WHAT IS THE VITAL ISSUE facing the people at the time of the election? One moment it is presented as who will run the economy better. Next moment it is whether or not to enter a single currency in the EU. Then it is education. Then simply which leader to trust. But it is none of these. The crucial issue is to stop paying the rich.

A struggle is going on in society around the issue of the cuts in welfare and social programmes. The rich, under the banner of "privatisation" and business success, are plundering the state treasury to block progress for their own benefit and demanding that their interests be given priority, while the vast majority of people demand increased investments in social programmes and public guarantees for the well-being of all.

The present election is being organised by the rich as a virtual coup against the working class and people to head off their struggles and to ensure that the plunder of the state funds for the benefit of the rich continues. The Conservative Party has become extremely unpopular for carrying out the anti-social offensive. But with New Labour in power, the rich reason, and the imposition of the centre-ground programme of a "one-nation society", everything will remain geared to paying the rich. Not only that, but the people will have given New Labour a "mandate" for this programme! This is the great danger posed by the coming election coup.

The reality is that the present day economy, to an extent never seen before, is based on the activity of governments in financing the rich. This is done in a thousand and one ways. It began in earnest with Margaret Thatcher beginning to dismantle the welfare state, privatise the state sector, drastically cut social spending and channel the public funds into "making business successful" in the global market. It was claimed that "success" would benefit everyone. It has not, as all working people know. It has only led to deeper crisis, to what is known as "jobless recovery", to greater hardships for the people.

How the rich will continue to be paid under New Labour is seen, for instance, in its Business Manifesto. Government will continue to find new areas of investment and profit by the further privatisation of public utilities. It will continue to do everything "to create conditions in which business will thrive" as New Labour says. None of the Thatcherite reforms will be reversed. This can only lead to disaster.

In opposition to this, the fundamental stand of the people in this election must be to stop paying the rich - increase investments in social programmes. Such a stand will serve to orientate the struggles of the working class and people in the post-election period also. On the economic front, there must be a moratorium on national and other debt repayments to the financiers. There should be democratic renewal of the political processes and institutions, with a modern constitution drafted with full participation of the people and based on the people being sovereign and guaranteeing their rights. There must be dismantling of economic/political alliances like the EU and of military alliances like NATO based on big power domination, and an end to all Britain's colonial and neo-colonial relations and non-intervention in the internal affairs of other countries, Support must be given to all people fighting for the same abroad as well as recognising the right of all countries and nations, big or small, to follow their own path.

On May 1, the rich may think that everything has gone their way. But they cannot appropriate the day of the international working class so easily. The fight against the cuts, against the robbery of the national assets by governments on behalf of the rich – for private gain – is already joined, although barely publicised and with the capitalists and their social props doing everything to subvert it. The working class and people cannot and will not allow the political initiative to be kept out of their hands indefinitely. The programme around which they must unite is summed up in the demands:

Stop Paying the Rich!

No to the Cuts!

Increase Investments in Social Programmes!

Discussion

Democracy of the Rich

HOW SHOULD ONE VOTE?? The question is being thrust down the people's throats from advertising hoardings, in the press, in election specials and phone-ins, party political broadcasts and television campaign briefings, not to mention the Internet. One thing is for sure, that the major parties want your vote for the purposes of winning the election and forming the government or at the least to be able to influence it, to form alliances with the ruling party. To this end, they scrap amongst themselves, make claims and counter-claims about their policies and ideologies, make accusations and counter-accusations about those of the other parties.

In other words, the "democratic process" is geared towards a party coming to power. In the first-past-the-post system that party need not even have won a greater number of votes cast nationwide than its nearest rival. Certainly, it rarely if ever wins over 50% of votes cast, let alone a majority of the total electorate. The point, however, is that a party must come top of the polls, and will pursue this by means of its use of the media, discrediting other parties, trying to inflame passions, and by all means fair or foul. The more confusion and divisions that abound the better. Complicated economic, political and social issues become reduced to weapons in this battle for votes and power. This is supposed to remedy the situation in the country. Substantial sections of the "left" compound this fraught situation by supporting this race for a party to come to power. There is a mood, particularly in the workers' movement, that the Conservatives should be swept from power as being to blame for the crisis the country is in. All this stands in the way of any sober assessment of the actual problems in society, and an informed debate on their resolution is the first casualty.

What kind of democracy is this? This system which stakes all on parties coming to power, on party rule, even Cabinet rule, is not consistent with modern-day requirements that society should have responsibility for all its members and that the interests of the people should be put as the central concern. This system is bankrupt, for it cannot represent nor express the wishes or aspirations of the people. Whatever the outcome of the polls, whether New Labour is swept in with a large majority or there is some other outcome involving manoeuvring among the parties, the people will be blocked off from power and they will find themselves forced to take independent action and fight for the very things which they hoped the election might solve. They will find that the new government pursues the path of paying the rich as did the old one.

The basic fact is that the whole political system ensures that in present conditions the entire society is geared to paying the rich. Could it happen that a party hostile to paying the rich comes to power and the Queen's speech begins, "My government will stop paying the rich"? This is inconceivable. This exposes that the present "democratic process" is indeed democracy of the rich. The solution of the working class is for democratic renewal of the political process. Only a political system with a modern constitution where sovereignty rests with the people, where it is the people themselves who have political power in their hands, is consistent with these requirements. The present political process and parliamentary system themselves are inimical to the interests of the people.

THE second edition of Workers Weekly in broadsheet form, published on April 12, has been widely distributed in different areas of the country. Well over a thousand have been distributed in all. This edition contained the important article giving the Party's stand on the current election entitled "Stop Paying the Rich! No to the Cuts! Increase Investments in Social Programmes!".

Reports from the North East inform of distribution at a shipyard, at universities and among working class activists. Discussions with some working class activists highlighted the dilemma many have who traditionally have campaigned for the Labour Party. There is a realisation among many that the election will not change anything and that therefore the RCPB(ML)'s views are to be taken very seriously.

In the Midlands, work has been carried out at the universities and among activists in the working class and trade union movement Again it is reported that serious discussions have taken place.

From the West encouraging reports have been received of distribution at an aerospace factory, at universities and in the communities.

In London it is reported that hundreds of copies of the paper have been disseminated at a car plant, hospitals, universities and colleges, and in local markets and communities. Particularly encouraging are reports of interest shown by young workers, by women workers and by groups of youth in the communities. Over a thousand leaflets containing the article from Workers' Weekly entitled "Social Justice Demands: Stop Paying the Rich!" were distributed on the March for Social Justice in London on April 12 (see separate article).

Numbers of messages have been received on Workers' Weekly's recently established web site, expressing interest in RCPB(ML)'s positions. Some have expressed interest in working with and joining the Party.

News agencies reported that 1,200 Italian, French and Greek troops of the UN Security Council-backed "security" force arrived last week in Albania to secure the key harbours and the main airport. These are the first of 6,000 troops from these countries and from Spain, Turkey and Romania due to arrive in the next three weeks. While the pretext for the military force is to safeguard aid supplies, other reports say that Red Cross and other agencies are already distributing medicines and other essentials without problems, while food supplies are reported as plentiful. Albanian government leaders were earlier reported as saying that they hoped the military force would help restore order.

As stated last week, Workers' Weekly condemns this foreign military intervention in Albania and calls on all democratic and peace loving people to demand that the foreign troops be withdrawn and the Albanian people be left to settle their own affairs.

Meanwhile it is reported that the representative in Albania of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), the former Austrian Chancellor Vranitzky, has called on President Sali Berisha to open negotiations with the rebels who control the south of the country. It is also reported that the self-styled King Leka-Zog, a Sandhurst-educated international arms dealer who found haven in Franco's Spain and apartheid South Africa, has returned to his father's village and is offering to become monarch of a Greater Albania including parts of what is now Serbia and Macedonia.

The fact is, however, that the Albanian people have risen with arms against not only the fraudulent government sanctioned "pyramid" schemes which have robbed them of their savings, but against the political system represented by President Sali Berisha which was imposed on them by the interference of the US and the European Union powers in their country following the fall of socialism.

In opposition to the demands of the people, the Albanian government is demanding that they lay down their arms and submit once again to foreign domination. But the Albanian people do not need foreign military interference to restore order. Their right to bear arms should be upheld. They do not need an EU or OSCE brokered "settlement" which will restore the very institutions which brought chaos and anarchy to their country. Still less do they need the reimposition of a foreign-imperialist directed feudal monarchy whose aim is to stir up trouble in the Balkans.

All foreign powers must cease their interference, political as well as military. The Albanian people must be given the humanitarian aid they need and be left to settle their own affairs and to build their own institutions in their own interests.

"MARCH FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE" was the theme of a militant national demonstration which took place in London on Saturday, April 12, attracting the support of a massive 20,000 people. The demonstration was called by the Liverpool Dock Shop Stewards Committee – made up of dock workers unjustly sacked by their employers for defending their livelihood – jointly with the Hillingdon Hospital and Magnet strikers.

The powerful support for the demonstration, one of the biggest of its kind to take place in London in recent years, is not only testimony to the militant stand of the 500 sacked dockers, who the state authorities and monopoly media have vainly tried to isolate. It is also an expression of the deep resentment against the anti-social offensive and the growing desire for a modern definition of rights which defends the social, political and economic interests of the people.

The demonstration attracted the support of working people from all sectors of the economy and from all corners of Britain as well as Ireland. Industrial workers from the north of England, Scottish dockers, workers from Welsh mining towns, differently abled people, unemployed workers from everywhere, London health workers, firefighters, students and young environmentalists, office workers and many others from many walks of life assembled at Kennington Park, south London, to take part in the four-mile protest. The march passed Downing Street and finished with a rally in Trafalgar Square. A democratic and non-sectarian spirit prevailed throughout. Representatives of various organisations and individuals taking part addressed the rallies at the start and at the end of the mass proceedings, including representatives of RCPB(ML) and other progressive organisations. The content of the speeches, which emphasised that workers and the broad masses of the people must rely on their own forces and unite to fight for their own interests, won loud acclamation from the participants. In particular, the representative of RCPB(ML) said that the issue is to stop paying the rich, and that there should be increasing investments in social programmes to benefit the broad masses of the people, and called on everyone to intensify their struggles.

The various provocative attempts by the capitalist mass media with the assistance of the police to discredit the march and divert from its significance by suggesting that many people "went to make trouble" did not come to anything because they could not hide the fact that mass action in support of social justice is a just cause which has the sympathy of the vast majority of people throughout Britain.

Several thousand leaflets issued by RCPB(ML) entitled: "Social Justice Demands: Stop Paying the Rich!" were disseminated amongst the demonstrators. (For text, see last week's Workers' Weekly, dated April 12, 1997.)

LAST WEEK, news agencies reported on the takeover by British Telecom (BT) of the American-based MCI to form Concert, the world's second-largest telecommunications enterprise operating in 70 countries. Now they report a further partnership of Concert with Telefónica of Spain, which will not only give access to the fast-growing Latin-American market but is described as a significant victory over the American AT&T, Concert's main rival, with whom Telefónica was previously linked. It is further reported that BT, AT&T and Deutsche Telekom are each trying to lure NTT of Japan, the world's largest phone company, into their camps. Sir Iain Vallance, chairman of BT, who is to become co-chairman of Concert, said that after securing a presence in America the company must turn its attention to Asia.

With the present election in mind, it seems of no small significance that BT were the first of the great "privatised" utilities, built up on public money but now handed over to the rich at a knock-down price, to come out openly in support of Tony Blair and New Labour, with whom a deal has already been struck to provide a telecommunications link "in every school in the land" if Labour forms the next government. It underlines that New Labour in power will continue a situation where the entire economy is based on the government facilitating paying the rich.

The support and agreement between BT and Blair not only exposes the service which New Labour in power will do for the big monopolies and the reason why the rich have gone to such great and careful lengths to prepare New Labour for power, but also, considering the week's takeovers, shows the danger to the people of the Blairite vision. The vision of a "stakeholder" society has workers giving up their struggles and supporting their employers in their particular monopoly and in partnership with government making that monopoly number one in the global market. It is a vision of British-based monopolies defeating their competitors in the global market with no opposition at home. It sees a concentration of capital and production on a larger scale than ever before. It is a call to the workers to get behind the most jingoistic reaction. However, it is a vision not only doomed to fail, but one which even in the attempt can only lead to further destruction of the national economy and to division and war on a world scale. It is a vision which the working class must reject out of hand.

ACTIONS AGAINST ANTI-SOCIAL

OFFENSIVE IN HEALTH

South London Health Workers Protest over £3.25 Million Cuts

ON TUESDAY, April 15, health workers held a protest against a wave of job cuts at Tooting's St George's Hospital in south London.

This was in response to an announcement the week before that the hospital is planning to cut 35 jobs including nine nurses, three midwives, three members of the hospital's technical staff and 19 administrative, clerical and management posts.

The hospital's upper management claims these cuts are necessary as part of "efficiency savings" to a tune of £3.25 million. The Merton, Sutton and Wandsworth Health Authority behind the initial package of cuts to the budget of St George's Hospital has similar plans for other hospitals in the area, including Roehampton's Queen Mary University Hospital and Carshaltons' St Helier Hospital.

Hospital workers have expressed their fear that even with a slightly better "settlement" from the MSW Authority there will still be "dramatic cuts to elective surgery at St George's" which will badly affect the large number of elderly patients the hospital currently treats with operations such as hip replacements and cataract operations being delayed for another year at least.

The irony of this situation was clear when a hospital spokesman pointed out that the government's Patient Charter requires that patients awaiting non-urgent treatment should not wait longer than 18 months. In order to meet this requirement St George's hospital is proposing to "buy in patient care". In other words, they are proposing to sack existing health workers and to make drastic cuts in the funding of equipment and further investment in health care facilities and instead they propose getting cheaper labour to cover the bare minimum of patient treatment which must be covered under the current Patient's Charter.

Health workers say that the threatened job losses will put a "severe dent" in the services that can be provided and that the overall attack on the hospital workers has left morale "very low".

At the demonstration nurses, GPs and consultants ripped up a huge redundancy notice to symbolise their opposition to the cuts. As one spokesperson said, "Hospitals are expected to provide the same services each year with less cash". With the degree of cuts proposed there is bound to be a profound impact on the ability of the hospital to provide a health service.

East London Actions against Privatisation

HOSPITAL SUPPORT WORKERS at Whipps Cross Hospital, Leytonstone, East London, recently held a one-and-a-half day strike against the way their services were being privatised and handed over to Tarmac Service Master, a US based multi-national joined with Tarmac.

This move to privatisation is happening in a local health service critically underfunded and over stretched. The Health Authority is £5.5 million in debt, the Trusts are millions of pounds overspent, and contracts for 1997/98 have not yet been signed because there is £10m difference between what it costs to deliver the existing level of service for this year and what the Health Authority is willing to pay.

Health workers have also launched a campaign to fight both the rapid privatisation and the critical underfunding and break down of health services in Waltham Forest and Redbridge. "Health in Crisis!", organised by local health workers and the local community, state that their campaign is for a health service that can meet people's needs, and for a public service, not private profit. They have held a successful demonstration of 400 people from Whipps Cross Hospital through the local streets to the shopping centre where a rally was held.

Demonstrations against closure of Guys and Dulwich

THERE IS to be a demonstration today, April 19, in south London organised as part of the campaign to stop the closure of Guys and Dulwich Hospitals. It is being organised by SiCK (Save It, Casualty in Krisis), the campaign to save Guys Hospital. The organisers point out that the Health Authority intends to close Guys' casualty on April 1, 1999, and to start transferring accident patients to St Thomas' in August 1997. They point out that the final straw is the planned £19m of cuts in the local Health Budget, and put forward the demands: "No more cuts in the NHS", "For a fully funded NHS, free and accessible to all".

NEWS IN BRIEF

Government Departments Admits Massive

Underestimate of Unemployment

The fact that the official unemployment figures, notoriously subject to manipulation in past years, do drastically underestimate the number of unemployed has now been acknowledged even by the Government Department responsible.

A recently leaked document from the Department for Education and Employment argues that the present source for jobless figures, the "claimant count", is not "fully adequate" for assessing the number of unemployed. This document acknowledges the exclusion from the official figures of many young people and women whose partners are on a means-tested benefit.

Shortly before these disclosures, a study carried out by HSBC, the parent company of the Midland Bank, suggested that the true rate of unemployment in Britain was 14 per cent. The study's figures are twice those of the government.

It is becoming increasingly difficult to conceal the growing extent to which unemployment is showing itself as an incurable ulcer of the capitalist system.

Growing Gap between Rich and Poor

A recent report by the Child Poverty Action Group revealed that one in three children in Britain is now in what it acknowledges to be poverty, living in a home with less than half average income after housing costs.

The report reveals that between 1979 and 1993-94 the number of people falling into that category rose from 5 million (9 per cent of the population) to 13.7 million (25 per cent), including 4.2 million children (32 per cent) up from 1.4 million (10 per cent). The report also used government figures to show that while the real incomes of the bottom 10 per cent of the population fell by 13 per cent, those of the top 10 per cent incomes rose by 65 per cent with average incomes rising by 40 per cent.

The growing gap between rich and poor and the increasing impoverishment of the people are thus starkly revealed.

The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) reports that a meeting was held at the People's Palace of Culture on April 18 to mark the 5th anniversary of the publication of the Pyongyang Declaration "Let us defend and advance the cause of socialism". It was attended by Vice-President Ri Jong Ok, Politburo Member of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, officials of party and power bodies and scientific, educational and foreign affairs organs as well as working people in Pyongyang. Present were foreign party delegations and delegates on a visit to Korea to commemorate the birth anniversary of the great leader President Kim Il Sung.

Choe Thae Bok, Alternate Member of the Political Bureau and Secretary of the Central Committee of the WPK, said in his speech at the meeting that the publication of the Pyongyang Declaration was a historic event which dealt a decisive blow to the anti-socialist offensive of the imperialists and reactionaries and instilled confidence in the sure victory of socialism into the hearts of progressive people and indicated the way for the international socialist movement to tide over the confusion and setbacks and make a new advance. He recalled that President Kim Il Sung and Comrade Kim Jong Il made tireless efforts to frustrate the anti-DPRK, anti-socialist moves of the imperialists and save the international socialist movement from crisis. A large number of revolutionary parties of many countries, drawing serious lessons from the setbacks of socialism, are making strenuous efforts to pave a revolutionary road of building the party independently and creatively, the speaker said, and continued: As a result, the international socialist movement has made a new start along the road of independence and the anti-socialist offensive of the imperialists has been frustrated. The Workers' Party and people of Korea will as ever strengthen international friendship and unity with the revolutionary parties, all the progressive parties aspiring after independence and actively support and encourage their cause of justice, upholding the banner of socialism, the banner of independence.

Roberto Gabriele, Secretary General of the Movement for Peace and Socialism of Italy, said in his speech: The Pyongyang Declaration proved the truthfulness and justness of the socialist cause and the inevitability of its final victory and declared to the whole world the might of the powerful forces determined to remain loyal to the idea of socialism. To defend Korea's socialism is part of all the struggles of the communist, workers' and progressive parties of the world.

Hardial Bains, National Leader of the Communist Party of Canada (Marxist-Leninist), said in his speech that socialism represents the present and the future of humankind. The Pyongyang Declaration on unity and co-operation among all the political parties fighting in the cause of socialism and communism is demonstrating greater vitality, he added.

K. P. Oli, Permanent Member of the Central Committee of the Nepal Communist Party (United Marxism-Leninism), noted that the Pyongyang Declaration is a creation of the noble and common faith and aspirations of the communists, the working class and peace-loving people of the world for the socialist movement. "Our party will as ever fight in firm unity with the Korean people for the triumphant advance of socialism and greatly contribute to the victory of socialism by powerfully advancing the Nepali revolution in the spirit of the Pyongyang Declaration," he declared.

The Pyongyang Declaration, as it has become known, was first adopted on April 20, 1992. It was entitled "Let us defend and promote the cause of socialism" and was signed by 70 communist and workers' parties attending the 80th birthday celebrations of the late President Kim Il Sung in Pyongyang in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. Since that day other communist and workers' parties have put their signatures to the Declaration, to bring the total to 235 parties. RCPB(ML) signed the Declaration on October 27, 1995. It has become a historic document of great importance and vitality for many parties and people who aspire to socialism, a milestone in the historic advance towards the final victory of socialism.

The Pyongyang Declaration contains important tasks for the defence and promotion of socialism, as well as for the unity and cooperation between the communist and workers' parties. Coming as it does in a period of retreat of revolution, following the end of the Cold War and the bipolar division of the world, a period when there is one international communist movement, it emphasises that in order to safeguard and advance the socialist cause all parties must firmly maintain independence and strengthen their own forces. It states that each party must work out lines and policies in keeping with the actual situation of the country where it is active and with the demands of its people and implement them by relying on the popular masses. It states that all parties should cement the ties of comradely unity, cooperation and solidarity among themselves on the principles of independence and equality.

The Declaration asserts that the socialist cause is a national cause and, at the same time, a common cause of humankind and its future. It affirms the need to fight to the end to shape the future of humankind with a firm confidence in the cause of socialism.

ON APRIL 13 the Committee for the Commemoration of the 85th Birthday of the late President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) hosted a celebratory meeting entitled Solidarity with the Korean People's Struggles in London. The main addresses on the life and work of Kim Il Sung and on the current struggles of the Korean people were given by Dermot Hudson of the Juche Ideas Study Group and journalist Keith Bennett. Tributes were also paid to Kim Il Sung and to the Korean people's struggles by Andy Brooks of NCP, Jimmy Nolan of the sacked Liverpool dockers and SLP, Tom Durkin of Brent Trades Council and CPB, Chris Coleman of RCPB(ML), Labour Councillor Mushtaq Lasherie, Mohammed Arif of British Afro-Asian Solidarity Organisation, Ian Morrison of YCL, as well as representatives of the Turkish Workers Party and Communist League.

Chris Coleman of RCPB(ML) paid tribute to the great achievements of Kim Il Sung. At the present time, faced with great difficulties caused by natural disasters, with ceaseless provocations from the US imperialists and their south Korean puppets, guided by the principles of Kim Il Sung and led on the path laid down by him by the Workers' Party of Korea and Kim Jong Il the Korean people would surely prevail. On a world scale too the DPRK played a heroic and inspiring role as one of the states like Cuba and others who refused to do the bidding of the imperialist powers under enormous pressure. He said that we owe profound respect to the memory of Kim Il Sung and unstinting support to the struggles of the DPRK and the whole Korean people.

For Your Information

Naval Exercises in the South China Sea

BRITAIN recently took part in a 13-day naval exercise, code-named "Flying Fish '97", held by the Five Power Defence Agreement (FPDA). The other four participating countries are Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Malaysia. The exercise, which took place in the South China Sea, off the coast of Malaysia, was in the vicinity of the Spratly Islands, whose sovereignty is disputed, and which are claimed by China. It involved 39 warships and 160 combat aircraft, and 3,000 British sailors on 16 ships including an aircraft carrier and a nuclear powered submarine participated. The British forces involved set sail in January as part of "Ocean Wave '97", a major naval deployment which is visiting 34 countries.

Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind described "Flying Fish '97" as "the largest, most ambitious FPDA exercise ever". In this connection, it is notable that, as Rifkind pointed out in February, "Britain is the largest European investor in South East Asia. Britain is the top European exporter of invisibles to South East Asia and in the last ten years, British visible exports to Asia have almost trebled."

ACCORDING to news agency reports, the first troops of the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of the People's Republic of China (PRC) are set to enter Hong Kong on April 21. The British colony of 6.4 million people is due to be handed back to China at midnight on June 30. The last of the British troops, which once numbered up to 10,000, will fly out just before the PRC reassumes sovereignty over the territory. Britain has just closed its naval base on nearby Stonecutters Island. According to Foreign Secretary Malcolm Rifkind, Britain still has a "deep economic and commercial engagement with Hong Kong – we have £70 billion invested there".

News agencies report that one of the first things the PLA will see in Hong Kong harbour will be three United States warships that are in the territory for one of the 70 or so "rest and recreation" calls the US Navy makes each year. "The ships are on a routine R and R visit. They have nothing to do with the PLA's arrival," a US spokesman is reported as saying.

APRIL 14/15 marked the 11th anniversary of the bombing of Libya by US F-111 bombers, many flying from bases in Britain. Hundreds of people were killed. On April 12, the Institute of Independence Studies organised a seminar and public meeting to commemorate this event. The main speaker was former US Attorney-General Ramsey Clark. Ramsey Clark condemned the bombing as an act of terror by a rich and powerful state against a nation at peace and unprepared. He described it as part of the attempt to impose a new world order by the rich and powerful upon the poor. He pointed out that the gap between the rich and poor nations was becoming greater. He condemned also the policy of sanctions against Iraq, which he described as one of the greatest crimes in history, genocide by starvation aimed at the most vulnerable which had led to the deaths of 750,000 children. He recounted how US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had visited Iraq as UN Ambassador and had stated that the "price is worth it". He called for international prohibition of sanctions as a crime against humanity.