Sri Lanka Summit: Noisy Neutrality

To prepare for the distinguished visitors, the authorities moved all the tattered beggars and cripples of Colombo out to temporary "rehabilitation centers" in the countryside. At a cost of $40 million or so, they decked the streets with the flags of 85 nations, hastily widened roads, improved hotels, organized the tightest security precautions in years and even arranged for a band that could serenade the guests with selections from Oklahoma! And so the government of Sri Lanka (formerly Ceylon) was ready to welcome more than 2,000 elaborately robed and uniformed delegates to the fifth Summit Conference of Nonaligned Countries.

Some notables sent their regrets. Cuba's Fidel Castro said he was busy, and so did North Korea's Kim II Sung and Uganda's Idi Amin ("Big Daddy") Dada. Among those who did gather in Colombo: Viet Nam's ascetic Premier Pham Van Dong, Libya's mercurial Colonel Muammar Gaddafi, India's stately Indira Gandhi, Cyprus' black-bearded Archbishop Makarios.

Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz Tito, 84, the last surviving founder of the nonaligned group, soon began to feel dismay at the course the conference was taking. Could they not, he asked the delegates, avoid ideological rhetoric and argue out bilateral disagreements at "another place and at some other time?" Evidently not. The summit meeting made it abundantly clear that many of the supposedly nonaligned are anything but neutral. Indeed, the conference served as a forum for a wide range of attacks against alleged Western "imperialism."

It also gave countries like Cuba* an opportunity to define neutralism in a distinctly pugnacious way. "Simple noncommitment to military blocs," said Deputy Prime Minister Carlos Rafael Rodriguez of Cuba, should not qualify a country for membership among the nonaligned. Rodriguez pushed instead for the idea of "international solidarity" as "a permanent duty of the peoples committed to revolution." By that he meant such things as Cuban military intervention in Angola, a type of international solidarity that Rodriguez said would "not be interrupted."

That stand drew protests from Malaysian Prime Minister Datuk Hussein bin Onn and Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew. Lee specifically criticized "countries like Laos" for their "urge to proselytize" and added that "we cannot tolerate interference in the internal affairs of any member."

Strident Demands. Interference was a widespread preoccupation at the conference, however. Laos and Viet Nam excoriated Indonesia for its recently ratified military acquisition of East Timor (TIME, June 14). An increasingly aggressive North Korea issued strident demands that the U.S. withdraw its defense forces from South Korea. Libya's Gaddafi threatened to proclaim a "balance sheet" of member countries that, in his view, "leaned toward imperialism." Zambia's Kenneth Kaunda, usually a quiet-spoken man, gave a shouting, lectern-thumping performance that amounted to a virtual declaration of war against Rhodesia and South Africa. "Assistance is urgently required," he said, "in the following fields: arms and ammunition, transport, food and medical facilities and personnel." Finally, the conference passed a resolution demanding an oil embargo against France and Israel in retaliation for their arms sales to South Africa.

Surprisingly, some of the rare conciliatory remarks at the conference were made by Viet Nam's Pham Van Dong --and directed toward the U.S. Dong said that his country wanted to develop normal diplomatic relations with Washington, as well as economic ties with the capitalist West. Said he to TIME'S David Aikman: "At present we see no sign of change in the situation [with the U.S.], but I think there will be an improvement in the future."

As the rhetoric resounded interminably in plenary sessions at the Bandaranaike Memorial International Conference Hall--a $5 million gift to Sri Lanka from the People's Republic of China--delegates found more agreement in a committee devoted to economic matters. Among their proposals: producer associations to get higher prices for basic commodities, detailed plans for trade expansion with the developed countries and cooperation in the establishment of a Third World currency and a development bank. Said the committee: "The developing countries, and particularly the poorer ones, are in a state of total desperation."

The increasing combativeness of nonaligned conference members is unlikely to alleviate that plight. Nonetheless, the host of their next conference, in 1979, will be Cuba.

* Along with Cuba, the Communist states attending were Yugoslavia, Viet Nam, Cambodia, Laos and North Korea.

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