Renewed efforts to end Namibian occupation urged at seminar.

Renewed efforts to end Namibian occupation urged at seminar

Nearly all the participants in the Latin American and Caribbean regional seminar on decolonization, held at Havana 8-10 April, have called for renewed efforts to end South Africa's illegal occupation of Namibia, in conformity with Security Council resolution 435 (1978).

Seminar participants focused on the impediments posed to the full implementation of the General Assembly's 1960 Declaration on the Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples by the activities of foreign economic and other interests and by the military activities of administering Powers. Puerto Rico, the Falkland (Malvinas) Islands and Guam were frequently cited as areas for renewed international concern and decolonization efforts.

The seminar was organized by the United Nations Special Committee on decolonization as part of a year-long programme of activities to commemorate the twenty-fifth anniversary of the Declaration. Statements were made by the Minister for External Relations of Cuba; the Chairman and nine members of the Special Committee; juan Bosch, former President of the Dominican Republic; Adolfo Perez Esquivel, Nobel Prize-winning architect and sculptor from Argentina; and the Chairman of the Non-Aligned Movement.

Representatives of United Nations Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar, the Council for Namibia, the Palestinian Rights Committee and the Special Committee against Apartheid also spoke. Papua New Guinea spoke, as did the representatives of 21 nongovernmental organizations (out of a total of 25 attending the seminar).

At its conclusion, the seminar adopted by acclamation its report, comprising an account of its deliberations.

Mr. Bosch read out a joint declaration of all NGOs attending the seminar, in which they expressed solidarity with the peoples of Namibia, South Africa, Western Sahara, Palestine, Micronesia, Guam and all the Territories in Asia, Africa and Oceania "under the yoke of colonial domination", and confirmed recognition of the right of the Puerto Rican people to self-determination and independence. They urged the Special Committee and the United Nations to continue their efforts to persuade the colonial Powers to dismantle their military bases and installations in the colonial Powers to dismantle their military bases and installations in the colonial Territories. They expressed concern at the development and application of the "neo-colonial mechanism of dependence and domination", as reflected in the debt problems of third world countries, and urged the Special Committee to pay special attention to the problems of decolonization in the economic and cultural fields.

In his keynote address, Isidoro Malmierca Peoli, Minister for External Relations of Cuba, said particular attention must be paid to the situation of Puerto Rico. The American National Guard there was a strike force, which had been used in 1965 against the Dominican Republic and had lately been dispatched to Honduras to engage in military maneuvers against the Sandinist revolution. Puerto Rico had been used in the aggression against Grenada. Its cultural identity was being destroyed by the United States.

In his closing statement, Abdul G. Koroma (Sierra Leone), Chairman of the Special Committee on decolonization, who served as Chairman of the seminar, told participants that "we must pool our resources" to ensure that all peoples of colonial Territories would be able to exercise their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. He called on the NGOs to help convince Governments and the public of the necessity of bringing all colonial situations to an end peacefully.