unitex@rubbs.fidonet.org (unitex) (09/03/89)
FAMINE, DEBT AND WARS PREOCCUPY NONALIGNED SUMMIT LEADERS
(Reuter Library Report, August 31, 701 words, DATELINE: BELGRADE)
Famine, poverty, debt and wars in the Third World head the list of
relentless problems up for discussion at the Nonaligned Movement's summit
meeting which starts in Belgrade next Monday.
The movement's 102 members want the four-day meeting to shed the
long-winded rhetoric of previous summits and offer practical ideas for
ending regional conflicts and economic crises.
Leaders of nonaligned countries are likely to acknowledge that the
United States and Soviet Union have helped relax world tensions over the
past four years, but they will make clear their view that much more should
be done.
"The world is at a crossroads. Tension is no longer at breaking point,
but neither is peace stable," says a draft text of a policy statement
which the movement, founded in 1961, is expected to release on September
7.
"Stagnation is not general, but neither is development. While there may
be a glimmer of hope, there is no cause for undue optimism," the draft
statement says.
A total of 101 countries, plus the self-proclaimed state of Palestine
which is recognised by the Nonaligned Movement, are attending the
conference.
Groups such as the Arab League and the black nationalist African
National Congress, which is fighting to end apartheid in South Africa, are
in Belgrade as observers.
Ambassadors and government experts met on Thursday at the Sava Centre,
a conference centre on Belgrade's Sava river where the summit will be
held, to prepare a meeting of foreign ministers set for Friday and
Saturday.
Among the 64 heads of state or government expected to attend are Indian
Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi, Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, Zimbabwean
President Robert Mugabe, Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and Argentine
President Carlos Menem.
Foreign Minister Budimir Loncar of Yugoslavia, the host country, told
Reuters this week that the 1,320-billion-dollar foreign debt of developing
countries and other economic issues would dominate the summit.
The Nonaligned Movement wants rich Western countries to reduce interest
rates, ensure adequate new credits, limit debt payments to a percentage of
export earnings and write off or convert into grants the debts of the
poorest states.
It wants to highlight the devastation in sub-Saharan Africa where
famine threatens millions and a fall in commodity prices has helped reduce
average annual gross national product to a mere 220 dollars per head.
Nonaligned leaders will also grapple with guerrilla wars and civil
strife in Afghanistan, Cambodia, Central America, Lebanon, southern Africa
and the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza as well as the aftermath of
the Iran-Iraq war.
Diplomats said the Afghan war was looming as a source of trouble at the
summit because the draft final statement was unacceptable to Pakistan.
The draft calls for a government of national unity in Afghanistan,
implicitly including representatives of President Najibullah's
administration. Pakistan opposes such a solution.
The collapse of Cambodian peace talks in Paris this week and the
failure of an Arab League mission to halt fighting in Lebanon mean the
summit is unlikely to produce concrete progress on these conflicts,
diplomats said.
Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO),
may use the summit to state publicly that he wants a U.S. visa to attend
the annual debate on Palestine of the United Nations General Assembly in
New York this year.
The U.S. State Department refused him a visa last year, and the General
Assembly moved the debate to Geneva in order to hear Arafat speak. But
Washington later opened a dialogue with the PLO, a move which nonaligned
nations could salute next week.
The draft final statement says conflicts in southern Africa are nearer
to a solution but notes that there are still difficulties in peace
negotiations between Iran and Iraq.
In one notable departure from previous summits, heads of state or
government will be limited in Belgrade to speaking for no more than 15
minutes at plenary sessions.
The final statement is also expected to be little more than 10 pages,
with some short extra texts, unlike the 586-article document adopted at
the last summit in Zimbabwe in 1986.
* Origin: UNITEX --> Toward a United Species (1:107/501)
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