The relevance of NAM solidarity: Where's our UN's world?

The relevance of NAM solidarity: Where's our UN's world?

Uraniwan S. Sudarsono
Diplomat
Jakarta

Indonesia will host the Asia-Africa Subregional Organization
Conference (ASROC) late this month. The meeting is the first of
two preparatory ministerial meetings for the 50th celebration of
the Asia Africa conference in 2005. The second meeting will be
held in Johannesburg next year. This article is focused on the
future of the cooperation among countries in the two continents.

The need for adherence to the non-aligned movement (NAM)
principles adopted by the Asia-Africa Conference is imperative,
given that the post Cold War period has not yet led to world
peace and security.

The momentum started 48 years ago in Bandung, West Java, where
leaders from 29 Asian and African countries met in an
unprecedented international event, which for that whole week was
the fuss of world attention. After the conference, Asia and
Africa, cradles of great civilizations that had fallen to
colonial bondage, intensified their endeavors to play a
commemorate role in the community of nations.

The conference highlighted the notions, that nations all over
the world still under foreign dominations were stirred to break
the chains and contend their rightful place within the
international system. The "Spirit of Bandung" -- a new ethos to
govern the relationship between and among nations, great and
small, derives from the Dasa Sila Bandung (Ten Principles of
Bandung) -- remained as a beacon of an undying hope for a world
of true independence, peace, justice and shared prosperity.

The need to strengthen Asian-African solidarity and
cooperation has created a favorable climate for the strengthening
of ties between the peoples of the two continents. The seeds that
sprouted in Bandung took firm root six years later when 25 newly
independent countries formally founded the NAM at the Belgrade
Summit of 1961. Since then the movement has remained faithful to
its avowed principles and ideals in spite of the many obstacles
and challenges it encountered during and after the Cold War.

Inspired by these principles and ideals, developing countries
have waged unyielding struggles to obtain and safeguard national
independence, oppose aggression and expansion, maintain world
peace, facilitate economic and social development and promote the
just cause of human progress.

At the UN, the NAM has become a voice, which is regularly
heard and heeded, in the great debates of our time. The NAM and
the UN is therefore contributing to the creation of a new order
for the world nations, states and peoples.

From either Bandung or New York, it was the international
community, jointly and severally, which was calling for a new
world. Consequently, the group was based not on the balance of
power but rather on solidarity between peoples. This key word of
solidarity became the foundation of the movement, which
throughout more than forty years marked by East-West antagonism,
has managed to hold high the aspirations of the peoples of Africa
and Asia.

The wisdom of Asia, the determination of Africa and the
steadfastness of Latin America have brought the concerns of the
developing countries to the forefront of international politics,
and no global approach to world problems could be addressed
without regard to their concerns.

At the time of the Bandung Conference, the inspired vision of
NAM looked more like a dream. Today most of these goals have been
achieved. The end of the Cold War, while liberating the world
from the threat of nuclear catastrophe, and the possible
confrontation of the superpowers, unleashed the forces of
nationalism, armed conflicts and ethnic rivalries. Every day we
witness misery which the abhorrent practice of ethnic cleansing
and fanaticism bring to millions of people.

Today, we are indeed still in the opening stages of creating
the elements of the post-Cold War international system. The
world, relieved from the bipolar stage, is now confronted with
grave problems of a different nature.

It is in this context of a rapidly changing world, and of a UN
adapting its mechanisms to need for a new international system
that the role of the NAM should be understood. Evidently, since
the Summit of the NAM in Belgrade in 1989, the Movement has
examined the consequences for the end of the Cold War for the
international system.

This has translated, at the UN, into continuous efforts by the
NAM to promote development activities, to seek solutions to the
problems of international debt; to support disarmament efforts;
and to draw attention to the close links between disarmament and
development. Moreover, the principles set-up in Bandung have
allowed developing countries of different regions to contribute
to reorienting the structure of the international system, in the
framework of the principles stated by the United Nations and in
international law.