Expect ‘Development Dynamic’ at This Week’s Annual UN General Assembly Leaders Debate

Sept. 16, 2023—On Sept. 19 begins the annual week of the UN General Assembly’s “General Debate,” going through Sept. 26, during which time leaders from nearly all 180 member nations speak. Anything but routine can be expected this year. The strengthening assertion of leadership from the Global Majority is bound to be given voice through many speakers, representing the process of deliberation in recent months, seen in the sequence of conferences from the Russia-Africa Summit in St. Petersburg (July 27-28), to the BRICS Summit and BRICS-Plus in Johannesburg (Aug. 22-24), to the Group of 77+China Summit (Sept. 15-16) whose two-day event concluded in Havana today.

Today the G77+China Summit issued its joint statement titled, the “Havana Declaration on ‘Current Development Challenges: The Role of Science, Technology and Innovation,’” which calls for the “comprehensive reform of the international financial architecture” and a “more inclusive and coordinated approach to global financial governance with greater emphasis on cooperation among countries.”

A foretaste of what may be raised in speeches at the UN in New York was heard yesterday and today in Cuba. Angolan President João Lourenço warned that developing nations “won’t stand around with our arms crossed to wait for some miraculous solutions to the problems we face…. We will know how to find the solutions and strategies that will lead us to concretize our development agenda.”

At the UN on Sept. 19, President Lula da Silva of BRICS nation Brazil, will be among the first, or the very first national speaker at the opening of the General Debate. His remarks in Cuba were strong. He offered Havana a number of economic deals which Cuba very much needs, especially food. Lula denounced the U.S. for its “illegal” economic embargo against Cuba, in effect since 1962, as did almost every other speaker from the 60 who spoke today.

What is the message from the United States? On Sept. 13, the Biden Administration renewed for another year its savage embargo against Cuba. Note that its authorization comes under the long-standing “Trading with the Enemy Act.”

President Biden is scheduled to speak on the first day of the General Debate, as is Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. What is their program in action? More weapons, more death, and more risk of nuclear conflagration. Their next big programmatic conference comes up on Sept. 19 of the periodic meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group, in Ramstein, Germany. U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark A. Milley will chair the 15th session of the group. On the agenda will be the demand for each nation to rev up production of artillery rounds. Pentagon Acquisition Director Bill LaPlante gave the projections on Sept. 15 for the Pentagon’s goal of U.S. production of 100,000 artillery rounds per month by FY2028.

In complete opposition to this, the headline rings out of the new Schiller Institute international report—all set for mass circulation in and around the United Nations in New York this week: “Colonialism Is Over! An Appeal to the U.S.A. and Europe: Support a New, Just World Economic Order, Not War!” Through street distributions, a rally Sept. 21 on the International Day of Peace, and through international diplomatic missions, the message of the 56-page document will get out. Schiller Institute volunteers are planning to reach out among the 10,000 visitors to the UN over the next 10 days, who will be on hand in addition to the 15,000 regular UN staff.

Now is the time to circulate the pamphlet and support the intervention everywhere in the world. Speaking in Cuba today, South African Minister of International Relations Naledi Pandor stated: “The struggle for the soul of the South and for unilateral global dominance has never been more intense, and as the South, we must seize this historic moment to ensure we develop the ability to be free agents of a development agenda that will advance our battle against poverty inequality and unemployment.”