Laos receives world peace gong

Laos receives world peace gong

(KPL) The world peace gong - an international award, is given to Laos for its peacefulness at a ceremony held in the capital heart of Vientiane on 22 November.
The world peace gong was given by the Chairman of International World Committee of Indonesia, Mr Djuyoto Suntani, to a representative of the Lao Government, Vice-President, Bounnhang Vorachith.
The symbolic gong is now officially kept at a specially built gong house located in the grounds of the Patouxay monument “Arc de Triomphe” of Vientiane.
The Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Thongloun Sisoulith, Vice-President of the National Assembly, Mr Saysomphone Phomvihane and Vientiane Mayor Sombat Yialiheu, members of the diplomatic corps, and senior officials were present at the ceremony.
Mr Suntani said, “Laos received the world peace gong after China, India and Mozambique, on the basis that this country acted as a symbol that fosters world peace.”
“The Lao PDR is a landlocked country, sharing common borders with China, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Myanmar and Lao people are living in peace with its neighbouring countries,” he continued.
“This gong echoes the cry for solidarity among human beings, worldwide equality and a consciousness for all human beings,” Mr Suntani further stated.
Despite different religions, cultures, languages, politics and ideas in the world all human being can live together in peace as one family, he said.
DPM Thongloun, on behalf of the Lao Government, expressed his thanks to the Chairman of the International World Association, the body that awarded the world peace gong to Laos. Dr Thongloun said that Indonesia played an active and important role in the international arena, it must be recognized as a land of ancient civilization, that it was the cradle of the Pencasila principle and one of the founding members of the Non-Aligned Movement and Asean.