NOT aligned with whom? Developing countries in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) are working to make their Cold War-era group a united front with a sharper focus: countering not two superpowers, but one. Created in 1961, the NAM was meant to help members stand apart from the tense standoff between the Soviet Union and United States. But participants insist the movement is just as important in a new geopolitical context.
"We believe it is indispensable for us to close ranks in defending our rights. The risks, threats and difficulties that we are facing are similar and with a common origin," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said in his opening speech to the NAM summit here on Monday, alluding to the United States. "We must show our strength to the world, our ability to collectively cope with the enormous challenges imposed on us by a world governed by the most powerful," Perez Roque argued.
The six-day gathering brings together leaders from about 50 developing nations, and high-level representatives from dozens more, including some of the most outspoken foes of the United States, such as Iran, North Korea, Venezuela and Syria. Heads of state and government were slated to start their talks on Friday, after four days of preparatory meetings. On Monday, Haiti and St Kitts and Nevis joined the movement, boosting its ranks to 118. In a draft final summit document, NAM members appear determined to prove their movement is not out of date.
Members "stated their firm belief that the absence of two conflicting blocs in no way reduces the need to strengthen the NAM as a mechanism for the political co-ordination of underdeveloped countries," the draft says. "Now more than ever it is essential that our nations remain united and steadfast and are increasingly active in order to successfully confront unilateralism and any actions by any power aimed at imposing hegemonic domination," the draft adds. Additional goals include promoting sustainable development, multilateralism, and democratisation of the United Nations, the draft says.
The draft also calls for promoting "all human rights and fundamental freedoms for all." Members do not, however, precisely define their concept of human rights. Their political systems run the gamut from one party-communist rule as in Cuba, to Arab royal rule, to theocracy, to western-style democracies. For Cuba's top diplomat Perez Roque, "the diversity that characterises our movement, far from becoming an obstacle preventing us from reaching harmonisation, must be the driving force for us to act united in light of the principles and purposes that we have jointly defined."
Among the prominent leaders slated to attend is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who has defied UN demands that he halt uranium enrichment, the process used to make nuclear reactor fuel but also atomic bomb material. The summit will also give India and Pakistan an opportunity to jumpstart peace talks aimed at resolving their decades-old dispute over Kashmir. "It's the perfect occasion for the Cuban government to ... allow free and public expression and ... respect human rights," the Progressive Arch dissident group said.
The summit will also form the backdrop for rival lobbying from Venezuela and Guatemala for one of the 10 temporary seats on the 15-member UN Security Council, ahead of elections at UN headquarters in coming weeks. Venezuela's staunchly anti-US President Hugo Chavez recently conducted a 10-day tour of Asia and Africa that earned the oil-rich South American country support for its UN bid as well as trade deals.
By Michael Langan in Havana
© Oman Daily Observer 2006
