By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Sep 11 2006 (IPS)

Andean governments attending the fourteenth summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which opened Monday in Havana, agree that the 116-member bloc needs to be modernised, but their approaches to the task range from indifference to enthusiasm, depending on their national political processes.

Presidents Evo Morales of Bolivia, Alfredo Palacio of Ecuador, and Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, along with Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos and Peru’s Foreign Minister José Antonio García Belaúnde, are all expected at the Havana meeting, which wraps up Saturday, Sep. 16.

Bolivia and Venezuela “are pushing to transform the NAM into a different kind of alliance – one unified against the domination of the United States and its western allies,” María Teresa Romero, a professor of graduate studies in international relations at the Central University in Caracas, told IPS.

Peru supports modernisation efforts that would enable the NAM to “respond to today’s global challenges” and foster an “excellent forum for building solidarity among developing countries,” García Belaúnde told IPS.

“We would like to see its agenda better reflect Latin America’s complex realities and issues, such as addressing the reduction of poverty and inequalities, and promoting universal values such as democracy and human rights,” he added.

The summit’s return to Latin America following Malaysia’s three-year presidential term “should give the region a chance to make its mark on the NAM’s overall vision. It could bring a more balanced perspective to dialogue, drawing on the democratic experience it has consolidated over the past decade,” explained García Belaúnde.

Preparations for the fourteenth summit coincided with a major shake up in Venezuela’s Foreign Ministry. Four of the five vice ministers were switched out, and the former minister, Alí Rodríguez, who was named ambassador to Cuba, was replaced by former speaker of Congress Nicolás Maduro.

Colombia “will continue to participate as a member country and as a former president (it hosted the eleventh summit in 1995, in the city of Cartagena) in all debates,” said ex-foreign minister and the country’s current ambassador to Washington, Carolina Barco.

The group “made sense in the Cold War era, and it can continue to be relevant if it reformulates itself as a movement that avoids U.S. hegemony while striving for development and the formulation of a new democratic model,” Jaime Zuluaga of the National Assembly for Peace in Colombia, a non-governmental organisation, told IPS.

“But we Colombians are in no position to play a significant role in such a framework, given that President Álvaro Uribe is playing along with U.S. policies on terrorism,” said Zuluaga.

Bolivia played up the visit that President Morales, considered a close ally of Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s Chávez, made a few days earlier to the Cuban leader, despite the major pro-autonomy protests he is facing in some provinces.

Bolivia will also attend the meeting of the 30-nation Landlocked Developing Countries (LLDC) organisation, and there reprise its campaign to regain a coastline, “which we, of course, will support,” said Cuba’s ambassador to Bolivia, Luis Felipe Vásquez. Bolivia lost its Pacific shoreline to Chile in the 1879-1884 War of the Pacific.

Morales will also discuss “the experience of social movements” in his country, said Bolivian Foreign Minister David Choquehuanca.

Ecuador, heading into the final stretch before its Oct. 15 presidential elections, will be represented by President Palacio. In addition to lending his general support for a revival of the NAM, the president has a more specific objective: winning support for his bid to become secretary general for the World Health Organisation once he hands power to his successor.

Venezuela also comes with electoral motives: it is seeking one of the non-permanent seats allotted to Latin America and the Caribbean in the United Nations Security Council. The country is up against fellow NAM member Guatemala, which is backed by the United States.

Over the past two months, Chávez has embarked on an intense campaign to drum up support, travelling to Europe, Asia and Africa. He was expected to arrive in Havana Monday, partly to strengthen his candidacy, as his country immerses itself in campaigns leading up to the Dec. 3 presidential elections, in which Chávez is slated to win another six-year term.

Peru, whose social democratic President Alan García took office Jul. 28, “will support proposals to modify the U.N. structure, particularly the Security Council,” in which Lima holds another of the non-permanent seats, said Alejandro Morales Bolognesi, a professor at the International Studies Institute at Peru’s Pontificia Catholic University.

Morales Bolognesi told IPS he doubts there will be any confrontation over Latin American leadership at the Havana summit. “More likely there will be controversy surrounding the issue of human rights, because the summit is being held in Cuba,” he added.

Peru must “take a clear and strong stand against all forms of interference and authoritarianism,” he said.

Romero, in contrast, believes that leaders such as the Cubans and Chávez “will attempt to bring the Movement back to the past, to a time of radical opposition between blocs, positioning developing countries in direct opposition to an extremely polarised Washington and turning the organisation into an anti-U.S. group.”

Furthermore, “the meeting’s timing, coinciding as it does with Fidel Castro’s illness and his temporary delegation of powers, must be taken into account. Venezuela, Bolivia and other countries will make a point of supporting acting leader Raúl Castro and his team as they steer the island and standing behind the governing political system in Havana,” according to Romero.

In Bogotá, Margarita Flórez, a researcher with the globalisation programme at the Latin American Institute for Alternative Legal Services, painted a different picture to IPS, saying that “although Chávez may be able to give it a shot in the arm, the fact remains that the NAM is clearly on the decline.” Lastly, Alberto Garrido, a professor at the Los Andes University in Venezuela, told IPS of the significance of widely broadcast footage of Chávez’s pre-NAM summit visits to a recuperating Castro, “which the leader of the Cuban revolution is using to demonstrate his intention that the socialist project live on through a strategic and gradual fusion with Venezuela.”

“To some extent, Castro is naming Chávez as the heir to carry on the revolution in Latin America,” said Carlos Romero, director of graduate studies in the International Studies programme at the Central University of Venezuela.

* With additional reporting from Helda Martínez (Colombia) and Ángel Páez (Peru).

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