South Pacific Island nations to attend Asian-African Summit

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

The upcoming Asian-African Summit (AAS) will not be an exclusive meeting for Asian and African countries as most of the South Pacific Island nations (excluding Australia and New Zealand) have been invited as full participants at the summit.

The Pacific Island nations that are invited to the summit comprise Fiji, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, the Solomon Islands, Tonga, Tavalu and Vanuatu.

Director for African Affairs at the foreign ministry, Bali Moniaga confirmed that the Pacific countries would have full member status at the summit.

"The decision to invite the (Pacific) countries was based on a list of countries that consists of the Asian group. This list was provided by the United Nations. We used it (the UN data) to determine participants from the Asian side," Bali told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.

"We have received positive responses from these countries and a number of heads of state have confirmed their attendance at the summit," he said.

Australia and New Zealand were invited as observers, he added.

The government also invited developed nations such as the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Canada as observers to the summit.

Indonesia and South Africa, the initiators of the summit, sent invitations to 104 countries of the two continents, 53 from Asia and 51 from Africa.

The summit, to be held in Jakarta from April 22 to April 23, was expected to launch a declaration on the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership (NAASP).

The first Asian-African Conference was held in Bandung, West Java from April 18 to April 24, 1955 and attended by 29 countries (including the five sponsoring countries). The conference then launched the Ten Principles of Bandung.

Many have stated that the principles issued 50 years ago were still relevant today, despite some very different political conditions.

According to Bali, more than half of the heads of state from the two continents had confirmed their attendance to the summit, which should provide important momentum to boost cooperation among Asian and African countries.

"It is a good achievement, some 70 countries have already confirmed their participation. More than half of the delegations will be led by a head of state," he said.

The Indonesian government, which is said to be funding the meeting by itself, earlier said that about 56 heads of state/government had so far confirmed their participation in the summit, while other countries might be represented by either a vice president or key Cabinet minister.

Bali, who is also a member of the national organizing committee of the summit, went to New York last week to announce the results of the Senior Officials Meeting (SOM), which was held in Jakarta late last month.

"I briefed some 100 officials from Asian and African countries in New York. I informed them about the results of the SOM because many of the countries did not attend the meeting," he said.

The senior officials from dozens of Asian and African nations are scheduled to meet again in Jakarta on April 19 to follow up on their two-day meeting last month.

Showing its seriousness about making the summit success, the government appointed two prominent diplomats, Ali Alatas and Nana Sutrisno, as special envoys to invite leaders of the countries in the two continents to come to the Summit.