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POLITICS: Mahathir’s Anti-war Calls Echo at Non-Aligned Summit

Kalinga Seneviratne

KUALA LUMPUR, Feb 24 2003 (IPS) - Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad’s impassioned anti-war calls at a time when ‘’the world lives in fear” set the stage for leaders at the Non-Aligned Summit here to speak out against war in Iraq, as well as unilateralism in international affairs.

Fighting war, he said, is the first step to tackling the larger problem of economic hegemony of the developing world, which make up the 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement that is meeting here in Malaysian capital. NAM members make up two-thirds of the United Nations.

– War must be outlawed. That will have to be our struggle now," Mahathir told the NAM summit that opened Monday. ôWe must struggle for justice and freedom from oppression, from economic hegemony. But we must remove the threat of war first.”

As war drums beat in the Middle East, Mahathir said the uncertainties in today’s world are due not to a ‘clash of civilisations’ between the West and Islam, but to ‘’a revival of old European trait of wanting to dominate the world” – one that developing countries should stand up against.

ôThe expression of this trait invariably involves injustices and oppression of people of other ethnic origins and colours," Mahathir added. ôIt is no longer just a war against terrorism. It is in fact a war to dominate the world,” he said in a clear reference to the United States and its allies.

‘’At the moment the most important threat that we (NAM) face is the tendency of the powerful to wage war when faced with opposition to the spread of their dominance. We cannot fight a war with them,” he said.

A war in the Middle East would not only increase instability in the world but add to the pain of growing impoverishment, South African President Thabo Mbeki said before handing over the NAM chairmanship to Mahathir.

ôWe must together make the statement that we do not want war,” Mbeki said. ‘’But we must also make the statement that neither do we want weapons of mass destruction,” he added, referring to Iraq.

There is broad agreement in NAM against an attack on Iraq, but many countries have also stressed that to avoid it, Baghdad, whose representatives are here at the NAM summit, must show genuine commitment to disarming by cooperating with U.N. weapons inspectors.

Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo urged Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to ‘’urgently negotiate a win-win settlement that will spare the heroic Iraqi people the agonies of a devastating war".

A statement on Iraq that balances these concerns is expected to be adopted Tuesday.

In a statement read at the summit, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said that U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq are ôbeginning to yield results" and should be allowed to continue ôuntil all weapons of mass destruction are destroyed or accounted for".

A key theme among NAM leaders was the concern that the multilateral system of international relations and conflict resolution is under threat due to the way the United States and its allies are handling the Iraqi crisis . Though most leaders refrained from naming the United States or Britain, it was clear whom they were referring to.

‘’The enforcement of this (war) must be by multilateral forces under the control of the United Nations,” Mahathir pointed out. ‘’No single nation should be allowed to police the world, least of all to decide what action to take, when.”

‘’We must work for a new world order, where democracy is not confined to the internal governance of states only but to the governance of the world,” he said.

Mozambique President Joaquim Alberto agreed, saying NAM ômust voice its strong commitment to multilateralism as a valuable option for the conduct of international relations, particularly now that dangerous threats of resort to unilateral actions are on the rise".

ôThere is no alternative to dialogue, but there is an alternative to war," added President Levy Mwanawasa of Zambia. ôThe current moves to pressure Iraq into submission while the inspection process is still continuing does not only potent disaster for the Middle East region, but also to the rest of the world.”

Iran’s President Mohamad Khatami said that since the Soviet Union’s demise, the ôother superpower" has embarked to satisfy its ôinstinct for sense of superiority" that is seriously threatening ôthe very security of many countries in the world".

He described as ôfanatical fundamentalism" the sole superpower’s project to make its own moral and cultural values as eternal and ever-lasting truths, and ôabrogate to itself the right to remove, through resort to force and violence, what it considers as standing in its way".

ôThe threat of unilateral action by a powerful country, let alone just to act on the basis of or simply to demonstrate its might of superiority, is clearly mistaken," said Indonesia’s President Megawati Sukarnoputri. ôNo matter how powerful the country is that does not give it the right to act unilaterally against another".

But Mahathir observed that fortunately, many people in the rich countries are also sick of war and have come out in the millions to protest the ôwarlike policies of their leaders", as the anti-war rallies earlier this month showed.

He called upon NAM countries to join their struggle ôwith all the moral force that we can command".

ôIn the struggle to outlaw war and control arms, nuclear as well as conventional, NAM will find growing support from among many people in the North," Mahathir said.

He lashed out at the imposition of what he called distorted concepts of democracy and the double standards western nations use. ôApplying sanctions, starving people, denying access to medicine in order to force the acceptance of democracy hardly seem to be democratic" he said.

But he said that developing countries have also been responsible for the mess they are in.

ôOur people are getting restless," warned Mahathir. ôThey want us to do something. If we don’t they will, and they will go against usàunable to mount a conventional war they will resort to guerrilla war, terrorism against us".