NAM ministers meet to discuss crucial issues

By Oei Eng Goan

CAIRO (JP): International economic cooperation, the role of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) in a changing world and the selection of a new chair will be the main topics at NAM's 11th ministerial meeting.

"NAM's ministerial meeting in Cairo is important because it is expected to name a country which will replace Indonesia as the current chairman of the 110 member movement," said Nana Sutresna, head of the Indonesian delegation to the meeting and also the movement's secretary.

He said another important topic which is likely to come out at the meeting is the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to which all NAM members are expected to adhere.

Nana has replaced Minister of Foreign Affairs Ali Alatas, who suffered from a mild heart attack last week, as head of the government delegation to the meeting.

More than 80 foreign ministers from member nations have arrived in Cairo to attend the four-day meeting, scheduled to open here today with as speech from Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

The conference, which is held at the Cairo International Conference Center, the circular building where the historic peace agreement between Israel and Palestine was signed earlier this month, is being conducted amid tight security.

Main issues

Nana said Indonesia and Egypt have agreed that the meeting should cover three main issues, NAM's role in creating international peace, economic cooperation and a restructuring of the United Nations.

He also said that South Africa, whose black majority elected their first government a month ago, has officially applied for membership in the movement.

Other countries such as Italy, the Ukraine and Russia have also sent delegations as guests to the meeting.

Earlier yesterday, senior officials of NAM member countries met to map out the agenda for the ministerial meeting. The senior officials' meeting was chaired by Nugroho Wisnumurti, Indonesia's ambassador to the United Nations.

Informed sources said that other topics such as the bloodbath in Rwanda, the outbreak of civil war in Yemen and the continued fighting in Bosnia will also be focussed on during the meeting.

They said that a draft declaration prepared for the conference includes, among other things, a condemnation of the "armed aggression, genocide and ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Moslems and the arms embargo on Bosnia, which is tantamount to denying their right to self defense."

Chair

Indonesia's chairmanship of NAM will expire next year and the Cairo meeting will decide which country will chair the movement through 1998. The choice of chairman will be made a year prior to NAM's 11th Summit, scheduled for next year. NAM's 10th Summit was held in Jakarta in September 1992.

Since its establishment in 1961, NAM's chairmanship has passed from one member country to another every three years on a rotating basis, with the country hosting the summit automatically taking the leadership until the next meeting.

Nana said that although Nicaragua had dropped its ambition to become the next chairman due to domestic economic problems, Indonesia hopes that the next NAM chairman, in agreement with the movement's regulations, must be a Latin American country.

Other members of the Indonesian delegation to the meeting include Ishar Ibrahim and Wisber Loeis, respectively Director General for Politics and Director General for Foreign Economic Relations of the Foreign Ministry, Boer Mauna, ambassador to Egypt and Soemadi Brotodiningrat, ambassador to the UN in Geneva.