Sept. 17—Sept. 18 marks what would have been the 95th birthday of that statesman of great genius of mind, Frederick R. “Fred” Wills, who was Foreign Minister of Guyana from 1975-78; who gave a momentous speech on a new world economic order on Sept. 27, 1976—a month after the Non-Aligned Nations conference which embraced Lyndon LaRouche’s International Development Bank proposal—to the UN General Assembly which opens its 2023 debate tomorrow, Sept. 19; and who remained a constant collaborator of LaRouche in many efforts until Fred Wills’ death in 1992.
What he told the General Assembly Special Session a year earlier in September 1975 is timely now, as shown by these excerpts:
“The hour is critical. The expectations are that we will agree on concrete steps that will represent a real advance towards the new order on which the majority of mankind insists.
“The imperatives for change are clear. [The] Bretton-Woods system, reinforced by the Marshall Plan, introduced a new era in the post-war world which promised a redress of economic disequilibrium in the developed world. Predictably, this system failed to satisfy the aspirations of the developing nations, and it is this failure in especial that introduces the note of urgency in our debate. It is imperative that we should fashion new structures and new institutions to arrest the widening gap between the developed market economies and the producers of raw materials and semi-manufactures.
“But there are other imperatives. The victory of the people in Indo-China, the relentless march of decolonization in Southern Africa both point to the erosion of the traditional structures of power. There are some who take comfort in the theory that the global order of colonial power has disappeared. But retreat from political domination is not ipso facto a retreat from colonialism. The structure of economic power built upon the foundations of the old colonial order persists with remarkable tenacity and endurance….
“At [the Non-Aligned Foreign Ministers’ meeting in Peru] Lima just before we assembled here in New York, the Non-aligned countries took further important … decisions Mr. President, on the establishment of supportive institutions for programmes of collective self-reliance, decisions for the establishment of a Solidarity Fund for Economic and Social Development of Non-aligned countries, a Special Fund for the financing of buffer stocks for raw materials and primary products exported by developing countries and a Council of Associations of developing countries which are producers as well as exporters of raw materials.
“Collective self-reliance is not co-terminous with confrontation. The processes of development which it will generate in the southern part of the world can and will provide gains for the international community as a whole.
“The new economic order must therefore be designed to foster all efforts of self-reliance on the part of the developing countries - efforts both national and collective. True development cannot be imposed ab extra, but must be part of the internal dynamics of growth. The international framework must therefore create the conditions and provide support within which self-reliance can flourish.”
President John F. Kennedy had explained to an earlier General Assembly session, in 1963 on Sept. 20, that the world needed, to achieve peace, a joint U.S.-USSR manned mission to the Moon. JFK presented that completely serious proposal in the depth of the Cold War. The Schiller Institute will mark 60 years since that speech, and will hold a UN rally and choral music event the following day, Sept. 21 which is International Peace Day.
On Sept. 9, the Schiller Institute held an important international conference representing the two imperatives of peace and a new international architecture of rapid economic development. The Institute’s founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche reflected on that event in her webcast Sept. 14:
“What we did in our conference was an effort to put the perspective of the Global South on the agenda, so that people in the North can actually hear first-hand from very important spokesmen of the Global South, what these countries aspire to, and why it would be in the very best interest of the countries of Europe and the United States to cooperate with this new, emerging order….
“Very important in the first panel, was that not only did we have a very high-ranking diplomat from the BRICS countries itself, we had several Americans; I think this is very important that there are Americans who are reasonable—naturally, Diane Sare, who is running a very successful campaign for U.S. Senate in New York; we had Scott Ritter, Ray McGovern, and several very important representatives of churches in the United States, both Catholic and also some other denominations….
“And naturally, the second panel was very, very interesting, because you had spokesmen from Latin America, South Africa, India, who would absolutely express very clearly how the majority of the world is looking at the present processes….
“So please take the time to watch this.”
