This article appears in the February 2, 2024 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.
IN KAMPALA
Non-Aligned and G77 Summits: Join Us in Replacing Failed Colonial Order!
[Print version of this article]
Jan. 27—Likely as not, if you live in one of the Western countries trapped in the NATO bloc, you had no idea that, all the while the Western media nauseated you with all the ins-and-outs of the Jan. 15–19 annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland of the “Golden Billion” decadents, representatives from across the Global South were meeting in two, far more significant back-to-back summits in Kampala, Uganda to deliberate on how to bring about a human being-oriented paradigm in world affairs.
From Jan. 15–22, somewhere between 3,000 to 4,000 government officials and experts, including several dozen heads of state from over 100 countries, met in Kampala to discuss the central topic of our day: the creation of an international system of relations among nations which is fair and just, where conflicts, differences, and disputes are resolved through dialogue rather than by military force, and in which all nations have a say in how that system functions, so that all peoples can develop and prosper.
The first of the two summits was the 19th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit, held Jan. 15–20, followed Jan. 21–22 by the Third South Summit, of the G77 + China, a group of developing countries founded in 1964 to jointly defend the collective economic interests of its members on major international economic issues at the UN and its relevant institutions.
Member states in the two groups strongly overlap, but are not identical. The NAM, with its historic roots in the 1955 Bandung Conference, today has 120 member nations from Africa, Asia, and Central and South America, plus another 20 observer states and 11 observer organizations, including the African Union and the Arab League. The G77 + China, for its part, decided years back that it would keep its original name, even as it grew, and it now has more than 130 member states.
While these two summits were not of a game-changing nature—as was the Aug. 22–24, 2023 summit of the BRICS nations in South Africa—the spirit of these discussions among people representing a majority of the world’s nations demonstrated, once again, that colonialism is dead! Leaders who in earlier times may have accommodated themselves to the rules of the usurious imperial system enforced by the IMF and financiers, recognize the great upheaval underway in the world, and are no longer willing to play their designated roles in imperialist geopolitical games. The determination of the majority of the world’s nations to secure their rightful say in “how things work” on this planet is taking over.
And why should they not? As the chair of both summits, Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni said in addressing the Third South Summit:
I wonder why global economic actors fail to understand that the prosperity of the entire world population benefits everyone, instead opting for policies that keep the majority in poverty. Who suffers when the world is prosperous? Is there a potential victim of global affluence?
Defending Palestine
In light of the “escalating geopolitical tensions” in the world, the role of the Non-Aligned Movement is as relevant as ever, if States are “to attain greater economic development and social progress, peace and security, and enjoyment of human rights and the rule of law,” asserts the 47-article Kampala Declaration adopted at the NAM Summit.
The Kampala Declaration has a fighting tone, denouncing such evil imperial practices as coercive sanctions imposed “as tools for political or economic and financial pressure against any country,” the rigging of the global trading system against them, and the refusal to offer debt relief in the face of great need.
Yet securing the right of Palestine and Palestinians to exist was foremost in their fight to end the injustices of the system. Reaffirming “the importance of the Question of Palestine to the Non-Aligned Movement,” the Kampala Declaration “strongly condemns the illegal Israeli military aggression on the Gaza Strip, the indiscriminate attacks against Palestinian civilians, civilian objects, the forced displacement of the Palestinian population and further calls for an immediate and durable humanitarian ceasefire.” It notes favorably the case filed before the International Court of Justice by South Africa, “a member of the movement,” against Israel for its genocide against Gaza.
It is, the NAM nations emphasized, “high time to end this abhorrent occupation.” Thus,
the need for substantial and urgent progress to be made toward achieving an end to the Israeli occupation, including achievement of the independence and sovereignty of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, to achieve a two-state solution, on the basis of the pre-1967 borders and affirmed support for the State of Palestine to be admitted as a Member State of the United Nations, to take its rightful place among the community of nations.
Economic Changes Are A’Coming
There was much discussion at both summits that “eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, including extreme poverty, everywhere” is now “the greatest global challenge,” as the Kampala Declaration put it. That goal is front and center also in the Outcome Document issued from the Third South Summit.
Not “democracy,” not wiping out “rivals” or “adversaries,” certainly not cutting their peoples’ consumption on the deadly Malthusian grounds that “there just aren’t enough resources to go around.” It is economic development which has once again seized the passions of the vast majority of humanity, and they have set out to “strengthen the voice, participation, and representation of developing countries in international economic decision-making.”
What a tremendous asset for industrial, scientific, and engineering interests in the rusting, no-longer-developed sector who long for opportunities to get to work producing for a productive purpose, not war. There is a whole world out there eager for their processes, products, and cooperation!
These nations understand that industrialization and the promotion of “science, technology, and innovation within our countries” is crucial for eradicating poverty. The Declaration emphasizes, as a major goal:
Affordable and appropriate technology transfers, development of adequate and appropriate infrastructure for industrialization and production, value addition, attraction of quality investments in strategic sectors of NAM economies, for employment creation, and supporting efforts that promote people’s wellbeing and prosperity.
They call for member-nations to:
Develop and promote policies that can enhance productive capacities in developing countries, generate employment and income for all, especially youth and women, and contribute to poverty eradication and achieving sustainable development goals to seize the opportunities that abundant natural resources in most NAM Member States represent, to support decent livelihoods for the wellbeing and prosperity of our peoples.
Revamping the International Financial System
These nations understand that to make such high-tech oriented growth possible, “the reform of the international financial architecture” is required. A financial system “fit for purpose” must be designed that furthers rather than obstructs their development strategies.
In his address to the G77 Summit Jan. 21, speaking as President Xi Jinping’s special representative, Chinese Vice-Premier Liu Guozhong called on developing countries to “jointly support the reform of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the international financial system…. The collective rise of the countries of the Global South is unstoppable, yet the unjust and inequitable international political and economic order from the past continues to have lingering effects.”
Liu pointed to China’s initiatives to reform the global financial system, and it’s helping to establish the BRICS’s New Development Bank, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund, which provide alternative lending to countries that are denied access to international financial markets. These banking institutions are now funding multibillion-dollar projects in Asia and other areas, he said.
More specific discussions as to how to effect this financial reform at these summits have not been seen by EIR. On the financial front, nations are looking to the BRICS to take the lead. As President Museveni said in his closing remarks to the NAM Summit, “We’re going to intensify our discussions with the BRICS, with all these other groups, about affordable financing.”
A New Mindset Afoot in the World
India, no small player in world affairs—not the least because it is now the world’s most populous nation—was an active participant in these discussions. In his address to the NAM Summit Jan. 19, External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar was emphatic that “the nature of the world we confront” requires the Non-Aligned countries to take leadership:
We may have overthrown the yoke of colonialism, but we struggle with new forms of inequity and domination. In the era of globalization, we see economic concentrations that treat the rest of the world as simply markets or resources…. We are also subject to narratives of political correctness and universalism that do not give their due to our culture and traditions. As the NAM, we must respond to these challenges….
The NAM has entered its seventh decade. In that period, the world has transformed and so too have our capabilities and confidence. We must be bolder in seeking our due and pressing our demands. The more we share, collaborate, and reinforce each other, the more we will change the world. The voice of the NAM is here to be heard. The voice of the NAM is here to stay and to grow. Let us send that message today.
In opening the NAM Summit, Museveni had put in its proper, historical perspective the U.S.-UK-led drive for global hegemony, which defines the “nature of the world” to which Jaishankar alluded:
We are, therefore, not impressed and cannot be part of the morbid bigotry of uni-ideological thinking of this or that type. The universe has been here for the last 30 billion years and the human society has been here for the last 4½ million years. You, therefore, should not have the audacity to impose on the society you live in, let alone the World, your narrow uni-ideological orientation.
Such is the new mood sweeping the developing nations once dismissed so arrogantly by Henry Kissinger as incapable of making history!
Acting for All Humanity
That all nations, no matter how small or large, have their role to play in bringing about the great change the world so needs, was demonstrated by the Prime Minister of the Caribbean island nation of Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Ralph Gonsalves, in his speech to the closing ceremony of the Non-Aligned Movement Summit. Leaders such as he are consciously acting on behalf of not only their nations, but of humanity as a whole. As Prime Minister Gonsalves said:
In the foundation of the NAM, Kwame Nkrumah said that we look neither East nor West, but we look forward, we look to the future. We have arrived at a new inflection point in the evolution of human history. We are at the point where the complexities and challenges and global turmoil are of such a nature that the old order can no longer hold, yet the new is yet to begin. And the NAM, the G77, the developing world, the South, we have a special role to play.
We have been told by those who have dominated the world for quite a while that the central contradiction in the world today revolves around the question of “democracy” versus “autocracy.” Well, from the trenches of the Caribbean, that has never been the central contradiction, and it is not today. The central contradiction is about who gets what, when, where, and how; who owns and controls the resources, and who determines the distribution of those resources. That is how it has been, and that is how it is today. And the restless South, justifiably, is demanding a better share of what the world has to offer. The poor, the marginalized, the disadvantaged, we are in quest for sustainable development, for peace.
It is more difficult now for those who have been wedded to imperialism and hegemony, to co-opt, contain, or control those whom they consider “the restless ones in the South.” But there is a time and season for everything. And what we have to do, and we know it and we heard it in all the speeches: We have to work together in solidarity with one another and not allow us to be divided as hitherto. And it is this solidarity, around specific objectives, that will bring about the upliftment of ourselves and all humanity….
Let us in the South join hands and hearts with progressive people across the world for a better life, a better world. Surely things can be brighter. Let’s get on with it.
