Gandhi plea for unity

Press, 10 February 1981, Page 8

Gandhi plea for unity

NZPA-Reuter New Delhi The Indian Prime Minister (Mrs Indira Gandhi) yesterday opened a conference of non-aligned Foreign Ministers in New Delhi with a plea for unity in the 20-year-old movement. The Foreign Ministers were meeting after five days of preparatory talks by senior officials failed to reconcile differences on issues such as Afghanistan and Kampuchea. Mrs Gandhi, whose father, Jawaharlal Nehru, was a founder member of the NonAligned Movement, told the conference: “Divided we are vulnerable. United we will prevail.”

Speaking of East-West tensions that threatened the solidarity of the movement, Mrs Gandhi said: “We want to be master of our soil and bur future. It is to this pursuit of freedom that I welcome you.” She said that in the 18 months since the non-aligned summit meeting in Havana, members of the movement had been asked to stand up and be counted for one side or another. “We see. familiar efforts to place one non-aligned country against another, to weaken our solidarity. These are backed by economic threats on one hand and military might and bases on the other,” she said.

t Mrs Gandhi said the con»ference would issue a call to , the super-Powers to reduce 1 the military presence in the 1 Indian Ocean and various ■ parts of Asia and Africa and -to resume “an earnest search for understanding and ! peace.” I "We are deeply disturbed , by the events in Afghanistan t and the unhappy conflict in i West Asia between two of • our own brothers (Iran and Iraq)” she said. The Indian Government I has stopped short of outright condemnation of the > Soviet military presence in : Afghanistan, calling for ■ peaceful negotiation of the problem rather than confrontation.