NON-ALIGNED: Cuba in Favour of ‘Modernisation with Principles’

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 18 1995 (IPS) - The Cuban government is in favour of a revitalisation of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), as long as an adaptation to today’s post-Cold War world does not mean compromising the principles that gave rise to the organisation 34 years ago.

The movement will hold its 11th summit on Thursday and Friday in Cartagena, Colombia, while more than 70 ministers and other senior officials from the movement’s 113 member nations began to meet on Monday.

A founder of the NAM in 1961 and one of its most outspoken members, Cuba considers the movement the most important remaining forum for the countries of the South to put forth their positions in today’s new world order.

“If the movement played an important role when the world was bipolar, in a unipolar world it is called to much more significant actions,” said Cuban Foreign Minister Roberto Robaina.

The non-aligned movement maintains its relevance, “above all in a world where the powerful manipulate U.N. decisions” regarding problems that are “vital” to the international community, he added.

According to government sources, during the summit Cuba will urge a democratisation of the United Nations, a revitalisation of the NAM, and the urgent need for Southern nations to take a unified stance in order to confront the North’s hegemony.

For security purposes, Cuban authorities have not confirmed President Fidel Castro’s presence at the summit or in the 50th anniversary of the United Nations.

Nevertheless, a Foreign Ministry spokesman said it is probable that the island will be represented “by the highest level” authorities during the summit, particularly given the fact that the U.S. Congress is debating a bill designed to stiffen the 35- year-old embargo against Cuba.

The decision to include that issue on the summit agenda was interpreted in official circles here as a sign that Washington’s policy of isolating the Cuban government has failed.

The European Union, the Rio Group and a number of governments from other regions have expressed their opposition to the Helms- Burton bill, an effort to universalise the blockade, that has been passed by the House of Representatives and is currently being studied by the Senate.

The economic, financial and commercial embargo against Cuba has been included on the agendas of nine of the last 10 NAM summits, but today’s situation could be more favourable to a common stance being taken in favour of Cuba.

Cuba is the only Latin American founder of the NAM. Along with Brazil, Bolivia and Ecuador, it has been the region’s most permanent representative in the organisation.

When Havana assumed the presidency of the movement in 1979, Latin America was poorly represented, and Cuba, Nicaragua, Grenada, Guyana and Jamaica made up the region’s “radical” faction.

At that time, joining the NAM was sort of an anti-imperialist statement, because of the movement’s frequent stances against U.S. foreign policy.

With the collapse of the socialist bloc, Cuba opposed the movement’s attempts at “de-ideologisation,” arguing that the process denies the philosophical basis that gave rise to the movement in the 1960s.

The official weekly ‘Juventud Rebelde’ said last week that the “geopolitical change” that followed the disappearance of the socialist bloc did not bring the “much trumpeted progress” but that hunger, inequality, poor health and illiteracy were accentuated.

“That bit about different eras is relative,” wrote columnist Esteban Ramirez, pointing out that NATO still exists and continues to intervene in conflicts that, in his opinion, “it should stay out of.”

According to Ramirez, the NAM should play a more active role in a process of democratisation of the United Nations that implies “a suspension of the control that the United States exercises over the Security Council.”

Nevertheless, according to Robaina the movement may still be unprepared to take on new responsibilities, in spite of the efforts undertaken by Indonesia to strengthen it.

“I believe rich nations reach agreements much more quickly than poor ones,” said Robaina, who said “the voices of poor countries should have the same strength as those of rich ones” in the United Nations.

NON-ALIGNED: Cuba in Favour of ‘Modernisation with Principles’

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Oct 18 1995 (IPS) - The Cuban government is in favour of a revitalisation of the Non Aligned Movement (NAM), as long as an adaptation to today’s post-Cold War world does not mean compromising the principles that gave rise to the organisation 34 years ago.
(more…)