Islamic Leaders Debate Response to Globalization

CAIRO, Egypt (Reuters) - Leaders of the most populous Muslim nations, some of them entangled in crises at home, aired grievances about globalization at a summit in Cairo on Sunday. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, taking over chairmanship of the D-8 group of developing countries, opened the one-day gathering with a gripe about unfair terms of trade.

"Open markets in today's world are basically accessible for the products of advanced countries, while our exports...are faced every day with new protectionist procedures, overt or covert, that impede their access to the advanced countries' markets,'' Mubarak told his guests seated around an oval table.He said the D-8 should aim to double trade among its members to seven percent of their total trade in the next five years.

D-8 members -- Bangladesh, Egypt, Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nigeria,Pakistan and Turkey -- have a combined population of 800 million, but only a four percent share in world trade.

Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, outgoing D-8 chairperson, said the developing world had no choice but to ''get on the global bandwagon,'' but was aware that ``ignoring the political and social dimensions of globalization has its cost.''

She questioned whether industrialized countries were ready to open their markets and help bridge the ``digital divide'' threatening to marginalize developing countries further.

Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose country is saddled with $23 billion of debt, said the burden of debt servicing "erodes the will of a government to address the needs of its people'' and threatens democracy in developing nations. He accused developed countries of ``lacking the political courage and will'' to tackle the debt problem. "For us in the developing world, globalization will remain a phantom notion until we can perceive the benefits in the lives of our people,'' the Nigerian leader declared.

Wahid Unperturbed

Indonesian President Abdurrahman Wahid, under fire for traveling to the Middle East and Africa amid ethnic massacres in Borneo where up to 400 people have been slain in the past week, said his country was heeding International Monetary Fund precepts of free trade and free competition.

"For Indonesia, that means we have to protect those who are weak and let private enterprises do the rest,'' he said. He made only a passing reference to the killing fields of Kalimantan in Borneo, attributing the violence to the ``extreme feud between the Madurese and the Dayak people.''

Senior Indonesian security officials flew into the area on Sunday in the first serious government response to the violence between indigenous Dayaks and migrants from Madura island, off Java, that has created some 40,000 refugees.

Turkish President Necdet Sezer was also taking time out from trouble at home where his flaming row with Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit, who accused him of belittling an anti-corruption drive, set off a government crisis last week.

Iran's Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi, representing President Mohammad Khatami, said the World Trade Organization (news - web sites) had failed to meet the aspirations of developing countries.

He called for reform of the IMF and World Bank (news - web sites) ``aimed at preventing...financial crises, regulating and monitoring financial transactions and enhancing the role and participation of developing countries in their decision-making process.''

Kharrazi accused Israel of causing regional insecurity and hampering economic development by sucking Middle Eastern countries into an arms race.

The summit is expected to approve a communique drawn up by D-8 foreign ministers on Saturday that demands a fairer deal for developing nations from globalization. The draft ``Cairo Declaration,'' leaked to Egypt's state news agency on Saturday, voices concern that developing countries are unable to get a "fair share" of the benefits of globalization and stresses the privatesector's role in development. It urges the industrialized world to open its markets more fully to exports from developing countries.

Leaders of the D-8, set up in 1997, recognize ``the critical and major role of the private sector in achieving the group's cooperation targets in all fields,'' the draft communique says.