuesta, when participating at the debate of agenda item 16 “Culture of Peace”.
That is why, Pedroso pointed out, there can be no peace as long as the inequalities resulting from the unjust international economic order, which are the primal causes of conflicts, continue to exacerbate. There can be no peace, nor a culture conducive to peace, if hate speech, racism, xenophobia and ideological intolerance continue to be encouraged; if the issue of human rights is politicized against developing countries; and if disrespect for the indigenous culture, history, idiosyncrasies and diverse religions of the peoples, carries on.
The Cuban Ambassador highlighted the value Cuba places on peace. The country has faced, for more than six decades, the hostility of the United States government, its activities of unconventional warfare and subversion, as well as the impacts of the most protracted economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed against any country and intensified during the period of the COVID-19 pandemic.
To Cuba, furthering a culture of peace paves the way for a better, more equitable and sustainable world. However, this calls for the promotion of multilateralism and the strict observance of the United Nations Charter and the principles of international law.
Towards that path, the Cuban representative reiterated Cuba’s commitment to the Declaration and Programme of Action on a Culture of Peace, as well as to the Proclamation of Latin America and the Caribbean as a Zone of Peace, adopted in 2014 in Havana, within the framework of the Second CELAC Summit.
Permanent Mission of Cuba to the United Nations
