Tributes to Cheddi Jagan
Presentation at a Panel Discussion organized by the Embassy of Guyana and The Circle of Friends by Dr. Joseph Edsel Edmunds OBE* Director of the Office of the General Secretariat of the OAS in Suriname March 22, 2000
*Former Ambassador of Saint Lucia to the OAS, UN and US.
The book entitled "A New Global Human Order" by Dr. Cheddi Jagan, the former President of the Cooperative Republic of Guyana, is a scholarly and passionate appeal to the world community to address the plight of the less developed countries, while at the same time providing well defined solutions to the many problems which they face.
I have been asked to direct my presentation on the all important issue of the alleviation of poverty as adumbrated by the author and, as Director of the General Secretariat of the OAS in Suriname, to summarize the work of the OAS in this regard.
I am pleased with the prescribed nature of my assignment, for, Dr. Jagan embraced many issues which adversely impact on developing countries, each of them of fundamental importance, requiring detailed consideration. I will quote extensively from his book to being into sharp focus the substance of his message.
In his letter addressed to world leaders of May 1, 1994 he stated
We must resolve to reverse the gap which has been developing between the richest and the poorest countries. The divisions between the rich and the poor in the industrialized societies in the North and in the developing and underprivileged societies in the South, as well as the distance in attainment between the North and the South have been widening considerably since the early 1980s.
In the North, the consequences of these disparities have been unemployment, homelessness, urban disorder, increase in crime especially among the youths, the rise of ultra-right movements, strident nationalism and fragmentation accompanied by racism and ethnic tensions.
In the South, the consequences of these divisions have been the increase in crime and disease, hopelessness, emigration, environmental degradation, and the illegal traffic and use of narcotic drugs.
Taken together, there is a situation of despair, alienation and indifference.
More alarming, however, is the incidence of increasing poverty across the globe. Poverty atrophies the vigor and initiative of the individual and deprives the society of incalculable human resources at a critical time. Its elimination will enrich our community and release a harvest of energy and skills. If left unattended, the expansion of poverty, with hunger, will undermine the fabric and security of the democratic state.
This passionate appeal to world leaders could not be more forceful. In addition to dramatizing the issues he warned about the consequences, if left unattended. At the same time, he outlines what can be gained if the world community were to resolve some of the burning problems.
This spirit of commitment and concern pervades his book as a constant reminder of the responsibility of our world leaders and the international community to work towards the alleviation of poverty.
At the Caricom Intercessional Meeting in St. Vincent, March 11 - 12, 1994 in addressing the question of poverty alleviation he asked for a review of the thesis of Sir Arthur Lewis as it relates to democracy, development and poverty alleviation.
Sir Arthur's thesis needs to be re-examined. In this regard, Guyana can play a key role in its implementation not only for poverty alleviation and movement away from the production, use and export of narcotics and emigration, legal and illegal, but also for political stability so necessary for the inducement of private investment and the maintenance of democracy.
In his paper for the UN - sponsored World Hearings on Development, June 6 - 10, 1994 he expressed disappointment at the lack of concrete programs and actions which accompany many resolutions and declarations as follows:
But declarations and resolutions are not enough. They must be implemented by concrete programs and actions. Regrettably, the UN Development Decades and the development strategies and models - Puerto Rican "industrialization-by-invitation," President John F. Kennedy's Alliance for Progress, President Lyndon Johnson's regional integration ("ideological frontiers" replacing "geographical frontiers"), ECLA's import substitution, President Richard Nixon's Equal Partnership, President Ronald Reagan's Caribbean Basin Initiative (CBI), President George Bush's Enterprise for the Americas - have not solved the basic problems of national and personal security, poverty and hunger. But these problems now pertain not only to the South, the developing countries, but also the industrial countries of the North and the East (the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe).
He showed the resolve of his commitments to combat poverty and hunger by tabling Resolution 37 to the Sixth Parliament of Guyana, First Session, which was passed on June 27, 1994. The ultimate two passages of the resolution are noteworthy.
WHEREAS the President of the Co-operative Republic of Guyana, Dr. Cheddi Jagan, has written to a number of Heads of State advancing proposals for a development strategy for the eradication of poverty, which took account of certain recommendations of the Human Development Program, and seeking the support of Heads of State for a global response to these global problems;
RESOLVED that this National Assembly support the call for a global strategy to combat poverty and hunger as a priority in the New Global Humanitarian Order.
By doing so he manifested that the problems transcend national boundaries and must be the concern of all nations with the commitment of all.
His paper to the European Commission of September 1994 in his home country, very much like his letter to world leaders, forcefully highlights the nexus between poverty, human development and economic growth.
Massive poverty is hindering the path to sustainable human development. Because poverty is so widespread and social inequity is so extensive, we need structural adjustment with a human face - a philosophy of humanism and a humane social order. It is necessary to have a redistributive social policy to bring about the needed changes through a heavy investment in human resources. Economic adjustment must be combined with social adjustment; economic growth and human development are interlinked and interacting - economic growth is necessary for human development as much as human development is essential for economic growth.
He further stated that
We have today within our grasp through the advancement :end application of science and technology, the opportunity not only to halve the level of poverty world-wide by the end of this century, but also to guarantee a generally high material standard of living.
At the special commemorative meeting of the United Nations General Assembly to mark the 50th anniversary of the world body, Dr. Jagan presented his tribute on October 24, 1995. Once again he made the point that " … we are still hostage to many threats to our peace and security" and that this critical time is characterized inter alia by "Increasing poverty and widening gaps in developed and developing countries, between the "haves" and the "have-nots", the "included" and the "excluded" and between the rich North and the poor South".
At the heads of Government Meeting in Auckland, New Zealand on November 9, 1995 he issued a challenge to the Commonwealth
The Commonwealth as an institution is uniquely placed to bridge the gar between the rich and poor nations, between the
"haves" and the "have-nots."
He reiterated that;
There is increasing poverty and widening gaps in the developed and developing countries, between the rich and the poor, the "haves" and the "have-rots," the "included" and the "excluded"; and the ever-growing gap between the North and the South.
Presently there is unacceptable high unemployment and under-employment even in the period of economic growth, referred to as "jobless growth" and "jobless recovery."
His letter to the President of the World Bank Mr. James Wolfensohn of February 1996 demonstrated his burning preoccupation.
Regrettably, the continuing and deepening crisis in the North (widening gap between the rich and poor; unacceptably high unemployment even in the period of economic recovery; social, including family disintegration), cuts in aid to the South, and globalization and liberalization are generally impacting adversely on the economies of the developing countries, including those in the Commonwealth Caribbean (Caricom).
He ended as follows
I look forward to your meeting with the Caricom Heads of Government and your solidarity and support for the world's door, marginalized, oppressed and suppressed.
In his paper presented to the Global Development Initiative (GDI) Advisory Group Meeting held at the Carter Center in Atlanta, Georgia on June 6, 1996 he stated that
The specter of unemployment, poverty and social disorder is haunting the world. And at the political level, there is the dangerous and growing ascendancy of the far right, ultranationalists, fundamentalists, xenophobists and neo-facists, reminiscent of Hitlerism
In his address to the Conference on a New Global Human Order in Georgetown, Guyana August 2 - 4, 1996 he adumbrated his concept and I include here extracts of the text of this address under the headings of Poverty and Disintegration
Poverty
The gap in living standards between the rich and the poor in both the North and the South is getting wider: the rich, "the included," "the haves," are getting richer at the expense of the poor, "the excluded," "the havenots."
According to the United Nations, 1.2 billion people in the Developing World live in absolute poverty, almost double 1984 figures, and hunger (over half of sub-Saharan African children are starving or malnourished and diseased). UNICEF and UNDP figures show that over six million children under the age of five had died each year since 1982 in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
The late World Bank President, Lewis T Preston, told the UN Conference on Population and Development that two billion people were without clean water, and three million children died each year from malnutrition.
Note these alarming facts:
Each year 13 million children under five worldwide, still die from easily preventable diseases and malnutrition.
There are nearly 200 million moderately to severely malnourished children under five in developing countries - 36 per cent of all children in this age group. Some 69 million are severely malnourished.
In developing countries, 130 million children, almost two thirds of them girls, lack access to primary education.
"In a world where we now talk about gross domestic product of tens of billions of dollars," observed James P. Grant, the late Executive Director of the United Nations Children's Fund, "to have children deprived of basic education, health care and minimal amounts of food is increasingly obscene. Morality must change with capacity."
In Latin America, there is economic growth but persistent poverty. In a letter to The York Times ( December 5, 1993) it was pointed out that Juan de Dias Parra, leader of the Latin American Association for Human Rights, summarized the recent trends at a meeting in Quito, Ecuador, noting that "in Latin America today, there are 70 million more hungry, 30 million more illiterate, 10 million more families without homes and 40 million more unemployed persons than there were 20 years ago... There are 240 million human beings who lack the necessities of life and this when the region is richer and more stable titan ever, according to the way the world sees it."
Poverty is even likely to increase. As of 1986, 37 per cent of the region's families were living in poverty: by 2000, the UN Economic Commission on Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) estimates that between 40 per cent to 60 per cent of the population would be below the poverty line!
"The coming years will be quite difficult for these countries," said Peter Jenson, ECLAC Coordinator for Human Settlements. "Growth has been really on only one end of the spectrum, the wealthy. The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. And this will generate social conflict."
In Africa, the number of the most critical least-developed countries has increased.
Sir Neville Nicholls, President of the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), estimates that one-third of the population of the Commonwealth Caribbean is living in ' poverty.
Meanwhile, the gap in living standards between the highly industrialized North and the undeveloped South is ever-widening.
The North has roughly one-fifth of the world's population and four-.fifths of its income, and it consumes 70% of the world's energy, 75% of its metals and 85% of its wood.
Disintegration
Unemployment is not only degrading. It is also linked to poverty, hunger, social disintegration, family dislocation, environmental degradation, desertification, narcotrafficking, urbanization, migration, crime and conflict.
East/West confrontation, based on ideology, has given way to conflicts rooted in racial/ethnic, religious and cultural/historical differences both between and within states.
Coupled with population growth and mass migration, poverty and insecurity are posing the dangers of an equally terrifying political explosion, as seen in Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi, the former Yugoslavia, the Middle East and elsewhere.
As a result of global poverty, convulsions and conflicts, more than 100 million migrants are living outside their countries of origin. Some 19 to 23 million of these are refugees or in refugee-like situations - up from 3.5 million in 1985. In addition, about 26 million people are internally displaced within their own countries. These figures show no sign of abating but rather are growing!
The Georgetown Declaration of August 2 - 4, 1996 was an encapsulation of his espousals on a New Global Human Order and it contained a well defined framework for the region within the fabric of regional and multi-national institutions.
In his address to the World Food Summit in Rome, November 13-17, 1996 one sensed a bit of frustration by the nature of his presentation. He reminded the Summit that
The 1974 World Food Conference proclaimed that "every man, woman and child has !he inalienable right !o be free from hunger and malnutrition in order to develop their physical and mental faculties." This was to have been achieved "within a decade," but we have failed, despite improvements in science and technology. Today, hunger, poverty and social disintegration stalk the globe, not just in the South but also in the North, and the gap in living standards between the North and the South continues to widen.
and further stated that:
In an increasingly globalized environment of disorder and confusion, there is little room for concepts of development which place prime emphasis on the promotion of narrow national interests above the common good of humanity. A stop must be put to an unjust global economic order; an order which robs the South of about US$500 billion annually in unjust, nonequivalent international trade; an order where the poor South finances the North with South to North capital outflows of US$418 billion in the 1982-90 period as debt payments - a sum equal to six Marshall Plans which provided aid for the rehabilitation of Europe after World War II. Those payments did not even include outflows from royalties, dividends, repatriated profits and underpaid raw material.
In this decade, for the eradication of poverty, we need an Agenda for Development, with the right of nations to development, and, as His Holiness the Pope said, the right of the individual to food. Democracy must mean not just civil and political rights, but also economic, social and cultural rights. We must eliminate under-development, which threatens to undermine the very foundations of the global economy and society.
At his last official public speaking engagement on February 13, 1998 when he addressed the Sixth Meeting of the Free Trade Area of the Americas Working Group on Smaller Economies one suspects that he was losing hope. He solemnly said.
I have never been associated with "Prophets of Doom." Rather, I have always been and will always be a supreme optimist. I must say, however, that given recent and current social and political upheavals in several countries in our hemisphere, I am convinced that time is running out. We have to move quickly to solve the mounting social and economic problems occurring in our countries.
At the Summit of the Americas Meeting in Miami in . December 1994, I reiterated the urgent need for a New Global Human Order within the framework of a "New Agenda for Development." I expressed the view that while, we embrace the practice of good governance and participatory democracy in the hemisphere, there is also a need to give full attention to the gaps between the rich and the poor, the techno-skilled and the techno-skilled, and between the North and the South.
This was his last public appeal addressing the noble cause of alleviation of poverty but one must also be aware of the fact that his private appeals to leaders of the world and international institutions were unflinching and he was constantly consulted on this subject.
His appeals were not without sound recommendation, which will be covered by other speakers. I will only touch on one of these recommendations, that of debt relief. He expounded for example, that debt relief as an absolute precondition for poverty alleviation. He lamented that "Because of the debt trap, we, are unable to urgently address and find solutions to help alleviate the suffering of the working people and to provide them with the basic needs for their survival". Although he said that he has never been associated with "Prophets of Doom", from his observation of "recent and current social and political upheavals in several countries ...I am convinced the time is running out". Unfortunately, time ran out on him.
The above quotations are all taken from Dr. Jagan's book entitled "A New Global Human Order" dedicated "To all those who are struggling against poverty, for peace and for a better world"
I was asked to cover the subject on the role of the OAS in Overcoming Poverty in the hemisphere. The paper entitled "The OAS and Overcoming Poverty", which was produced by the Organization of American States, Unit for Social Development and Education (OAS Copyright 1999), should be read as an undiluted version of the activities of the Organization in this area.
I am aware that other international institutions and organizations have written on this subject. I nevertheless wish to refer to the Human Development Report of 1999 published by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) which quotes the following from the Forbes Magazine of 1998
They could do a lot for world poverty:
The assets of the 3 richest people are more than the combined GNP of all least developed countries.
The assets of the 200 richest people are more than the combined income of 41 % of the world's people.
A yearly contribution of 1 % of the wealth of the 200 richest people could provide universal access to primary education for all ($7-8 billion).
This is a vivid and startling statistic which should shock the world as it was always a burning preoccupation for Dr. Jagan.
This prompts me to quote from my address at the Graduation Ceremony at the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, University of Pittsburgh of April 26,1997 entitled "Global Humanism in Public Policy and International Affairs" as follows:
"Unfortunately, a plethora of prescriptions have, been expounded upon to alleviate poverty in our Hemisphere, but the definition of the cause is hardly touched upon. I contend that this is why some countries, in spite of their level of resources, size or economic growth have shown no poverty alleviation. In some countries and inner cities, the situation has worsened over the years. We must ask ourselves, is poverty due to a lack of education of the poor or a poor educational system in a country or state? Is it due to accepted social or economic stratification, or political oppression, or a poor distribution of land and other productive opportunities, or is it due to the absence of a policy direction or a combination of all or some of these factors? It should be evident that the problem would vary from situation to situation, from country to country and that the solutions would also vary according to the definition of the cause. The question is, do countries wish to define the problem when the cause is inherent in the system in which certain powerful influences prevail? Furthermore, shouldn't we engage the rich in dialogue in dealing with the alleviation of poverty?
There is also the question of prevention. How can we prevent sectors of our societies and countries from getting poorer? In this regard there are considerations internal to communities and countries, but there are also external considerations, i.e. the impact of foreign policy of one nation on another. In this case, shouldn't we seek to ensure that our local and external policies do not adversely affect our quest to resolve the poverty syndrome. I quote from our OAS Charter which says that: "Member States should refrain from practicing policies and adopting actions or measures that have serious adverse effects on the development of other Member States"
I think that if we are honest in defining our problems while sharing our experiences, we will find that we possess enormous commonalities in spite of the fact that there are inherent and induced differences among us. We can achieve a common goal to improve humanity, global harmony economic and social upliftment of our people, by strengthening our commonalities and narrowing our differences. In order to do thus we must first define what these commonalties and differences are.
We must view the earth of ours as our common patrimony where civil coexistence, peace, equal rights and human freedoms are preserved at all times in keeping with the United Nations Charter. We must also embrace global humanism as fundamental to man's spiritual coexistence.
If we accept global humanism or the brotherhood of man, then, we must break the barriers which separate and divide us and instead look beyond our self interest towards a community, a regional and a global perspective.'
Let us therefore define the problem as it relates to different circumstances and situations. Only then can we find the solutions for there is no one solution for all situations. By assuming an unselfish global responsibility, we can, working together under the rubric of global humanism, alleviate poverty.
Such was the resolve of Dr. Cheddi Jagan.