Spotlight: Venezuela should revitalize Non-Aligned Movement with focus on media, says expert

Venezuela should revitalize the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) to meet the need for a new world order, Latin American columnist Fernando Buen Abad told Xinhua ahead of the opening of 17th NAM Summit.

The 17th NAM Summit kicked off Tuesday in the Caribbean island Margarita of Venezuela which takes on the rotating presidency of the non-aligned bloc for the next three years.

The global body was a group of 120 nations, which are not formally aligned together with a shared aim to fight imperialism, colonialism and oppression.

Venezuela is in a position to forge "a consensus out of the concert of nations that demand to be heard globally," said Abad, who was born in Mexico and resides in Argentina.

"To relaunch (the NAM) means to once again put the need for a new world economic order on the agenda, but also to specifically propose a new world order of communication and information," Abad noted.

The summit is taking place under the theme of "United on The Path to Peace," which Venezuela chose to underscore the idea that "you can have a world where one country does not reign," in keeping with the founding principle of the non-aligned movement, said the columnist.

During the summit, which runs through Sunday, representatives will discuss biased pro-imperialist news coverage by the world's dominant Western media conglomerates, among other issues.

The world's economic and media problems have "become a headache for human kind and have come to represent a very serious threat to the democracies and comprehensive development of countries," said Abad.

The NAM needs to raise awareness about the way the media, including the entertainment and news industries, are being used as weapons in an "ideological war," he stressed.

Iranian political observer and journalist Rasoul Goudarzi believes the organization, born out of the need to unite in the face of U.S. domination and aggression, has the potential to make a difference in the world's media.

"The foundation of the NAM is something successful, it is something that has a future, but in practice, we have yet to see anything .... The movement has stayed at the level of mere words, since the majority of (member) countries don't have a strong political or economic foundation," said Goudarzi.

The president of the movement also suggested that Venezuela can work to prevent other countries from being destabilized by some of the same tactics it is has been fighting, such as the "economic warfare" being waged against the socialist government by the right-wing opposition.

"Venezuela can say and describe to them what happened at the hands of the United States, on the one hand, and at the hands of the opposition, on the other, so other countries (can see) that if they don't take a firm stance against the U.S., they might have the same problems," said Goudarzi.

Brazilian journalist Beto Almeida also agreed that Venezuela has been the target of "an imperialist plan to destabilize" the government, which should benefit from its "privileged position as head of the non-aligned movement."

Through the NAM, Almeida said, Venezuela "will have the opportunity to raise its voice on a global scale and increasingly louder" as it seeks to defend the right to self-determination and works to promote greater unity among member countries.

Cuba said recently it believed the summit could revitalize the group to find new strategies for South-South cooperation and sustainable development.

"The principles of the Non-Aligned Movement have proven to be vital ... and have full validation in today's complex and challenging world," Cuba's Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said at a recent press conference in Havana.

Rodriguez said the group should focus on the inequalities caused by globalization and the implications of unjust neoliberal economic policies that make millions of people slide into poverty every year.

"The Non-Aligned Movement has identified economic under-development, poverty, and social injustices as growing threats to peace and security and we must tackle these issues from the perspective of the South," said the foreign minister.

Senior officials from the NAM are to meet Tuesday and Wednesday to prepare for a meeting of foreign ministers on Sept. 15-16. Heads of state and top government officials will then meet on Sept. 17-18.

The movement was founded in Belgrade in 1961. Endit