Posted on 03/22/2002 9:40:35 AM PST by liberalism=failure
Poor Nations Warn Rich on Terror
MONTERREY, Mexico –– Leaders of poor nations warned their rich counterparts that if they want a world free of terrorism, they will need to pay for it. Leaders of rich nations – including President Bush – said Friday they need to see results if they are to give more money.
"We must tie our aid to political, legal and economic reform and by insisting on reform we do the work of compassion," Bush said in his address to the U.N. International Conference on Financing for Development in the northern Mexican city of Monterrey.
"Pouring money into a failed status quo does little to help the poor," he said, adding: "Liberty and law and opportunity are the conditions for development."
French President Jacques Chirac said poor nations seemed to be getting that message.
"The developing countries have committed themselves to promoting economic growth through good governance and greater recourse to private initiative," he said Friday.
Poor nations at the conference drew a direct link between poverty and violence, saying increased aid to the world's neediest is more urgent than ever in the post-Sept. 11 world.
"In the wake of Sept. 11, we will forcefully demand that development, peace and security are inseparable," said Han Seung-soo, president of the U.N. General Assembly. He said the world's poorest areas are "the breeding ground for violence and despair."
Bush also linked poverty and terrorism, saying: "We fight against poverty because hope is an answer to terror."
The U.S. president outlined a new foreign aid doctrine, saying poor nations must earn additional U.S. funds by rooting out corruption and undertaking serious political reform. He called for "a new compact for development defined by greater accountability for rich and poor nations alike."
The world leaders – two left on Thursday, leaving 50 present – adopted a consensus Friday that urges rich nations to increase development aid and poor nations to use the funds more efficiently.
The leaders also were scheduled to hold a private retreat at an art museum in this modern, industrialized city in northern Mexico.
While both the United States and Europe have promised billions of dollars more in aid in coming years, their pledges fall far short of the $100 billion a year the United Nations has said is needed to cut poverty in half by 2015.
Cuban President Fidel Castro attacked rich nations for demanding that their poor counterparts meet conditions, such as fighting corruption, to receive aid.
"You can't blame this tragedy on the poor countries. It wasn't they who conquered and looted entire continents for centuries, nor did they establish colonialism, nor did they reintroduce slavery, nor did they create modern imperialism," he said. "They were its victims."
Castro left the conference shortly after his speech– and hours before the arrival of Bush – citing "a special situation created by my participation in this summit."
He didn't elaborate, but Ricardo Alarcon, president of Cuba's National Assembly, later told The Associated Press that Castro left because of "a situation that for a self-respecting country like Cuba, was unacceptable," but wouldn't elaborate.
"In the final analysis it is a problem with the United States," Alarcon said. "That doesn't mean that someone from the United States talked to us or asked us to do something."
According to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity, the U.S. delegation had been instructed to leave the designated U.S. seat when it was Castro's turn to speak, and they did. It was unclear whether that was what had offended Castro.
Most participants agreed the biggest achievement of the summit was getting international leaders, business leaders and activists together to talk about combatting poverty.
Anti-globalization protesters, who have held small marches throughout the week, held their largest demonstration Thursday. About 2,000 protesters massed in front of a police barricade a few blocks from the conference, where they burned an Uncle Sam effigy and hurled dead goats, which they said died from toxic waste from a nearby factory, over the barricades.
But even international finance chiefs addressed some of the issues the protesters have clamored about for years.
"Poverty in all its forms is the greatest single threat to peace, democracy, human rights and the environment," World Trade Organization Director-General Mike Moore said. "It is a time-bomb against the heart of liberty. But it can be conquered and we have the tools in our hands to do so, if only we have the courage and focus to make proper use of them."
Officials said the world's misery affects all.
"We live in one world, not two," said U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan. "No one in this world can feel comfortable, or safe, while so many are suffering and deprived."
© 2002 The Associated Press
1) Poverty doesn't cause terrorism. Islamic INFIDELAPHOBIA is the cause of terrorism
2) The solution to global poverty IS NOT scapegoating successful nations and extracting their money. The solution to global poverty IS global capitalism.
Citizens of the United States warn 3rd World despots that if they attempt to extort money from this rich nation, their nations will be turned into big, glowing gopher holes!
Is it just me or isn't this more commonly referred to as extortion?
Time to dust off an oldie but goodie...
MILLIONS FOR DEFENSE.
NOT ONE CENT FOR TRIBUTE!
For the informationally challenged... that's history.
DANEGELD(A.D. 980-1016)Rudyard Kipling
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| IT IS always a temptation to an armed and agile nation, To call upon a neighbour and to say:— "We invaded you last night—we are quite prepared to fight, Unless you pay us cash to go away." And that is called asking for Dane-geld, It is always a temptation to a rich and lazy nation, And that is called paying the Dane-geld; It is wrong to put temptation in the path of any nation, "We never pay any one Dane-geld,
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This statement is true, in a way. Ships, planes, bombs, bullets and most of all the proper training of Soldiers cost money. Done right, they cost lots of money. But that is money very well spent if they are properly used to terminate terrorists.
AB
Chirac is a slithering weasel....heading a pathetic nation of shopkeepers who will do anything for money.
They killed off their nobility and their brains in the revolution and since then have deteriorated into a quarrelsome cesspool of socialism, pathetically jealous of the Amercian standard of living.
Let them eat cake!!!
Let's see, how much would it cost to be totally free of terrorism. (calculating) (PING) Oh, that's not much. Hey we can neutron bomb all the poor countries for less than one years worth of foreign aid and they will NEVER come back trying to blackmail us and we get to keep the resources!
I think we should give them what they want. After giving them two weeks to make their peace with God or decide that maybe they were wrong in the first place, of course. (I'm not totally anti-foreigner after all)
God Save America (Please)
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