Notable Activities
WGI supported the continuance of apartheid in South Africa, and hosted a visit to the UK, in June 1989, by the hierarchy of the Conservative Party of South Africa, which some years previously broke away from the National Party of South Africa after P.W. Botha instituted limited reforms. The delegation included the Conservative Party leader Andries Treurnicht. A press conference was held for the delegation in a committee room of the House of Lords on 5 June. Conservative Party of South Africa MP Clive Derby-Lewis, then one of sixty members of the integrated State President's Council, was made an honorary vice-president of the WGI. Derby-Lewis is currently serving a life sentence for conspiracy to murder Chris Hani, a leader of the South African Communist Party and of the ANC's armed wing, who was assassinated in 1993. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (2 July 1993) lists the Western Goals Institute as an "impediment" to the elimination of racial discrimination in South Africa, saying of the Institute that it "claims to be devoted to protecting the Western way of life by offering self-defence training to white South Africans".
On 25 September 1989, Lord Sudeley chaired a Western Goals dinner at Simpson's-in-the-Strand for El Salvador's President, Alfredo Cristiani, and his inner cabinet. The guest list included figures such as Sir Alfred Sherman (policy advisor to Margaret Thatcher), Lord Nicholas Hervey, Antony Flew, Zigmunt Szkopiak, Denis Walker and Harvey Ward.
In Europe, Western Goals gave their open support to the French Front National, the populist right-wing political party led by Jean-Marie Le Pen. On 12 October 1989, WGI hosted a controversial fringe meeting at the Conservative Party Conference in Blackpool, addressed by Front National Member of the European Parliament, Pierre Ceyrac. Western Goals also examined the possibility of links with the right-wing German Republicans party, which in 1989 had six members in the European Parliament.
On 12 August 1989, a delegation from the Western Goals Institute attended an anti-communist demonstration at Moln, near Lübeck which over 20,000 people attended. The rally was organised by Die Deutschen Konservativen e. V., led by Joachim Siegerist, now a Latvian parliamentarian with whom the WGI had contacts.
The group hosted social events including an Annual Dinner at the Grosvenor Hotel at Victoria on 24 November 1989 when the guest of honour was Kenneth Griffith. On 20 November 1990, they hosted the General Franco Memorial Dinner, commemorating the anniversary of his death. This was also chaired by Baron Sudeley. A WGI notice in The Times stated that the late ruler of Spain was "remembered as a hero against communism".
Western Goals hosted a widely reported dinner for Jean-Marie Le Pen at the Charing Cross Hotel in the Strand, London in December 1991. There was a large demonstration against the dinner outside the hotel and some damage to property took place, notably the hotel's front doors and surroundings, which were smashed; an exclusive of the dinner appeared in The Mail on Sunday on 8 December. Western Goals director Andrew Smith speaking in April 1993 is quoted as saying that "on reflection the Le Pen visit was the zenith and also the beginning of the end" for him. However Private Eye cited him at the same time as saying that the Institute was "currently inactive, i.e: in a state of 'suspended animation', but we have other plans and projects under way.".
Read more about this topic: Western Goals Institute
Famous quotes containing the words notable and/or activities:
“a notable prince that was called King John;
And he ruled England with main and with might,
For he did great wrong, and maintained little right.”
—Unknown. King John and the Abbot of Canterbury (l. 2–4)
“There is, I think, no point in the philosophy of progressive education which is sounder than its emphasis upon the importance of the participation of the learner in the formation of the purposes which direct his activities in the learning process, just as there is no defect in traditional education greater than its failure to secure the active cooperation of the pupil in construction of the purposes involved in his studying.”
—John Dewey (1859–1952)