By Bida Elly David
Acting Minister of Foreign Affairs has proposed that South Sudan signs up as a member of a Non-Alliance Movement (NAM0-a global body that seeks to maintain neutrality in other nations’ affairs.
Minister Deng Dau Deng made the proposal after a non-aligned global summit in which leaders from all around the world, including South Sudan, the youngest country, attended.
None alliance movement is a body consisting of a number of countries from the Middle East. It was established in 1962 and its mandate is to be neutral from intervening in matters which can’t befit their role.
Government spokesperson, Michael Makuei told journalists on Friday that the Cabinet approved Deng’s proposal.
“His proposal report was approved and adopted, and he was directed to move forward with the necessary procedures for the joining of the non-aligned,” he said after the Council of Ministers meeting.
The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide.
The movement originated in the aftermath of the Korean War, as an effort by some countries to counterbalance the rapid bi-polarization of the world during the Cold War, whereby two major powers formed blocs and embarked on a policy to pull the rest of the world into their orbits.
The countries of the Non-Aligned Movement represent nearly two-thirds of the United Nations’ members and contain 55% of the world population.
Membership is particularly concentrated in countries considered to be developing countries, although the Non-Aligned Movement also has a number of developed nations
One of these was the pro-Soviet socialist bloc whose best-known alliance was the Warsaw Pact, and the other was the pro-American capitalist group of countries, many of which belonged to NATO.
In 1961, drawing on the principles agreed at the Bandung Conference of 1955, the Non-Aligned Movement was formally established in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, through an initiative of Yugoslav President Josip Broz Tito, Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser, Ghanaian President Kwame Nkrumah, and Indonesian President Sukarno.
This led to the first Conference of Heads of State or Governments of Non-Aligned Countries.
The purpose of the organization was summarized by Fidel Castro in his Havana Declaration of 1979 as to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and security of non-aligned countries.”
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