PATTERSON... In pushing for more meaningful global co-operation, we should not neglect the continuing importance of advancing South-South relations

Mr Chairman

We thank President Thabo Mbeki for the enlightened leadership he has given our movement.

The torch could not have been passed to more capable hands.

Fixity of purpose, his boldness of vision, the maturity of accumulated experience, make Prime Minister Dr Mahathir Bin Mohammad (Prime Minister of Malaysia) eminently qualified to guide our movement through the darkening clouds of international turbulence.

Forty-eight years ago our founding fathers gathered in Bandung.

Non-Alignment was born in defence of our freedom.

Much has changed; but so much remains the same.

We are not here simply because of habit, but in answer to the insistent summons of dangers as grave and threatening as any that brought us together in the past.

The 'Cold War' is over.

No longer is the contest for unswerving allegiance between contending superpowers. Today there is only one. But Non-Aligned nations should not bow under the sway of a single dominion.

Today our movement offers the only counter-force for reason, balance and objectivity.

The prospect of a world divided on lines of wealth, race or religious faith is a calamitous one for human kind. In reiterating the obligation of all nations to fully comply with resolutions of the Security Council, we repeat our insistence for due and immediate compliance by Iraq with Resolution 1441. In the same vein, we cannot endorse the justification of any unilateral decision to engage in military action which is bound to result in the death of defenceless women, children and innocent citizens.

Acts of terrorism that target, or are indifferent to, the lives of innocent men, women and children are not justified by even the most grievous wrongs. Those who commit them do not advance the cause they seek to serve.

We are as challenged now to defend our freedom, and again as at our birth, solidarity is essential in protection of that freedom.

But that solidarity will not suffice unless we restructure our movement to meet the new forms that the old challenges have now assumed. In the language of the market-place, 'Non-Alignment' needs rebranding.

Our movement must take on a new image - more positive, less reactive -- a more assertive voice speaking in unison with the moral authority that today's reality demands.

We need to proclaim loudly and clearly that for which we stand:

- We are for a peaceful, just and equitable world;

- We are for multilateralism and international co-operation;

- We are for the rule of law worldwide; for global survival through collective human security;

- We are for the supremacy of the United Nations system, reformed to fulfil the principles and precepts of the charter;

- We are for a global economic system that responds to the needs of all the world's people; for fairness in sharing the planet's resources.

In the economic sphere, the need to rethink and refashion is no less compelling.

Despite decades of dialogue, advocacy, persuasion and petition, the involvement of developing countries in the management of the world economy remains token and peripheral.

Systems for the management of the institutions responsible for decision making in the spheres of money, finance and trade have now become anachronistic.

In all the regions of the 'South', we have to ask ourselves for how much longer can our poor, hungry and sick be expected to remain at their gates without convincing prospects of betterment?

The time for talking is over. Decisive action must now be our exclusive preoccupation.

At the Millennium Summit, the international community achieved a measure of textual consensus on development goals.

The eradication of hunger and poverty was the central element.

To secure focused attention and meaningful action, the Non-Aligned Movement, as catalyst in the Group of 77, should set out this year to move the process forward, by working for specific results in the General Assembly and its subsidiary organs, and in the Specialised Agencies responsible for money, finance and trade.

Timing is of the essence to spur development and tackle poverty as a top global priority.

Problems cannot and will not disappear through benign neglect.

-The decisions that the negotiations after Doha should be a development round have yet to be realised.

We have to press the case vigorously on agriculture, non-tariff barriers, special and differential treatment; a programme of action for small developing countries, dumping and subsidies, trade in services, regional agreements.

In order to take our case forward in the different fora, Jamaica proposes that we set up at ministerial level within the ambit of the Group of 77, small contact groups to deal with money, finance and trade. These contact groups can be given specific mandates to:

- Clarify priority issues for co-operative and joint action together with the strategies and approaches that should be followed for pursuing them;

- Consult and interact with developed countries individually and in groups on the matters being pursued;

- Remain in touch over the course of specific negotiations and agree on action to advocate common positions and to raise international public awareness of them;

- Enlist the support of the non-governmental community in building up pressure concerning issues selected as well as in negotiating proposals emanating from them.

In pushing for more meaningful global co-operation, we should not neglect the continuing importance of advancing South-South relations.

Multilateral arrangements alone will not suffice.

In the present climate of shrill rhetoric, inward-looking perceptions and militarism, there is a danger of the abandonment of critical international development efforts. We cannot afford negative tendencies to gain ground.

Instead, we must look ahead to the promise of this new century and work together to put our countries on course to take advantage of its many possibilities.

The challenge that confronts us is massive; the forces ranged against us are formidable. It will not be enough to respond with scattered resistance. Our solidarity must be more sustained, more structured, more coherent, better organised.

In our restructuring, it is time for us to acknowledge the empowerment of the world's people. They are our allies and they are of all countries.

Our world is in crisis. A new hegemony threatens our global community. We can be supine and submit; some may even be tempted to collaborate. But by neither will we be true to our peoples; true to ourselves nor to future generations. There is another way.

The Non-Aligned Movement must be the critical 'neighbourhood watch' that halts this virulent advance.

It is the way we once trod; and it did make a difference. It can do so again; but only if we have the will and the resolve to act and give ourselves the capacity to be effective.

Let us in Kuala Lumpur launch a serious process of restructuring and rebranding. Let us issue a mandatory injunction for action now. It may be our last chance to do so in our time.

Nothing less than such an act of vision and courage will be worthy of the memory of Bandung which being here allows us to honour and, being here, now compels us to emulate.

Trousers in Denim

Cream of the 'Crop'

Cheeky's World