There is something genuine with this man.Bush is not going tell us anything
new,there are 40 million Americans,if not,without health insurance.
For Freedom
Saiks
>===== Original Message From The Gambia and related-issues mailing list
<[log in to unmask]> =====
>---------- Forwarded message ----------
>Date: Fri, 22 Mar 2002 10:18:57 -0800
>From: David Mozer <[log in to unmask]>
>Reply-To: [log in to unmask]
>To: an WASAN <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: [WASAN] Monterrey Conference
>
>I am forwarding the following pieces because, while not specifically about
>Africa, the International Conference on Development Financing, which is
>discussed, affects Africa and the information presented below is not likely
>to be covered in the US media.
>dm
>
>-----Original Message-----
>
>
>March 21, 2002
>Granma International
>
>In Monterrey, Fidel urges an end to conditions for development funding
>
>MONTERREY, Mexico.- President Fidel Castro stated today Thursday that
>allocating funds for nations’ development should be carried out with the
>democratic support of all, and without sacrificing any countries’
>independence and sovereignty.
>
>When speaking at the International Conference on Development Financing, the
>Cuban leader commented that resources for providing direct help to countries
>should be in the hands of the United Nations, and not disastrous
>institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF).
>
>He considered that the forum’s planned resolution, called the Monterrey
>Consensus, should not be imposed at the conference by the world’s masters,
>thus delegating us to humiliating, conditional and interfering charity.
>
>Fidel Castro affirmed that the rich world should forgive foreign debts and
>offer new, soft loans for development financing, while traditional offers of
>aid, always miserly and very often ridiculous, are insufficient or not
>fulfilled.
>
>In that regard, he urged that all the international finance organizations
>that had been created since the Bretton Woods Conference until today, should
>be rethought.
>
>The Cuban president highlighted that in the face of the current serious
>crisis, we are being offered an even worse future, where an increasingly
>ungovernable world’s economic, social and ecological tragedy will never be
>solved, where poverty and hunger increase daily, as if a large part of
>humanity were superfluous.
>
>This is the time for politicians and state leaders to reflect calmly,
>suggested Fidel.
>
>He called the current world economic order a system of plunder and
>exploitation, the like of which history has never seen before, and which has
>led to the underdevelopment of 75% of the world’s inhabitants.
>
>Every day people believe less and less in statements and promises, and the
>prestige of international financial institutions has dropped to below zero.
>
>Cuba’s president referred to the world economy as a gigantic casino, when
>explaining that according to recent analysis, for every dollar used in world
>commerce more than $100 USD are used in speculative ventures that have
>nothing to do with the real economy.
>
>He also pointed out that 1.2 billion persons now live in extreme poverty in
>Third World nations, while the abyss is growing, not getting smaller. In
>1969, rich countries had 37 times more income than poor nations; the figure
>currently stands at 74.
>He indicated that we have reached such extremes that the world’s three
>richest persons possess assets equivalent to the combined GDP of the 48
>poorest countries, while in 2001, the number of hungry people was 826
>million.
>
>Currently, there are 854 million illiterate adults, 325 million children who
>do not attend school, two billion persons who lack essential low-cost
>medicine, 2.4 billion who have no basic sanitary conditions. At least 11
>million under five’s die every year from preventable causes and 500,000 go
>incurably blind due to a lack of vitamin A.
>
>He stressed that the inhabitants of developed countries live 30 years longer
>than sub-Saharan African people, calling that true genocide.
>
>Fidel stated that poor nations should not be blamed for the tragedy, because
>they had not conquered or looted entire continents for centuries, nor
>established colonialism, nor re-introduced slavery or created modern
>imperialism. They are its victims.
>
>The main responsibility for financing development belongs to those states
>which today, for obvious historical reasons, enjoy the benefits of such
>atrocities.
>
>Thus he proposed that the rich world should forgive foreign debts and gives
>new, soft loans to finance development.
>
>The belief that the economic and social order that has shown itself to be
>unsustainable could be imposed by force is a crazy idea, he emphasized when
>calling on humanity to say a farewell to arms once and for all, as something
>has to be done to save the human race, and that a better world is possible.
>
>During his six-minute speech, the Cuban president received several rounds of
>applause.
>
>&&&&&&&&&&&&&
>
>Cuba's Castro attacks West on poverty at UN summit.
>By Kieran Murray
>
>MONTERREY, Mexico, March 21 (Reuters) - Cuban President Fidel Castro on
>Thursday ridiculed efforts by rich nations to reduce global poverty, saying
>they were masters of a "genocidal" economic system that condemns billions to
>misery and deprivation.
>
>In a brief visit to a major U.N. aid summit, Castro said the West now lorded
>over the rest of the world because it had plundered entire continents during
>centuries of colonial rule.
>
>"The existing world economic order constitutes a system of plundering and
>exploitation like no other in history," a combative Castro said in an
>unusually short speech.
>
>The communist leader then excused himself before the more than 50 heads of
>state present, saying he had to return to Cuba immediately because of a
>"special situation" there. He gave no details.
>
>His rapid departure meant he would not cross paths with U.S. President
>George W. Bush, due to arrive at the summit in Mexico's northern city of
>Monterrey later on Thursday.
>
>Castro arrived in Monterrey on Wednesday, less than 24 hours after
>confirming he would take part in the summit, which is aimed at boosting aid
>flows to poor nations in order to slash poverty levels across the world.
>
>Castro dismissed the summit's draft action plan, saying it was imposed by
>the "masters of the world" who simply want poor nations to "accept
>humiliating, conditioned and interfering handouts."
>
>"The world economy today is a huge casino," he said, reeling off a list of
>statistics showing the dramatic concentration of wealth in the developed
>world while hundreds of millions of starving people lacked even basic
>medical and social services.
>
>"The life span of the population in the developed world is 30 years higher
>than that of people living in sub-Saharan Africa. A true genocide!" Castro
>said, dressed in his familiar olive green fatigues.
>
>He called on developed nations to condone the foreign debt of all poor
>nations and open up hefty new lines of credit to finance their development.
>
>"As I have said before, the ever more sophisticated weapons piling up in the
>arsenals of the wealthiest and the mightiest can kill the illiterate, the
>ill, the poor and the hungry but they cannot kill ignorance, illness,
>poverty or hunger," Castro said.
>
>&&&&&&&&&&&&&
>
>Summit braces for Castro U.S. foreign aid focus of event
>The Miami Herald - Thu, Mar. 21, 2002 - BY ANDRES OPPENHEIMER
>
>MONTERREY, Mexico - The expected arrival Wednesday of President Fidel Castro
>of Cuba for a United Nations summit on poverty is prompting worries among
>organizers that he will rob the limelight from President Bush's promise of
>major increases in U.S. foreign aid.
>
>Cuba communicated Castro's last-minute decision to attend the summit to
>President Vicente Fox of Mexico at 9:30 p.m. Tuesday. Expressing their
>concern, Mexican, U.S. and European officials said privately they fear
>Castro's anti-globalization rhetoric will draw attention from a
>groundbreaking final document expected to be signed by the United States,
>Europe and virtually all developing countries.
>
>Latin American officials were especially worried that Castro may want to
>participate in Friday's closed-door retreat for Bush and dozens of other
>heads of state to discuss the war on poverty.
>
>''If Castro goes, Bush won't go, and the meeting will be worthless,'' said a
>Latin American official involved in the summit's organization.
>
>But Mexico's foreign minister, Jorge Castañeda, said Wednesday that Castro
>would address the summit in the morning session of today's meeting, and that
>the Cuban leader's visit to Monterrey was expected to be ''for a very brief
>period.'' Bush is expected to arrive this afternoon.
>
>NOT TOGETHER
>
>Castañeda's words were interpreted by Latin American officials as a Mexican
>hope that Castro will be gone by midday, before Bush's arrival, and that the
>two leaders will not be in the same room at any time.
>
>''Castro will have it both ways: He will grab the headlines from the world,
>and he will do Fox a favor in not requesting to be invited along with
>everybody else to the closed-door retreat,'' one Latin American official
>said. ``It will be his way of telling Fox, ``You owe me one.''
>
>Relations between Cuba and Mexico have been tense since an incident last
>month in which 21 Cubans broke into the Mexican Embassy in Havana,
>presumably in an effort to leave the country, and were evicted by Cuban
>police at Mexico's request.
>
>Mexican officials first blamed Miami Cuban exiles for instigating the
>would-be refugees' action, but later said privately that the Castro regime
>might have encouraged the embassy takeover as a subtle punishment for
>Mexico's policy of supporting human rights activists on the island.
>
>Asked whether Castro would meet with Fox, Castañeda told reporters, ``We
>still don't have the exact arrival and departure times of President Castro,
>so we don't know.''
>
>FINAL DOCUMENT
>
>Even if Castro leaves before Bush's arrival, his likely statements
>criticizing U.S.-backed free-market policies are expected to take some of
>the glitter away from what U.S. and United Nations officials are calling a
>groundbreaking final document entitled ``The Monterrey Consensus.''
>
>Breaking with decades of sterile arguments in which poor countries demanded
>more aid from richer nations, the U.S.-backed document sets new ground rules
>under which poor countries will adopt free-market policies, respect human
>rights and fight corruption in exchange for greater financial assistance
>from rich countries.
>
>As a show of support for the new agreement, the Bush administration has
>announced a 50 percent increase in U.S. foreign aid by 2006. The United
>States now spends about $10 billion a year in foreign assistance, and is the
>least generous donor relative to its economy among rich nations.
>
>
>[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>
>
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>---------------------------------------------------------------------~->
>
>Next WASAN meeting is Wednesday, March 27, 2002. Location: Mt. Kenya Safari
Club, 9415 Rainer Avenue S., Seattle
>7:00 PM WASAN Annual meeting
>
>We usually meet the fourth Wednesday of the month. For a calendar of local
Africa events see http://www.ibike.org/africamatters/calendar.htm . To post a
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