Summary:

• Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni emphasized the importance of free association among nations at the Non-Aligned Movement Summit in Kampala. He criticized Western democracies for oppression and interference, urging them to lead by example instead of manipulation. Other leaders expressed concerns about the fight against independence in poorer countries.

---

President Museveni has emphasized the need for the free association of nations, people of a common or shared origin interacting for mutual advantage with the Peoples of the World.

Museveni made the call at the opening of the Non-Aligned Movement Heads of State and Government Summit in Kampala.

Museveni in a lengthy speech in which he traced the origin of the Non-Aligned Movement castigated some of the Western Democracies whom he described as oppressors who were taking advantage of their advancement in science and technology to think that they could use that to indefinitely oppress other people.

“The Oppressed, will learn and catch up and defeat the oppressor,” Museveni warned as he attracted applause from the other leaders at the summit.

He said that resistance fighters like himself in Uganda get flabbergasted and look down with contempt at the philosophical and ideological and strategic shallowness of some of the actors in the World. “Why not respect the freedom of everybody if you say you are a Democrat?” asked Museveni.

He challenged the Western world on their constant interference in the affairs of others, including imposing their views, yet they preach democracy.

Museveni went to ask the West why they had not sought people by their good example instead of their manipulation, intimidation, and threats.

“Chauvinists of race, religion, tribe, or gender should stop wasting our time and opportunities with their shallow schemes. Action will inevitably invite counter-action. Oppression will invite resistance” warned Museveni during a session attended by the Speaker of Parliament, Anita Annette Among, and Chief Justice Alphonse Owiny-Dollo.

He said democracy means people must be free, and that if the developed world wants to influence others, they should do so by example, and not by force because oppression breeds resistance.

The leaders expressed concern that what is happening today between the Global South (mainly the developing regions of Africa, Asia and South America) and the Global North (Western Europe and North America) is a fight against the independence of the poorer countries.

The NAM leaders were joined at the opening session, by G77+China represented by Salvador Valdez Mesa, the Vice President of Cuba and also Chairperson of the group; the African Union Commission Chairperson, Moussa Faki and Cevdet Yilmaz, representing Turkey as a special guest.

Cuba’s vice president Salvador Mesa called for support to all member countries of NAM facing external aggression, including Western Sahara and Puerto Rico.

He condemned what he called indiscriminate targeting of women and children in Gaza under what he called one of the cruelest genocidal acts ever witnessed, as the western countries justify Israel’s actions.

Moussa Faki the African Union Commission chairperson said that, given the summit theme, “deepening cooperation for shared global affluence” an opportunity to strengthen cooperation based on strategic partnerships that endeavor to maintain peace, security, and development while expressing great concern over the challenges posed by the continued prevalence of conflicts, terrorism, and instability in some parts of the regions.

He also added that Africa condemns Israel’s unjust war against the people of Palestine. Calls for a Two-State solution as the only means to lasting peace in the Middle East.

Dennis Francis from Trinidad and Tobago the President of the United Nations General Assembly session 78 noted that the world is deeply fragmented, which complicates the mission and undermines the traditional mechanism adopted by the United Nations to address mutual challenges.

Francis called for engagement in introspection and get more effective strategies to achieve a meaning impact and avoid the loss of the member’s ability to find a common purpose and act decisively in times of problems.

He called upon the NAM movement to exult its influence in bringing a hault to the war going on in Gaza.

Dennis Francis says the UN is dismayed at what is happening in the Gaza strip as the world looks on. It threatens global peace by spilling over to neighboring countries if not arrested immediately, as currently there seems to be no measure of what is enough.