President Mills addresses NAM summit

Cairo, July 15, GNA- President John Evans Atta Mills has called on members of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to re-appraise the role of the movement on the world stage and adapt to the new realities. President Mills made the call when he addressed the 15th Summit of Heads of State and Governments of the NAM in the Egyptian resort city of Sharm el Sheikh on Wednesday.

According to the 1979 Havana Declaration, the NAM was established to assist member states in their struggle against imperialism, colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony by the great power blocs. A press statement issued by Mr James Agyenim- Boateng, Deputy Minister of Information in Cairo, Egypt, said President Mills observed that since the cold war had ended whilst many member states had attained independence, there is the need for the movement to bring to the fore new challenges, which makes the global solidarity of NAM more relevant. Touching on the global financial crisis, President Mills pointed out that initially there was the perception that because developing countries, particularly those in Africa, were weakly integrated with the rest of the global economy; it would not be affected by the phenomenon. He noted that the knock-on effects from the financial instability and economic recession in industrialised nations are having a compounding toll in terms of high fuel costs, rising food prices, loss of jobs, drying credits and many other effects, on the economies of developing countries.

President Mills said another set of challenges to member states of the NAM were the rapid depletion of forests, fauna, fish stocks, increasing desertification, rising sea levels, flooding, altered patterns of rainfall, and climate change, resulting from global warming.

"We may have defeated colonialism, apartheid and many forms of racial discrimination, but our plight as the world's poor is not likely to change unless the NAM. comes out with new solutions to these challenges."

President Mills said it was the conviction of Ghana that the Movement should continue to play its role as a moral force in international politics, adding that NAM should endeavour to entrench the international system and ideal that international controversies and disputes must be resolved by principled dialogue and not military might.