Lukashenka’s voyage to Cuba



The 14th conference of the heads of states and governments of the Nonaligned Movement took place on 11-16 September 2006 in Havana. Delegations from more than one hundred states arrived to the capital of Cuba, including such honored guests as the Secretary General of the UNO, Secretary General of the League of the Arab States and Chairman of the African Union.

Aleksandr Lukashenka, the president of the only European state which is a full member of the Nonaligned Movement, has also hurried to Havana. He arrived „with a very important goal“ – to proclaim his initiatives on strengthening the Nonalignment Movement. The journey of Lukashenka to Cuba was quite problematic (as was the case with the Prime Minister Sidorskij some time ago): Island and Canada did not allow the plane with the Byelorussian dictator to fly over their territories, therefore the plane had to fly to Havana via....Africa.

Having arrived to Cuba, Lukashenka delivered a welcome speech during the summit. On the second day he made another speech in the plenary session and presented the Byelorussian initiatives in terms of strengthening the Nonaligned Movement: „Recently we have been witnessing the intervention to the states, which joined or are joining the Nonaligned Movement. How did we react? Are we going to keep our eyes closed on what is happening around us, as ostriches with their heads in the sand? We should not wait until we are destroyed or torn into pieces, as Yugoslavia and other states, and become invisible...“ In view of that he invited the states of Nonaligned Movement „to take active steps in establishing a new and more truthful order in the world“: „This is our major goal. In order to achieve it we need to elaborate a clear plan of activities on the gradual (but irreversible) establishment of the multipolar world“.

Moreover, Lukashenka held a set of bilateral meetings, including the meeting with the president of Venezuela Ugo Chaves and president of Iran Mahmud Achmadinedzad. Both of these have been declared by the world society as having practically identical views on the world system.

Aleksandr Morozov