11 July 1980* (St 219/59) Travel subsidy

Secretariat. Financial assistance to enable women from Asia and Africa to take part in the Forum of Non-Governmental Organisations, Copenhagen. Includes memorandum from V. TERESHKOVA (2 July 1980, No 76-s), pp. 4-5. [R 11 July 1980, St 219/59] /Total 5 pp. (excerpt).

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[page four of five]

Secret

No 76-s
2 July 1980

To the CPSU Central Committee

In Copenhagen the Forum of Non-Governmental Organisations will take place between 14 and 24 July this year, in parallel with the World Conference being held to mark the UN Decade of Women. It is expected that about 10,000 people will take part in the Forum.

The preparatory work for the Forum shows that reactionary forces are trying to use it for their own purposes.

The planning committee responsible for preparing the Forum (it is made up of 34 organisations, only six of them democratic) has received substantial sums from the Ford Foundation and other sources which are mainly being used by pro-Western forces to ensure the corresponding composition of the Forum. According to our information they are attempting to organise a number of anti-socialist protests during the Forum, including a gathering of Zionists. We may expect that the issues of Afghanistan, Kampuchea, refugees and human rights, and so on, will also be used for hostile purposes.

[…] At the request of the Women’s International Democratic Federation women’s organisations in the socialist countries are providing definite support.

[page five]

2.

[…]

At the request of the WIDF the Soviet Women’s Committee is paying in Soviet roubles for the round trip to Copenhagen of up to 40 women representatives from a number of Asian and African countries (Afghanistan, Vietnam, Kampuchea, Laos, Angola, South Africa, Ethiopia, and others), and also of progressive forces in the USA. The cost of board and lodging for these delegations in Copenhagen, however, will require some financial support in hard currency. […]

Chairwoman of the Soviet Women’s Committee

N. Nikolaeva-Tereshkova