Poor nations 'must unite to reform UN'

Poor nations 'must unite to reform UN'

Reuters
Durban, South Africa

Developing countries must band together to force the powerful
West to help tackle their problems from poverty to reform of the
United Nations, South African President Thabo Mbeki said on
Thursday.

Mbeki told foreign ministers from the 115-member Non-Aligned
Movement, including Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirayuda,
that poor countries had shown they could make the West stand and
take note by their united actions on the global trade arena and
it was time to consolidate those gains.

He was referring to the collapse of global trade talks in
Cancun, Mexico, when poor nations refused to agree to compromises
they said hurt their people and interests.

Mbeki said the biggest challenges faced by developing nations
were poverty and underdevelopment, peace, security and terrorism,
and the restructuring of global power centers which he said was
key to growing developing countries.

"The manner in which global power is exercised impacts on the
things that we seek to do," Mbeki told the ministers.

"The transformation of the United Nations has taken far too
long. The other multilateral institutions like the Bretton Woods
institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund) and the
World Trade Organization also need to be transformed to meet the
needs of our people," he said.

"It is fundamentally in our interest that there must be a
restructuring of these institutions."

The Non-Aligned Movement was formed in 1961 as a third way
between the Cold War rivalry of the Western and Communist blocs.
It is staking new diplomatic territory for itself by pressing for
causes from debt relief to fighting HIV/AIDS.

Mbeki and foreign ministers meeting in the South African port
city of Durban reiterated support for the UN as the forum for
agreeing global policy on the U.S.-led "war on terror".

Mbeki said it was not acceptable that a "few countries"
decided the future of the Middle East and other countries without
consulting those affected by the decisions.

"We cannot surrender the fate of the Palestinian people to a
selected few as if the rest of us had nothing to contribute to
the resolution of that problem," Mbeki said.

"The question of Iraq, and the question of Haiti are of the
same kind. The question is how do we bring the weight of the
Movement to weigh on resolving those problems," he said. --
Reuters