Distinguished Delegates: On behalf of our people and our government, I most cordially welcome you to Havana and I hope that you will have a fruitful sojourn in our country. We are receiving you here almost three years after the historic XIV Summit of Non-Aligned Countries was held at this very same location in September of 2006.

The “Declaration on the purposes and principles and the role of the Non-Aligned Movement in the current international situation”, approved by our leaders on September 16, 2006, which established the criteria to confront the challenges and threats affecting humankind and in particular the non-aligned countries, marked a milestone in the projection of the Movement. Along with the founding principles of Bandung, the document adopted in Havana has become a permanent guiding light for the non-aligned countries and confirmation of the validity of the purposes that our political coordination promotes.

We can affirm that our role in international relations is strengthened. We are actively participating in the key debates and decision-making processes at various multilateral forums. We find ourselves in better shape to defend the interests of the South countries. Among the main results of these last three years, the following bear mention:

1. The coordination and harmonizing of positions of the non-aligned countries in relation to the key subjects on the United Nations agenda have been strengthened. The decisions of the Coordinating Bureau and its Working Groups in New York have an ever greater scope and impact.

2. From the XIV Summit up to the present time, 26 Declarations by the Coordinating Bureau on subjects of particular interest for the non-aligned countries have been negotiated and adopted.

3. Ties and coordination of Movement positions with other South groups, especially the G77 and China have been strengthened. Identification of common spaces in negotiation and action has allowed the Joint Coordination Committee, between both groups, to defend the positions of developing countries in areas such as the consistency of the United Nations system and reform. The experience of the last three years indicates the need to not limit the scope of the Joint Coordination Committee to New York. It would be useful to extend it to other multilateral venues, as much as possible, in order to strengthen the unity and capacity for action of the developing countries.

4. The Movement’s action in other multilateral venues has been strengthened. Effective functioning of the Movement in UNESCO has been re-established following more than two decades of inactivity.

5. The area of its activities in Geneva has been broadened and intensified. Today the Movement is active in the work of the Human Rights Council, the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization and the various forums on disarmament. Its actions in Vienna and The Hague have been strengthened in the context of the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, respectively. The non-aligned countries’ presence and influence has multiplied in the essential debates for the present and the future of our peoples.

6. In 2007, 2008 and 2009, we have successfully held most of the senior level meetings included in the NAM Action Plan approved at the XIV Summit. These have demonstrated their importance as indispensable gatherings for intensifying debate, and enhancing the evaluation and guidelines of the Movement on subjects specific to its area of responsibility. Furthermore, they are an efficacious channel to promote South-South cooperation and solidarity.

7. The XV NAM Ministerial Conference held in the Islamic Republic of Iran in July of 2008 made it possible to evaluate what had been achieved by our Movement up to that date, as well as to enrich and up-date the positions agreed on at the XIV Havana Summit.

8. During this period, the NAM CAUCUS has maintained an active profile in the Security Council and has increased its level of coordination with the Coordination Bureau Chair and with the other non-aligned countries. The NAM CAUCUS has been created and functions efficiently in the Commission for the Consolidation of Peace

Distinguished Delegates:

The chief purpose of this Ministerial Meeting of the Coordinating Bureau, in accordance with the NAM Methodology, is to prepare the XV Summit Conference that will be held in Egypt next July 11 to 16. The opportunity is favourable to systemize the work of the Movement and evaluate the last three years of it, objectively and from an actions point of view. Even more importantly, we are called upon to design the guidelines that will allow us to continue strengthening our unity and increasing the impact of our actions, with the leadership of Egypt, a country with an acknowledged outstanding history of commitment to our Movement.

We are meeting at a particularly complex international conjuncture, characterized by a global economic crisis whose repercussions reach all the Movement’s areas of interest and which influence the determination of our priorities for the immediate future to an important degree. One of the chief responsibilities of this Meeting will be to arrive at agreements that will serve as support for the actions of our leaders in the search for collective, fair and sustainable solutions to the economic and social crisis affecting the world.

This crisis, without parallel in almost one hundred years, is the direct result of the unfair prevailing international economic order of the international financial system imposed on our peoples and of the uncontrolled activity of great capital from the industrialized power centres. It has been heightened by a food crisis that comes along with the volatile prices of energy and with the environmental crisis and climate change which today threaten humanity.

We, the developing countries, will inevitably be the ones to bear the heaviest burden in this crisis. Our economies are already suffering the effects and our peoples see the solution for the serious problems affecting them grow ever more distant.

Distinguished Delegates:

The Senior Level Representatives of the non-aligned countries bear the responsibility for carrying forward the negotiation of the documents that will be submitted for the approval of the ministers.

It will be their task to conclude negotiations for the Final Document, whose analysis since last March in the Coordinating Bureau in New York enabled significant advances in the greater part of the text. This document has been negotiated by the delegations and is practically ready to be adopted. I urge you all to concentrate your efforts on the paragraphs that are still pending.

Time is too short to enumerate each one of the important matters that you must tackle in the next two days. Therefore I shall mention only a few of them:

- The Movement must play a main role in international relations and in the struggle to establish a just and equitable world economic order in which special and differentiated treatment for developing countries prevails.

- The current international financial system is unjust and it demonstrated its incapacity to foresee and avoid the current crisis. We need a new international financial architecture to reach the objective of eradicating poverty and of attaining the right to development for our peoples.

- The non-aligned countries must shoulder the task of occupying the vanguard in the defence of the principles of sovereignty and sovereign equality of states, of territorial integrity and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states and of the free self-determination of peoples, ensuring the inalienable right of each country to decide its own political, social, economic and cultural system, without external interference.

- The use or the threat of the use of force in international relations, acts of aggression or destabilization of legitimate governments are incompatible with International Law. It behoves us to promote relations of solidarity and friendship among nations and to ensure that international controversies be solved by peaceful means.

- The United Nations must be reformed and changed into a true and effective instrument of cooperation and peace that can fulfill the purposes and principles enshrined in its founding Charter. Its authority and capacity to adopt decisions in economic matters, including finances and international trade, must be strengthened. The UN with its practically universal composition is the central multilateral forum for analyzing the pressing global problems humanity faces.

- The Security Council must be made more democratic and be submitted to an intense reform, broadening its membership, guaranteeing adequate representation for the South countries. Transparency of its deliberations must be guaranteed along with the eradication of the unjust veto privilege.

- The total elimination of nuclear weapons must continue to be a priority for our Movement. Negotiation of a multilateral legally binding instrument must begin in order to reach that objective. Multilateral diplomacy must be preserved as the paramount channel in the area of disarmament and non-proliferation. The problems associated with proliferation must be resolved by political means, and initiatives to that end must be adopted with adherence to International Law.

- The just causes of Palestine and other Arab peoples being submitted to Israeli occupation and aggression, the strong condemnation of the brutal military actions of the occupying power against the Palestinian population, particularly in the Gaza Strip, the rejection of collective punishment and other serious violations perpetrated by Israel against human rights and International Humanitarian Law, all demand our practical action and our firmest solidarity.

- Regional conflicts must continue to be the object of Movement attention. Several of them directly involve some of its members. The causes are different but, fundamentally, they are the result of colonialism and centuries of pillage of our wealth for the benefit of the former colonial metropolises and the imperialist powers. Neither sanctions nor weapons but solidarity and cooperation for development will be the channels that will overcome its structural causes. The peoples who are affected or directly concerned have the right to resolve these problems by peaceful means and without foreign interference.

- The war on terrorism in all its forms and manifestations will continue being a Movement priority. The double standards and political manipulation in the treatment of this subject at an international level must cease. The United Nations must play a key role in the harmonizing and coordination of actions to fight against this scourge.

Distinguished Delegates:

I thank you all for contributing your proposals and initiatives towards the strengthening of our Movement and for the building of a better future for our peoples.

The objectives we are setting for ourselves are not easy ones. Once upon a time the demise of colonialism and the independence of our peoples, or the disappearance of apartheid, seemed but a mirage. In the attainment of these dreams, our Movement played an important part; it is the same role we take on today.

In order to successfully face up to the enormous challenges we have before us, the united action of our 118 nations will continue to be essential. The Non-Aligned Movement will always be able to count on Cuba’s contribution in the struggle for attaining its noble objectives.

Thank you very much.