Non-aligned nations struggle to resolve intervention question

Press, 31 July 1978, Page 8

Non-aligned nations struggle to resolve intervention question

— ■■■ .--1,1 ■ ■ — International — "

NZPA-Reuter

Belgrade

Foreign Ministers of more than 80 non-aligned countries battled late into Saturday evening on a declaration to end a conference which has been torn by a dispute over the role of Cuba. .

Political and economic committees argued over the wording of the declaration after the main debate ended on Saturday with radical and moderate countries angrily accusing each other of being agents of the big Powers. Cuba’s military role in Africa provoked the row. Diplomats said the committees had been unable to reach agreement on several points and had referred them back to a plenary session which was scheduled to begii yesterday at 10 p.m. (N.Z. time). So the conference went into an extra day.

Points at issue included the wording of the controversial section on foreign intervention in disputes between non-aligned countries, as well as ways of settling these disputes, the diplomats said.

Other unresolved problems included a call for an oil embargo against South Africa, a formal proposal by Cambodia to expel its erstwhile Communist ally; Viet-

nam, from the movement, and the date of next year’s non-aligned summit, which by an : onic coincidence is scheduled to take place in Havana.

Since the conference began last Tuesday, it has been s '.it over Cuba’s So-viet-backed military presence in Africa in support of the Marxist Governments in Angola and Ethiopia. The running dispute culminated on Saturday when Somalia, Egypt, and some other countries accused Cuba of being a tool of the Kremlin, while Cuba, backed by other radical regimes, retorted that its critics were servants of “Yankee imperialism.” In a bitter verbal fracas, the Cuba Foreign Minister (Mr Isidoro Malmierca) contended 15 non-aligned countries had received orders from Washington On how to act at Belgrade, and that five of them — Oman, Morocco, Somalia, Egy.'t, and Cambodia — had violated non-aligned principles by

military aggression Or harbouring foreign troops. Somalia responded that Cuban forces were trying to be the policemen of Africa; Cambodia styled them as “puppets and mercenaries” of the Soviet Union, and Egypt said Cuba was executing Moscow’s “hegemonistic policy” in Africa. The row has brought the whole meaning of non-align-ment back into the forefront of debate, to the evidence discomfort of the host country. Y. joslavia, and other moderate nations.

Left-wing countries ranging from Cuba to the Libyan Jamahiriya, Angola, Afghanistan, and Vietnam have contended that the Communitst States are the natural allies of the non-aligned, but many countries have rejected this thesis.

Somalia has said that Cuba is unworthy to remain in the non-aligned camp, and at least half a dozen delegates have queried the holding of the next summit in Havana.