Passing the torch

Passing the torch

It befits the leadership style of President Soeharto that on
Wednesday the Indonesian head of state formally ended his
chairmanship of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) with a call for
the 113 member countries to continue working towards the
establishment of a new world order ensuring social justice,
welfare and peace for all.

The world's economic and political landscape has undergone
radical transformation since the movement was born at a summit
meeting on Sept. 1, 1961 in Belgrade, the capital of what was
then Yugoslavia. In the Cold War climate of those days, leaders
of the 25 developing countries -- all African and Asian with the
exception of Yugoslavia and Cyprus -- agreed to adopt a strategy
of political neutrality, or non-alignment, with regard to the two
major political blocks led by the Soviet Union and the United
States.

True, looking back on the beginnings of the movement one could
say that the spirit of peace and equality among nations was, at
least in principle, always there. The first-ever summit meeting
of Asian and African countries, held in Bandung, West Java, in
1955, presaged the birth of NAM. It adopted a 10-point
declaration on world peace and cooperation, which advocated,
among other things, respect for the sovereignty and territorial
integrity of all nations, recognition of the political equality
of all races and nations, abstention from the use of force, and
settlement of international disputes and grievances by peaceful
means.

Those were the lofty ideals which inspired the member
countries of the movement to maintain their existence as
politically and ideologically independent states. Yet, as many of
us remember, the ability to resist the pull of the two opposing
blocks was not easy. During the NAM foreign ministers meeting in
Georgetown in 1972, for example, Indonesia walked out of the
meeting, protesting what it regarded as the movement's unhealthy
drift towards one of the then two superpowers.

The world has since changed dramatically. As the dominance of
the two mutually confrontational blocks vanished, the NAM, having
lost the initial reason for its existence, could easily have lost
its orientation and become a non-player on the world political
stage. Instead, it has gained considerable credibility as a
responsible defender of the interests of the developing world.
There can be no denying that this has been due to the kind of
cool and rational leadership which President Soeharto has
displayed over the past three years as the movement's chairman.

We believe it would serve the movement well to perpetuate this
kind of leadership in the coming years. As President Soeharto
remarked in his address in Cartagena on Wednesday, the challenges
that lie ahead are still formidable. Debt problems, for example,
still strangle the poorest countries of the world. The world
economy is still far from equitable. Local conflicts continue to
prevail and indeed tend to escalate in some parts of the world.

In the light of these challenges we believe the President's
call for continued efforts towards a new world order based on
social justice, welfare and peace is more relevant than ever.