Cuba was re-elected today as vice-chairman of the Bureau of the UN Special Committee on Decolonization, which confirms the renewed confidence placed in it, according to the First Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gerardo Peñalver.
In his speech during the meeting for the formation of that body, the also permanent representative of the Caribbean nation to the United Nations ratified his country's commitment to that responsibility.
Like the Cuban ambassadors and representatives who preceded us, we will work with great commitment, with great determination to make every effort to carry out the mission assigned to us by the General Assembly in the area of decolonization," he said.
Peñalver recalled that more than 60 years after the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples, there are still territories subject to this type of domination.
In this regard, he ratified Cuba's claim for the right of the people of Puerto Rico to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence.
It also confirmed Cuba's decision to continue working to advance decolonization and to banish from international relations the scourge of colonialism and the practices of colonialism that still persist.
The Special Committee on Decolonization was created in 1961 by the UN General Assembly to deal with issues related to this process.
It also examines the implementation of the Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples.
The body has 29 members and its Bureau is composed of the Chairman (Saint Lucia), the Vice-Chairmen (Cuba, Sierra Leone and Indonesia) and the Rapporteur (Syria).