In a stirring speech punctuated with applause, Zambia’s former leader Kenneth Kaunda set the tone Monday for Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha centenary commemoration here by lashing out at the US and Britain for unleashing a war in Iraq.Kaunda, who mesmerised the packed Vigyan Bhavan auditorium here with his powerful speech that ended with a song to purge Africa from the scourge of AIDS, asked all those funding terrorism to channel the money to fight tuberculosis and AIDS.
Zambia’s founding president was amongst a galaxy of leaders to address the two-day satyagraha conference that marks 100 years of Mahatma Gandhi’s passive resistance movement. Others who spoke were former Polish president Lech Walesa, Nobel Laureate Mohammed Yunus, former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser Al Kidwa and Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee.
All of them emphasised that Mahatma Gandhi and his teachings were still relevant and could not be dismissed as a matter of the past.
Kaunda stole the show as he addressed the gathering that included eminent personalities from 90 countries and said: ‘I would appeal to US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair and their allies to stop the war. No one with sensitivity and humanity can watch that senseless destruction on television.
‘He said the two countries were less peaceful today than in the pre 9/11 days. ‘The advantage is only for the arms dealers. Poor in the developing countries are wasted victims today.’
Kaunda urged all those who fund terrorism to redirect the money to fight diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. ‘Militancy does not provide desired results,’ he said, adding that Islam espoused love and peace.
He also pointed out that there would not be international peace unless there was peace in the Middle East. ‘It is time to deal with the root cause of conflict… Israel-Palestine conflict is the core of the Middle East crisis… We should give a clarion call to end the war and re-dedicate ourselves for the message of freedom.’
Kaunda ended his impressive speech with a song: ‘In the name of great Africa, we shall fight and conquer AIDS. Always forward, never backward.’
Many in the gathering, including Congress chief Sonia Gandhi, who inaugurated the conference, gave him a standing ovation.
Agreeing with Kaunda, former Palestinian foreign minister Al Kidwa said: ‘The conflict between Palestine and Israel does pose a serious threat to international peace.’
For this year’s Nobel Peace Prize winner, Bangladesh’s Mohammed Yunus, Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha was aimed at eradicating poverty. ‘The world has now realized that peace and poverty are closely linked,’ said the founder of Bangladesh’s Grameen bank.
Indo-Asian News Service
