“Third World” at issue

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32461, 23 November 1970, Page 4

“Third World” at issue

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter —Copyright) ROME, November 22. A conference marking the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (F.A.0.) opened in Rome last week, with a solemn warning that the world has shown itself incapable of solving the problems of under-development.

The chairman of the conference (Dr Hernan Santa Cruz, of Chile), said that the sense of human solidarity with which the F.A.O. was founded in 1945 had faded, and almost disappeared. He was addressing delegations from 119 memberStates about one hour before Pope Paul was due to arrive to speak at the conference, on the Pope’s first visit to the F.A.O. headquarters. Dr Santa Cruz said that expenditure on armaments had reached an astronomical figure of SUS2OO,OOOm, “a sum which, if it were devoted to development, would transform men and women in the space of a generation.” Power-politics and relationships based on force had swelled up with renewed vigour and anti-historical and anti-human colonial systems persist, he said. “Racism, a shameful practice of humanity, is still entrenched in the vast areas where the repugnant policy of apartheid is applied and, what is worse, is also entrenched in the hearts of millions of individuals.” Hunger, poverty and ignorance now afflict more human beings than was the case 25 years ago, said Dr Santa Cruz.

“Social inequalities have increased in dozens of countries and the economic and technological gap between the developing world and the industrialised world has to widen, with unemployment and under-employment of frightening dimensions growing apace in the countries of the Third World,” he said.