AFRICA-ASIA CONFERENCE

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28471, 28 December 1957, Page 9

AFRICA-ASIA CONFERENCE

‘Manipulation By Communists’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) (Rec. 8 p.m.) NEW YORK, December 26. The “New York Times” said today that the Soviet Union was the manipulating Power at the African-Asian “People’s Solidarity conference” which Egypt’s President Nasser was holding in Cairo. The newspaper said President Nasser was holding the conference to rally support for his own imperial ambitions, but that the Communists were taking over “for their own much broader end.” Noting that the conference is being held on a non-governmen-tal level, the “New York Times” said: “The pro-Soviet elements will, therefore, have it largely their own way, uninhibited even by the restraints which governmental representation might impose on them.

“But only the wilfully blind will ignore the fact, or miss the irony of it, that the Soviets are the manipulating power at the rally and that they are represented, by their deliberate choice, by delegates from their own enslaved Asian colonies.’’ President Nasser himself, the “New York Times” said, sought to “bolster his position against the West, if only for better bargaining possibilities.” In this scheme, Israel appeared to have been “shunted to the sidelines.”

But Israel was still at the centre of Middle East conflict and even the most pro-Western Middle East countries professed their solidarity with Egypt in this matter.

, It was in this atmosphere that the United Nations SecretaryGeneral, Mr Hammarskjold, was employing quiet diplomacy to avoid an explosion.

“But President Nasser has let him know in advance that there will be no concessions and the results of Mr Hammarskjold’s latest mission remains to be seen.”