Report on G8 Summit (2002) & Global Justice Action Summit

50 Years listserv
Jul 1, 2002
by 50 Years Is Enough Network

July 1, 2002

REPORT FROM G8 SUMMIT (CALGARY) AND GLOBAL JUSTICE
ACTION SUMMIT (MISSOULA)

The 2002 G7 Summit is over. (make that G8, now that Russia is, after 5 years
of tentative status, officially in the club despite having no reason for being
there other than appeasing a big nuclear weapons owner).

As usual, very little was accomplished by the muckety-mucks other than
setting a new record ratio of dollars spent on security to actual decisions
made. Some $300m (Canadian or US, it was never quite clear) was spent on
security for a little over 2 days for the G8 heads of government -- roughly the
same amount that Canada has committed to the much-vaunted Africa
recovery plan (the only commitment made so far, a good chunk of which is to
go to a new Africa-oriented export credit agency).

There was something about helping Russia destroy some nukes (and hence
some of their leverage), and some chatter about terrorism of course. On the
issues that the 50 Years Is Enough Network tracks, there was a pledge of
assistance to Africa, as a reward for the New Partnership for African
Development (NEPAD), personally submitted by four African heads of
government (Mbeki of South Africa; Obasanjo of Nigeria; Wade of Senegal;
and Bouteflika of Algeria), but nothing specific beyond Canada’s pledge.
There was a less vague commitment to supply $1b for the IMF/WB’s debt
management scheme, HIPC, which is, naturally, facing a shortfall as the
inevitable failure of countries to graduate to “sustainability” becomes
undeniable. No talk of re-designing a program which manifestly doesn’t work
(at least for its ostensible goals), however.

The main business was NEPAD and the G8’s response. In short, NEPAD is
sign of the domination of -- sorry, no other words for it -- economic imperialism
on the world’s most disadvantaged continent. It was truly dreadful to watch
African heads of state grovel on television with a plan they thought sufficiently
echoed all the austerity plans, privatization pledges, and bowing to corporate
privilege which the IMF and World Bank have been forcing on Africa for the
last 20 years. Sufficiently to persuade the G8 powers, that is, that these four
guys could be trusted to keep African countries in the neo-liberal line,
supplying their cheap labor and commodities and not kicking up any
international fusses. Then to see the G8 guys basically say “yes, very nice,
we’ll have to try to find some spare change for you; do remind us in a year’s
time” must have shattered their miserable hopes.

Among the Africans, only Obasanjo and Kofi Annan spoke at the press
conference bringing the African politicos together with the G8 heads
(presumably Mbeki needed to make it appear that someone else had a stake
in this thing). Obasanjo looked a little deflated, having to appear as one of the
compradors-in-chief (if you don’t know “comprador,” please read Fanon’s
“Wretched of the Earth”) and taking rather little home to brag about in the
bargain. Stephen Lewis, the progressive Canadian appointed as U.N.
rapporteur on HIV/AIDS in Africa, deftly analyzed (on the CBC television
broadcast) Annan’s diplomatic-speak as expressing disappointment and
doubt.

None of that was surprising, however. Indeed, we drafted our press release
on the occasion (below) some 36 hours before the announcement, and hardly
had to adjust it.

The 50 Years Is Enough Network sent two people -- Njoki Njehu, its director,
and Soren Ambrose, policy analyst -- to Alberta (Calgary, to be specific) for
the spectacle. Before that we attended a rousing Global Justice Action
Summit in Missoula, Montana, the most progressive outpost north of Denver
(indeed rather like a transplanted Northampton, Mass. in the Rockies). We
were joined there by Walden Bello & Shalmali Guttal of Focus on the Global
South and 50 Years Is Enough’s South Council, and Kevin Danaher of Global
Exchange and our Steering Committee. It was a great coming together of
progressive activists from all over the U.S. northwest and beyond.

We got some good coverage in the Missoulian (daily paper) and made some
new friends, then drove up to Calgary -- about 7 hours north, including a
breathtaking passage through the higher mountain altitudes of the Blackfeet
reservations that straddle the border.

The organizing for the summit was difficult: the Canadian military and police
completely sealed off the summit site at Kananaskis, making it impossible to
do anything within earshot of the summiteers. A plan to erect a “solidarity
village” on land near the site was subverted by the Canadian government’s
higher bid to the landowners. Plans to move the event into the city of Calgary
were torpedoed by the city’s ban on most protest activities. The organizers of
the solidarity village plan dispersed in several directions, with some planning
more radical street actions in Ottawa for June 26 (which attracted about 3000
people despite liberal amounts of rain). Others, including several of our
closest Canadian friends (Halifax Initiative and Kairos, for example), put their
energies into an all-day teach-in on the 25th. That was largely overshadowed
by a five-day event called the G6B (“Group of 6 Billion” representing the rest
of the world), a conference with many high-profile speakers and many
interesting panels and workshops, held in comparative luxury on the campus
of the University of Calgary, and partially funded by the government
(something that sounds mighty incongruous to people from the U.S.). The
street actions in Calgary -- on the 23rd and the 26th -- drew a few thousand
people, and were entirely peaceful, if boisterous and colorful.

As enjoyable and productive as all the activities in Calgary were, it was
certainly different from the previous G7/G8 Summit, in Genoa, Italy, which
attracted between 200,000 and 300,000 people. The remote location and the
hangover from Sept. 11, among other factors, contributed to the lower
numbers this year. And of course they gave rise to numerous “is the
movement waning?” articles, as well as speculation about how the various
factions of the movement might regroup for future actions (see, e.g.,
www.rabble.ca). Much to think about for the September/October actions in
Washington, to be sure.

At the same time, however, over 10,000 people turned out for protests in Oslo,
Norway at the annual WB-sponsored academic conference on poverty.

The Canadian media gave the summit blanket coverage, in sharp distinction
to the very low-level of attention in the U.S. Njoki was interviewed by many
many radio and tv stations, including several national programs, and we were
quoted in a variety of articles. Press conferences were generally well-
attended, and all in all, the Calgary events did nothing to disturb Canadians’
reputation for being much better-informed and more progressive on
international issues than U.S.ers.

Below is our press release which followed the Africa press conference in
Alberta. The NEPAD story will be a live issue, only gaining more velocity as
the weeks pass (its official debut is at the Durban, South Africa meeting of the
new African Union on July 8-10). We will post more on that, and indeed, will
get back to posting more regularly now that we’re back with steady internet
access and a little bit of time.

Soren Ambrose
50 Years Is Enough Network
Washington, DC USA

Activists Disappointed, But Not Surprised, as G-7 Africa Decisions Affirm
Economic Status Quo

JUNE 26, 2002 - CALGARY • The 50 Years Is Enough Network responded to
the G-7 Summit’s action plan on Africa -- a rejoinder to the much-publicized
New Partnership for African Development (NEPAD) promoted at the
Kananaskis meeting by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa -- by accusing
world leaders of treating the chronic problems of Africa with increased doses
of the same medicine that has already poisoned the continent.

“More privatization, more foreign ownership, less spending on social
programs, deregulation of trade: this is what both the G-7 and NEPAD
recommend. It is also precisely the formula that has been forced on Africa
over the last 20 years by the International Monetary Fund and World Bank
with their structural adjustment programs. It has worked splendidly -- for the
multinational corporations based in the G-7 countries, and for coffin-makers in
Africa. When will the G-7’s Africa policies put the interests, and the voices, of
African peoples first?” asked Njoki Njoroge Njehû, a Kenyan who directs the
50 Years Is Enough Network, a U.S. coalition dedicated to the fundamental
transformation of the IMF and World Bank.

Both NEPAD and the G-7’s action plan on Africa were devised in a vacuum,
with no input from civil society organizations. Scores of prominent African civil
society and academic networks have criticized NEPAD for its faithfulness to
status quo “neo-liberal” economic policies and for its claim to “African
ownership” in the absence of consultation beyond the inner circles of the
presidents of South Africa, Nigeria, Senegal, and Algeria.

“NEPAD attempts to stamp an African face on structural adjustment programs,
apparently in the hope that saying what the donors want to hear will result in
more assistance and investment. The response of the G-7, in encouraging
more signs of obeisance, confirms that President Mbeki and his partners have
not under-estimated the rich countries. Their leaders do, indeed, seek to be
let off the hook for decades of immiserating policy impositions by the IMF and
the World Bank, and they can best divert blame for the millions of lives lost to
their policies in Africa by finding powerful regional surrogates who will
embrace the need to put profit before people, and maintain their neighbors’
adherence to the status quo as well,” said Soren Ambrose, Policy Analyst for
the 50 Years Is Enough Network.

Njehû said the flaws of orthodox economic policies are demonstrated by the
U.S. response to recent economic uncertainty:

• The U.S. Federal Reserve steadily lowered interest rates to stimulate the
economy after September 11th, but impoverished countries and crisis
countries like Argentina are told to keep their interest rates high, thus pushing
entrepreneurs out of business, causing lay-offs, and forcing the loss of
farmland.

• Countries borrowing from the IMF and World Bank must swear off trade
regulations, especially those designed to protect local industries. The U.S., of
course, has imposed tariffs on foreign steel and approved new subsidies for
U.S. farmers. It’s not that those steps were wrong in themselves, but that
almost every other country is practically forbidden from protecting themselves
in the same way.

• Similarly, the IMF is most vigilant about reducing or preventing budget
deficits, but the U.S. government has quickly regained its taste for debt and
deficit spending.

The 50 Years Is Enough Network asserts that Africa’s situation requires
serious and innovative thinking. World leaders must acknowledge the vital
importance of allowing Africans to make their economic choices for
themselves. Immediate and comprehensive debt cancellation will be
necessary, but only a start. A complete reckoning of the harm done to Africa
by centuries of exploitation will almost certainly generate calls for reparations.
At the very least, it should put an end to declarations that the prescription of
the past will work, if only more is taken.

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