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World People's Conference urges "new world order"

Delegates from across the developing world called for a “new world order” of peace and development in Bolivia last week.

The final declaration of the World People's Conference in Tiquipaya, outside the central city of Cochabamba, said the “social property of natural resources” must be consolidated, the Bolivian Information Agency reported.

Some 4,000 delegates from 43 countries on four continents attended the conference on Tuesday and Wednesday last week.

They demanded the establishment of a “new international finance architecture” without multilateral organisations serving transnational capital.

The declaration also called for “the building of true peace” — not only between nations but in social relations.

“It is not only the inexistence of armed conflicts but also the overcoming of structural violence that translates to equitable access to wealth and development opportunities,” it read.

It identified the principal causes of the current global crisis as: “Armed conflicts and military interventions, climate change and the enormous economic asymmetries between states and the within them.”

Cochabamba was the venue of the 2010 World People's Conference on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Earth, hosted by Bolivian President Evo Morales, and last week's conference criticised US President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords.

Mr Morales called last week's conference along with the expresidents of Colombia and Ecuador Ernesto Samperand Rafael Correa and former Spanish PM Luis Zapatero.

Mr Samper and Mr Zapatero have been at the centre of efforts to mediate between Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's socialist party government and the US-backed opposition that has since launched a new campaign of

And Mr Correa hosted talks between the Colombian government and National Liberation Army (ELN) rebels in Quito.

The conference said the immigration crisis, originally caused by the increasing gap between rich and poor and the excessive appetite for natural wealth, had launched waves of migrants and multiplied those displaced by war to around 65 million people.

“The migratory crisis is one of the manifestations of the internal crisis of global neoliberalism,” it said, calling for a “right of human mobility” to be recognised.

The conference reflected Latin American opposition to the planned building of a wall along the US-Mexican border to stop illegal immigration — but also urged all nations to combat the “criminal networks that traffic in human beings.”

Delegates also condemned similar anti-refugee policies in Europe and called for respect for refugees from the wars waged on the Middle East, while also demanding Israel respect the Palestinian people.

They called for “the destruction of physical walls that separate peoples” along with “invisible legal walls that persecute and criminalise; mental walls that utilise hate, discrimination and xenophobia to separate brother from brother.”

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