Cuba is seeking partners in the region to resuscitate the non-alignment movement, writes Faiza Rady "Together we, the nations of the South, can revitalise the Non- Alignment Movement (NAM) and bring it back to life. NAM has a membership of 114 nations, who can effect real changes to this unipolar world order that is dominated and controlled by the United States, Felipe Pérez , Cuban minister of foreign affairs told Al-Ahram Weekly. On a two-day visit to Cairo, met Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak to hand him an invitation from Cuban President Fidel Castro for this year's NAM summit, scheduled to take place in Havana in September. Expressing his country's hope for the revival of a strong and independent Southern movement, the Cuban foreign minister stressed that change could only be effected through unity and solidarity. A belief clearly shares with Fidel. "Together we shall strive for development and against an international financial and economic order heedless of our needs that submits us all to increasing poverty and dependence," said Fidel in his address to the 2003 NAM meeting in the Malaysian capital of Kuala Lumpur. In Cairo, reminisced about the strength and vibrancy of NAM in the 1960s when Egypt's president Gamal Abdel-Nasser and Fidel were at forefront of the struggle against imperialism, along with India's Jawaharal Nehru and Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah. In this context, described relations between his country and Egypt as "warm" and "historical". "Cuba has historical ties to Egypt," he says. "We won't forget that freedom fighter, Che Guevara, our national hero came here to meet Nasser on two occasions." During his meeting with the Egyptian president, briefed him on the new wave of leftist Latin American leaders. Inspired and motivated by the Cuban model of resistance to and defiance of US economic and political hegemony, they are redefining politics in the region. In 2004, the socialist Frente Amplio were voted into power in Uruguay. In Bolivia, the leader of the Movement towards Socialism (MAS) Evo Morales was recently elected president. A former coca farmer and trade unionist, he rose to political prominence through the Aymara Indian grassroots movement. A high school dropout from a destitute family who lived in a one- room shack with no water or electricity, Morales is Bolivia's first ever indigenous and working class president. In a country with a 65 per cent native population, hovering at or under the extreme poverty level of one dollar a day, his victory signals a historic turning point in Bolivian politics. It is thus telling that Morales went to Havana on his first official visit as president, hailing Fidel as his life-long "mentor". This was no idle political shoptalk. Earlier in March, Morales launched a nation-wide literacy programme with Cuban expert assistance benefiting poor peasants in the Bolivian hinterlands. Sporting a 98 per cent literacy level at home, the Cuban Revolution has a long experience in waging successful literacy campaigns -- the most recent of which took place in Venezuela, another defiant South American "renegade" state in US government parlance. Assisted by Cuban educators and technical know-how, President Hugo Chavez's literacy programme for the poor has taught reading and writing to 1.3 million Venezuelans. Cuba has also brought Venezuela quality medicine for the poor. Before Chavez became president in 1998, few had access to even minimal healthcare in one of the world's oil-richest countries. Eight years on, and following a Cuban-Venezuelan oil-for-physicians barter, 70 per cent of the destitute have gained access to free healthcare. This is, in part, provided by some 20,000 Cuban doctors who are giving free medical care in city slums and the most disadvantaged rural parts of the country. Dubbed the Barrio Adentro (literally: inside the neighbourhood) Mission, the programme offers a 24-hour preventive healthcare service to people who had been deprived of medical care for the better part of their lives. Beyond Uruguay, Venezuela and Bolivia winds of change are sweeping across the region, says . In Chile, moderate socialist Michelle Bachelet, who was inaugurated as the country's first woman president last month, vowed to narrow the gap between rich and poor. And in Argentina Nestor Kirchner defaulted on the IMF debt, only to repay its balance this year and set his country free from fiscal and other policy strings. But over and above these developments, 2006 may prove to be a crucial year because of a series of upcoming elections in Peru, Colombia, Brazil, Nicaragua and Venezuela. In Nicaragua it looks like the Sandanistas stand a good chance to make a comeback, while the former mayor of Mexico, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a socialist and a fierce opponent of the US-sponsored Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) is widely regarded as the opposition's favourite presidential candidate in lieu of the incumbent "free-trader" and staunch US ally, Vincent Fox. The mushrooming of a powerful leftist resistance movement in Latin America augurs well for a NAM revival, says , who envisions the emergence of a new and just economic order as a challenge and an alternative to neo-liberalism. The Cuban minister of foreign affairs stressed the NAM countries' "inalienable right to development" which has been severely compromised by the US global neo-liberal drive. Currently, NAM countries make up some 60 per of the world's nations, while their combined GDP only accounts for 26 per cent on a global level. "At the summit we will propose a three-year plan to challenge the neo-liberal economic order that has devastated many parts of the South, including the African continent and the Latin American region" explains . "We in Cuba have been at the receiving end of US economic strangulation since the Cuban Revolution overthrew the Baptista regime in 1959. We have experienced the longest and most severe blockade in trade history, losing an estimated $82 billion in the process." Consequently, Cuba has claimed the right to development as a fundamental human right. Jean Ziegler, the UN Human Rights Commission's Special Rapporteur on the Right to Food, agrees. Last fall he met US State Department officials to denounce the impact of the US blockade on the Cuban people's right to food. He got nowhere. "[This is] because strangling Cuba is very high on the Bush administration's list of priorities," explains MIT professor of linguistics and political writer Noam Chomsky. "You do not tolerate successful defiance and possible contagious effects. Still, remains upbeat. "Despite the strangulation we have achieved much. More than 25,000 health professionals serve as volunteers across the world, and 2,400 medical students from 115 countries receive free education in Cuban universities. Last year our economy expanded by an impressive 11.8 per cent, and we expect to achieve 10 per cent growth this year." In Latin America things are looking up in this election year. The growing resistance movement augurs well for the creation of an alternative world order.
