The Asia-Africa Conference better known as the Bandung conference was held in Indonesia fifty years ago in April 1955. In that conference representatives of 29 nations many of them newly independent met to call for peaceful coexistence and cooperation, and condemn colonialism, racism, imperialism and the threat of a deadly nuclear war. Great leaders like Egypt's Nasser, Indonesia's Sukarno, China's Chou Enlai, Ghana's Kwame Nkrumah among many others called for independence, self-determination, and peace for the nations and countries of the Third World, quite a number of them still under colonial occupation at that time.

Coming out of World War II, many newly independent countries in Africa, Asia and the Middle East celebrated their victorious struggle, but at the same time were concerned with the growing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Their stance of neutrality while calling for an end to the arms race and atomic weapons, genuine independence and peace especially in the face of the occupation of Palestine or apartheid in South Africa was disconcerting for the United States which called on the so-called free world to join the fight against communism.

The Bandung conference was significant in many ways. It initiated the Non-Aligned Movement of developing countries, most of them newly independent, that acted as a third force in the Cold War, pushing for the Third World aspirations of liberation, independence, development and peace. The conference laid forth the principles and aspirations for peace, independence, and cooperation, termed as Dasa Sila Bandung or the Ten Principles of Bandung, to wit:

(1) Respect or fundamental human rights and for the purposes and principles of the charter of the United Nations.

(2) Respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations.

(3) Recognition of the equality of all, races and of the equality of all nations large and small.

(4) Abstention from intervention or interference in the internal affairs of another country.

(5) Respect for the right of each nation to defend itself singly or collectively, in conformity with the Charter of the United Nations.

(6) (a) Abstention from the use of arrangements of collective defense to serve the particular interests of any of the big powers. (b) Abstention by any country from exerting, pressures on other countries.

(7) Refraining from acts or threats of aggression or the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any country.

(8) Settlement of all international disputes by peaceful means, such as negotiation, conciliations, arbitration or judicial settlement as well as other peaceful means of the parties' own choice, in conformity with the Charter if the United nations.

(9) Promotion of mutual interests and co-operation.

(10) Respect for justice and international obligations.

These principles are in accord with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, initiated by China, India and Myanmar in 1954, which include mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit and peaceful coexistence.

Bandung was greatly received by the people themselves, many of them the freedom fighters who won both the war against the fascism of the Axis powers and for independence from their colonizers. The conference presented the voiceless poor peoples around the world as their great leaders gave expression to their aspirations and concerns. It gave small and weak countries a chance to speak about themselves, that they were not ignorant, and they can rule themselves.

Conscious of the great power of imperialism, President Sukarno of Indonesia warned in his opening speech: " …“And, I beg of you, do not think of colonialism only in the classic form which we of Indonesia, and our brothers in different parts of Asia and Africa, knew. Colonialism has also its modern dress, in the form of economic control, intellectual control, actual physical control by a small but alien community within a nation. It is a skilful and determined enemy, and it appears in many guises. It does not give up its loot easily." 

And further that " …“We can demonstrate to the minority of the world which lives on the other continents that we, the majority, are for peace, not for war, and that whatever strength we have will always be thrown on to the side of peace." 

Bandung in the 21 st century

While the Bandung conference was held at the end of World War II and the era of colonialism, and the opening of a new era of neo-colonialism and the Cold War, fifty years later we celebrate the golden jubilee of that milestone under a dramatically changed globe. The Cold War has ended with the demise of the Soviet Union ushering an even more challenging and threatening situation for the developing countries and the rest of the world.

The imperialist crisis of overproduction has intensified in the last half of the 20 th century but the collapse of the Soviet bloc has created an opportunity for the export of excess capital not only to these so-called economies in transition but the to rest of the world through neoliberal " ‹Å“globalization'. Politically, the collapse of the Soviet Bloc has also resulted in the isolation of countries that were openly antiimperialist or assertive of independence while strengthening the role of the United States as the " ‹Å“globocop' or the world's supercop.

The result of this combination is an extremely challenging situation for peoples and their nations and countries desiring social and national liberation and independence. On one hand a campaign of neoliberal globalization riding on the triumphalism of the " ‹Å“market' versus the so-called failure of statist economies of the Soviet Bloc is forcing open developing countries around the world to even more oppression and exploitation through trade and invesment by imperialist multinational corporations. In this way, imperialist countries transfer the burden of their recessionary crises to other countries mostly poor developing countries, by dumping their excess capital and products in the form of greater debt, rape of their natural resources, exploitation of cheap labor and plain dumping of cheap subsidized industrial goods including food.

On the other hand, the principles of peaceful coexistence are swept aside by the globocop which dictates on a weakened United Nations system to disregard sovereignty and territorial integrity of its members states (such as in the case of Haiti, Panama, or Iraq). Otherwise it acts unilaterally when it finds multilateral processes too slow to invade countries under various pretexts, isolate countries that continue to defy it, bamboozle countries into submission to support its various multilateral and regional economic and political initiatives that in the end assure imperialist control and profit besides assuring the survival of an American economy increasingly dependent on the financial, investment, trade and other means of support from the rest of the world. Building on its successes in the previous decades, the US has escalated this political-military domination into the " ‹Å“war on terror' that has become the framework for militarization of the world and simultaneous wars of aggression in various countries.

Fifty years after Bandung, the issues of neocolonialism, imperialism and war have bercome even more relevant providing more difficult challenges to those struggling for self determination, independence and world peace. The issues have become more complex and convoluted such as " ‹Å“globalization'; more deceptive and illusory such as the " ‹Å“war on terror' which uses the false spectre of terrorism as an excuse to attack all opposition, including liberations movements and governments accused of supporting " ‹Å“terrorists'.

In the past three decades of globalization and the end of the Cold War we can say that neocolonialism has expanded and wrought more havoc on the Third World while gains in building independent societies have been reversed. Political and economic structures for self-reliant development have been dismantled in an imperialist free for fall for economic and political domination, oppression and exploitation of the rest of the world. Policies for self reliant industrialization are swept aside to give way to TNC investments and trade, replacing nascent national industries with unsustainable export processing zones. Agriculture development programs premised on self reliance and subsistence are replaced with TNC dominated agriculture principally for export of secondary, exotic crops like tropical fruits and flowers while key food and agriculture products are controlled by global agribusiness corporations.

Self-reliant economic development

The debt crisis and neoliberal globalization in trade, investment and finance have combined to destroy what gains Third World economies have achieved since World War II to provide sustainable economic development for their peoples. Economies in Latin America which had made great strides in domestic industrialization and self-sufficiency are now greatly weakened, a number of them teetering or recovering weakly from financial collapse such as the case of Mexico, Argentina and Brazil. Economies in Africa and South Asia have been reduced to sheer poverty while others, mostly in East and Southeast Asia, have been forced to restructure along export promotion strategies to sustain growth.

The debt burden has been particularly destructive to many countries that have been forced to keep on borrowing to sustain an economic framework producing net capital outflows. This situation of perpetual indebtedness is due to a continual need for foreign currency due to imbalanced neocolonial trade where raw materials are kept cheap while imported industrial products are comparatively more expensive. This is combined with a continuous outflow of superprofits from neocolonial investment patterns. International Financial Institutions have systematically implemented a policy of perpetual indebtedness (which they now call " ‹Å“sustainable debt') in order to assure interest superprofits for these transnational and multilateral banks.

Already crushed from the debilitating cycle of debt, these economies were put under structural adjustment programs that imposed the neoliberal triad policies of privatization, deregulation and liberalization, supposedly to attract more foreign exchange earnings from increased foreign investment and trade. But the seeming financial relief in the form of increased foreign exchange earnings from exports or inflows from investment has not been forthcoming for most of the countries in Africa and Asia. Less than twenty countries in Asia and a few more in Latin America are the few who have " ‹Å“benefited' from these neoliberal policies.

But the benefits are not genuine. Many of these countries remain grossly indebted or are in a far worse financial situation, not only in the form of increased outflows due to increased imports and profit repatriation by investors, but also leading to financial collapse such as the ones that hit Mexico, Argentina, Brazil and the Asian conflagration. Now the Philippines teeters due to dramatically reduced revenues from tariff and taxes as a result of neoliberal policies and ballooning debt.

Even development cooperation and aid has not been spared from the neoliberal juggernaut of imperialism. While development cooperation that was meant to help countries rebuild after the war and address poverty, especially for the colonies and neocolonies has never escaped the overall framework of imperialist interests and was used to advance neocolonialism, this is now being systematically redesigned to implement the policies of neoliberal globalization. The IMF and World Bank were the main institutional implementors of this imperialist design and continue to act as gatekeepers for development aid in order to ensure that indebted countries dependent on ODA loans and grants hew to the policies of globalization.

Under the mantra that development aid is no longer sufficient due to global economic crisis, developing countries are pushed to depend on exports and foreign investments as sources of foreign exchange, and what few funds available as aid are being used to enforce neoliberal policies and support efforts to draw in foreign investments through privatization schemes, infrastructure development and technical aid for facilitating trade and investment.

Trade and Economic Cooperation

Bandung represents an economic paradigm for self-reliant development for newly independent countries. Along the principles of self-determination, Bandung called for economic independence and self-reliance and development cooperation on the basis of equality and mutual benefit. Along these principles, countries implemented import substitution industrialization programs and the strengthening of the government's role in steering economic development and the people's welfare through strong social reform and services besides providing economic services to marginalized sections of the economy.

Except for a few countries, these policies are being swept aside and replaced by an export-led, foreign investment financed growth strategy according to the dictates of the global imperialist powers through structural adjustment programs of the IFIs and the WTO. The United Nations has also been transformed into a active agent of globalization, promoting World Bank themes of free market policies, good governance and greater corporate intervention in public policy and programs. With its tiger economies promoted as symbols of globalization's success, Asia has been projected to be in the forefront of this new paradigm.

Regional bodies for economic cooperation have been coopted as instruments for globalization and control of imperialist countries and their corporations. The ASEAN has AFTA and the ASEAN Investment Area which have become mechanisms for expansion of markets for TNC trade and investment. The ASEAN has also facilitated the entry of special arrangements for Japan, US and Australia besides South Korea, China and New Zealand, either as a group or for bilateral agreements. The APEC, NEPAD and SAARC have been established also for economic cooperation for countries in the Pacific Rim, Africa and South Asia but have become mechanisms to promote liberalization in trade and investment as well as promote the process of implementation and expansion of the World Trade Organization.

The WTO has become the ultimate mechanism for the promotion of globalist neoliberal policies. Because of its strength as an organization with enforcement mechanisms and the preeminent framework for economic relations in trade and investment, countries have surrendered economic independence and selfdetermination to the rules of the WTO.

Trade, and investment, are instruments for economic cooperation and are important mechanisms to promote pro-people development in Third world countries. But this goal can only be realized if trade and investment is made under the Bandung principles of mutual benefit, equality and self-determination. Under such principles, economic cooperation must recognize the different conditions and objectives of each country which must be mutually respected.

However, the neoliberal framework imposes a one-size fits all policy irrespective of particular situations and needs of countries and as a result actually favor the rich and put the poor countries which need special mechanisms for protection and support at a gross disadvantage. Neoliberalism is a false free trade framework that allows monopoly corporations and the imperialist countries to exercise dominance to oppress and exploit the weaker countries. Furthermore, the removal of mechanisms of protection such as quantitative restrictions to trade as well as the mechanisms of support such as the reduction of subsidies for marginalized economic sectors result in even more economic devastation, a reversal of the role of trade and investment.

These forms of oppression are not new to the developing countries, which have been former colonies and are now neocolonies of the imperialist powers. Globalization is clearly an imperialist mechanism to intensify neocolonial policies on a multilateral as well as bilateral framework in a free for all for the various imperialist countries under the baton of US imperialism.

Such exploitation translates to misery for the people of the colonies and semicolonies. Workers receive the brunt of cost cutting by corporations that are desperately trying to survive the global crisis of overproduction. Fierce competition and government promotion of neoliberal measures of subcontracting, as well as the flood of cheap imported products and the privatization of public services have led to bankruptcies of national corporations and even multinational corporations, in massive job cuts and flexibilization in hiring schemes and an overall loss of job security, rights and welfare.

Domestic food production, most of it subsistence peasant agriculture is rapidly being displaced due to dumping of cheap subsidized exports from the North resulting in bankruptcy and dislocation of peasant communities. Even traditional agricultural exports from the colonies and semicolonies like sugar, coconut oil, jute, cotton and others which are produced inefficiently using backward technologies are also forced out by competition not only in international markets but even in the countries where they are being produced.

Traditional sectors suffer heavily from neoliberal globalization as indigenous peoples' ancestral domain, fishing communities and others are taken over by multinationals through speculative development projects and increased TNC investment in natural resource extraction sectors. In the end, the marginalized sectors of women and children, Dalits, migrants and the like suffer from severe dislocation.

Militarized globalization and eroding the right to self-determination

The aspirations for independence and self-determination were the focus of Bandung, but these are severely eroded in the face of militarization and imperialist aggression. Western imperialist powers have used the collapse of the Soviet Union in order browbeat and isolate countries which are openly antiimperialist or resist imperialist domination. The United Nations system was used by imperialism to a certain degree to isolate countries politically and economically under various excuses or accusations like harboring terrorists, human rights abuses or drugs. Selective attacks on Libya for example or the economic blockade on Cuba have been made to appear and accepted as legitimate through US imperialist economic, political and military pressure on other countries.

Intervention in Haiti and Panama have opened the way for the imperialist efforts for legitimization of aggression supposedly to institute regime change for various " ‹Å“crimes', imagined or real. But this is not the point. That it has to be debated whether there were indeed weapons of mass destruction in Iraq to justify invasion to topple the Baathist regime of Saddam Hussein flis in the face of the fundamental issue of independence and sovereignty for Iraq no matter if such weapons do exist as it does in the US, Israel and many other countries.

Indeed the concept of the " ‹Å“rogue state' and the whole discourse about terrorism and regimes harboring accused terrorists is being used simply to justify the gross violation of sovereignty of independent countries. This is a far cry from the celebration of independence, the universal condemnation of imperialist aggression or invasion and call for peaceful coexistence which permeated the conference at Bandung fifty years ago and reverberated throughout the Third World.

This political and miltitary offensive of imperialism has been made possible as a logical consequence of the fall of the Soviet bloc, the domination by the US as the sole superpower over the G7 that has made it possible to neutralize the United Nations system and browbeat the rest of the world, and the active collusion and brazen puppetry of regimes such as that of the Philippines and Pakistan which act as supporters to legitimize imperialist aggression.

The US " ‹Å“war on terror' is the height of this offensive and builds on two decades of the more recent successes of imperialist aggression. Painting a so-called " …“Axis of Evil"  in a wide swath across Asia from North Korea in the northeast right through to Iraq in the southwest, the US Bush administration has declared war on antiimperialist regimes and liberation movements, typically calling them terrorists as a militarist would, and lumping anyone fighting imperialism and globalization as terrorists as well.

The so-called threat by terrorism dramatized by 9/11 serves the political purpose of justifying this military offensive against anyone actively fighting imperialism. Many people, even among the social movements, are blind to this reality and have consciously or unconsciously bought into the terrorist discourse, supporting US imperialism in attacking its enemies and putting themselves objectively on the side of the empire.

Peaceful coexistence and development cooperation or militarized pacification and domination?

The severe economic crisis faced by the imperialist system continues to breed social and political unrest, internal conflict, as well as conflicts between neighboring countries, while racism, xenophobia and intolerance are promoted by rightist forces among the people. Neoconservatism and fascist movements are finding some support by a deluded population and opportunities to advance in imperialist and other industrialized countries. In this way, they providing social support for militarism and imperialist aggression as response to political and armed conflicts around the world. They promote the paradigm of global security founded on pacification and artifical peacekeeping and conflict resolution.

Genuine peace can only be achieved through social justice and equality, and abiding by the five principles of peaceful coexistence: mutual respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity, mutual non-aggression, non-interference in internal affairs, equality and mutural benefit and peaceful coexistence. These principles and the whole spirit of Bandung for independence against imperialism have been systematically destroyed over the years. As the sole superpower, the US has shown its brazen might in attacking antiimperialist countries and liberation movements and countries assertive of independence. From pressure tactics and domination to outright intervention and invasion, US imperialism is now using the full range of its economic, political and military power not only on the colonies and semicolonies but also on other industrialized and imperialist countries.

The official Asia-Africa Conference organized by governments in the last week of April in Jakarta and Bandung have nothing to offer that would approximate even a shadow of the original Bandung conference. It is a travesty to the spirit of Bandung but not surprising that fifty years after, the commemorative conference will unveil the so-called New Strategic Partnership which does not question globalization but serves to perpetuate and strengthen neoliberal policies in trade between participating Asian and African countries. This New Strategic Partnership does not intend to provide a counterpoint to imperialist globalization but instead strengthens the so-called " …“multilateral trading system" , a euphemism for WTO and work for " …“governance and democracy" , a euphemism for World Bank post-Washington consensus conditionalities.

The only hope for sustaining the struggle to achieve the aspirations of Bandung in the 21 st century lie in the people, the people's movements and the few countries led by antiimperialist regimes who constitute the last bastion in the struggle for peace, self-determination and independence against imperialism in the post-Cold War period. This effort will be dificult, but Bandung will remain a beacon of hope, determination and struggle in the 21 st century.

The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia Copyright  ƒâ€š © 2003, Columbia University Press.

http://www.revolutionintheair.com/chron/chron1.html

Guide The Museum of Asian-African Conference by the Department of Foreign Affairs of The Republic of Indonesia Foreign Policy Research and Development Agency: The Museum of Asian ""African Conference.

" …“Bandung Conference, voice of weak countries" , Mohsen Al-Emad, the Yemen Times

" …“Let a New Asia and a New Africa be Born!" , Speech by President Sukarno at the opening of the Asia-Africa Conference, April 18, 1955.

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