June 26, 1999
Web posted at: 1:52 p.m. EDT (1752
GMT)
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) -- Several Latin American nations have begun a revolt in advance of next week's U.N. conference on population and development, saying they have reached their limit in making concessions to conservatives.
The debate late Friday occurred during a closed-door meeting of 133 developing nations, known as the Group of 77, on such issues as sex education, women's rights and contraceptives.
In order to reach a consensus among all the G-77 states, concessions often have to be made to a plethora of views, including conservative positions taken by Libya, Sudan and Morocco as well as Argentina, Nicaragua and Guatemala.
More liberal Latin American countries, especially Peru, Chile, Brazil and Venezuela, rebelled, saying they did not want to be bound by all G-77 positions, delegates said.
Peruvian delegates contended they had support from some 20 other nations, including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Panama, Uruguay and Bolivia, as well as Thailand, Sri Lanka and South Africa. Diplomats, however, doubted Pretoria would break ranks because of its presidency in the Non-Aligned Movement that includes the same group of nations.
The G-77 countries intend to meet over the weekend in an effort to reach a common stand. But on some issues, such as sex education for adolescents, the Latin American nations threatened to stake out their own positions.
The U.N. General Assembly plans a three-day ministerial conference, starting on Wednesday, to adopt a program that builds on experiences since a landmark 1994 Cairo population conference.
Delegates are still debating a half-completed document, with some nations wanting to reopen the Cairo program and others pushing for new planks.
"The most important thing is the big change, especially in Latin America, in the last five years," Susana Galdos, a delegate from Peru, said. "We voted for a program in Cairo in 1994, and now we want to go further."
Peru, for example, was devising new reproductive health programs and laws to punish rape and to advance women in government, Galdos said.
"For us, Cairo was only a beginning. For others, it is the maximum," she said.
More than 170 governments have been haggling over such issues as bolstering parental authority at the expense of teen-age sex education in preparatory meetings over the last few months. There also has been opposition to a Cairo pledge to ensure safe abortions where they are legal.
Opposition among conservatives is also strong to consideration of new developments, such as the "emergency contraception" (ABORTION) pill that destroys a fertilized egg before it becomes implanted in the uterine walls.
None of the conference's decisions are binding on governments, but they give guidelines that voluntary groups and legislators use in formulating national policy.
The Cairo conference marked a switch in population strategies from an emphasis on demographic control to general health care, education and choice as part of a family planning approach to curbing population growth.
The theory was that if women were literate, informed and able to make their own decisions, they would choose to have fewer children. But with the world's population expected to reach 6 billion in October and nearly 9 billion by the year 2050, funds for such programs are badly lacking.
The Cairo program foresaw increasing funds from the current $10 billion a year to $17 billion by next year and $22 billion by the year 2015. But rich countries have cut, rather than increased, international aid over the last five years.