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The handling of the Iraq crisis by world powers confirms that unilateralism, rather than multilateralism, has become the dominant tendency in world politics, President Thabo Mbeki said on Friday.

Writing in the African National Congress' on-line publication, ANC Today, he said this confirmed the painful truth that economic, military, technological and other power constituted the political engine that determined the fate of all humanity.

"They make the statement, practically, that the voice of the people is not the voice of God.

"They tell the billions, whose representatives gathered in Kuala Lumpur at the 13th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) Summit (at the end of February), that their dream that they would cease to be 'the invisible people of the world' must, perforce, be deferred," Mbeki said.

The continued deployment of troops in the Middle East by the United States and the United Kingdom suggested these two countries "are determined to go to war against Iraq, at all costs".

The current situation suggested that even as the representatives of two-thirds of humanity, including those in the immediate neighbourhood of Iraq, were urging a peaceful resolution of the Iraq question, a few countries were determined to make the statement that war against Iraq was inevitable.

"This indicates that the 13th NAM Summit meeting was justified to draw attention to the global imbalance of power, when it said 'the rich and powerful countries exercise an inordinate influence in determining the nature and direction of international relations'.

"In practice the point has been made that this issue will be resolved solely and exclusively on the basis of what the countries of the North decide, regardless of what more than two-thirds of the world's population, the citizens of the countries of the South, think or feel.

"The fact that some of these countries serve as members of the Security Council is little more than a small and irritating distraction," he said.

Unipolarity and unilateralism meant that one power, with a little help from its friends, took decisions about what happened in the world, "including our countries, without our participation".

"This represents an undemocratic 'new' world order that turns us, once more, into 'the invisible people of the world', living in fear of the consequences of responding to our consciences because of our dependence on the wealthy and developed world."
Multilateralism and an effective UN meant that "we would have the possibility to contribute to the solution of the problems facing humanity, including ourselves".

This would mark the emergence of a new world order, characterised by the democratisation of the system of international relations and the availability of the space for the poor and powerless freely to speak their minds, in a world that is being integrated and made more interdependent by the unstoppable process of globalisation," Mbeki said - Sapa.

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