Mr. Chairman:

We fully support your initiative to convene this important debate. We hope that it will prove useful to the efforts of our Movement.

Cuba fully supports the draft Declaration that you have presented to us.

I would like to draw the attention of our colleagues to three issues:

First: It is essential, as already expressed by our delegation at the Ministerial Meeting of the G-77, that the Non-Aligned countries make demands and work both actively and jointly so that the High-Level Segment in September will focus on the discussion of the main issue for which it has been convened: the review of the compliance with the Millennium Goals and the commitments entered into at the international conferences.

Failure to do so would cause the debate to be held hostage and key issues for the lives of our peoples to go unexamined.

Second: Some of the proposed reforms to the United Nations that have been put forth, far from contributing to the democratization and the real transformation that the UN requires, actually encourage further selectivity, more exclusion and the prevalence of hegemonic viewpoints and the interests of only a handful of developed countries.

Such proposals do not promote the enhancement of multilateralism; quite the contrary, they would leave the door open to the unilateral and hegemonic approach imposed by the US Government in international relations, particularly over the last few years.

An attempt is being made to relativize, call into question and even re-interpret the principles of International Law, particularly the principle of the sovereign equality of States and the purposes and principles of the Charter.

The Cuban delegation, Mr. Chairman:

- opposes the attempt to reword Article 51 of the Charter, since it would enshrine the legitimization of the doctrine of "pre-emptive" war.

- opposes the proposal made on the "responsibility to protect." It is an attempt to violate International Law, without any basis on the Charter, aimed at enshrining the alleged "right" by some powerful countries to launch wars of conquest against our nations.

- opposes the proposal to establish the so-called Human Rights Council, which would serve the interests of those who are, indeed, responsible for the disrepute and the manipulation undergone by the Commission on Human Rights.

We must uphold a real international system of promotion and protection of all human rights for all. But this Council is not conducive to that objective; quite the contrary. I wish to recall that my country circulated a proposal on this issue in New York in order to promote a real strengthening of the Commission on Human Rights.

Third: For Cuba, the UN reform cannot just narrow down to the expansion of the Security Council. It would entail:

- returning the role that the Charter provides to the General Assembly;

- an adequate expansion to the number of permanent and non-permanent members of the Security Council to encourage the representation of Third World countries, to which we are entitled because of our numbers, our history and our bearing on the United Nations of today;

- a profound reform to the working methods of the Security Council, including greater transparency in the functioning of that body;

- an important rectification in the sense that the Council should exclusively abide by the powers granted to it under the Charter and cease to infringe upon areas and domains of other bodies.

Cuba believes that the draft Declaration that has been put forth contains a good basis for the position of the Movement on this complex issue.

Finally, I would like to announce that at our next Ministerial Meeting, in New York, we will present further information on the preparations for the XIV Summit of Heads of State and Government of the NAM to be held in Havana in 2006.