Asian and African leaders endorsed on Sunday a new strategic alliance aimed at boosting trade and tackling poverty as they tried to revive bonds that launched a Third World movement a half-century ago. Leaders of nations from South Africa to North Korea came to this former Dutch colonial hill station on Sunday to honour political pioneers who set the stage for the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) 50 years ago. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and co-host Thabo Mbekei signed a declaration creating a trade alliance that leaders of most of the two continents’ countries, including Chinese President Hu Jintao and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, had agreed on Saturday. ‘‘. The Bandung spirit has been a guidance, and a rallying cry, for generations of Asian and African leaders,’’ Yudhoyono said, referring to the 1955 meeting. ‘‘It was this same spirit that inspired us yesterday, in Jakarta to establish a New Asian-African Strategic Partnership’’ that ‘‘would pool together the vast resources, and the tremendous creative energies of Asia and Africa’’. Arriving from Jakarta in a fleet of jetliners, leaders and representatives of some 100 countries earlier retraced the steps taken by the heads of 29 Asian and African governments who met here in 1955 to seek a path apart from the Soviet and US sides of the Cold War divide. Under a sky flecked with large white clouds the leaders walked the short distance from a hotel to the colonial-style white and gold Gedung Merdeka (Freedom Building) where the 1955 Asian-African summit discussions took place. The 1955 summit was the first major one of what would come to be called the Third World. Historians say it led to the organisation of a formal global Non-Aligned Movement in 1961. The Bandung celebration came on the heels of an Asia-Africa summit in Jakarta, a two-day conference intended to rekindle the spirit of the original. The Jakarta meeting’s declaration got a final blessing inside the cavernous Gedung Merdeka, site of the original meeting. The Jakarta summit’s formal sessions ended on Saturday with the declaration outlining steps to increase Asian-African trade, economic and cultural links. Africa may benefit the most from the fresh effort to forge links between the two continents. Asia has four times Africa’s population, but its GDP is roughly 14 Times Africa’s. The declaration, after two days of talks in Jakarta attended by the leaders of three-quarters of the world’s population, pledged to boost trade and investment ties and stressed multilateral approaches to solving conflicts. The ‘‘New Asian-African Strategic Partnership’’ will also seek to address issues such as terrorism, weapons of mass destruction and organised crime, the four-page declaration said. It commits countries to meeting internationally agreed targets for poverty eradication, development and growth. Foreign ministers from the two continents will meet every two years and heads of state every four. The next summit will be in South Africa in 2009. But Asia’s diplomatic rows and old rivalries took centrestage in Jakarta, including a spat between economic giants China and Japan over Tokyo’s World War II aggression. Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi of Japan, which seeks a broader leadership role in world affairs, apologised on Friday in a speech to the summit for his nation’s wartime past and pledged to double aid to Africa. Japan and China stole the limelight again on Saturday as Koizumi met with Chinese President Hu Jintao in an effort to ease tensions. Military-ruled Myanmar’s top general was also present, refusing to budge on democratic reform despite growing pressure from the UN and fellow Southeast Asian nations. And the number-two leaders of North and South Korea met twice, the highest-level contacts in five years, but there was no breakthrough in the crisis over Pyongyang’s nuclear programme and stalled bilateral dialogue. Manmohan Singh represents Asia at Bandung ceremony BANDUNG: PM Manmohan Singh on Sunday represented Asia at a special ceremony to sign the New Asian-African Strategic Partnership here. Singh was chosen to speak on behalf of Asia at the ceremony attended by leaders of 106 countries to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the historic Bandung Conference. The organisers had decided that only one leader will speak on behalf of a continent. While India was asked to represent Asia, Namibia represented Africa at the ceremony. Singh declared that NAM remains a ‘‘valid and effective instrument’’ to ensure creation of ‘‘a more just and fair’’ global order and stressed for its revitalisation. Singh said the global trading system should be made more sensitive to the needs of poorer countries. Singh asked the Asian and African countries to ‘‘ensure that the architecture of international institutions is democratised and made more representative’’. — PTI
