U.N. summit June 24-26

A United Nations Conference on the World Financial and Economic Crisis and Its Impact on Development, originally planned for June 1-3, has been postponed until June 24-26.

The imperialists, with the U.S. leading the pack, have been pressuring countries to delay or even cancel the conference. This pressure extended to rewriting and watering down the original draft, which was considered “too leftist.” Rich countries were planning to send low-level officials, while Latin American countries were planning to send their presidents and/or their foreign ministers.

The U.S. corporate media were silent about the whole conference until the postponement. Then they wrote gleefully about it, demonizing General Assembly President Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann.

Globalization has rapidly made the current financial and economic crisis a disaster on a world scale, with developing countries impacted the most. Those with the least resources to confront the debacle did not create the crisis but are paying for it.

The convening document for the conference said, “Jobs are disappearing by more than a million a month. ... Private capital flows to emerging economies this year are projected to be down by 82 percent from the boom year of 2007. ... The World Bank, which has described the crisis as a ‘development emergency,’ projects a finance gap of up to $700 billion in these countries, and the possibility of a ‘lost generation,’ with added deaths of 1.5 to 2.8 million infants by 2015. Over 100 million people are expected to be tipped into extreme poverty each year for the duration of the crisis.” (un.org/ga/econcrisissummit)

In previous U.N. summits and conferences the rich imperialist countries have pledged to help poor countries, yet no such action has been taken now. In many instances, the most important decision-making meetings have been held behind closed doors with only the imperialists and countries whose economies are of great importance to them—as in the case of the G20, which includes Argentina, Brazil and Mexico from Latin America.

This time has been different. D’Escoto, in a recent interview with the Cuban daily Granma, said, “We have to remember that the General Assembly was practically forbidden from talking about international finances, or world economy. Those topics were reserved for the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO. It has always been like that.”

D’Escoto, who is also an advisor to Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega, stated that this time the voices of all 192 countries must be heard, particularly the voices of the poorest countries that have suffered the most. “The aim is to identify emergency and long-term responses to mitigate the impact of the crisis, especially on vulnerable populations, and initiate a needed dialogue on the transformation of the international financial architecture, taking into account the needs and concerns of all member states.

“A new financial, economic, monetary and world trade plan—that is what we intend to do in a democratic and participatory way,” continued D’Escoto. Developing countries are demanding a say about world finances and daring to challenge U.S. hegemony in the world economy, including its dollar as a reserve currency.

Latin Americans put forth progressive agenda

The wave of progressive change in Latin America is forcing international organizations to allow debates and change photo opportunities into working meetings. As the representative from Saint Vincent and the Grenadines cautioned in April, the developing countries want to prevent this meeting from turning into “another U.N. conference whose result is simply to call for another conference. We want concrete results to report to our people at home.”

Many Latin American and Caribbean nations have been working for the regional integration that was Simon Bolivar’s dream. One of these efforts is ALBA, an alternative to the U.S.-inspired “free trade” agreements. In April the six ALBA countries—Bolivia, Cuba, Dominica, Honduras, Nicaragua and Venezuela—met in the Venezuelan city of Cumaná in preparation for a pending meeting of the Organization of American States in Trinidad and Tobago later that month.

They issued the Declaration of Cumaná, which reads in part: “Capitalism is destroying humankind and the planet; the developed countries have an ecological debt with the world; [We] condemn migrant discrimination in all its forms; basic services of health care, education, water, energy and telecommunications should be declared human rights and should not be the object of commerce; demand an end to the U.S. blockade of Cuba and, regarding the U.N. Conference, state that the solution to the global economic crisis and the definition of a new international financial body should be adopted with the full participation of the 192 member countries of the U.N.”

Their presence in the OAS summit was significant. In Cumaná they had already criticized the OAS meeting for two main reasons: It was not going to discuss the economic crisis which they viewed as imperative, and it did not include Cuba. For the first time, each and every country, some more passionate than others, spoke against the U.S. blockade of Cuba.

President Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua said he did not recognize the OAS because it excluded two countries of the Americas, Cuba and also Puerto Rico, the last colony in the hemisphere.

The strong condemnation of the U.S. blockade of Cuba made U.S. President Barack Obama say a few conciliatory words. None of the ALBA countries signed the OAS resolution. In fact, they and Ecuador have declared the need to organize a different body than the OAS where the United States will not be included. Besides ALBA, efforts have already begun for that purpose, like UNASUR and the Bank of the South.

The ALBA countries plan to attend the U.N. conference and firmly push their progressive agenda. The strength of these countries is that their peoples are in movement. They mobilize and take the streets, not only the ballot boxes, to force and demand changes.

The United Nations has been an organization where decisions have been made by the rich imperialist countries led by the United States. Is this about to change? Will the voices of the peoples in developing nations be heard? Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, among others, have at different times expressed the need to replace the U.N. if it does not become a body that represents and respects all nations.

One thing is for sure. The voices of developing countries will be heard, inside or outside the United Nations.