Disappointing spying game

Citizens of the Third world, myself included, must have been deeply disappointed at seeing an emotional, if not irresponsible, spying game played by the world super-powers, the United States and Russia.

The number of spies, real or not, said to be engaged in spying activities, (fifty or more in total), is very staggering under the prevailing detente. This can alarm developing nations unnecessarily about the dangers of cold war holocaust, as during the Kennedy-Khrushchev missile confrontation over Cuba and Berlin in the sixties.

Has there never been a true end to the cold war? Behind the facades of smiling faces of diplomats, so it seems, a mean sense of vengeance left over from the cold war period is ever-present.

The most logical question is whether spying on such a scale by both sides, as indicated by the huge number of people declared persona non grata, is a serious business or just an emotional game?

How exemplary and peaceful has been the cooperation in space exploration between American and Russian astronauts in the past decades? What are the objects of Russian spying activities in the USA and what do Americans want to know about the movements of Russians?

I think the spying opponents have an obligation to reveal more to Third World countries, which have been pressing for peaceful co-existence among the ideologically contrasting super powers since the Asian African conference in Bandung in 1955.

The Third World will only suffer more if the super powers become engaged once more in secret confrontational activities. The cash and technical know-how of the advanced countries are needed not for war efforts, but for economic restructuring aimed at alleviating poverty and backwardness.

Surely the United Nations has a moral right to call for a stop to unfriendly or hostile actions taken or conceived by the super power strategists.

The new U.S. administration is expected to release more doves than hawks into the air and U.S. President Vladimir Putin must see to it that no red bears be allowed to cross the Bay of Pigs.

GANDHI SUKARDI

Jakarta