Only multilateralism can guarantee a reliable scenario

Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, Granma, September 16, 2024 — 

Message by Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, First Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and President of the Republic, at the Global Convocation of the Summit of the Future, from the Palace of the Revolution, September 12, 2024, “Year 66 of the Revolution”

Message at the Global Convocation of the Summit of the Future
(Shorthand Versions – Presidency of the Republic)
Excellencies:
The first thing we should all ask ourselves is whether there will be a future, whether we will manage to guarantee future generations that space, which fits in a word so full of question marks and so lacking in certainties.  Surely the answers will be as varied as the living conditions, subhuman, bearable, comfortable or luxurious, of those who have the possibility to answer.

The future to which we aspire was mapped out decades ago and it does not look good if we are guided by the signs of this present, increasingly unequal and exclusive, which the voracious neoliberal version of capitalism has imposed on a global scale as an expression of the antidemocratic unipolarity that followed the collapse of the socialist alternative with the interventionist apogee of NATO.

The Summit of the Future is called upon to address directly and holistically the structural, systemic, moral and political failures that have prevented us from achieving the goals set out in its Pact.

Only multilateralism can guarantee a credible scenario where, together, we take the urgent action against coercion, inequality, genocide, double standards and the threat of war.
But this will only be possible if there is real political will to remove the foundations of the current profoundly unjust, unequal and exclusive international order.
It will not even be possible to speak of a future as long as the Zionist barbarism against Palestine is not stopped, as long as the philosophy of dispossession prevails, which is the philosophy of war, as the greatest leader of the Cuban Revolution, Fidel Castro Ruz, so clearly warned 64 years ago.

The future will be a chimera limited to reports and speeches, as long as expenditure on armaments continues to grow scandalously and the funds essential to finance development are reduced, frozen or blocked.

There can be no talk of a future without providing the most vulnerable with the financial, technological and scientific means necessary to address the challenge that our nations face today in the face of climate change and, at the same time, to embark on the road to development.

The profound reform that the international financial architecture requires is essential to close the abysmal gap that today separates the North from the South. This exercise will not translate into real benefits for our peoples if it is not carried out under the leadership of the United Nations.

The effects of the imbalances caused by the international economic order multiply for countries subject to unilateral coercive measures.

We reiterate the call to the States to refrain from enacting and applying these measures in violation of International Law and the UN Charter.

For Cuba, the future demands that the illegal U.S. blockade be lifted once and for all and that the country be removed from the arbitrary list of States that allegedly sponsor terrorism.

Excellencies:
We must recognize that the alternative to the chaos, coercion and imbalances prevailing today cannot start from the old recipes and governance models.
The current bases that define coexistence on the planet must be rethought.
The future does not exist. It is waiting for us to do so.

Thank you very much.

(Cubaminrex-Presidency)