Cuban ambassador to the UN in Geneva, Juan Antonio Quintanilla, reiterated today his country’s commitment to the fight against racism and denounced the structural presence of this scourge in developed capitalist nations.

Speaking at a general debate on the issue, as part of the 51st session of the UN Human Rights Council, the permanent representative highlighted that the island is deepening its National Program against Racism and Racial Discrimination, approved in 2019

Its implementation has made it possible to identify inequity gaps and direct the work towards the elimination of the vestiges of discrimination, he stressed.

According to the diplomat, in this process, Cuban civil society has played a fundamental role, including the community level, with the protagonism of dialogue and exchange of criteria with organizations and citizens.

«In Cuba, the advocacy of hatred, xenophobia, intolerance and supremacist ideas based on national, religious or ethnic origin are alien to the political, social and economic life of the country,» Quintanilla said at the forum.

He also stressed that the Antillean nation extended its commitment to the eradication of racism beyond its borders, a stance materialized with its support for the liberation struggles and against apartheid in Africa during the last century and its current accompaniment to the efforts of other governments in terms of inclusive health.

We will not rest in the pursuit of full social justice. The peoples of the world will always be able to count on Cuba’s contribution so that the commitments we assumed in Durban become a reality, he said.

Referring to the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, he regretted that more than 20 years later, the objectives set out in those documents for the fight against all forms of racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and other related forms of intolerance have still not been achieved.

On the contrary, structural inequalities that foster discrimination, intolerance and exclusion of people of African descent and other ethnic groups have been exacerbated, he denounced at the Human Rights Council.

For Quintanilla, the persistence of structural racism in developed capitalist countries, as well as attempts to evade their historical debt to the peoples who were victims of slavery, is of deep concern.

«It is regrettable that in some of the countries self-proclaimed leaders of human rights, people are more likely to be detained or killed extra judicially by the forces of law and order, just because of the color of their skin», he criticized.