Oleh/By : DATO SERI DR. MAHATHIR MOHAMAD
Tempat/Venue : PUTRA WORLD TRADE CENTRE,
KUALA LUMPUR
Tarikh/Date : 24/02/2003
Tajuk/Title : THE OPENING SESSION OF THE
XIII SUMMIT MEETING OF THE
NON-ALIGNED MOVEMENT
Versi : ENGLISH
Penyampai : PM
On behalf of the Government and People of Malaysia,
may I extend a very warm welcome to all of you to Kuala
Lumpur to this XIII Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement.
2. It is indeed a great honour for Malaysia to host
this Summit Meeting and to assume the chairmanship of
the Movement.
3. As the host, Malaysia is gratified at the high
level of participation in spite of the uncertainties of
the international situation today. This clearly
demonstrates our continued and abiding faith in, and
commitment to our Movement and our collective wish and
determination to strengthen our unity and cohesion.
4. I take this opportunity to pay a special tribute to
the Republic of South Africa, in particular His
Excellency President Thabo M'beki, for his and his
country's outstanding stewardship of our Movement for
the past four years - a little longer than they had
bargained for when they assumed the Chairmanship at our
Summit Meeting in Durban. We congratulate them for the
admirable way the Republic of South Africa has held high
the banner of NAM despite cynicism about its relevance.
5. We are also gratified that under South Africa's
leadership our Movement has intensified the serious and
critical examination of our organisation and has
initiated some important steps towards its
revitalisation - a process which Malaysia will pursue
with the help and cooperation of the members of NAM.
6. This Summit Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, the first to
be held in the new century, indeed the new millennium,
is taking place at a most crucial time. The world now
lives in fear. We are afraid of everything. We are
afraid of flying, afraid of certain countries; afraid of
bearded Asian men, afraid of the shoes airline
passengers wear; of letters and parcels, of white
powder. The countries allegedly harbouring terrorists,
their people, innocent or otherwise are afraid too.
They are afraid of war, of being killed and maimed by
bombs being dropped on them, by missiles fired from
hundreds of miles away by unseen forces. They are
afraid because they would become the collaterals to be
killed because they get in the way of the destruction of
their countries.
7. The preparations and the measures taken to ensure
security go on frantically. Trillions of dollars are
spent by the world for new weapons, new technology, new
strategy; the deployment of forces and inspectors
worldwide. Those who cannot afford these security
measures must simply await their fate and trust in God.
Yet despite all these, terrorist attacks have taken
place where they are least expected, killing the
collaterals again. There is still no guarantee that the
well dressed, clean-shaven family man next door might
not become another hijacker, crashing his aircraft into
buildings and killing collaterals.
8. In the meantime the economy of the world has slowed
down and in some instances has been reversed, with huge
deficits burdening countries. Jobs are lost and poverty
is increasing even in the rich countries. No new
investments in foreign countries or at home. With the
threat of war oil prices have shot up, increasing
further the economic and social burdens of the poor
countries.
9. Aid for the poor has practically stopped and loans
are not available as the poor countries defaulted and
defaulted again.
10. Truly the world is in a terrible mess, a state that
is worse than during the East-West confrontation, the
Cold War. All the great hopes following the end of the
Cold War have vanished. And with the terrorists and the
anti-terrorists fumbling blindly in their fight against
each other, normalcy will not return for quite a long
while.
11. Surely at some stage we must ask ourselves why this
is happening to the world. Why is there terrorism? Is
it true that the Muslims are born terrorists because of
the teachings of a prophet who was a terrorist? How do
we explain the pogroms, the inquisitions and the
holocaust which characterised Christian Europe for
almost 2000 years? Why did the Jews choose to seek
haven in Muslim countries whenever Christian Europeans
persecute them? Do people seek safety in the land of
terrorists? Does not sound very likely.
12. The Christians too were terrorised, not by Muslims
but by fellow Christians who condemned them as heretics.
They were persecuted, tortured, burnt at the stakes for
their beliefs and forced to migrate. Seems that, the
Muslims did not have a monopoly of terrorism, certainly
not on the scale of the holocaust, the pogroms and the
inquisition.
13. So it cannot be that Muslims are the sole cause of
all these problems. If they are not then is it a clash
of civilisation, a clash of the Muslim civilisation
against the Judeo - Christian civilisation, that is
responsible.
14. Frankly I do not think so. Frankly I think it is
because of a revival of the old European trait of
wanting to dominate the world. And the expression of
this trait invariably involves injustice and oppression
of people of other ethnic origins and colours.
15. If we care to think back, there was no systematic
campaign of terror outside Europe until the Europeans
and the Jews created a Jewish state out of Palestinian
land. Incidentally terrorism was first used by the
Haganah and the Irgun Zvai Leumi to persuade the British
to set up Israel. The Palestinians were actually
ejected from their homes and their country and forced to
live in miserable refugee camps for more than 50 years
now.
16. It is the struggle of the Palestinians to regain
their land that has precipitated, first conventional
wars, then civil protest and eventually violent
demonstrations. The Israelis demanded European support
to atone for European crimes against them in the past.
In desperation the Palestinians finally resorted to what
is described as acts of terror. Rightly, this is
condemned by the world. But the world does not condemn
as acts of terror the more terrifying acts of the
Israelis; the massacres in Sabra and Shatila, the
shooting and killing of children, the use of depleted
uranium coated bullets, the bulldozing of Palestinian
homes while the occupants are still in them, the
helicopter gunships etc. And Israel is now threatening
to use nuclear weapons.
17. This blatant double standards is what infuriates
Muslims, infuriates them to the extent of launching
their own terror attacks. If Iraq is linked to the Al-
Qaeda, is it not more logical to link the expropriation
of Palestinian land and the persecution and oppression
of the Palestinians with September 11? It is not
religious differences which angered the attackers of the
World Trade Centre. It is simply sympathy and anger
over the expropriation of Palestinian land, over the
injustice and the oppression of the Palestinians, and
Muslims everywhere. If the innocent people who died in
the attack on Afghanistan, and those who have been dying
from lack of food and medical care in Iraq, are
considered collaterals, are not the 3,000 who died in
New York and the 200 in Bali also just collaterals whose
deaths are necessary for the operations to succeed?
18. Actually the life of any human being is sacred, no
matter if the person is a friend or an enemy. That is
why war is not a solution. A contest based on who can
kill more people in order to establish who is the victor
and who the loser, worst still in order to determine who
is right and who is wrong is primitive and does not
speak well of the so called high level of civilisation
we have achieved. The greatness of a nation should be
based on a culture that values high moral qualities,
aesthetics, learning and advancements in the sciences.
Unfortunately thousands of years after the stone-age we
still measure the greatness of a nation by the capacity
to slaughter the greatest number of people.
19. But the oppression and injustice is not confined to
waging war and killing people; there is oppression in
ideological propagation. We are now allowed only a
democratic system of Government. We admit it is by far
the best system of Governments. But applying sanctions,
starving people, denying access to medicine in order to
force the acceptance of democracy hardly seem to be
democratic. Actually millions have died because they
have not converted to this new religion. And millions
more are suffering because they are unable to make
democracy work, because of the resulting anarchy.
20. Relieved of the need to compete with the
Communists, the capitalist free traders have ceased to
show a friendly face. Their greed knows no bounds.
They want countries which had fought hard to gain
independence, to give up that independence, to do away
with their borders, to allow the capitalists free access
to do what they like to the economies of these
countries. They call this free-competition. As they
merge and acquire each other, they become monstrous
giants against whom the small businesses in the
developing countries will not be able to compete. What
is the meaning of competition if you cannot win at all.
In the end a few of these monsters will control the
economy of the whole world.
21. The sad thing is that they are not above cheating
and corruption. And we know they can fail. We have
seen how spectacularly they fail - losing 100 billion
dollars in one year. And that is only one corporation.
22. Then there are the rogue currency traders who
destroyed the economies of half the world, threw tens of
millions out of work, bankrupted banks and thousands of
businesses, cause the collapse of Governments and
precipitated anarchy; all so that half a dozen
individuals can make billions for themselves.
23. Now the rich give no more aid. They do not lend
either. And all the time the international agencies
they control try to strangle the debt laden poor
countries which had been attacked by their greedy market
manipulators.
24. The disparities between rich and poor widen daily.
The rich have per capita incomes of more than 30,000 US
Dollars, the poor only 300 US Dollars. Still the rich
want to squeeze out literally the last drop of blood
from the poor.
25. It is this which plague the world today, this
oppression of the poor by the rich; this injustice, this
inequality. To rub salt into the wound the poor are
always being told that they lack transparency and good
governance, they don't respect human rights, they don't
uphold freedom of speech, freedom of the press and so on
and so forth, when in fact it is the rich who lack
transparency, who do not respect human rights, who curb
our rights to speak the truth about what they are doing,
who use their media to hide their misdeeds and spread
lies. How else can we interpret the operations of the
hedge funds and the currency traders, sanctions and the
systematic bombings of certain countries, the
impoverishment of the already poor, and the censorship
of news as well as distorted and fabricated reports
about the south.
26. The fact is that the poor countries have been and
are being oppressed and terrorised by the rich
countries. Naturally the poor are bitter and angry and
have lost faith in justice and honour. And the last
straw which caused them to resort to futile and
destructive terror attacks is the blatant support for
state terrorism as practised by Israel and others. If
Israeli terrorism is a response to Palestinian
terrorism, then Palestinian terrorism, and terror acts
by their sympathisers must be due to the expulsion of
Palestinians from their land, the further occupation of
Palestinian territory and the open support for Israeli
intransigence and terrorism by the Europeans. But the
developing countries must admit that we are also
responsible for the mess the world is in today. We have
not used our independence and freedom to develop our
countries for the good of our people. Instead we have
been busy overthrowing our Governments, setting up new
Governments which in turn would be overthrown. We have
even killed our own people by the millions. And
frequently, frustrated with anarchic democracy we resort
to autocratic Governments, exposing ourselves to much
vilification.
27. The result of this confrontation between the haves
and the have-nots, the developed and the developing is a
world that is practically ungovernable. Despite all the
advances in science and technology, the world is in a
terrible state. With more than enough food to feed the
six billion people of the world, fully one in six is
actually underfed, starving, with hundreds dying daily.
28. Since Sept 11, the rich and the powerful have
become enraged with the poor half of the world. And
their extreme measures to ensure security for themselves
have only amplified the anger of the oppressed poor.
Both sides are now in a state of blind anger and are
bent on killing each other, on war.
29. War solves nothing. War is primitive. Today's war
is more primitive than stone-age wars. The targets are
not the fighters, the combatants. The target is the
ordinary civilians, the women, children and old people.
Whether it is terror attacks or military action, these
are the victims.
30. In primitive wars the carnage is witnessed by the
warriors. While the suicidal terrorists die with each
attack, the great warriors who press the buttons see
nothing of the mangled bodies, the heads and limbs which
are torn from disembowelled bodies, the blood and the
gore of the innocent people who an instant before were
living people like them. And because they don't see,
the button pressing warriors and the people who
commanded them go back to enjoy a hearty meal, watch TV
shows or moral boosting troop entertainers and then
retire to their cosy beds for a good sleep. Tomorrow
they would make more sorties, to carpet bomb more
children, women and old people or they would press more
buttons to send missiles to tear off more heads and
limbs.
31. War is about slaughtering people. Newer and more
brutal weapons are being invented to kill more people
more efficiently. And now there is talk that the use of
nuclear weapons is justified. Is it because the people
to be slaughtered are chromatically different? Is it
because they cannot hit back?
32. Our meeting here today is a meeting of Heads of
States and Heads of Governments. We must admit that our
organisation has not been as effective as it should be.
We may want to remain uninvolved and to avoid incurring
the displeasure of the powerful countries. But our
people are getting restless. They want us to do
something. If we don't then they will, and they will go
against us. They will take things into their own hands.
Unable to mount a conventional war they will resort to
guerrilla war, to terrorism, against us and against
those they consider to be their oppressors.
33. They cannot be ignored any longer. We cannot
incarcerate them all for we do not always know who they
are or where they are.
34. Sept 11, has demonstrated to the world that acts of
terror even by a dozen people can destabilise the whole
world completely, put fear into the hearts of everyone,
make them afraid of their own shadows.
35. But their acts have also removed all the restraint
in the countries of the north. They now no longer
respect borders, international laws or even simple moral
values. And they are now talking of wars, of the use of
military conquests in order to change Governments. They
are even talking of using nuclear weapons.
36. It is no longer just a war against terrorism. It
is in fact a war to dominate the world i.e. the
chromatically different world. We are now being accused
of harbouring terrorists, of being Axis of Evil, etc.
NAM has a lot of problems and issues which it must
tackle. But at the moment the most important threat
that we face is the tendency of the powerful to wage war
when faced with opposition to the spread of their
dominance. We cannot fight a war with them.
37. Fortunately many of their people are also sick of
war. They have come out in their millions to protest
the warlike policies of their leaders. We must join
them. We must join their struggle with all the moral
force that we can command.
38. War must be outlawed. That will have to be our
struggle for now. We must struggle for justice and
freedom from oppression, from economic hegemony. But we
must remove the threat of war first. With this Sword of
Democles hanging over our heads we can never succeed in
advancing the interests of our countries.
39. War must therefore be made illegal. The
enforcement of this must be by multilateral forces under
the control of the United Nations. No single nation
should be allowed to police the world, least of all to
decide what action to take, when.
40. Globalisation must not be confined to the
exploitation of the wealth of the earth only.
Globalisation must include the multilateral protection
of countries threatened by war or hegemony.
41. There must be a new world order in which power is
shared equitably by all. The United Nations must be
reformed. It must no longer be bound by the results of
a world war fought more than half a century ago.
Everyone must disarm. Weapons of mass destruction must
be disallowed for all. And there should be no more
research into making conventional weapons more lethal.
42. If it is right for an international agency in a
globalised world to oversee human rights, business
practices and the kind of democracy practised by
countries, then a truly International Agency beholden
only to the United Nations General Assembly should
oversee the military budget of all countries, big and
small. Trading in arms must come under United Nations
supervision. Brutal ethnic cleansing must be stopped by
a multinational standing army.
43. When Japan was defeated, it was allowed to spend
only one percent of its GDP on its armed forces. If
such a condition can be imposed on Japan, why cannot it
be imposed on all countries?
44. In the struggle to outlaw war and control arms,
nuclear as well as conventional, NAM will find growing
support from among many people in the North. It is a
daunting task nevertheless. But unless we take the
moral high ground now, we will wait in vain for the
powerful North to voluntarily give up slaughtering
people in the name of national interest.
45. Again I would like to say that NAM must struggle to
outlaw war. NAM must struggle to outlaw nuclear
weapons. NAM must struggle to stop the research and
development of more and more lethal so called
conventional weapons. NAM must struggle to control the
arms trade.
46. We must work for a new world order, where democracy
is not confined to the internal governance of states
only but to the governance of the world. We must work
for the revival of the United Nations and
multilateralism. We must work to do away or modify the
powers of the victors of a war fought half a century
ago.
47. We know we are weak. But we also know we have
allies in the North. They too want the abolition of
wars, the slaughter of people for whatever reason. They
may not agree with us in everything. But in the
opposition to war very many will be with us. They are
ready to oppose their warlike leaders. We must work
with them.
48. This then is our struggle. We are not irrelevant.
We are not anachronistic. We have a vision, the vision
to build a new world order, a world order that is more
equitable, more just; a world order which is above all
free from the age-old belief that killing people is
right, that it can solve the problems of relations
between nations.
49. For all these we must revitalise the Non-Aligned
Movement. And that vitality can only come from our
closing ranks and acting together.
50. I thank you for giving me this opportunity to speak
before this august assembly. Malaysia pledges to work
vigorously to oppose war including the war against Iraq
and to ensure the success of this - our Movement.
Sumber : Pejabat Perdana Menteri
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