The statement was made by President Miguel Diaz-Canel in his virtual speech at the United Nations high-level meeting to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action, adopted in South Africa.

The Cuban president said that 20 years later, the objectives outlined in the Durban documents remain unfulfilled.

It meant that hateful and racist messages proliferate on the networks and other communication platforms.

He noted what he described as a lack of political will by developed Western countries that ‘try with demagogic speeches’ to divert the attention from their historic responsibility in the enthronement and persistence of these scourges. In this regard, the Cuban head of State underscored those States’ debt to the peoples who were subjected to slavery.

Diaz-Canel pointed out that the crisis caused by the Covid-19 pandemic aggravated the conditions of inequality and exclusion for the poor, migrants and Afro-descendants.

The Cuban president will speak on Wednesday at the Meeting of Heads of State and/or Government of the Alliance of Small Island States (AOSIS), which will take place as part of the high-level segment of the 76 session of the UN General Assembly.

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