First United Nations World Television Forum to focus on Role of Television in Decision-making. Addressing delegates at the World Food Summit in Rome on Wednesday, the Secretary-General appealed to the international community to help those men, women, and children who have lost everything and who faced certain death unless they received immediate assistance. He said more than a million starving, frightened refugees were wandering helpless in the mountains and forests of eastern Zaire. The Secretary-General told the delegates that the Summit must provide the international community as a whole with the opportunity to reaffirm the overriding need to ensure food security for all. He said hunger was a direct affront not only to the physical integrity, but also to the very dignity of people.
Hunger is an insult to the fundamental values of the international community.
He noted that eight hundred million people suffered from chronic malnutrition, adding that 88 States, almost half of which are situated in sub-Saharan Africa knew the pangs of chronic famine and malnutrition. Meanwhile, Pope John Paul II has told the Summit that population was not a problem for world food security, according to a UN Radio report from Rome. He said demographic considerations could not explain deficient food distribution. According to the report, the Pope's statement came after criticism by the World Watch Institute that population was the key problem for feeding the hungry. In a message to the Third Economic Conference for the Middle East and North Africa held in Cairo, on Tuesday, Dr. Boutros-Ghali said since the 1991 Madrid Peace Conference, the peoples and governments of the region had shown their determination to opt for peace.