Around 100 countries' representatives, including President Hu
Jintao, replayed the well known Bandung Walk in Indonesia
yesterday, 50 years after the original Africa-Asia summit.
They retraced the steps of the delegates of the 29 countries
that attended the first Bandung Conference, walking 50 meters from
the Savoy Homann Hotel to the white and gold Gedung Merdeka, also
known as the Freedom Building.
There, Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and others
delivered short speeches.
"We come here today to remember and honor but also to reaffirm,
to rejuvenate," said Susilo, "We will pull together the tremendous
creative energies of Asia and Africa to solve some of the most
persistent problems of development we are facing."
The 1955 conference adopted a final communiqué of 10 principles,
basic guidelines for promoting global peace and cooperation. With
the core principles of solidarity, friendship and cooperation, it
aimed to guide the struggle of newly independent countries against
colonialism and led to the birth of the Non-Aligned Movement.
The two-day Africa-Asia Summit ended in Jakarta at the weekend
with declarations signed on new strategic partnerships to encourage
political solidarity and trade, fight terrorism and organized
crime, and respond to natural disasters.
Attendees also agreed to hold the event every four years
together with a business summit. A foreign ministerial conference
will also take place every two years. The leaders agreed to meet
again in South Africa in 2009.
On Saturday, Hu held separate meetings with UN chief Kofi Annan,
Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, Indian Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh and Tajikistani President Emomali Rahmonov.
(China Daily April 25, 2005)
