COLONIALISM ATTACKED

Press, Volume XCI, Issue 27637, 19 April 1955, Page 13

COLONIALISM ATTACKED

Opening Address At Conference (Rec. 10 p.m.) BANDUNG, April 18. President Soekarno, of Indonesia, today told the 29-nation AsianAfrican conference that it could “inject the voice of reason into world affairs.”

"We can mobilise all the spiritual, all the moral, and all the political strength of Asia and Africa on the side of peace,” he said in his inaugural speech.

The Indonesian President attacked colonialism, describing it as “an evil thing and one which must be eradicated from the earth.” He asked the conference not to be deceived or even soothed by statements that colonialism was dead.

President Soekarno gave the conference two mottoes—“ Live and let live” and “Unity in diversity.” He asked delegates to remember that “for the sake of all, Asians and Africans must be united.

“If this conference succeeds in making the peoples of the East, whose representatives are gathered here, understand each other a little more, appreciate each other a little more, sympathise with each other’s problems a little more—then this conference will have been worth while, whatever else it may achieve-” He, said: “Even the safety x of the world at large cannot be safeguarded without a united Asia-Africa.” “Moral Violence for Peace” President Soekarno called for mobilisation of what he described as the “moral violence of nations in favour of peace,” as a demonstration to the minority of the world that lives on other continents. “Perhaps now, more than at any other moment in the history of the world, society, government and statesmanship need to be based upon the highest code of morality and ethics.” He said he was certain that the Asian and African delegates were united by more important things than those which superficially divided them. “We are united, for instance, by a common detestation of colonialism in whatever form it appears.” But President Soekarno said some parts of Asia and Africa “still labour under the lash.” “I beg of you not to think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa knew,” he said. “Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control and actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. “It is a skilful and determined enemy and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily. "Wherever, whenever and however it appears, colonialism is an evil thing and one which must be eradicated from the earth.” President Soekarno’s 5000-word inaugural address was entitled “Let a new Asia and a new Africa be born.”