Hard-hitting Lee speech threat to Delhi unity

Press, 6 September 1980, Page 8

Hard-hitting Lee speech threat to Delhi unity

• • ■ : NZPA . New;Delhi • • ' • • - . ■ The spectre of policy differences towards the IndoChina conflict leading to a serious dispute hangs over the Asian and Pacific Commonwealth regional heads of Government meeting in New Delhi. ’ The reason is a hardhitting speech on Vietnamese and Soviet expansionism delivered during' the ’.formal opening session by the Prime Minister of Singapore; (Mr Lee Kwan Yew). ' On the home turf of the Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi), whose Government, against the wishes of the Association of SouthEast Asian Nations, recently recognised the Vietnamesebacked Government in Kampuchea. Mr Lee called for a stand against Soviet involvement in Afghanistan and the Vietnamese occupation of Kampuchea. “By expressing our condemnation, without fear or favour, of the use of force in settling disputes by big countries against their smaller neighbours, we can alter the political climate of the world,” Mr Lee said. “We can change world opinion for the better, bv putting all aggressors on

notice that we shall support those who are -attacked, whatever the pretext, to defend their independence.” Mrs Gandhi, who is chairman of the meeting of Asian and Pacific leaders, told reporters afterwards: “We knew he would? say such things but we did not expect him to say them in public.” India stands alone among its Commonwealth partners in its recognition of the Vietnamese-installed government in Phnom Penh and its failure to condemn the Soviet Union’s push into Afghanistan. Mr Lee ■ accused the! Soviet Union and Vietnam of creating a precedent for military invasions by invoking a self-proclaimed doctrine of justifiable intervention outside the framework of . the United Nations Charter. " Mr Lee said that the two crises of Afghanistan and Kampuchea had retarded attempts to create a fairer economic system for the developing countries. The world’s leading nonCommunist industrial countries had responded to Moscow’s move by embarking on an urgent programme of defence spending, he said.