The East Timorese Foreign Minister, Jose Luis Guterres, became the last of 109 heads of state and 80 senior politicians to stand before the world on Wednesday and mourn for five minutes that humanity was in bad shape and that Something Had to Be Done.
Few people had heard of him, fewer heard him and fewer still could distinguish between him and most of the other world leaders who in the previous days had wrung their hands for five minutes and flown home.
As a collective group they proved to be remarkably similar, down to the colour of their suits (uniformly dark blue), their eyesight (most wear rimless glasses), their silk ties and their rhetoric. Politically, too, they have more or less spoken as one, embracing capital markets, trade and more cooperation between countries.
Only five outspoken renegades, a dwindling salon de refuses, bucked the trend. They may be out of step with the rest of the world, but the summit’s unofficial clapometer suggests they have deep support.
President Hugo Chavez of Venezuela was the first and was widely regarded as the ringleader. ”Neo-liberalism is inhuman,” he intoned. ”It disintegrates life. It is guilty of all the disasters in the world. We have to fight it. We do not pretend to fight fires by respecting those who light them.” He was loudly cheered.
President Sam Nujoma of Namibia, who spoke later, had the many African delegates in stitches as he waved first one then both fists and attacked colonialism in general and British Prime Minister Tony Blair in particular.
”The 21st century demands equality of people. If whites think they are superior, we condemn them and reject them. We are equal to Europe and if you don’t think that, then to hell with you. You can keep your money. We will develop our Africa without your money.”
President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe devoted only part of his speech to attacking Blair.
”The programme of action we set for ourselves at Rio has not only been unfulfilled but it has also been ignored, sidelined and replaced by a half-baked unilateral agenda of globalisation in the service of big corporate interests of the North.”
The audience loved it and gave him a standing ovation.
Cuban President Fidel Castro sent Felipe Roque, his Foreign Minister, who repeated more than half his leader’s 1992 speech and added: ”The world is more unfair and unequal than it was 10 years ago. The gap has widened. The economic and political order imposed on the world by the powerful is responsible.”
President Yoweri Museveni of Uganda was the last of the renegade voices. ”The arrogant so-called non-government groups who interfere with the construction of hydro-dams in Uganda are the real enemies of the environment,” he said, to some cheers.
To gales of laughter, he continued: ”The [International Monetary Fund] sometimes disorganise me. They tell me not to turn left any more, turn right. There is little point in holding more summits until governments can cooperate in the common interest.”
The cheers were deafening. — (c) Guardian Newspapers 2002