Southern leaders in Havana pledge to get their act together and fight for justice against hegemony, writes Faiza Rady The 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), convening from 11-16 September in the Cuban capital Havana revived the spirit of southern defiance, long lost since the early days of national liberation struggles. The Havana s ummit was opened by outgoing NAM leader Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmed Badawi, who nominated Cuban President Fidel Castro as the new head. Attending delegates approved Badawi's move with a standing ovation of thunderous applause. This is the second time that Castro has been elected to lead NAM. Cuba chaired the movement from 1979-1983. "We are confident in Cuba's leadership of the movement. Its history tells us NAM is in good hands and will reach new heights," said Badawi. Still convalescing from surgery, President Castro didn't attend the summit that was led by his younger brother and acting Cuban president, Raul Castro. Still, Fidel met privately with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among other heads of state. "Fidel is walking, singing. I saw him well enough to play baseball again, almost," a smiling Chavez told reporters after meeting with Castro. Present at the summit were several leaders who embody a spirit of defiance to "worldwide dictatorship by the United States", to use the words of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage. "The ideas of limited sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, preventive war and regime change are fascist; they are not modern theories to defend freedoms and fight terrorism," said Lage. "US dictatorship", Lage explained, has turned back the clock to an earlier period of imperialism and foreign domination, with Britain, the world's former colonial master, in tow behind the world's lone superpower. Thus there is an urgent need to return to the Bandung principles of national independence and self-determination, Lage added. At the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, nationalist liberation leaders of the stature of Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia declared their neutrality and independence from the camp of the two superpowers. Included in the 10- point Bandung proclamation was a commitment to national sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-adherence to multilateral military pacts, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, struggle against imperialism and foreign occupation, and the rejection of the use of force in international relations. "The current international situation, characterised by the one superpower's attempts to control the world, shows that we need to unite in defence of the principles upon which the Non-Aligned Movement was established," said Raul Castro, blasting the Bush administration as a threat to global peace and security, in his opening address to leaders and delegates from 118 nations representing two-thirds of the world's countries. Many southern leaders agreed, citing US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq waged under the cover of "democracy" and "freedom". US complicity with and support of Israel's war against Lebanon, and US blessings for Israel's continued occupation of Palestine also featured prominently on the summit's agenda. "We denounce the aggression against Lebanon, to whose people and government we offer our full support," said Raul, "and we must repeat our condemnation of the intensified aggression against the Palestinian people." Victims of the Bush administration's penchant for intervention in sovereign internal affairs voiced their defiance at the summit: Ahmadinejad is currently facing a threat of sanctions following his refusal to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment programme for energy production; Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was slapped with severe sanctions because of his land redistribution programme to the poor; and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is threatened with "regime change" for the crime of being a socialist, an ideology the Bush administration considers hard-line and passé. But it is the "new socialists of the 21st century" -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales -- who, perhaps, best represent the new spirit of defiance to US hegemony. True to form, Chavez pledged he would defend Iran, a country that is widely slated to be next on Washington's list for a US-led invasion. "We are with you," Chavez told Ahmadinejad, "like we are with Cuba. And if the US invades Cuba, blood will flow." As usual, Chavez made good on his promise. After the summit, Chavez clinched a $3 billion trade deal with Iran and vowed to further strengthen economic and political ties with the Islamic Republic -- one among the many "rogue" states blacklisted by the US. As for Cuba, it has been on the US hit list for the past 45 years. Short of invading the island, the Bush administration assiduously plods on to effect "regime change" in the "post- Castro" era. To that effect, the administration's self-styled Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba launched a 95-page report outlining its "transition to democracy" strategy under the auspices of transition coordinator, Caleb McCarry on 10 July. In addition to listing a host of destabilising mechanisms, the report includes a "secret annex", ostensibly outlining an invasion package. The latest US scheme against Cuba includes the creation of five new interagency working groups, reported The Miami Herald. A highly secretive operation, it was set up shortly after 31 July, following news of Fidel's surgery. According to the Herald, three of the working groups are directed by the US State Department and sponsor orchestrated diplomatic action against the island in addition to broadcasting inflammatory anti-Cuban propaganda. The idea is to expand and improve current radio and TV broadcasts, which suffer from low viewer ratings as a result of mediocre programming and a crude capitalist sales pitch. Another group championing "humanitarian aid" is operating under the umbrella of the US Commerce Department, while a fifth group deals with immigration issues under the Department of Homeland Security. The idea is to restrict immigration out of the island in order to create an explosive internal situation that will facilitate civil strife. Notwithstanding destabilisation schemes, old or new, the Cubans remain defiant. They have been at the receiving end of US aggression for more than half a century. Notwithstanding the US onslaught against countries of the global south, what is important is to turn things around and revamp NAM in the spirit of Bandung, says Raul. "Non-Alignment nowadays", said Raul, "means supporting the right of the countries of the south to take the measures needed to ensure that they have control over their natural resources for the benefit of their peoples." As representatives of two-thirds of the world's people, the Havana NAM summit therefore agreed to struggle for the right to national sovereignty, including the right to development, in the face of neo-liberal economic hegemony.
