Peace urgings to Reagan

Press, 9 November 1984, Page 8

Peace urgings to Reagan

NZPA-AP New York The re-elected Ronald Reagan was burned in effigy in Manila, was the toast-of-the-town at Harry’s Bar in Paris, and was urged by one world leader after another to dedicate his second term to ending the arms race. If President Reagan dreams of a place in history, commented the prestigious French daily newspaper “Le Monde,” he ought to dream of being a man of reconciliation rather than the impetus of a cold war. Among the congratulatory messages and editorial comments from around the world, the reaction most keenly awaited was the Kremlin’s. “Esteemed Mr President,” said the telegram from the Soviet leadership, “please accept congratulations on your re-election ... it is to be hoped that the coming years will be marked by a turn for the better in relations between our countries.” The official news agency of Soviet-allied Czechoslovakia was more direct: “There is a danger that after the elections, Reagan and his Government will even intensify this strategy of talking about peace on the one hand and pursuing the arms race on the other because they will not have to pay attention to anybody,” said the agency. Millions around the world stayed up late or rose early to tune in to reports of the Republican Presidential landslide in the United States. “Reagan romps it,” blared the front-page headline of “The Sun,” Britain’s biggest-selling tabloid. “Fritz is blitzed,” London’s “Daily Mirror” said of the defeated Walter Mondale. American tourists and expatriates, and Parisians packed Harry’s New York Bar for its traditional soiree of election-night votecounting. American embassies in dozens of capitals sponsored election parties to track the results from home. Outside the embassy in Manila, 100 demonstrators burned effigies of Mr

Reagan and the Philippine’s President, Mr Ferdinand Marcos, and called for an end to United States economic aid to the authoritarian Marcos Government. Mr Marcos, facing mounting popular opposition at home, said there was much to cheer about in the Reagan victory. But one Philippine opposition leader, Homobono Adaza, accused the United States President of duplicity because he advocates democracy yet favours dictatorships that are friendly to his Government. Outside the United States Embassy in London, as 1500 guests arrived for the allnight election party, 100 protesters . staged a torchlight vigil for nuclear disarmament. “The American election results mean in all probability ... four more years of reckless armament . and overt threats of war,” said Anne Borgmann, a/spokeswoman for the antPN.A.T.O. Green Party in West Germany. David Steel, leader of Britian’s centrist Liberal Party, described the election outcome as sad. “In terms of world peace, it must be a worrying result,” he said.

The West German chancellor, Dr Helmut Kohl, the British Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, and other leaders of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, expressed optimism in their congratulatory messages for progress on major international

issues in a second Reagan term. In the aftermath of the United States vote, the stalemate in AmericanSoviet nuclear arms talks seemed uppermost in the minds of dozens of world leaders. One senior Third World statesman, the Zambian President, Mr' Kenneth Kaunda, sent a message to Mr Reagan, “We sincerely hope that the question of dialogue with the Soviet Union on arms reduction and world peace will be high on your Administration’s agenda.”

Black African leaders elsewhere renewed criticism of the Reagan Administration’s policy of relaxing United States pressure on South Africa’s whiteminority Government, a policy they say slows progress toward majority rule throughout southern Africa. The South African President, Mr Pieter Botha, sounded pleased. “May your leadership turn back the forces of international terrorism and frustrate Marxist attempts to create chaos,” he said in a congratulatory telegram to the United States Chief Executive.

In (he Middle East, too, Arabs and Israelis pinned hopes on the reconfirmed American leadership. “We hope that this new term will be the one that achieves what we aspire and long for — positive and just solutions for our problems in the region,” said the Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr Rashid Karami in Beirut. The Israeli Prime Minister, Mr Shimon Peres, said, “Your great and sincere friendship for Israeli democracy, and your own committed, consistent and persistent advocacy and pursuit of values we share are sources of strength.” The Reagan victory also drew a warning from the Middle East’s shadowy terrorist group Jihad Island (Islamic Holy War) whose telephone threat to a Beirut newspaper warned it would blow up all American interests in Beirut and elsewhere in Lebanon. /r.