Acharya Sushil Muni At Global Forum Moscow

By  Sadhvi Sadhnaji

H. H. Acharya Sushil Kumarji Maharaja participated in a Global Forum on Environment and Development in Moscow, January 15-19, 1990. The fourm, hosted by the Supreme Soviet, all faith communities in the USSR, the USSR Academy of Sciences and the International Foundation for the Survival, gathered 1,000 people from 83 countries, journalists, educators, artists and business and industry leaders.

The purpose of the fourm was to find fresh approaches to the global environmental crisis, by involving the two pillars of our communities our spiritual and parlimentary leaders in an intensive dialogue on critical survival issues and then reaching out, worldwide, through the news media and other forms of communication. The Global Forum believes religious and political leaders are central to the process of positive change, because they are the opinion-makers, who work most closely with people at all levels, from the local to the global.

Among the political leaders participating in the Moscow Global Fourm were Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, UN Secretary-General Javier Perez Cuellar, Mrs. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former Prime Minister of Norway and Chair of the World Commission on Environment and Development, Dr. Karan Singh, Indian Ambassodor the the US, India's, MP Sat Pal Mittal, four US Senators as well as Cabinet members and Speakers of many nation's parliaments. Spiritual leaders included the Grand Mufti of Syria Sheikh Ahmad Kuftaro, Metropolitan Pitirim of the Russian Orthodox Church, Paulos Mar Gregorious, Metropolitan of Delhi and the North Syrian Orthodox Church of India, and many other elders of traditional indigenous tribes of North and South America and Africa.

The fourm opened with and address by UN Secretary-General Javier Perez de Cuellar and closed with a mojor environmental address in the Kremlin by Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev. H. H. Acharya Sushil Kumarji Maharaj opened the plenary session on January 17 with a Jain prayer and meditation. Throughout the week he participated in study commission, press conferences and television, radio and newspaper interviews. Following the closing ceremony in the Kermlin Acharyaji presented Soviet President Michail Gorbachev with a Lord Mahavir Peace Medal.

The Forum ended with a historic two hour television program broadcast direct from the conference by satellite. Ronald Smith, anchorman of WWORTV in the US acted as the global anchor in Moscow, leading a team of international reporters. The show featured live coverage at the conference and environmental reports from various locations around the world via Intersat and Intersputnik, the two global communications networks. The conference produced two documents, the Moscow Declaration and the Moscow Plan of Action, which are available on request form Siddachalam.

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