Kadafi Threatens to Quit Nonaligned Movement

Libyan leader Moammar Kadafi gave the eighth Nonaligned Movement summit conference a tongue-lashing and threatened to quit the organization Thursday, telling the heads of state that their 30-year-old group was “an international falsehood.”

“We can no longer deceive ourselves and our peoples by saying all the members of this movement are nonaligned (and) against imperialism,” Kadafi said. “In this hall, there are puppets and spies” of the United States and Israel.

Saying he could see “no use for this movement,” the Libyan leader suggested it be abolished and replaced with a group of anti-imperialist countries willing to take up arms to defend themselves against attacks from the United States.

Calls Presidents Puppets

“I did not come here in order to desecrate myself before the revolutionaries of the world and sit beside the president of Zaire or Cameroon or Ivory Coast,” he said. “It’s not befitting a revolutionary like myself to sit beside these puppets who recognize Israel.”

Kadafi said he had come to Harare to see his friends and fellow “freedom fighters”--Fidel Castro of Cuba, Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua and Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, the new chairman of the Nonaligned Movement.

It was Kadafi’s first trip out of his country since April, when U.S. fighter planes attacked targets in the cities of Tripoli and Benghazi, in retaliation for Libyan-sponsored terrorism.

Kadafi said he would resign from the Nonaligned Movement if it did not decide this week to purge its membership of countries with ties to the United States, Israel, France and Britain.

‘This Funny Movement’

“I came here to declare that I am free from this gathering that harbors spies,” he said. “I do not believe there is any use for this movement. I want to say goodby, goodby and farewell to this funny movement, this international falsehood.”

It does not seem likely that the leaders assembled here will take the steps Kadafi suggested. They applauded Kadafi--but clapped harder and longer for Mugabe when he followed the Libyan’s remarks with a gentle rebuke.

“Not all of us agree that there is no purpose or that the movement is useless,” Mugabe told the delegates. “I think our brother must accept that the membership of this movement has provided him with quite a platform to speak to the United States.”

The Nonaligned Movement, formed in 1956 to chart a course independent of the United States and the Soviet Union, now has 101 members and meets every four years.

The white minority government of South Africa has been the focus of the conference, which is taking place only a few hundred miles from the South African border. The United States and Britain have come under sharp attack for their unwillingness to impose severe sanctions against South Africa.

Surprised His Audience

Kadafi took the podium for what many in the hall expected would be a virulent anti-American speech, of the kind he is known for making and the kind that has been heard often here this week. But he surprised his listeners by delivering a 75-minute attack on the very group he was addressing. He ridiculed the statements that have emerged from past conferences.

“What you write about disarmament will go in a death bin,” he said. “You’re powerless to chaperon world peace.”

He said the movement should stop trying to be unaligned with either the United States or the Soviet Union and simply split into two camps--”one for freedom and one for imperialism.”

He suggested that the movement become a military defense consortium, taking up arms if any member should be attacked. “Not words but action,” he said, will end imperialism.

Kadafi asked the countries for military support, arguing that “Britain gave the United States its bases in order to hit my home.”

“Give us a base to hit Zionism,” he said.