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Havana summit: leaders of poor countries call for sweeping changes |
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April 13, 2000
HAVANA, APR 12 (AP) - Complaining they have been left behind by the global technology revolution, leaders of the world's poor nations begin a summit Wednesday at which they plan to push for more aid, fewer debts and a greater role in international decision-making.
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About 40 heads of state or government - and delegations from 80 other nations - are attending the first summit in the 34-year history of the Group of 77, which has grown since its founding to 133 members.
Draft resolutions prepared by foreign ministers urged "the establishment of a more just and fair international economic system" that would spread the benefits of globalization to poor nations.
Among the leaders on hand are U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, South African President Thabo Mbeki, Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, Indonesian President Aburrahman Wahid, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat.
The wide-ranging draft proposals call for a sort of new global economic system that would share technological advances, increase aid and investment, forgive debts and put poor countries on a more equal footing with rich ones in determining how aid is used.
"To those already enjoying them, the benefits of globalization are clear: faster economic growth, higher living standards, the rapid spread of new technology and modern management skills," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said in a speech at the University of Havana on Tuesday.
But he added, "Many millions of people are excluded, left behind in squalor not because they have been exposed to too much globalization but because they have had too little or none at all
"Many millions experience globalization not as an agent of progress but as a disruptive force, capable of destroying jobs, traditions and even a society's cohesion, sometimes with lightning speed."
Documents under discussion urge richer nations to forgive debts of poorer countries while increasing aid to the level of 0.7 percent of gross domestic product, the amount promised in 1970.
Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, whose nation chairs the G-77, told reporters Tuesday that poor countries need more resources to promote democracy and stability.
In Nigeria, where his elected government replaced a military dictatorship last year, "We have just established a new dispensation, a democratic situation where we want to do everything right," he said.
Obasanjo said that if he goes to villagers and tells them, "I wanted to give you water but I have to pay debts ... even though the origin of these debts are dubious, and therefore I will not be able to give you water ... they will say 'Get away with your new dispensation"' of democracy.
But he ruled out a "Havana Club of debtors" that would unite to suspend debt payments, saying it would interfere with aid transfers that some nations depend upon for part of their domestic budgets.
The draft documents call for giving poor countries a greater voice in development decisions by encouraging the United Nations to take a bigger role in economic aid, rather than channeling it through organizations controlled by rich nations.
They also suggest easing patent restrictions that keep poor nations from benefiting from new technologies and setting up mechanisms to share inventions.
The drafts urged preferential trade concessions for poorer nations and freer movement of labor to match recent liberalization of capital flows.
"Our peoples have run out of patience," Cuban Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque told a meeting of foreign ministers Tuesday. "For decades they have suffered broken promises and are today living in an economic and social situation that is increasingly serious and unsustainable."
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