Wednesday March 31, 1999
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UN Cairo +5 Prepcom Delayed Due to Pro-Life Resistance
MONTREAL, Mar 31 (LSN) – Speaking with LifeSite News just moments after stepping off the plane from New York, veteran UN diplomat Gilles Grondin told LifeSite that the UN Cairo+5 prepcom which was scheduled to end yesterday continues today despite sessions that went till 1:30am.
The reason for the delay, says Grondin is that the G-77 countries are rejecting efforts by the West, particularly the European Union, the US and Canada to have an anti-family agenda dictated to them.
“At every turn,” reports Mr. Grondin, “sexual and reproductive rights are pushed on the G-77 countries.” He confirmed that by these terms the West was referring to ‘rights’ to homosexuality, abortion, contraception, sterilization and sex-education to be granted from the age of 10. According to Mr. Grondin, the G-77 nations are demanding that the UN articles be chapeaued, thus allowing them to exercise national sovereignty, but the US and Western delegates are fighting sovereignty proposals with the help of the UN Secretariat.
Mr. Grondin recalled that at the conference the Vatican delegate noted that whenever world “health” was mentioned only “reproductive health” was discussed. Furthermore, it was made clear that there was no end of money from the West available for reproductive health but that there were definite limits on funding for other health concerns. Mr. Grondin, a pro-life lobbyist at the conference and himself a former Western UN diplomat involved in human rights in the Third World, said, “I was ashamed to be from the West.”
Grondin reported that he was successful in lobbying many of the Third World countries. Demonstrating to them with hard evidence that a population control agenda was behind the strong push from the West and the UN to impose “sexual and reproductive rights.” “Our discourse led to a strengthening of their positions.” Once presented with the NSSM 200 document outlining US foreign policy as regards population control in the Third World, the delegates from the developing countries admitted that they suspected there was an agenda at work but did not have documentation to verify their suspicions.
Needless to say, the delegates from the developing world were thankful for the efforts of Mr. Grondin and all of the pro-life lobbyists working day and night at the UN to fight the anti-life/family agenda being forced on vulnerable Third World countries. _____
Grondin is President of Le Mouvement en faveur de la Vie/Campaign Quebec Vie. Prior to his retirement from Canada’s Department of External Affairs, he served thirty years as a full diplomatic officer, mainly concerned with the social and economic problems of the Third World.
From 1964-67, he served with the Permanent Mission of Canada to the United Nations in New York, with a focus on human rights and social development matters. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees enlisted him, on secondment from the Department of External Affairs, as his Representative in Senegal and Mauritania from 1967-70.
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