Mr. Parilla began expressing solidarity with Palestine and condemning what he described as the “genocidal extermination and ethnic cleaning” of the Palestinians by Israel.
He said that, at a time when “a handful of countries and individuals have accumulated more wealth than the vast majority of all other combined countries,” the United Nations continue to be the most representative body of the international community and must be protected and strengthened.
Mr. Parilla requested a new international order that guarantees “the right to development, sovereign equality, participation and representation of developing countries in the global policy decision.”
He referred to the reform initiatives of the UN80 of the Secretary General who, he said, needs to strengthen the intergovernmental nature of the United Nations and improve its ability to better face today’s urgent challenges.
Reject ‘peace through force’
The international community, he argued, must reject the doctrine of “peace through force” that is “equivalent to imposing the arbitrary will of US imperialism in all”, and would have at the expense of the values ​​on which the UN was founded.
The Foreign Minister also demanded the end of the economic blockade imposed on Cuba for the United States for more than six decades, which described as “an economic war” aimed at depriving Cubans of their livelihoods and sustainability.
“Cuba faces a severe scenario of prolonged and daily blackouts, difficulties in providing food, insufficient medication availability, reduced public transport, limited community services and pronounced inflation, which is eroding real income.”
Parilla also warned about an imminent threat of war in the Caribbean and said that the deployment of US military forces in the region to combat crime and drug trafficking was a pretext and “a dangerous situation that violates international law.”
Regarding climate change, the minister said that, from the general assembly podium, science and the “decades of collective work” to protect the planet are being questioned.
“If unsustainable patterns of production and consumption of capitalism do not change fundamentally, we will exceed the fateful threshold of 1.5 degrees Celsius before 2030,” he said.
Referring to new technologies, Mr. Parilla said that, with a small number of transnational corporations that impose their operations systems and control what content is seen, read and listen: “We suffer the dictatorship of the algorithm.”
He asked the UN to create common standards, to ensure that technology, especially artificial intelligence, benefits everyone.