Uganda will host the 19th Summit of Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Heads of State and Government, a forum of 120 member states from 15 to 20 January 2024, at the Munyonyo Commonwealth Resort. Then from 21 to 23 January, at the same venue, Uganda will host the Third South Summit organized under the framework of Group 77 and China, a loose alliance of developing countries.
The arrangements for the two summits are being fine-tuned by the organising committee led by Ms. Lucy Nakyobe.
The term ‘Non-Alignment’ was used for the first time in 1950 at the United Nations by India and Yugoslavia, both of which refused to align themselves with any side in the multi-alliances involving the Korean War.
Drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference in 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement as an organization was founded on the Brijuni islands in Yugoslavia in 1956 and was formalized by signing the Declaration of Brijuni on 19 July 1956.
The Declaration was signed by Yugoslavia’s president, Josip Broz Tito, India’s prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru and Egypt’s president, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
One of the quotations within the Declaration is “Peace can not be achieved with separation, but with the aspiration towards collective security in global terms and expansion of freedom, as well as terminating the domination of one country over another”. According to Rejaul Karim Laskar, an ideologue of the Congress party which ruled India for most of the Cold War years, the Non-Aligned Movement arose from the desire of Jawaharlal Nehru and other leaders of the newly independent countries of the third world to guard their independence and sovereignty “in face of the complex international situation demanding allegiance to either two warring superpowers”.
The Movement advocates a middle course for states in the developing world between the Western and Eastern Blocs during the Cold War. The phrase itself was first used to represent the doctrine by Indian diplomat V. K. Krishna Menon in 1953, at the United Nations.
But it soon after became the name to refer to the participants of the Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries first held in 1961. The term “non-alignment” was established in 1953 at the United Nations. Nehru used the phrase in a 1954 speech in Colombo, Sri Lanka. In this speech, Zhou Enlai and Nehru described the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence to be used as a guide for Sino-Indian relations called Panchsheel (five restraints); these principles would later serve as the basis of the Non-Aligned Movement. The five principles were:
- Mutual respect’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
- Mutual non-aggression.
- Mutual non-interference in domestic affairs.
- Equality and mutual benefit.
- Peaceful co-existence.
A significant milestone in the development of the Non-Aligned Movement was the 1955 Bandung Conference, a conference of Asian and African states hosted by Indonesian President Sukarno, who gave a significant boost to promote this movement. Bringing together Sukarno, Nasser, Nehru, Tito, Nkrumah and Menon with the likes of Ho Chi Minh, Zhou Enlai, and Norodom Sihanouk, as well as U Thant and a young Indira Gandhi, the conference adopted a “declaration on promotion of world peace and cooperation”, which included Zhou Enlai and Nehru’s five principles, and a collective pledge to remain neutral in the Cold War. Six years after Bandung, an initiative of Yugoslav president Josip Broz Tito led to the first Conference of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries, which was held in September 1961 in Belgrade. The term non-aligned movement appears first in the fifth conference in 1976, where participating countries are denoted as members of the movement.
At the Lusaka Conference in September 1970, the member nations added as aims of the movement the peaceful resolution of disputes and the abstention from the big power military alliances and pacts. Another added aim was opposition to the stationing of military bases in foreign countries.
In 1975, the member nations which also were part of the United Nations General Assembly pushed for Resolution 3379 along with Arab countries and the support of the Soviet bloc. It was a declarative non-binding measure that equated Zionism with South Africa’s Apartheid and as a form of racial discrimination. The bloc voting produced a majority in the United Nations that systematically condemned Israel in the following resolutions: 3089, 3210, 3236, 32/40, etc.
Some Non-Aligned member nations were involved in serious conflicts with other members, notably India and Pakistan as well as Iran and Iraq.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. It was founded with the view to advancing the interests of developing countries in the context of Cold War confrontation. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War, as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world during the Cold War, whereby two major powers formed blocs and embarked on a policy to pull the rest of the world into their orbits. One of these was the pro-Soviet socialist bloc whose best-known alliance was the Warsaw Pact, and the other was the pro-American capitalist group of countries, many of which belonged to NATO.
In 1961, drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference of 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, through an initiative of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesian President Sukarno.
This led to the first Conference of Heads of State or Governments of Non-Aligned Countries. The purpose of the organization was summarized by Fidel Castro in his Havana Declaration of 1979 as to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism, and all forms of foreign aggression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against great power and bloc politics.”
The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’ members and contain 55% of the world population. Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing countries, although the Non-Aligned Movement also has several developed nations.
The Non-Aligned Movement gained the most traction in the 1950s and early 1960s, when the international policy of non-alignment achieved major successes in decolonization, disarmament, opposition to racism and opposition to apartheid in South Africa, and persisted throughout the entire Cold War, despite several conflicts between members, and despite some members developing closer ties with either the Soviet Union, China, or the United States.
The movement majorly focuses on developing multilateral ties and connections as well as unity among the developing nations of the world, especially those in the Global South.
