The Bahamas and the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Havana

by Larry Smith

Most Bahamians don't have a clue what the Non-aligned Movement is and could care less, but our government has been taking part in NAM meetings for the past two decades without bothering to tell us about it.

In all likelihood that's because the government itself could care less and was just going through the motions. But for the first time we have an ideologically driven foreign minister who appears to have some latitude to set policy, whether by default or otherwise.

And that sometimes means playing international games that can get us needlessly into hot water. So we should watch what comes out of this week's summit of the Non-aligned Movement in Havana, where Fred Mitchell is said to be representing the prime minister.

This event will likely be Cuban President Fidel Castro's last stand. Although he is too ill to participate fully, officials say he is involved in all decision-making. And it is clear that Castro will use this week's meeting to try to refocus Third World grievances into a broad anti-Western front.

This is something that Bahamians should wish to avoid. As a spokesman for the US Embassy here said, the Bahamas should work for a more positive and constructive approach to the issues discussed at the summit.

Created in 1961 by legendary liberation leaders like Tito of Yugoslavia, Nehru of India, Nkrumah of Ghana and Sukarno of Indonesia to play off the major Cold War powers, the NAM became utterly irrelevant following the collapse of the Soviet bloc in 1989.

According to British expert Jonathan Fryer, "The Cold War came to an end and suddenly the Non-aligned Movement thought, well, what really are we for? In other words, it was meant not to be associated with Washington and not to be associated with Moscow. It is very much a child of the Cold War."

The movement tried to revive itself as the voice of the developing world on debt, aid and trade issues - and now a new turning point may have been reached, with radical nations like Cuba, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Syria, North Korea and Iran forging strategic ties while the new economic powerhouses of India and China seek to expand their global reach.

Americans have always taken a skeptical view of the Non-aligned Movement - that is, when they thought of it at all. Referring to the attempt at revitalisation Robert Mclean of the conservative Washington-based Centre for Security Policy complained: "the United States finds itself once again confronted by those who seek excuses for their failures and legitimacy for their despotism."

(Although the US has attended previous summits as an observer along with other Western countries, it has no plans to take part in the Havana meeting, citing poor relations with the host country).

But opinion in developing countries is perhaps best summarised by a recent editorial in the Jamaican Observer: "Despite the changes the world has undergone over the last 20 years, we still believe that the Non-aligned Movement is relevant and has a significant role to play in the setting of world political and economic agendas."

This week's meeting is the 14th summit (they are held every three years), and the second to take place in Havana. Cuba hosted its first summit in 1979, when Castro was at the peak of his power and world affairs were polarised between the US and the USSR.

More than 50 heads of state and thousands of delegates from more than a hundred countries are attending the conference, where they will discuss a Cuban plan to update the movement's goals and refocus its activities. Guests include UN secretary general Kofi Annan and leaders of the Arab League and African Union. More than a thousand journalists from around the world are covering the event.

And somewhere among this maddening crowd is Fred Mitchell. It is reportedly only the second time that a Bahamian cabinet minister has attended a summit. The Pindling government joined the NAM in 1983, when it became a member of the Caribbean Community. And Dr Davidson Hepburn, our former ambassador to the UN, was the sole Bahamian delegate at those early meetings:

"We attended all of the non-aligned meetings at the UN," Dr Hepburn told Tough Call. "But it is fair to say that the Bahamas was not a mover and shaker in the organization, which was largely a talking shop anyway. I believe it was a matter of solidarity and the thing to do. But the current summit in Havana is definitely a coup for Cuba."

Although the term non-alignment was coined by Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in a 1954 speech referring to relations with China, the real impetus for the movement came from the post-Second World War split between Yugoslavia's communist leader, Josip Broz Tito, and the Soviet dictator, Josef Stalin.

After the split, Yugoslavia began building relations with newly independent countries like India. According to the US Library of Congress, "Tito found common ground with Egypt's president Gamal Abdel Nasser and India's prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, and they worked together to organize a movement whose collective statements on international issues would carry greater weight than their individual voices.

"In 1961 Yugoslavia hosted the first major conference of the world's non-aligned nations. Tito used the prestige gained from the meeting and from his denunciations of neocolonialism to enhance the leverage gained by positioning Yugoslavia between East and West."

But even in its heyday, the movement was largely discredited. For example, at the 1979 Havana summit, Castro declared the Soviet Union as the movement's “natural ally” against “imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, apartheid, racism and Zionism”. But two months later the Russians invaded Afghanistan, a non-aligned country.

Now the Cubans - who were isolated by the collapse of the USSR in 1991 - are seeking to "re-launch" the NAM in an effort to exert greater influence on world affairs and ensure the survival of Castro's Stalinist regime. Along with others like Venezuela, Cuba wants the movement to attack the US role as a world policeman, while moderates such as India seek to avoid turning the summit into an anti-American slugfest.

To understand what that means, look no further than a September 6 commentary in the official Cuban newspaper, Granma, which describes the US as "the most brutal, hegemonic, racist and fundamentalist of empires", whose aim is "to convert the South into game reserves...and which is conducting genocidal wars of aggression launched with impunity."

At the 2003 summit in Malaysia, the NAM condemned American references to certain countries as evil, and backed Iran in its pursuit of nuclear technology. Israel was repeatedly condemned for "war crimes and systematic human rights violations" against Palestinians, among other things.

According to the Cubans, "this week's final declaration will deal with Iraq, the Israeli aggression in Lebanon and Palestine, democratization of the United Nations, multilateralism, and the US government´s blockade of Cuba." Other issues will include trade, cooperation between developing countries, migration, drug trafficking and arms control.

Moderate leaders want the meeting to focus on global governance - promoting multilateralism as the best way to solve international problems. They also want to restructure the UN to give developing nations more authority, and to reduce the power of the five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Russia, China, Britain and France. China, by the way, is not a member of the NAM but is attending the summit as an observer.

Another perennial issue is support for the independence movement of Puerto Rico, which is a territory of the United States. The Spanish colony was ceded to the US in 1898 along with the Phillipines and Guam. Puerto Ricans are US citizens, run their own affairs, and have voted in several plebiscites to maintain the status quo - but islanders support a strong Independence and cultural identity movement.

One big news item at the conference may be a meeting between Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf. The peace process between these two nuclear-armed but non-aligned neighbours has been stalled since terrorists killed 180 Indians in July, putting in jeopardy two and a half years of negotiations. India and Pakistan have fought four wars over disputed territory since Independence in 1947.

But it is American power (some - including many in the Bahamian political class - would say blackmail) that is the name of the game in Havana this week. And it remains to be seen how the muscular nationalism unleashed in the US by the 9/11 terror attacks will play out in our 21st century world.

Meanwhile, thoughtful leaders like South Africa's President Thabo Mbeki believe the NAM can make its greatest contribution by helping to set the international agenda, especially with regard to the world economy. If the movement has a future, perhaps that is where it lies.

Comments

[Etienne Christen]

The funny thing is, Mitchell flies around and talks as if he were a leader of some 'great power'. The reality is that the Bahamas is very small and should really be focused on expending the limited resources it has on bettering the lives of its citizens using a far more focused agenda. You want to nail foreign relations better - deal in a focused manner with the immigration issue. You want to improve trade, then deal in a more focused manner with the investors we have already and try to encourage new investors to come. Most importantly, address the tourism issues. Fix the airport! How is that for foreign relations improvement! Grand principals are not going to be determined by the 'voice' of this small nation. We are not here to tell Cuba they are 'wrong', nor are we here to tell the USA that they are 'wrong'. That is all just hot air. Let the Cubans and Americans sort that out on their own.

[larry smith]

Thanks for weighing in Etienne. You are right that our interests are far more limited and local. It is only one man's personal ego.

[Etienne Christen]

Glad you liked the comment. I find that particular aspect of our foreign policy - the literal grand standing - incredibly silly. The most amazing thing about being small is that the scope of your problems can be confined to focused issues. Switzerland and Singapore do this very well. They let the great powers fight their wars and do the ideological thing, while they quiely try to figure out how to improve their own economies. We should be dynamic and forward thinking by now, but we are still stuck in this reactive rut. This country is optimally positioned for trade and for tourism from all corners of the globe, but our politicians are completely unable to tap into that competitive advantage and appear to be obsessed with making the Bahamas less competitive in the internaional arena. We have a choice: embrace globalisation and make it work for us, thus becoming stronger and defining our agenda, or trying to fight against it with reactive policies and being sidelined and eventually skipped over by others who did it better. Ultimately, this means explaining to all Bahamians that more is expected from us: that if we want the good life that we have managed to eke out so far to continue and if we want it to only get better in the Bahamas, then we are going to have to push our governments, our society and our children to higher policy, value and education levels and raise the standards - not lower them. That is the focus on the Bahamas that is needed - forget aligned or non aligned.