COPENHAGEN: Mr Fazlul Quader Chowdhury, Speaker of the Pakistan National Assembly, told the Inter-Parliamentary Union’s conference at Christiansburg Castle here yesterday [Aug22] that “the present economic disparity among nations must be removed”.

The conference should analyse, he said, “the root causes of international tension, one of which was ambition by nations to dominate others economically and politically”. Mr Chowdhury, who heads the Pakistani delegation, said it was essential that nations should be free not only politically but of economic bondage. There should be no imperialism, neither political nor economic.

Mr Chowdhury, who was interrupted by applause four times in the course of his address, stressed that there was an urgent need for a “world authority” that could effectively direct the struggle for peace, and which had the power to implement the UN Charter. “Big buildings for international organisations, slogans and platitudes” did not preserve peace. What was needed was a change of heart among men, he said.

Mr Chowdhury pleaded strongly for universal membership of the UN, peaceful settlement of disputes and competition, not in armaments, but in human kindness.

Published in Dawn, August 23rd, 2014