A tribute to Sukarno from the people of Algeria

By Abdelaziz Bouteflika

ALGIERS (JP): There are men who, due to their unique qualities, flawless commitment and a rarely denied prospective vision, emerge from the community to mark their era and their contemporaries' wits.

Therefore, their destiny transcends their own selves and embraces that of the people from whom they originated, to become their spokesmen, their course having acquired the value of an example. The man whose centennial birthday we are commemorating, former president Sukarno, is no doubt of this scope.

On this occasion, my first duty, which is also the most pleasant one, is to echo the respectful tribute that the Algerian people wish to pay to this great man in recognition of his continued support of the struggle for liberation of the Algerian people and of other oppressed people, but also enamored of justice and freedom.

As an ardent upholder of just causes, president Sukarno dedicated his life to the service of his country, Indonesia, and also to the defense of all Third World countries, which unanimously paid tribute to his great qualities that had inspired and guided most of them in their struggle for freedom.

These values have been underlined in his still famous speech, delivered at the opening of Asia-Africa Conference held on April 16, 1955, in Bandung, of which he was the principal initiator and that many regarded as "the first speech of colored people from Asia and Africa".

It's so natural that I recall this sentence extracted from his inaugural speech revealing perfectly the genius qualities of president Sukarno: "For many generations, our people have been voiceless. We, Asian and African people, totaling one billion and 400 million, which is much more than a half of the world's population, can mobilize in favor of peace against what I call the moral violence of the nations".

Through the Conference in Bandung, president Sukarno offered to the fighting Algeria an unexpected tribune to make its voice heard, barely a few months after the triggering on Nov. 1, 1954, of its struggle for national liberation.

This historic conference of which he was the initiator, significantly marked the entering, with particular flare, of young Asian-African nations onto the international scene. This conference gave birth to the formation of the Non-Aligned Movement and made Sukarno a "cantor of anti-colonialism".

In a world which is today completely disrupted and where human values are increasingly overshadowed, the ideal defended by president Sukarno takes more depth and confirms, if needed, the pertinence and validity of the precious principles he so deeply cherished and from which the Non-Aligned Movement originated.

A charismatic leader, a revolutionary man, a liberator striving for Indonesia's unity, president Sukarno worked untiringly throughout his life for his ideals of justice and peace, as well as for the promotion of the universal values to which he was fundamentally attached. Indonesia can be proud of counting among its sons, a man with the scope of president Sukarno who has been for our generation a model and an example to follow.

I keep the most admiring souvenir from this great militant who engaged early in the struggle for the liberation of Third World countries. I am, until now, still impressed by the openness of his mind, his sense of humor and his broad knowledge of foreign languages leading him to be an outstanding man of communication. He, therefore, enjoyed a rare charisma, enhanced by an elegance of behavior and conduct envied by many of his contemporaries.

To the statesman, to the founder and supreme chief of the Nationalist Movement, to the first president of the Republic of Indonesia, to the man of action and conviction, I would like to pay a sincere and deserved tribute and associate myself from the bottom of my heart to this commemoration in which the Algerian people would like to join as brothers with the Indonesian people.

The writer is President of the Democratic People's Republic of Algeria.