Chapter 65 non-aligned movement

The Colombo meeting started with a short music playing.It is really not that different from the endlessly debated, rhetoric-laden meetings of many ex-colonial countries.However, Prime Minister Bandaranaike is a seasoned politician, she has accumulated rich experience in the early struggle with the British and American colonists, and had just seized the British and American oil companies in the early 60s , so she decided to turn the August summit into a conference on intervention in deteriorating developing-country economies.Kissinger's oil crisis has caused this deterioration. Not only developing countries, but also developed countries are trying to find an alternative to ease the debt pressure of the oil shock in the 1970s.In proposals published in early 1977, Masaki Nakajima, director of Japan's Mitsubishi Research Institute, proposed establishing what he called a "global infrastructure fund."He recommends:

In the years since the oil crisis, beset by a world recession, every country in the world is looking for a way out of the crisis.The Global Infrastructure Facility proposed here is a concept of international responsibility that Japan contemplates...a proposal that would generate demand for the country in excess of $500 billion...assuming cooperation among all industrialized and oil producing countries...aimed at the development of new energy and increased food production... the implementation of the various "mega-projects" proposed here will certainly lead to a balanced increase in the demand for manufacturing...in developed countries, technological progress will replace the production of arms...now it is up to people to insist on an imaginative It’s time to build strength and long-term goals.

Director Masaki Nakajima's list of major projects includes greening the Sahara Desert for agricultural production; water conservancy irrigation projects in the Himalayas; building Central African lakes in Chad and Congo; and building a series of dams in South America.Director Masaki Nakajima's proposal was discussed at the 1990 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, with the support of the Japan Federation of Industries. The final declaration of the Colombo Conference on 20 August 1976 was unlike any other postwar document produced by leaders of developing countries.The theme of the conference, attended by 85 non-aligned countries, was the avowed "Fair and Equitable Economic Development."According to the declaration, "economic problems have become the most difficult aspects of international relations ... The developing countries have become victims of a worldwide crisis" that is hindering their efforts to eradicate hunger, disease and illiteracy.

The manifesto referred to the external debt burden, which has nearly doubled since the oil shock of 1973, and the catastrophic deterioration in the terms of trade for raw material exports.The declaration proposed several concrete steps to establish a new international economic order. The manifesto rightly stated that the existing order had broken down, and that it was also responsible for restrictive protectionist policies, depression, inflation and unemployment.Therefore, the declaration advocates: "a fundamental restructuring of the international trading system to improve the terms of trade ... a worldwide restructuring of industrial production to allow developing countries to obtain industrial products and technology transfer on more favorable terms." Referring to the chaos of the existing Bretton Woods system, the manifesto referred to the "anarchy of floating exchange rates" and advocated a radical overhaul of the international monetary system to ensure that sufficient investment capital was transferred to developing countries.But one of the most worrying aspects of the Colombo Declaration, from the point of view of the New York and London financial institutions, is the call for a satisfactory solution to the problem of public debt (especially for the least developed and severely affected countries) ".For the first time, the explosive issue of foreign debt is brought to the negotiating table, not by a single government, but by the collective actions of 85 countries.

Bandaranaike's Sri Lanka (a former British colony) and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi's India carefully prepared the agenda for the 85-nation debate at the General Assembly, with another former British colony on the northeast coast of South America The country Guyana agrees.Guyana’s lead negotiator at the Colombo meeting was Foreign Minister Frederick Wells.Notably, the leaders of the three newly independent former British colonial countries lead the Colombo Initiative, which advocates and creates a new coalition that is likely to prioritize industrialization and development. For the Non-Aligned Initiative, the most important thing is to determine the next course of action.The annual United Nations General Assembly in New York in a month's time will be the forum in which they will present their proposals to the world. In late September 1976, Wells was appointed as a delegate to the Colombo Conference.After cautiously declaring "non-alignment" with the two postwar superpower blocs, Wells went on to announce the recently adopted Colombo Declaration to Congress delegates.

Speaking of the economic security interests of industrialized nations, Wells dropped a political bomb over the past few years, as developing countries continued to experiment in order to develop their economies: The IMF and the Bretton Woods monetary system must leave room for alternative institutions, such as various international development banks, whose purpose is not the recovery and reconstruction of Europe, nor the development of a market economy Instead, the preferential agreement set up is a fair distribution of the benefits in the unequal global economic system. Wells concludes: The heavy debt and debt-servicing problems have reached a serious level.As mentioned in Colombo, developing countries will not be able to meet minimum requirements without some form of debt adjustment or moratorium.We must do everything we can to oppose attempts to divide us on a case-by-case basis.We will never allow our children and grandchildren to shoulder our heavy debt burdens and devastating debt repayments.The time has come for a debt moratorium.

The combined impact of the Colombo Declaration and the UN Declaration was immediate.On Wall Street, traders began talking about a "crisis of confidence."Shares of U.S. banks began to slide, especially those that participated in the Eurodollar market and lent heavily to developing countries—Citigroup, JPMorgan Guaranty Bank, Bankers Trust, and Chase Manhattan Bank.The Federal Reserve Bank was forced to intervene to support the falling dollar.Coordinated action by developing countries on dollar debt suggests that the shock has filtered through the financial system. But the Colombo settlement, proposed by Wells at the U.N. Japan) - a coalition never seen before that could pose a decisive challenge to the British and American Bretton Woods order.

Recalling the events that took place in 1976, Wells told the author of this book several years later: When people know what the third world is, about 80% of human beings live on the opposite side of the superpowers. The processing economy provides raw materials and strives to be an extension of the first world market economy. However, politicians in the Third World at the time had a different view of their role in the world.In their view, political independence is only a substantive step on the path of growth and development.They seek generalized technological advances that should be associated with the diversification of agriculture and the development of an infrastructure that would facilitate industrialization, bridging the great gaps between the three worlds.

Wells went on to explain how this could be achieved: First World economic theorists, led by Britain and France, believed that Third World export earnings would determine the speed and quality of their development, and that, when the speed and quality of development were not When desired, it should turn to the Bretton Woods system, whose mechanism was established in the late 1940s.Above all, this meant asking for the IMF's approval, and accepting the set of harsh, if not brutal, conditions that the IMF based its intervention on. This was the backdrop for the 1976 Colombo Summit of the Non-Aligned Nations in Sri Lanka.The world is calling for a new kind of fund institution - the International Resource Bank to replace the unfair neo-colonialism of the International Monetary Fund.At the same time, it also called for reducing the vertical and structural dependence of third world countries on the British, French and American economies, increasing horizontal links between third world countries, and calling for the establishment of a regional customs union or customs union to protect third world countries. world industry and called for technology transfer to alleviate the harsh situation in underdeveloped countries.

The United Nations has been chosen as the stage for the anticipated new era of global cooperation.These expectations never materialized.One by one, the prominent advocates of the Third World were ousted in their respective domestic struggles, and their solidarity was shattered by the customary principle of "defeat each".Export earnings and import prices were still rigged, creating huge balance-of-payments gaps, and Third World countries were told not to advance any loans by any state or private institution without the permission of the IMF.The IMF's insistence on austerity programs based on currency devaluation adds to the misery of third world countries; it is directly responsible for the spread of disease and encourages the cultivation of drugs as these unfortunate countries pursue cash crops as a panacea for their stretched financial situation.

Regarding the oil exporting countries of the Third World, Wells went on to add: The only popular raw material in the third world's economic field is oil, but most of the oil reserves are concentrated in the Middle East.The manipulation of inter-Arab and Arab-Israeli conflicts, combined with inculcating a preference for projects that win prestige and an unrealistic pursuit of good projects, means that Third World oil reserves cannot be an enabler of Third World development.Inflation and famine followed in one third world country after another.Because it is accompanied by low life expectancy and high infant mortality.Canning and Cassuri, Pitt and Disraeli [all were British prime ministers or senior officials during the colonial period. ——Translator] The old order remains the same. It should be mentioned here that the method of the British Foreign Minister Cassuri in the 19th century, the master of British diplomatic art who used balance of power diplomacy at the Vienna Conference in 1815, and the one who used the power and economic influence of the US government and intelligence system to strike the 1976 The initiator of the Colombo Conference in 1999-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was a devout believer in Kasuri. When the foreign ministers of the European Community met in 1976 to discuss the possibility of cooperation with the countries of the Non-Aligned Movement, Kissinger sent a telegram to the delegates, warning: The United States believes that the industrialized countries will strengthen the economic cooperation with the world. (also the North-South Congress) and the link between OPEC is dangerous.Spokespersons for many OPEC members wanted to clarify publicly that the final decision on oil prices relied heavily on concessions from industrialized countries to the World Economic Cooperation Conference.This will create the opposite direction of the relationship we want (with OPEC countries), so that the relationship between OPEC countries and other underdeveloped countries will be strengthened. Kissinger's veiled threats succeeded in disrupting any possible support from European countries for OPEC and NAM countries.According to diplomats who were personally involved in these negotiations, the two countries that were most open and responsive to cooperation at the time were Italy and the West Germany. On December 12, 1967, Italian newspapers reported on a meeting involving leading representatives of government, industry and trade associations.The governments of Germany and Italy hosted the conference on building a European defense against the damaging effects of the unstable petrodollar.According to reports, Schmidt's German government once had a private meeting with Washington, and Washington said that if Bonn dared to accept the non-aligned country's proposal in any serious way, the United States would withdraw its troops.Andreotti's Italian government was isolated; it could not have acted alone.Kissinger's "break each" tactic was successful again, at least at the time. The main strategists of the Colombo Declaration of Non-Alignment were forced out within months.According to Kissinger, this is also "one matter, one discussion".In India, Prime Minister Indig Gandhi was forced to take part in the election in February 1977. During the election process, several important members of the Congress Party, headed by Jagkiwan Ram, openly defected and decided to form an alliance with the radical BJP. A new coalition of opposition parties.The key issue in the debate is domestic austerity policies led by the International Monetary Fund.In March of the same year, less than six months after the Non-Aligned Movement issued its declaration at the United Nations, Gandhi stepped down. In Sri Lanka in early January, Mrs Bandaranaike's ruling Liberal Party and the country were paralyzed by a round of strikes led by a union-linked party led by "Trotskyists", rumored to be at odds with the Anglo-American Intelligence agencies have close ties.Efforts to restore order by Bandaranaike were ineffective at the time, accusing "interference by foreign powers".By May 1977, Bandaranaike was forced to step down. On Valentine's Day, 14 February 1978, in Guyana, Prime Minister Forbes Burnham and Foreign Minister Frederick Wells were also forced to resign under constant external pressure, and Will Sri Lanka is the third important strategist of the NAM National Economic Development Initiative. According to diplomatic intelligence sources familiar with the situation, Kissinger has been involved in every power change.Observers said, "This is also the result of close cooperation with the British." "You know, the British are very cunning. They're happy to let the US do the dirty work and take the blame while they're carefully behind the scenes. It's not like Jim Callaghan. .and only people in 'Chadham House' like Michael Howard, Cecil, and intelligence circles like MI5 would have taken such action against Colombo." Regarding Kissinger's admission that in his During the period, the Secretary of State had very close contact with the British Foreign Office. For details, please refer to the relevant notes in Chapter 9 of this book. Clearly, the Third World struggle against the Anglo-American order and against Anglo-American global taxation via petrodollars was suppressed.The major Eurodollar banks in London and New York opened the floodgates, lending more money to cover oil deficits in selected Third World countries subject to tough IMF terms.