Strong political pressure hinders NAM efforts
Strong political pressure hinders NAM efforts
JAKARTA (JP): The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is still struggling to assert its international presence in the face of strong political and economic pressures from the West, former Indonesian ambassador to United States, Hasnan Habib, said yesterday.
The 112-nation movement is "unable to withstand the American lobby," Hasnan, now NAM's ambassador-at-large for the U.S. and Latin America, said at a seminar to review the role of the organization which is currently chaired by Indonesia.
He cited the recent review conference on the extension of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) as an example of how NAM could not break Washington's determination to permanently extend the Treaty.
Indonesia called for an indefinite extension of the fixed 25- year rolling periods. The effort, however, faltered as the U.S. lobby successfully thwarted the proposal.
The head of the foreign ministry's research and development agency, Soendaroe Rachmad, admitted NAM's inability to cope "under American pressure both politically and economically."
The seminar on "NAM, Africa and Indonesia" was held by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Asia-Africa Conference.
According to Soendaroe, NAM's unity on important political issues is further being undermined by the fact that each member state has its own individual interests to pursue.
When discussing the NPT at last month's NAM Ministerial conference in Bandung, West Java, the Movement could not produce a common stance on the extension and completely avoided the issue in their final statement.
The division on the NPT extension within NAM persisted at the NPT conference in New York with such countries as South Africa strongly urging for indefinite extension.
Apart from having to endure a western-dominated international political climate, NAM members, in particular those in the least developed countries of Africa, also have to deal with the shrinking flow of economic aid.
As economist Djisman S. Simandjuntak put it during the seminar, the donor countries are now inflicted with what he calls "aid fatigue", a result of the deteriorating domestic economic conditions of the donor countries.
Donor countries have also been dismayed by the fact that the aid given to Africa has produced few tangible results.
Indonesia, during its tenure as NAM chairman, has put much emphasis on South-South Cooperation among NAM states as one way of reducing member dependence on western assistance.
Djisman argued that what is important to the development of the least-developed African states is "capacity building," such as the enhancement of human resources and local institutions which can support development and policy planning.
Djisman contended that Indonesia can play a significant role because it has the experience and because many of the institutions in Africa are in a situation similar to that of Indonesia in the 1950s.
"There is no other choice but to be patient with this capacity building," he said. (mds)