Mega calls for Asia-Africa unity
Mega calls for Asia-Africa unity
Fabiola Desy Unidjaja, The Jakarta Post, Bandung
Indonesian President Megawati Soekarnoputri called on Asian and
African countries to stand together in the face of new challenges
both in the economic and political fields.
Underlining the inability of both continents to compete with
the developed countries, Megawati said that cooperation among
Asian and African nations could overcome various security and
economic problems they were facing.
"When 20 percent of the human race controls 80 percent of the
wealth, and 80 percent must live on 20 percent of the wealth, it
is very justifiable for us Asians and Africans to unite," the
President said in her opening remarks at the ministerial meeting
of the Asia Africa Sub-Regional Organizations Conference (AASROC)
here on Tuesday.
Quoting the speech her father, founding president Sukarno,
delivered during the Asia-Africa Conference in 1955, Megawati
called for "the liberation of man from physical, spiritual and
intellectual bonds, which have for too long stunted the
development of humanity's majority".
Megawati said the two continents were currently struggling
against massive debts, the inability to compete on the world
market, poverty, disease, food insecurity and environmental
degradation.
She criticized globalization and the "cult" of the market
economy, which she said had not delivered the promised benefits
to poor nations.
Indonesia, the world's fourth most populous country, has been
critical of developed countries on various issues. It called for
world opposition to the U.S.-led attack on Iraq.
Last week at the opening of Asia-Europe Meeting in Bali,
Megawati warned that cooperation between developing and developed
countries should be conducted based on mutual respect and parity.
In a similar mood on Tuesday, Megawati pointed out that the
domination of powerful countries in both political and economic
field had created new forms of "colonialism" and "imperialism" in
the world.
"We have to be fully united not only in the political sphere
but in the economic and socio-cultural spheres. That means we
have to work together to address the problems of peace, and
economic and social development that beset the two continents,"
she said.
Indonesia and South Africa are co-hosting the first
ministerial meeting of AASROC, which serves as a preparatory
forum for the commemoration of the 1955 Asia-Africa Conference in
Bandung in 2005,
The second preparatory meeting of the conference will be in
Johannesburg next year.
During the 50th anniversary celebration of the Bandung
meeting, the countries are expected to adopt a new strategic
partnership on political and economic cooperation.
"The strategic partnership will unite more than a hundred
countries, representing four billion of the world's population of
six billion, with the world's largest wealth of natural
resources," South African foreign affairs minister Nkosazana C.
Dlamini Zuma said.
She said that despite the end of the cold war, both continents
were facing new economic and political challenges that could be
overcome by their own will and measures.
She underlined that for Asia and Africa, multilateralism was
the major way to enhance the two continents' capabilities to
compete in a world characterized by globalization.
"We have to reactivate the spirit of Bandung, eliminating the
negative impacts of the globalization. We need to ensure that we
are the architects of our own destiny," the minister said during
the opening ceremony.
Some 15 ministers and 19 deputy foreign ministers from both
continents are participating in the conference, which is slated
to asses various problems that hamper cooperation between them
and to find new formats for their relationships.
"For today, the countries are beginning to work together
toward a shared destiny, which is also the destiny of the rest of
the world: a regime of durable peace and stability, social
justice and equitably shared prosperity," Indonesian foreign
minister Hassan Wirayuda said his speech.