EGYPT: O Leader of All Rebels!

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In Cairo last week, Indian M.P. Anup Singh took sharp exception to Western criticism of his supreme creation, the week-old Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Conference (TIME, Jan. 6). "The conference,v insisted Singh, "was neither inspired nor financed by the Communist Party, nor is it deliberately following the Communist line."Then he added brightly: "But you can say that the decisions of theconference are helping the Communists."

In the final days of the conference, a few attempts were made to moderate its hysterically anti-Western tone. Sudan's Foreign Minister Mohammed Mahgoub (one of the few officials to attend the "nonofficial" gathering) successfully opposed an anti-discrimination resolution bracketing the U.S. with South Africa, arguing that the U.S. has legislated against racial discrimination while South Africa officially enforces it. Egyptian and Indian delegates between them succeeded in killing a resolution condemning "the inhuman atrocities of the U.S. occupation forces in South Korea."

If Egypt's President Nasser had ever felt dismay at Communist manipulation of the conference (as his lieutenants had assiduously suggested), all trace of it had vanished by conference's end. Nasser held a reception for the 500 conference delegates at Cairo's Abdin Palace, granted long private interviews to the heads of Soviet and Red Chinese delegations. The single solid result of the conference—an agreement to establish a permanent "Afro-Asian Peoples' Solidarity Council"—clearly had Dictator Nasser's blessing. The new council will be headquartered in Cairo, will begin operations on $29,000 contributed by Egypt. The council's ten-man permanent secretariat, which includes representatives of Russia and Red China, will have an Egyptian secretary-general. When the last resolution had been passed, and delegates from 44 Afro-Asian nations stood, hand in hand, on the stage of Cairo University's Celebration Hall, the predominantly Egyptian audience of 4,000 set up a chant of "O Nasser! O giant! O leader of all rebels!"

In fact, Nasser had with his own hand struck a grievous blow at his prospects of achieving leadership of Afro-Asia's restive peoples. For by giving Egyptian backing to the permanent Afro-Asian Council, he had in effect gone into partnership with Russia in a campaign to undermine Western influence in Africa. And in a partnership between Egypt and Russia, even self-confident Gamal Abdel Nasser could scarcely doubt which partner would call the tune.