POPE John Paul II yesterday formally opened the UN World Food Summit in Rome with a strong condemnation of the gap between rich and poor.
The Pope called for speedy solutions to the "dramatic situation" which currently sees more than 800 million people worldwide suffering from chronic malnutrition.
Given the honour of opening this first World Food Summit, held at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the Pope was critical of the gap between wasteful developed societies and hungry developing ones, saying: "We must find solutions together so that no longer do we have the hungry side by side with those living in opulence, the rich living side by side with the poor ... Such contrasts between poverty and wealth are simply unacceptable for humanity."
The Pope reiterated the Vatican's traditional reluctance to consider population growth control as the key to the resolving world hunger.
He said: "We have to abandon the cliche which would have us believe that to be numerous (in, family size) is to condemn yourself to poverty . . . That is not, however, to suggest that population growth can be limitless. Every family has duties and responsibilities in this domain Yet, it would be an illusion to believe that an arbitrary (growth) stabilisation of the world's population or even a decrease could directly resolve the problem of hunger.
In a remark of obvious relevance to the current plight of, starving refugees in eastern Zaire the Pope also acknowledged that political instability "often" bore major responsibility for the creation of hunger. He expressed his support for the conclusions arrived at in the World Food Summit's "Rome Declaration and Plan of Action". These call for the peaceful resolution of all political conflicts threatening food security.
On a day when the centre of Rome was cordoned off in a massive security operation involving 12,000 policemen overseeing the 13,000 delegates from 173 countries, the Pope shared the opening platform with the UN Secretary General, Dr Boutros Boutros Ghali, and the FAO Direct or General, Mr Jacques Diouf.
Dr Ghali chose to place the World Food Summit in the context of the UN summits of recent years. He said: "In a way the Rome summit marks the culmination of this process of reflection and it is only right that FAO should have taken the initiative of organising it since FAO. . . has the essential goal of ensuring humanity's freedom from hunger."
The UN Secretary General used yesterday's forum to make an appeal for the international community to intervene in eastern Zaire, saying: "As this summit is taking place, over a million starving, frightened refugees are wandering helpless in the mountains and forest of eastern Zaire. So, I should like to make a solemn appeal here to the international community to help those men, women and children who have lost everything and who face certain deaths unless they receive immediate assistance."