Assembly pays tribute to Indira Gandhi.

Tributes to Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India assassinated on 31 October in New Delhi, were paid at a plenary meeting of the General Assembly that same day.

Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar said India had "lost a great and courageous leader and the international community a wise and dedicated citizen of the world". Mrs. Gandhi, he said, had been a highly respected figure at the United Nations, which she had supported staunchly.

Following in the tradition of her father, Pandit Nehru, he said, she represented on the international scene "the spirit of moderation, tolerance and understanding". Her statements as Chairperson of the summit meeting of non-aligned countries in New Delhi in 1983 had been "models of the kind of principled realism that is so vitally needed in our world today".

Mr. Perez de Cuellar said: "Once again the world stands aghast at a shocking act of political violence. The assassination of Prime Minister Gandhi brings home to us once more the absolute necessity of turning away from and rejecting such methods."

Assembly President Paul J.F. Lusaka of Zambia said her death was a loss not only for the people of India, the Movement of Non-Aligned Countries and the Commonwealth, but also "for humanity as a whole", as she was "among the great world leaders of this century". Born in "one of the cradles of the concept and practice of non-alignment", and the daughter of a founder of the Non-Aligned Movement, she had worked tirelessly, Mr. Lusaka said, to help nurture that Movement unfortunately still "clouded in many ways by East-West rivalry".

After observing a minute of silence in Mrs. Gandhi's memory, the plenary also heard statements from representatives of the African, Asian, Eastern European, Latin American, Western European and Other States and Arab Groups.

On Thursday and Fridy, 1 and 2 November, the United Nations flag flew at half mast in honour of the late Prime Minister.

Mrs. Gandhi had addressed the General Assembly in 1966, 1968, 1970, 1982, and 1983. At the thirty-eighth session in 1983, as Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement, she had initiated the meetings of Heads of State and Government in which the Secretary-General had participated.

Mr. Perez de Cuellar arrived in New Delhi on Friday, 2 November, and laid a wreath in honour of Mrs.-Gandhi before attending the final rites on Saturday afternoon, 3 November.