Prime Minister of India - Dr. Manmohan Singh

Statement by the PM at the XIV NAM summit

Your Excellency Mr. Chairman,

Excellencies,

Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, I would like to congratulate Cuba on its assumption of the Chair of NAM at this important juncture for our Movement. Our national leadership, led by Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the founding fathers of our movement, Prime Ministers Mrs Indira Gandhi and Rajiv Gandhi, has always had profound admiration and respect for President Fidel Castro. We wish him a speedy recovery, good health and a long life.

Allow me, Mr. Chairman, to compliment Malaysia and especially Prime Minister Badawi for the skillful stewardship of our Movement and the considerable effort to revitalize it.

Mr. Chairman, the Non-Aligned Movement has been described as one of the greatest peace movements of our time. A child of our anti-colonial struggles, this Movement was conceived as an association of free people. Our beloved Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, one of the architects of this Movement, said, "Non-alignment is freedom of action which is a part of independence." He wanted us to judge issues "in full freedom and without any pre-conceived partisan bias." This vision has enabled our people to march into the 21st century with confidence. It is this confidence that must continue to shape our perspectives in the years ahead.

Mr. Chairman, we live in an increasingly interdependent world. The challenge ahead is to promote a balanced and equitable management of this interdependence of nations. As globalization progresses, national and regional boundaries are becoming less and less relevant. The challenges we face as nations are increasingly less amenable to purely national and autonomous solutions. Environmental degradation and climate change recognize no national borders. Pandemics like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, TB or Avian Flu can only be contained or overcome through international cooperation. Terrorism anywhere threatens peace everywhere. Our problems are global, so must our solutions be.

The United Nations played a creative and a critical leadership role in shaping the international agenda in the past. It has to do so again. From whatever direction one approaches issues of global concern, all paths lead to the need for reforming the UN and revitalizing the UN General Assembly. The developing world must find its due representation among the permanent members of the UN Security Council. We must join hands with other like minded countries to promote democratization of processes of global governance, ushering in a new global polity based on the rule of law, reason and equity.

We, the members of the Non-Aligned Movement constitute more than half of the membership of the United Nations. Our collective strength is unmatched, and we must now unite behind a common and a fundamentally new vision of "inclusive globalization".

We must work together, for example, for a development-oriented outcome in the on-going multilateral trade negotiations. In economic affairs, the biblical saying "to him that hath shall be given" has wide applicability. Therefore, we need concerted global strategies to empower the poor and the deprived for an equitable sharing in the fruits of economic and social development. We need new pathways of global cooperation to harness the full potential of advances in science and technology to improve the human condition and to deal effectively with poverty, marginalization and inequality. Globalisation must be accompanied by a more balanced and equitable distribution of its benefits. Otherwise the global response to these challenges will remain uneven and partial at best.

Mr. Chairman, the process of globalization has made us all citizens of a global village. This has made it all the more necessary that we show greater mutual understanding and tolerance towards each other. An appreciation of the values of plural democracy has become more compelling. As non-aligned countries, we led the struggle against attempts to divide the world into ideologically irreconciliable blocs. We espoused peaceful co-existence and the higher cause of humanity beyond racial divisions. Today, we again confront the danger of the world being split along an artificially created cultural and religious divide.

The Non-Aligned Movement, encompassing as it does, every religion professed by mankind, every ethnic group and ideological persuasion, is uniquely placed today, once again, to play the role of a bridge of understanding. Our cooperative world view is in itself a rejection of the notion of a "clash of civilizations". Rather, our message to the world should be that it is possible to work for a "confluence of civilizations".

Promoting a better understanding of each other through a "dialogue between civilizations" is also a potent weapon against terrorism. If NAM is to be relevant in today�s circumstances, it cannot afford to equivocate on the subject of terrorism. A message must emanate from us that we are united in our desire to fight and eliminate the scourge of terrorism. We cannot allow the forces of intolerance and extremism to distract the world�s attention from the vital concerns of our people - the problems of poverty, ignorance and disease.

Mr. Chairman, the emerging fault lines of the new ideological divide are nowhere more apparent today than in West Asia. We have just been witness to a tragic and pointless war in Lebanon. It has only sharpened the sense of alienation and resentment, brutalizing a country that had just begun to reclaim its heritage of inter-ethnic and inter-religious harmony after years of conflict. The growing polarization in West Asia will have negative consequences not only for the countries of the region, but the world as a whole. I believe that the Non-Aligned Movement, for the reasons I have mentioned earlier, is uniquely placed to play a constructive role in the restoration of peace and harmony in West Asia.

I would recommend that we constitute a suitable high level group for West Asia that could include countries who enjoy the confidence and trust of the parties concerned and who could undertake a sustained mission to promote understanding in the region and assist in the implementation of the agreed roadmap towards a comprehensive peace. The international community must address more fully its responsibility to resolve this issue and bring to an end once and for all the long years of suffering of the Palestinian people.

Mr. Chairman, it is a matter of regret that the issue of disarmament and the special focus on nuclear disarmament has been marginalized in global discourse. Even though India is a State in possession of nuclear weapons, we strongly believe that the best guarantee against the threat of proliferation of WMD lies in disarmament. In 1988 Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi had presented to the UN General Assembly a detailed and credible Action Plan for Nuclear Disarmament. I believe the time has come for NAM to once again assume an active and leading role in advocating nuclear disarmament. India has prepared a Working Paper on Nuclear Disarmament which will be circulated as a document at the UNGA Session this year. We would invite fellow members of NAM to join us in our efforts to achieve universal nuclear disarmament and a world free of all nuclear weapons.

Yet another challenge of the 21st Century is the protection of our environment and the assurance of energy security for all. At the First World Summit on the Environment, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi declared, "there is no first, second or third world; we are all part of One World". The Non-Aligned Movement should take the lead in articulating a "new paradigm of energy security", that addresses the needs of all peoples and of our planet.

A NAM Working Group on Energy Security could be constituted to:

1. Draw up a NAM Action Plan for Energy Security based on a shift from fossil fuels to non-fossil fuels; and from non-renewable sources to renewable sources of energy.

2. Create a NAM-wide network for sharing best practices in energy efficiency and conservation, in order to substantially reduce the energy intensity of GDP growth; and

3. Establish a network of institutes to engage in research in developing new and clean sources of energy such as solar energy, wind energy, hydrogen fuel cells and bio-fuels, including bio-mass and bio-diesel.

India would be prepared to coordinate such a group.

Mr. Chairman, African countries form the largest single grouping in NAM as well as in the U.N.G.A. The future of our planet is inextricably linked to the destiny of Africa. I believe this is an opportune time for us to take a major NAM initiative on Africa. The initiative should focus on two critical areas, that of human resource development and of agricultural development. The NAM initiative on Africa would involve setting up of a mechanism, in cooperation with the African Union, to pool our assets for investment in the future of Africa. India itself is currently involved in setting up a Pan-African Satellite Communications Network, which could be used for distance-learning and tele-medicine projects. We would be prepared to work together with other interested NAM countries on elaborating the NAM Initiative on Africa.

Mr. Chairman, if we wish to revitalize the Non-Aligned Movement the collective message of our Summit must be seen as being central to the success of global efforts to deal with urgent transnational issues - be it terrorism, pandemics, energy security or the environment. As a group we have rejected extremes. We must spread the message of Gandhiji, the apostle of peace. Our voice must then be one of moderation, harmony and reason. If such is the voice of more than half of the people of the world, it will prevail. And, it will guide the destiny of our planet.