'Asian-African countries must stick to their peace agenda'
'Asian-African countries must stick to their peace agenda'
Indonesia and South Africa will together host the Asian-African
Summit on Friday and Saturday. Scores of leaders of Asian and
African countries are expected to attend. The Jakarta Post's
Adianto P. Simamora interviewed former diplomat Roeslan Abdulgani
to find out more about the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in
Bandung, West Java. Following is an excerpt from the interview.
Question: Could you tell us about whose idea it was to host
the Asia-Africa Conference in 1955?
Answer: It was the idea of former president Sukarno. It was
first presented by Indonesia's former prime minister Ali
Sastroamidjojo at the Colombo Conference in Ceylon (now Sri
Lanka). Originally, the conference was only aimed for four
countries that were previously ruled by British colonial masters,
namely Burma (now Myanmar), Ceylon, India and Pakistan. But the
initiator of the conference, Sir John Kotelawala, then prime
minister of Ceylon, extended the invitation to Indonesia to
attend the Colombo Conference.
Sukarno was very happy about the invitation and sent Ali to
Colombo with a special message to roll the idea of hosting a
meeting of Asian and African countries. He wanted to unite all
Asian and African countries.
Prior to this, Sukarno said in 1928 -- just before he was put
in the Sukamiskin jail in Bandung by the Dutch colonial
government -- "if the liong-Sai (dragon) of China works together
with the nandi (cow) of India, with the sphinx of Egypt and the
peacock of Burma, with the white elephant of Siam (now Thailand),
with the Hydra of Vietnam, with the tiger of the Philippines and
with the banteng (bull) of Indonesia, then it is certain that
international colonialism will be smashed into bits".
It was Sukarno's idea to host the Asia-Africa Conference.
What were the difficulties you faced in organizing the
conference?.
Frankly speaking, Indonesia had never held such a big event
before. The conference involved heads of state/government from 28
countries. There were at least three main problems we faced at
that time.
The most difficult job was hotel accommodation for all the
delegates. Sukarno insisted that the conference be held in
Bandung. There were only two hotels in Bandung at that time and
those hotels couldn't accommodate all the guests. We were forced
to renovate the hotels. As the secretary-general of the
conference, I tried to search for bungalows for the delegates.
Fortunately, Bandung people offered their bungalows and the
delegations stayed there.
The second problem was the transportation, we didn't have
enough cars for all the delegations. We then had to procure
additional cars.
The third problem was to determine the agenda of the
conference.
Did you face any problems in inviting the leaders of Asian and
African countries to Bandung?
Yes, of course, inviting the heads of state/government was not
an easy job but we just did it. There were sharp divisions among
the sponsoring countries on the question of China, Israel and the
Central African Federation. In the end we managed to reach an
agreement to invite 25 countries. So it was a surprise for us
when 24 heads of state/government confirmed that they would
attend the conference.
In addition to the five sponsoring countries of Burma, India,
Indonesia, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, there were 24 countries
participating in the conference in 1955, meaning that almost half
of the countries attended the conference. At that time there were
only 60 independent countries across the globe.
What were the strategic values of the conference for
Indonesia?
The conference was organized as an effort to fight against the
international colonialism of western countries such as Britain,
Holland and France. We believed that such international
colonialism must be blocked through international cooperation.
This was the strategic point of the Asia-Africa Conference.
At that time, we had a Cold War between capitalism and
communism blocks. The two blocks tried to seek support from
countries in the world, including in Asian and African
continents. Some countries supported the capitalism block
sponsored by the United States while the other backed communism,
which was sponsored by the Soviet Union. The aim of the
conference was to oppose these two blocks and stay neutral.
One of the important results of the conference was that the 29
countries decided to stay away from these capitalist and
communist blocks.
Another point was that the leaders of the Asian and African
countries started to establish cooperation in economic and socio-
cultural fields.
What did it mean for Indonesia's leadership?
The leadership of Indonesia was well-recognized in the
international arena at that time. As you know, all members of the
organizing committee of the conference were from Indonesia. Other
participating countries admitted that the Indonesian people were
capable of organizing such a huge conference.
Indonesia is again hosting the Asian-African Summit, what are
your comments?
The total number of countries in the Asian and African
continents are now far higher than in 1955. Inspired by the Ten
Principles of Bandung, many countries in Africa became
independent.
Currently, there are 106 countries in Asian and African
continents. This is clear evidence that the majority of the world
did not like the Cold War but prefer a peaceful co-existence
among nations that have different political systems.
As the number of participating countries increases, the
problems will also be far more complex.
There are no longer issues of capitalism and communism. The
clash of ideology between capitalism and communism is over.
In my opinion, we are now facing the so-called clash of
civilizations. The United States feels that they need to attack
Iraq or other Islamic countries who have ample oil deposits. They
don't admit this reason to us but we know that. I don't believe
the U.S. attack on Iraq was simply due to terrorism, but they
also want the oil reserves.
So what do you expect from the summit?
Indonesia is the host of the summit but this does not
automatically mean that Indonesia will be a leader. Indonesia
itself is still facing complex problems.
My expectation of this summit is that the idea of an Asian and
African conference to promote peace and independence is
maintained.