A disease of the world system

by Ahmed Ben Bella, First President of Algeria

London ~ The question of the blockades can only be properly understood when seen in a wider context. We live under a world system in which 35 million people die of starvation every year, in which a quarter of the world's population suffers from tropical diseases, and in which the countries of the South have seen no development in their position during the last thirty years. We live in a world where the goal of development held out by the US, IMF, and the World Bank cannot possibly be supported by the planet we live on. Three quarters of the World's population live in the countries of the South, and there will quite simply never be the possibility that all these people could consume energy and other resources at the rate the US does; we should need ten or fifteen more such planets to provide the necessary resources!

The countries of the South owe $2,000 billion in debt; they cannot even pay interest on this amount, let alone ever pay it back.

In short, the whole of the South is blockaded. The blockades of Iraq, Cuba, Libya, People's Korea are, in fact, merely the most extreme examples of the use of this policy.

The constitutions of many countries now ban racism. What we must struggle for is that blockades should also be banned in the same way. These blockades are a disease of the world system; we want these blockades to be eliminated from the face of the earth, just as smallpox has been eliminated.

~ From a speech to London meeting against sanctions, January 17, 1996.