UN General Assembly
1992

peoples. While in the North man has made significant progress in mastering seemingly intractable natural phenomena and advanced sciences, such as genetic engineering, biochemistry and physics, in the South man still remains the victim of illiteracy and backwardness and depends on the will of mother nature. There are further examples which reveal our common identity as human beings - the inability to control our instincts and to manage and exercise power in a responsible manner. It is within this context that we are assembled here today as representatives of our peoples and nations in order to reflect on how to reverse the events that made it possible to devote more than $20 trillion during the past 30 years to military expenditures, to the detriment of the fundamental concerns of all mankind. In our view the root causes of the enormous problems we face today lie essentially in the utilization of the destructive capacity of man and not in the positive use of his extraordinary creativity. As has been well documented, we are currently living in a world where