Cuban foreign minister in Seattle
'We must defend the poor of the planet'
By
Gloria La Riva
Seattle
Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque spoke to a
capacity crowd of 900 at Mt. Hope Missionary Baptist Church in
Seattle Dec. 3 as the World Trade Organization conference wound
up its last day.
This energetic young leader is not a typical foreign
minister. As a representative of Cuba's revolutionary
government, he gave a resounding call for true justice in the
world and unrelenting struggle to achieve it.
Perez Roque came to Seattle to head Cuba's finance and trade
delegation to the WTO conference. He was also sent to represent
Cuban President Fidel Castro, who had originally planned to
attend the WTO. For reasons of his security and the refusal of
the U.S. government to guarantee him a visa, President Castro
decided not to attend.
Castro said in a public communique, "It would soon be
evident that the U.S. government was opposed to my presence at
the meeting in Seattle. I was certain that the State Department
would not grant me a visa. Therefore, I did not even bother to
apply. I did not wish to be subjected to this humiliation.
"Therefore, we have decided to send a delegation headed by
our young and combative foreign minister, engineer Felipe Perez
Roque, who has worked with me for over seven years, and is
profoundly familiar with and fully shares my views and ideas on
the current international situation and its potential
evolution."
Felipe Perez Roque is 34 years old--the youngest foreign
minister in the world.
Before his nomination this year, he had already made his
mark as an exemplary revolutionary. At the age of 21 he became
president of the Federation of University Students.
While the age for admittance to the Cuban Communist Party is
30, Perez Roque was in the party's Central Committee and the
government's Council of State at age 26.
Perez gave a dynamic speech here about "the rights of all
the inhabitants of the planet" and the urgent need for profound
change to eliminate hunger, unemployment and poverty.
He made it clear that Cuba's position in the WTO debates was
on the side of the oppressed.
"Not only have struggles taken place in the streets, there
has also been a big battle inside the Convention Center. And
the Cuban delegation has been participating ... in each and
every one of the battles that have taken place. We have raised
our voice there, defending the rights and aspirations of the
peoples of the Third World, the aspirations of the poor and
dispossessed of the planet."
To sustained applause, he read two brief statements, one by
the trade ministers of the African countries in the WTO, the
other by Caribbean trade officials. Both rejected the WTO
deliberations as unfair and dominated by the larger powers.
They refused to sign any consensus forced on them by the
machinations of those same forces.
`International system is profoundly unjust'
The immense gulf between the rich and the poor was the
center point of Perez's talk. His denunciation of the obscene
concentration of wealth among a handful of billionaires found
an enthusiastic reception from the multinational audience of
900 people, young and old, unionists and students, veterans in
the struggle and new activists.
He laid the blame for the world's problems on the profit
system.
"Cuba's opinion is that the current economic, financial and
commercial system on an international level is profoundly
unjust," said Perez.
"Such a system, which extends poverty instead of education,
inequality instead of access to health, which maximizes profits
but can't guarantee employment, and which destroys the
environment, has no future whatsoever. ... The richest 20
percent of the worldpopulation, according to the UN, controls
86 percent of the world's economy, 82 percent of the world's
markets, 68 percent of direct foreign investment.
"In this conference there have been debates about Internet
commerce. In the U.S. and European countries, with 600
telephone lines per 1,000 inhabitants, it makes sense. But what
meaning does it have for Chad, where there is only one
telephone for every 1,000 inhabitants? What meaning does it
have for African countries torn by the scourge of AIDS, where
today, to the shame of our species, 23 million African people
are infected with AIDS, who are not getting treatment because
it costs $12,000 per year?
"Will this conference address such issues? Will their
interests be considered? Or will their representatives become
spectators in a game in which they're not allowed to
participate?
"Cuba believes it is impossible for such a system to
survive, in which the fortune of the 200 richest people is
greater than the income of 41 percent of the world's
population. If a tax were leveled on only 1 percent of the
wealth of these 200 richest people, there would be enough money
to educate all the children of the planet."
The Cuban foreign minister spoke of the need for the people
to resist and struggle. "Are we idealists? Yes, we are deeply
so. We have the right to struggle in order to give our children
a better world. Cuba believes it is possible if the available
technologies and resources are used to the benefit of
everybody."
The U.S. blockade against Cuba makes a mockery of its talk
about "free trade." Perez described the severity of this
40-year-old crime against Cuba's people. But he countered the
enormous difficulties they face with an optimism that they will
prevail.
"I should say the blockade against Cuba has deprived us of
food and medicine. It has deprived us of access to equipment
and technologies, it has created difficulties for us.
"But it has not been able to kill our hope. It has not been
able to take our joy away from us. Today we are more optimistic
than ever, we are more certain than ever that we are right,
that time is on our side.
"Now more than ever before, solidarity with Cuba is growing
in the United States and throughout the world. Millions of men
and women around the world understand our struggle. They
support our dreams and they express it to us daily in demanding
our right to be free and independent, to build a country as
Cuba wishes. The blockade against Cuba must end!"
For the next two days, the National Network on
Cuba--sponsors of the rally--held a national conference in
Seattle to increase solidarity work with Cuba.
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