Frederick Wills
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Frederick Wills (died 1993) was the Foreign Minister of Guyana in the 1970s. He later was one of the founders of the Schiller Institute in the United States.
Fred Wills started out as a solicitor with a prominent firm in the early 1960s in Georgetown. When Forbes Burnham came into power he appointed Wills as Justice Minister and later Foreign Affairs Minister. In that capacity Wills briefly presided over the United Nations Security Council and twice addressed the General Assembly, once on independence for East Timor and once on September 27, 1976, to promote a Third World debt moratorium:
- "The billions on this planet who live in the developing countries and whose existence is subjected to the constraints of the few who manipulate to their advantage the present-day economic system, have pinned their hopes on the modest programme put forward in Nairobi and elsewhere. Their determination is adamant, inexorable and relentless. The IMF and the Bretton Woods monetary system must give way to alternative structures such as the international development banks, which are not geared to the revival and reconstruction of Europe nor preferential arrangements for the developed market economies, but rather to the just distribution of the gains of an equitable global system...."
In the spring of 1978, cult-leader Jim Jones was tape-recorded in Jonestown boasting that he had the Guyanese government on his side and that the Foreign Minister (presumably Wills) had assured him that, if anyone came for Jones, they would do so over "his dead body". [1]
Wills' government service ended in the late 1970s and he moved to the United States. There he became an associate of Lyndon LaRouche, and was a founding board member of the Schiller Institute in 1984.
Fred Wills was beloved by the West Indian community, both in Guyana and in the U.S., for his role in promoting cricket. He served as club captain for the Demerara Cricket club (DCC) in Georgetown, Guyana, and was a popular announcer at cricket games in the U.S. Guyanese cricket fans proposed re-naming the DCC Pavilion as Fred Wills Pavilion.
