Jubilee South joins hundreds of thousands on the streets of Genoa
Posted on July 22 2001 |
A Jubilee South delegation of 17 brought the concerns of member movements in Africa, Asia and the Pacific, and Latin America and the Caribbean in the Genoa Social Forum (GSF) July 15 to 21 in Genoa, Italy.
Jubilee South, along with its partners in the Dakar South-North Consultation of December 2000, had marked the same week of the GSF as a Global Week of Protest Against Debt. The week was chosen primarily because these were the days that immediately precede the Group of 8 or G8 Summit in Genoa. While Jubilee South struggles against the debt are directed to all Northern creditors, the international financial institutions (IMF, WB and their regional counterparts), as well as the governments and the elites of the South, the G8 Summit is an important occasion to highlight JS position and calls.
Highlights of activities of JS members during the week were mass actions in G8 member embassies in Brazil and the Philippines by the Jubilee South Brazil and the Freedom from Debt Coalition, respectively. The Rural Reconstruction Nepal (RRN) celebrated the protest week with the people at grassroots through a mass rally and the distribution of materials on debt issues. Other groups held similar popular education activities.
JS interventions
For the activities in Genoa, JS organized a small delegation of 17, including three staff persons. Latin America and the Caribbean had three, Africa had five and Asia Pacific had nine in their delegation.
The Genoa Social Forum, a broad grouping of more than 200 social and political organizations, networks and movements, that included Sdebitarsi, the Italian jubilee group, warmly welcomed Jubilee South as part of the forum and provided space for JS speakers and meetings and special events.
Organized on the model of Porto Alegre, the forums consisted of four general plenary sessions, 10 thematic plenaries, several special initiatives and some independently organized forums.
Jubilee South ensured presence in most of the plenaries including the general plenary "This World is not for Sale, " a denunciation of G8 policies, and the thematic plenary session on "Financial Debt."
In the first plenary, Becky Lozada, JS global secretariat, spoke on anti-people and anti-development policies that result from structural adjustment imposed on the South by creditors. The other plenaries and forums saw Nora Cortiñez of the Madres de Plaza de Mayo denouncing huge debts as a result of dictatorial rule in Argentina, Rev. David Ugolor of the Transparency International calling for justice for the people for the wealth stolen from Nigeria, Helen Wangusa of African Women's Economic Policy Network (AWEPON) in Uganda speaking of the suffering of poor people who did not benefit from debts but are paying for the debts, among others.
Jubilee South also independently sponsored a two-part Public Forum on "Who Owes Whom?" on July 18 and 19. The first forum focused on external debt, and the second on ecological debt and campaign initiatives. Moderated by Helen and Dudu Radebe of Jubilee South Africa Coalition , a highlight of the forum was discussions on the campaign initiative on illegitimacy of debt. There were also inputs on debt, racism and reparations by Prof. Dennis Brutus of Jubilee South-South Africa, on debt and conditionalities by Lidy, on the International People's Tribunal by Beverly Keene of Diálogo 2000 (Argentina), on new forms of indebtedness and export credit agencies by Shalmali Guttal of Focus on the Global South (Thailand), and on destructive projects funded by multilateral agencies by Titi Soentoro of Women's Solidarity for Human Rights (Indonesia).
Campaign partners from the North were invited to speak on the second day. Luca de Fraia of Sdebitarsi spoke of the ongoing focus of the Italian campaign to monitor compliance with the Italian law approved July 2000, that establishes 100 percent cancellation of bilateral debts for IDA and HIPC countries. Eric Toussaint of CADTM (Belgium) talked about their work for a Fair and Transparent Arbitration Process (FTAP).
In the closing plenary of the GSF, Alejandro Bendaña of Centro de Estudios Internacionales, Nicaragua (JS ICC member) said the Forum GSF cannnot go on its usual business in the light of the violence exerted by the police in the previous day's conference.(At this point, police violence in Genoa was mainly isolated to street clashes. The bloody police raid of the GSF media headquarters would happen very late on the same day.)
Calls for unconditional debt cancellation
In the G8 Summit, debt was only one of several priority issues. While the Italian government earlier indicated its willingness to formally include debt in the agenda, its proposal did not include new debt cancellation measures. Rather, its proposal, submitted to G8 finance ministers in February, suggested confronting the problem of the poor countries through enhanced trade liberalization and measures to insure developing country competitiveness.
Before the start of the summit, US President George Bush made the proposal in support of making half of future World Bank loans into grants just before the G8 summit convened.
Jubilee South on July 19 termed the proposal an attempt to sidestep the critical, outstanding issue of unconditional debt cancellation.
Lidy Nacpil, JS spokesperson, said "talking about turning loans into grants is meaningless as long as present debt remains on the books and its servicing continues to drain the resources of our countries."
Lidy was in Genoa with a small delegation of Jubilee South (JS) who came to Genoa for the July 15-21 activities of the Genoa Social Forum.
The JS delegation insisted on the immediate cancellation and repudiation of all Third World debts. "We are in Genoa in unity with the Genoa Social Forum and with the tens of thousands of peoples from the North in a common resistance to the corporate-driven globalization embodied in the G8".
"Because it is illegitimate, debt should be cancelled unconditionally by the rich governments of the North and the IFIs, and repudiated by the governments of the South," said Nacpil, international coordinator for Jubilee South. "We do not accept the concept of grants from North to South, because what is due to us is, in fact, reparations."
Jubilee South considers that the Bush proposal increases the power of the international financial institutions over the peoples and governments of the South, because under World Bank control any "grants" will be sure to have strings attached. The acceleration of corporate-driven globalization through structural adjustment and neoliberal reforms will be a condition for accessing such "grants".
Jubilee South said the public relations ploy will not fool the peoples of the South who are demanding not reform, but a new development model and, in fact, a new global order based on justice and self-determination.
Jubilee South also ensured strong participation in mass actions, including the big mobilizations on the October 20 and 21. The delegation took part in
• July 19, International March of Immigrants. Organizers attached great symbolic value to this action, given Genoese history and present reality, as well as the overall significance of the struggle for migrants' rights in the context of neoliberal globalization. The G8 Summit had been scheduled to take place in the heart of the migrant district, and thus provoked additional controls and problems for the local population. Organizers were successful in insuring a peaceful march as protection for the migrants. Jubilee South ensured strong presence in the march specially since the local groups marching included Filipinos and Peruvians.
• July 20, Symbolic surrounding of the maximum security ("Red") area (opening day of G8 Summit, late afternoon) Groups used plazas and other areas for myriad expressions of different themes and protests. It was this march that was first tear-gassed by the authorities. Even Jubilee South delegates who had divided into two groups to staff it had set up in two places could not at first come together for the march because the meeting place they had agreed upon was already a scene of confrontation between some marchers and the police. When it was able to get together, the Jubilee South proceeded to join a group and joined the march up to the blockade towards - of the Red Area. David was even able to put up a Jubilee South banner high on the wall put up by police.
It was only as the march was dispersing that Jubilee South learned that a 21-year old resident of Genoa had been shot dead by the Carebinieri.
• July 21, 10-Kilometer March Although some groups dropped out because of violence the previous day, Jubilee South called for participation and was among tens of thousands in the long march that continued despite repeated tear gas attacks by the police and the unknown plans of some anarchist groups.
Earlier on the same day, Jubilee South sent representatives and intervened with a prayer in a fasting and prayer vigil for debt cancellation organized by SEDOS and the JUPIC/religious congregations held at the Church of San Antonio, along the coast at the breathtaking Boccadasse plaza. Sdebitarsi, which earlier decided not to join the big rallies, was co-organizer of the prayer and fasting.
The police violence was denounced by Jubilee South in media interviews, specially since the mobilizations could not have come close to the G8 which had moved its summit on July 20-22 from the Palazzo Ducale, in the center of the historic district of Genoa, to a ship.
Jubilee South also managed to convene in Genoa, with help from Canadian Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative (CEJI), the fist meeting of the South-North Working Group on Illegitimate Debt, the formation of which was among the resolutions of the Dakar South-North Dialogue. The participants discussed the concept of illegitimacy of debt as well as strategies and initiatives, including a People's Tribunal on Debt in February 2002 to move forward the campaign on illegitimacy of debt.
The working group meeting was participated in by the whole Jubilee South delegation and the following representatives from groups from the North: Bill Ferguson of Jubilee USA, USA; Jennifer Henry of Kairos Ecumenical Justice, Canada; Kirsten Mercer of Kairos, Canada; Pam Foster of Halifax Initiative, Canada; Denise Comain of CADTM, Belgium; and Eric Toussaint of CADTM, Belgium.
|
|
|
about us 
