In his speech at the opening of the 61st United Nations General Assembly in New York, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva defended the idea that the world won’t be safe while there is misery. "Hunger feeds violence and fanaticism. A world with starving people will never be a safe place".
For the president, the quest for a new more democratic and just global order, which values social and economic development, will benefit most of all the rich countries. According to him, there will be peace only with shared development. "The rich countries shouldn’t deceive themselves. As strong as they are today, no one is safe in a world filled with injustices.
"War will never bring safety, war only generates monsters, bitterness, intolerance, fundamentalism, destructive denial of current hegemonies. It is necessary to give the poor reasons to live, not to kill or to die," he stressed.
"We will only have security in the world when all are assured economic and social development. If we do not want to globalize war we need to globalize justice".
The president stated that there are about 840 million people suffering hunger in the world, the equivalent to almost one in every seven inhabitants . According to him, we will need US$ 50 billion more every year to reach the millennium development goals, as defined by the United Nations, for the year 2015. "The international community can do that," said Lula.
He argued that the problem could have been solved with less money than it was already spent on projects like the integration of East European to the European Union and on conflicts and wars. "With much less, we could change the sad reality of a good portion of the world population, we could alleviate the suffering of these people and remove them from indigence".
The president pressed home the need that the international community give effective priority to the actions to fight hunger and poverty. And once again stated that setting aside resources for the social area is not expenditure but investment.
According to Lula, there was improvement in this area since the 2004 world leaders’ summit meeting, when there was a "strong mobilization" around the theme. He highlighted the adoption of innovative mechanisms, as the solidary contribution on international air tickets and the creation of an international central for the purchase of AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria drugs.
ABr