Polemics Unwanted At Havana

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30946, 30 December 1965, Page 9

Polemics Unwanted At Havana

(N.Z.P.A .-Reuter —Copyright)

HAVANA, Dec. 29.

Organisers of next week’s big antiimperialist forces conference in Havana are striving to keep the Soviet-Chinese ideological dispute out of discussions to concentrate on issues like Vietnam and Rhodesia.

Some 500 delegates are expected to attend this first con-

ferenee of revolutionary movements from the three continents of Asia, Africa and Latin America.

The conference, opening on Monday, will last about a week.

African delegates appear especially determined to avoid sidestepping of main agenda items by involvement in the Moscow-Peking wrangle. Ghana’s Minister for Party Propaganda, Mr Nathaniel Welbeck, said yesterday: “Whoever brings in polemics —we will be ready for him.” He said: “So far. both China and the Soviet Union have worked very well on the preparatory committee, of which

both are members. But there is always the possibility that the dispute might crop up and, if it does, there will be a check.” Mr Welbeck said the conference, sponsored by the non-government Afro-Asian Peoples’ Solidarity Organisation, would aim at consolidating Socialist forces “for quick liberation of people still under imperialist domination.”

It was being held in Havana, he said, to show the United States that the peoples of Africa, Asia and Latin America were not divided on Vietnam, “that war should be stopped there because it is inhuman.”

Strict security measures are in force around the Havana Libre Hotel, formerly the Havana Hilton, where early arrivals are already lodged and the conference will take place. Cuban authorities are organising a gigantic New Year’s Eve banquet for all delegations in Havana’s Plaza de la Revolution.

Decorations, fairy lights and Neon slogans are mushrooming all over Havana to salute the conference and “Granma,” official organ of the Cuban Communist Party, is being published in French and English for the benefit of delegates.