The meeting of the Non-Aligned Movement concluded on Jan. 21 in Kampala, Uganda. Uganda’s President Yoweri Museveni, who will be the new chairman of the movement for the next three years, delivered a very strong speech condemning the uni-ideological position of the Western nations. Speaking in the name of the “resistance fighters of Uganda,” Museveni said: “We are not impressed and therefore cannot be a part of the morbid bigotry of uni-ideological thinking of that type…. The universe has been here for the last 30 billion years. Human society has been here for the last 4-1/2 million years.” Museveni then departed from his written statement, saying: “Now you have in the last 20 years the notion that Western thinking is the only correct thinking? You must be sick!” He went on to read: “You therefore should not have the audacity to impose on certain regions, let alone the world, your narrow uni-ideological orientation. Therefore, we the resistance fighters of Uganda are flabbergasted and look down on the concept of the ideological, philosophical, and strategic shallowness of some of the actors in the world.”
There was a great deal of discussion about the situation in Gaza, and the final Kampala Declaration included “the need for substantial and urgent progress to be made towards achieving an end to the Israeli occupation, including achievement of the independence and sovereignty of the State of Palestine, with East Jerusalem as its capital, to achieve a two-state solution, on the basis of the pre-1967 borders, and affirmed support for the State of Palestine to be admitted as a Member State of the United Nations to take its rightful place among the community of nations.” The Declaration also called for a reform of the global governance system based on the central role of the United Nations, as well as a reform of the international financial architecture. China sent a high-level delegation and the conference was also attended and addressed by the UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
