UN General Assembly
1995

marvellous detergents; but how can one cleanse the world of the horrors of war and destitution with such detergents? Light and shadow, but above all more shadow than light, seems to be the mood of this General Assembly on the eve of the fiftieth anniversary of the United Nations. In preparing itself, Cuba has noted with concern the often graceless and vulgar way in which highly developed countries are trying to take advantage of this opportunity to define new economic, legal and political bases for the world. These bases run counter to the true objectives of peace, development, equality and justice, as well as of the preservation and needed restoration of the cardinal principles of the Charter. In the complex debates of the last few months many tributes have been paid to the argument of limited sovereignty, humanitarian intervention and preventive diplomacy, all set forth in “An Agenda for Peace” in the implementation of which the United Nations is wasting two thirds of its budget. Those discussions have not been free from brushes with fashionable neo-liberal ideas that equate development