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SBY Dishes Out Survival Tips As NAM Enters Its 50th Year

JAKARTA LIFE'S STYLE

After 50 years of existence and criticism that it has lost its relevance after the Cold War, the Non-Aligned Movement needs some tweaks to survive, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has said.

“We are entering a new world, and what is certain is that all organizations should adapt to the global scene and jostle,” he said on the opening day of NAM’s 16th conference in Bali.

The third-world bloc was formed in 1961 for nations seeking a “middle course” amid the conflict between the competing superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. Indonesia was one of its founding members.

The alliance — which has more than 100 members, comprising a sizeable portion of the United Nations’ membership — has been regarded as obsolete since the Soviet Union’s collapse.

However, Yudhoyono pointed out that NAM was able to endure for half a century, though he acknowledged that it now needed to rethink its purpose.

“As we mark our achievements, this is also a good time for all of us to determine how the non-aligned can be a greater force for peace, justice and prosperity in the 21st century,” he said.

“Not only the UN, the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and Asean — this is a real challenge for NAM.”

Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said the organization’s relevance was one of the key issues to be discussed at the three-day Bali conference.

He said the alliance — including its newest members, oil-rich Azerbaijan and the Polynesian island of Fiji — needed to formulate a “common vision” for NAM over the next 50 years.

“[Ministers from various nations] at the meeting will also sign several documents, one of them about the conflict in Palestine,” Marty said.

Yudhoyono said in his speech that NAM should play a significant role in addressing “global imbalances” that have led to terrorism, ethnic conflicts and religious disharmony particularly in member nations.

The president pointed to the meeting’s locale, a predominantly Hindu island in the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation, as proof that “unity in diversity” was possible.

“I believe such unity in diversity is also what sustains NAM,” Yudhoyono said.

The president said the movement favored settling world problems through dialogue rather than violence.

“The settlement of those problems will be more appropriately reached by promoting peaceful means, negotiations and dialogues,” he said.(http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/news/sby-dishes-out-survival-tips-as-nam-enters-its-50th-year/443246)
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