PPP sickened by high levels of military spending amid growing poverty

 

By Kurt Campbell

[www.inewsguyana.com] – General Secretary of the ruling People’s Progressive Party (PPP), Clement Rohee says his Party is “deeply disturbed” over the high levels of military spending by the Industrialized States in the face of growing poverty and diseases in the world. 

The PPP believes that a tiny fraction of the money spent on wars and conflicts would be more than enough to provide food and medicine for the millions of people who are dying for want of food and medical care. 

Rohee told a news conference on Monday, September 15 that “the resources that are spent on war, if diverted to human development, could go a far way in terms of the reduction and eventual elimination of poverty in the world at large.”
He said “it is a collective shame on humanity as a whole that so many millions of people die each year from want of food and water, not to mention the millions of children who are unable to go to school due to extreme poverty.”

Rohee believes something must be fundamentally and structurally wrong when nearly a third of the global population is forced to live on US$1 a day.

Meanwhile, the PPP says it notes with alarm the spread of the deadly Ebola disease which is threatening to wipe out countless number of people especially in the African continent.

“The risk of the spread of the disease to other parts of the world is very real and all efforts must be made by the international community to contain and possibly eliminate this scourge that threatens the very existence of the human race,” the PPP GS stated.

Rohee, on behalf of his Party, renewed the call made by former President Dr. Cheddi Jagan for the introduction of a New Global Human Order in which people are placed ahead of profits.

“It is this drive for profits by the military-industrial complex that is responsible for so much tension and conflicts in the world,” Rohee observed even as he urged the relevant agencies to put in place the necessary mechanisms to give effect to the New Global Human Order which was adopted by the United Nations.

He said too that the need to end the gap between the rich and the poor and the digital divide is an imperative that cannot be further delayed.