Nam urged to assert itself

2004-08-17 11:25

Durban - Globalisation and liberalisation, which widen the gap between rich and poor, were fundamental concerns for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), second deputy foreign minister Sue van der Merwe said on Tuesday.

"(We need) to organise ourselves in such a manner that we can assert ourselves in this new reality and to strategise so that we can put forward a renewed and re-organised focus on the need for an egalitarian world," she said in an address to a preparatory meeting of NAM senior officials in Durban.

She said the activities of mass movements of civil society were also part of getting the question of development on the multilateral agenda.

"I believe it is essential that we also give due consideration to contributions of civil society to the ideas and policies of our movement and its impact on our relations with the developed countries," said Van der Merwe.

Besides the defence of internationalism and multilateralism, Van der Merwe said new challenges to global security have emerged, resulting in the marginalised becoming even more so, particularly when those who have adopted extreme positions take advantage of the prevailing international turmoil and vent their "own discontent and xenophobia through acts of terror and intimidation".

She said events such as the September 11 and the war in Iraq have slowly eroded the political will revealed at the Millennium Summit, and one of the NAM's tasks would be to recapture the political will of the major players in order to restore global determination to create a better world for all.

Van der Merwe said delegates faced a world in which the entire arena of multilateral architecture was in need of urgent practical and realistic re-formulation.

She reminded the senior officials that a central task remained the creation of a "multilateral milieu" conducive to the eradication of poverty and underdevelopment.

"The re-writing of the rule book that at present condemns the majority of the world's people to perpetual economic and social marginalization and rewards the minority with infinite wealth is at the heart of the endeavours of this movement," she said.

- SAPA