DRUGS: Non-Aligned Demand Shared Responsibility

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Yadira Ferrer

BOGOTA, May 15 1998 (IPS) - The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) will finetune its position on drug trafficking, based on the key concept of shared responsibility, next week in Colombia.

In the meeting to run Sunday to Wednesday in the Caribbean port city of Cartagena, NAM ministers will draw up a proposal to address “the need to control the demand for, as well as the production of, drugs,” said a source at the Colombian Foreign Ministry, who preferred to remain anonymous.

In the words of Colombian President Ernesto Samper, shared responsibility means that “if we are all part of the problem, we must all be part of the solution.”

The Ministerial Meeting of the NAM Coordination Bureau will put the finishing touches on the proposal to be submitted by the bloc of 113 nations to the special UN General Assembly on drugs, scheduled for June.

The ministers will highlight the need for enforcement efforts all along the drug trafficking chain, from the provision of precursors and essential chemicals used in producing narcotics to money laundering. They will also stress the urgent need for programmes focusing on alternative development in producer countries.

The document is expected to reiterate NAM’s condemnation of unilateral evaluation mechanisms, such as the annual U.S. certification of countries as allies in the war on drugs.

Luis Valencia, a researcher at the University of Los Andes, said the position that Colombia has expressed at a number of international fora regarding the need for a comprehensive approach to anti-drug efforts greatly influenced the NAM proposal.

In Valencia’s view, NAM’s acceptance of the proposal is one of the achievements Colombia can boast of as chairman of the bloc since 1995. Samper will hand the chairmanship of NAM over to South Africa in September.

“Colombia was able to articulate its national strategic interests and the post-Cold War agenda of the non-aligned movement, in which cooperation for seeking a more just and balanced international system has replaced conflict and confrontation,” Valencia told IPS.

Colombia is advocating a multilateral mechanism to evaluate anti-drug efforts as an alternative to the annual U.S. certification process, which decertified the Samper administration for three consecutive years since 1996, although it waived sanctions this year “for reasons of national interest.”

Washington accuses Samper of receiving around six million dollars from drug cartels during his 1994 election campaign, but Colombia’s police have achieved unprecedented success in drug enforcement efforts during the Samper administration.

Foreign ministers and other high-level officials from 70 countries comprising the Coordination Bureau will meet next week in Cartagena, where they will discuss the preparations for the next NAM summit of heads of state and government, to take place in South Africa. The ministers will also discuss the results of last year’s Islamic Conference in Teheran.

Colombian Foreign Minister Camilo Reyes said the officials would review all the items on the NAM agenda, as the meeting is the last to be held under Colombia’s chairmanship.

The issues on the agenda include the restructuring of the UN Security Council, NAM’s financial situation, peace and security, terrorism, international law, the Middle East peace process, the financial crisis sweeping Asia, reforms for the international financial system, the development agenda, international trade, science and technology, South-South cooperation, information and communication, human rights and poverty.

The ministers will admit Paraguay as one of the 13 nations enjoying observer status in NAM. After being admitted, Paraguay will be able to participate in the plenary sessions of the bloc’s summits and ministerial meetings.

NAM was created in July 1956 by a group of countries that refused to be party to the two Cold War blocs headed by the United States and the former Soviet Union.