POLITICS: Non-Aligned Summit Opens Amidst Suspense Over Castro

By Dalia Acosta Reprint | | Print |

Alejandro Kirk and Dalia Acosta

HAVANA, Sep 11 2006 (IPS) - The week-long 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) opened Monday with the usual suspense over whether or not Cuban President Fidel Castro would be participating, although heightened this time by the fact that he is recovering from major surgery and is the leader of the host country.

The week-long 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) opened Monday with the usual suspense over whether or not Cuban President Fidel Castro would be participating, although heightened this time by the fact that he is recovering from major surgery and is the leader of the host country.

The start of the gathering in Havana coincided with the fifth anniversary of the terrorist attacks that destroyed the World Trade Centre Twin Towers in New York and part of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., triggering a profound shift in international relations that most developing countries see as negative to their interests.

Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Pérez Roque did not help clarify Sunday whether or not Castro would be present at the meeting – a question that for many correspondents, especially those from industrialised countries, would seem to be the most important aspect of the summit.

In a press conference, Pérez Roque said the president was recovering “satisfactorily” from intestinal surgery, will officially head the Cuban delegation, and may be present at the official dinner for visiting dignitaries on Friday.

The foreign minister’s remarks came after a schedule sent to foreign correspondents Sunday confirmed that Castro would host the dinner, in a phrase that was highlighted in yellow, which was removed from a later version of the schedule.

The Caribbean nations of Haiti and St. Kitts and Nevis became full members of the NAM Monday, bringing the movement’s total membership to 118.

The summit has drawn the political attention of a number of countries, which have asked to take part as observers in the movement or have been invited to this week’s meeting, including almost all of the European Union (EU) member countries and Russia, it was noted at the opening ceremony.

Above and beyond the theatrics surrounding the question of Castro’s participation, the NAM summit is facing the ambitious goal of becoming a strong political force of the developing South, through coordinated actions in international bodies, especially the United Nations.

To that end, diplomats from member countries have been negotiating for over a month a nearly 100-page draft final declaration presented by Cuba, which outlines a strategic vision of the aspirations of the NAM in today’s global context.

The document reiterates the movement’s multilateral vision of the world, in rejection of the “hegemonic pretensions” of the United States and other industrialised countries. But it also sets forth proposals for specific actions within the framework of international institutions.

Because the NAM is far from a homogeneous movement, the declaration delicately winds its way through touchy issues ranging from the four-decade U.S. embargo against Cuba to the right of developing nations to develop nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

Issues like terrorism, the International Criminal Court or the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq are touched on with extreme caution, in search of a balance, while traditional NAM positions like the rights of the Palestinian people and the right to development in a more just global economic context are reaffirmed.

The draft declaration roundly rejects new concepts introduced by the United States and European countries, like “humanitarian interventions”, “preemptive wars” or “failed states”, and generally upholds the principles of non-intervention and self-determination.

After a reinvigorated NAM is “relaunched” this week, it will be in a position to become a “decisive force” in the United Nations and other multilateral bodies, said the Cuban foreign minister at the opening of the summit’s press centre on Sunday.

One of the NAM’s missions is to “preserve the United Nations charter, the only protection to which the non-aligned countries can aspire” in the face of threats and attacks, he said.

“If we come together, if we organise, we could be a decisive force in the international bodies,” said Pérez Roque.

As of this week, Cuba will hold the rotating presidency of the NAM for the next three years. It took over the reins of the movement once before, at an earlier summit in Havana, in 1979, in the midst of a very different global political context.

The fact that the movement is holding its summit meeting in Cuba for the second time “is an unequivocal sign of recognition of Cuba’s role in the international arena, and of the rupture of the policy of isolation of the island promoted by the United States,” said the foreign minister.

He also defended the continued validity of the NAM, despite the disappearance of the bipolar world in which the movement emerged in 1961, when the global situation was marked by the Cold War between the U.S.-led western bloc of countries and the Warsaw Pact, which dissolved in 1991 with the break-up of the Soviet Union.

Today’s unipolar world presents “even greater risks and obstacles for countries in the developing world,” as shown by the U.S. policy “of preemptive wars and regime change,” including the use of nuclear weapons, said Pérez Roque.

The minister said that in its final declaration, the NAM will pronounce itself in favour of “total and complete nuclear disarmament.” He also protested the “hypocritical double standards” of those who urge Iran to abandon its plans to produce nuclear energy.

The official said 50 heads of state and government, at least 10 vice presidents or deputy prime ministers, and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan will be taking part in the summit, along with high-level delegations from the rest of the NAM countries.

Some 1,000 foreign journalists are covering the summit from a press centre located far from Havana’s conventions centre, where the delegates are meeting and to which access is strictly limited.