Youth urged to unite against arms race

Press, 5 August 1985, Page 6

Youth urged to unite against arms race

NZPA-AP Moscow The twelfth World Youth Festival ended yesterday with a message calling on the younger generation, to “pool their efforts to prevent a nuclear catastrophe.” More than 20,000 foreign delegates and 10,000 guests attended the festival. Before the final ceremonies, the festival organising committee released a “message to the youth and students of the world” agreed to by the delegations from 157 countries. The document said the festival was based on a desire, "to think jointly about the possible contribution of the younger generation from different countries to solving the most urgent problems. “Although differences of opinion on some questions were to be expected in such a representative forum, this

did not prevent us from highlighting what was most important ... that is, the struggle for the all-round implementation of everyone’s inalienable right to live in peace and freedom,” it said.

“We call on young people in all countries ... to halt the forces of militarism and aggression and to pool their efforts to prevent a nuclear catastrophe, to put an end to the nuclear and conventional arms race on Earth and prevent it from being taken into outer space.” Fireworks cascaded across the sky and circus acts, musicians and dancers performed in a spectacular finale to the week-long festival.

The Soviet news agency, Tass, described the festival as the most representative to be held. Western diplomats called it a propaganda exercise.

Aircraft seeded the clouds to keep the rain away from Moscow’s floodlit central Lenin Stadium, where 100,000 people gathered for the send-off.

Besides flooding Moscow with young visitors, the festival brought a dash of colour to the streets in flags and decorations, and gave Muscovites a week-long respite from overcrowded stores as authorities restricted entry to the capital.

The Kremlin did not entirely escape criticism, although the negative words did not reach the Soviet public. At one session of the “Anti-Imperialist Tribunal,” a Swedish delegate read in English a scathing condemnation of the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan, but her delegation protested that she was grossly mistranslated into Russian.