CubaMinrex. Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Cuba

SPEECH BY FELIPE PÉREZ ROQUE, MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS OF THE REPUBLIC OF CUBA, AT THE OPENING SESSION OF THE XV MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF THE NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT, TEHRAN, ISLAMIC REPUBLIC OF IRAN, JULY 29, 2008

Distinguished representatives of the Member and Observer States of the Non-Aligned Movement,

Distinguished guests,

On behalf of the Movement's presidency, I thank the Islamic Republic of Iran for providing the venue for this meeting and for the hospitality with which it has received the participants.

This gathering opens following fruitful days of negotiation at the Coordination Bureau in preparing the substantive documents we shall be considering at this Ministerial Conference. Both in New York and at the meeting of senior officials here in Tehran, the work has been marked by a spirit of unity and solidarity among our member states, accompanied by commitment to the purposes and principles of the Movement. These were significantly developed and updated by the Declaration of Purposes and Principles of the Non-Aligned Movement, under the current international situation adopted during the celebration of the NAM Summit on September, 2006.

In Havana, our leaders also agreed on a framework of reference for the Movement's work. By virtue of the firm determination, active participation and support of everyone, we have made progress in strengthening and revitalizing the NAM.

We are now seeing consolidation of our role in international relations. We participate actively in the main debates and exercise influence on decision-making in the various multilateral forums. We are in a better position to defend the interests of the peoples of the South.

Our tasks at this 15th Ministerial Conference include assessing the work done. We should identify the main challenges now facing us, to ensure that our interests, which are those of the vast majority of the world's peoples, are respected.

The Cuban presidency has distributed for your consideration an exhaustive report on the Movement's affairs in the interval since the 14th Summit..

We are also distributing to you Cuba’s multimedia presentation which pulls together the most important moments during the Fourteenth NAM Summit held in Havana, as well as the documents adopted on that occasion.

We are confident that this effort will contribute in preserving the historical record of our Movement and maintain the memory alive of the important decisions that were adopted by our Heads of State and Government in Havana.

The report of the Presidency provides detailed information on action taken in the various multilateral venues in which the Movement now involves itself

The results achieved include the following:

• Consolidation and increasing effectiveness of coordination and unification of the positions of the non-aligned nations in key processes within the UN framework. The decisions of the Coordination Bureau in New York are increasingly wide-ranging and significant.

• Activation and regular operation of the Movement's working groups has enabled submission of specific proposals and the design of strategies for dealing with the main consultation and negotiating processes that take place at the UN.

• Since the 14th Summit, 21 Coordination Bureau declarations on various issues of special importance to the NAM member states have been negotiated and issued.

• The NAM Caucus in the Security Council is meeting every month under the rotating auspices of each of its members, and reports back to the Coordination Bureau on a regular basis.

• The non-aligned caucus within the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace (CCP) has been created and is functioning effectively.

• Links and coordination of the Movement's positions have been enhanced with other groupings representing the South, notably the Group of 77 and China. The identification of common ground in terms of negotiation and scope for intervention by the Joint Coordinating Committee (JCC) between the two groups has enabled defence of the South's positions in key processes within the UN framework, especially those concerned with reforming the Organization's activities in the field of development.

• The Movement's presidency has participated in important international forums. Examples include the African Union Summit, the Arab League Summit and the Islamic Conference. The Movement has also made its voice heard with a message sent to the G8 Summit.

• The Movement's activities in other multilateral arenas have been consolidated. Its work in Geneva has been extended in scope and in detail, while its presence is more strongly felt also in Vienna and the Hague. And after over twenty years of inactivity, it has been reinstated within UNESCO. The results have included giving the non-aligned countries a higher profile in debates that are essential to our peoples, both now and in the future.

• Of particular note is the Movement's active role in the process of institutionalizing the Human Rights Council. The non-aligned nations were able to join forces, enabling us to contribute significantly to ensuring that that the Council's agenda and working methods basically took account of the just claims of the countries of the South. We secured the United Nations General Assembly’s adoption of the institution-building package agreed by the Council, simultaneously successfully confront the attempts of those seeking to prevent validation of the code of conduct for holders of mandates under this agency's special procedures. The successful convening of an special session of the Council to address the major challenge posed by the world food crisis, as regards the right to food, was a signal event and demonstrated our capacity for mobilization in Geneva, now felt in the spheres of Disarmament, the ILO and the WHO.

• Active coordination of positions was maintained within the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and, among other issues, the treatment of the Iran nuclear question was closely followed. The non-aligned nations have acted decisively in the IAEA framework in defence of its Statute, erecting a barrier against attempts to legitimize the interests of the countries that seek, through political manipulation, to restrict the inalienable right of the nations of the South to peaceful use of nuclear energy.

• The NAM countries continue actively to defend our positions also at the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW). Our intervention was decisive to the success of the Second Conference of the States Parties to Review the Operation of the Chemical Weapons Convention.

• At the International Labour Organization (ILO), the process continued of harmonizing positions between the NAM countries; these focussed the discussions on the reforms urgently needed in the workings of various of the ILO's branches.

• At UNESCO, caucus of NAM countries which are members of the Executive Board has been formed. Specific initiatives on matters of great importance for our countries have been submitted or planned, with special emphasis on human rights and cultural diversity, protection of indigenous languages, issues relating to information and South-South cooperation in the field of education.

• In 2007 and 2008, we have held various successful, high-level meetings included in the NAM Plan of Action for 2006-09 (approved at the 14th Summit). The list includes:

1. The meetings of NAM Ministers of Labour held in June 2007 and June 2008 in Geneva, within the frameworks of the 96th and 97th International Labour Conference (ILC) respectively. At the first of these, two declarations were adopted: on membership of the Trade Union Freedom Committee and on the working methods of the Committee on the Application of Standards.

2. The NAM ministerial meeting on human rights and cultural diversity held here in Tehran in September 2007, at which the Movement's declaration and action programme on these important matters was adopted.

3. The NAM's 2nd Business Forum, which took place in Havana on 2 and 3 November, 2007.

4. The meeting of the Movement's health ministers held on June 21, 2008 in Geneva, within the framework of the 61st World Health Assembly. This was an extremely valuable first step in the consolidation of the Movement's activities at the WHO and in elevating the Third World's priorities in the international agenda on health. The ministers adopted two declarations by consensus, "Migration and Training of Qualified Health Personnel" and "Diseases Disproportionately Affecting Developing Countries". The Movement subsequently adopted an important declaration, proposed by Indonesia, calling for the benefits of research into avian influenza, made possible by the supply of our strains of the disease, to be shared with our countries

5. The seventh meeting of NAM ministers of information (COMINAC VII) held on Margarita Island, Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela, on July 2-4, 2008. The meeting adopted two important documents: the Isla Margarita Declaration and Programme of Action, both concerned with promoting effective responses by the South to the present trends in information and communications.

Your Excellencies:

The report which has been circulated includes details of the Movement's activities in the various multilateral forums. It provides solid evidence of the progress made in the interval since the 14th Summit in pursuit of the goals set by our heads of state or government.

We shall continue to work on revitalizing and strengthening the Movement. Our immediate priorities include:

• Further enhancing our role within UNESCO, to increase its scope and achieve concrete results from the activation of our coordination mechanisms within the Organization.

• Maintaining unity of action with the Group of 77 and China, via the Joint Coordination Committee. Experience is demonstrating that such cooperation in other multilateral forums, in addition to New York, may be an effective way forward. This does not imply diluting the individuality of the various groupings, but rather complementing their respective strengths in ways that benefit the interests and priorities shared between the countries of the South.

• Preserving the Movement's proactive role in the work of the Human Rights Council. Being ready to neutralize attempts, already apparent, to impose on the UN General Assembly the practices of political manipulation that ended by plunging the earlier Human Rights Commission into disrepute. Enhancing our capacity for joint response to the campaigns of vilification and fabricated condemnation against NAM member states.

• Consolidating defence of the Movement's positions in the UN Security Council. Increasingly often, attempts are made to use this body as a weapon to intimidate and sanction countries of the South. There is an imperative need to bolster the role of the NAM Caucus in the Council, to ensure that its activities promote the interests of the non-aligned nations and to achieve a genuine collective system of international peace and security. The Security Council currently includes seven NAM representatives, counting member and observer states. Whenever we act as one, it will be as if we had the right of veto.

• Monitoring implementation of the decisions taken at the various NAM ministerial meetings held during this period and ensuring compliance with the scope and timing envisaged in these. We must make sure that the declarations and plans of action agreed at these gatherings do not become dead letters.

• Making a success of the meetings included in the NAM Plan of Action for the rest of 2008 and the first half of 2009, namely: the 2nd Ministerial Meeting on the Advancement of Women, to be held in Guatemala on 7-10 December, 2008; the Coordination Bureau Ministerial Meeting in preparation for the XV NAM summit, which will take place in Havana in April 2009; the meetings of our health and labour ministers during, respectively, the 62nd World Health Assembly in May 2009 and the 98th International Labour Conference (ILC) in the following June; and the NAM Ministerial Meeting on Interfaith Dialogue and Cooperation for Peace to be held in the Philippines on May 26-28, 2009.

• Continuing to expand our diversity, as strength. Our movement should be increasingly more inclusive and representative. Our diversity of ideologies, religions, cultures, stages of development, historical experience and national interests should endow us with creativity, solidarity and cohesion in defending our common interests. We must not allow the conflicts that arise from time to time between particular member states to undermine the Movement's traditional positions or obstruct the development of consensus-based positions. Confrontation will cost us our main strength, making us easy prey to the powerful and subject to their whim.

Distinguished delegates:

The international situation is posing increasingly daunting challenges for the future of the non-aligned countries.

When we arrive at the end of the bipolar world, as the Cold War came to a close, many thought that the NAM's days were numbered.

According to some, our movement had no place in the world order then being planned, marked by "la pensée unique". These years have shown the reverse to be true.

Attempts have been made to impose a de facto world dictatorship, based on war and economic power. We live in a world that is increasingly unequal, where every year hundreds of millions of people are thrown out of work, are condemned to poverty, hunger and disease.

In this world with a globalized economy, poverty is the result but of centuries of colonialism and neo colonialism and an unjust, marginalizing international order.

The deployment of concepts such as limited sovereignty, preventive war and change of regime, under the pretext of defending freedom and combating terrorism, is in reality expression of the desire to dominate, to circumscribe and cripple the independence of our nations.

The situation has become more complex in recent months. The serious threats of climate change are compounded by rising oil and food prices. To most of the non aligned countries, the situation is almost unsustainable. Our countries pay and will pay in the future the cost of irresponsibility, squandering, and financial speculation that originates in the self-centred and arrogant North, which remains unaltered, as it believes to be immune from danger.

The NAM countries have maintained the founding Bandung principles, still entirely valid, and have strengthened them with the 'Declaration on the Purposes and Principles and the Role of the Non-Aligned Movement in the Present International Juncture' adopted at the 14th Summit in Havana. They shall stand as our banners.

We will battle for democratization of international relations and for the enjoyment of the right of our peoples to peace and development. We will get nothing for free. We will have what we are capable of conquering united.

The non-aligned countries can rely on Cuba's firm commitment to the renewal of the NAM's influence and role - now as the Movement's president, later as a member state committed to the struggle we are called upon to wage, united, in the future.

Thank you very much

 

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