Darryl D'Monte wrote:
>I think your idea of holding an international day of protest against
>globalisation is good, but I do feel there ought to be more consultation
>with the South about its timing.
>In much of India, for instance, it is likely to be raining very heavily
>on June 18, which effectively rules out any outdoor protest. It was the
>same North-centric approach when Americans decided on Earth Day in
>April -- when it is far too hot all over much of Asia to be in the open.
>Especially on a subject like globalisation, we ought to fax a date which
>is convenient to everybody!
Interesting to hear about the rainy season- however it isn't me or anyone
in the North who has directly decided to have the day of protest on this
day - it was actually called by Peoples' Global Action, an umbrella group
of protest movements in LDCs, mostly in India (Karnakata State Farmers
etc.)!!
There is indirect northern responsibility for this date however - it is the
first day of the G-8 summit this year which is taking place in Koln,
Germany. What we are trying to do is to bring the voices of the South to
the North. Huge demonstrations in India have largely gone unnoticed by
western media and by politicians in the North. This day is a way of
allowing the South a voice in the North. A major part of it involves the
physical presence of groups from the South at the conference and elsewhere
in Europe around this time and an alternative summit (see fowarded messages
below).
It would also be great to have a co-ordinated date in the South - perhaps
around the time of the APEC summit, or similar regional cpaitalist
organisation's annual meeting. We have got to build this movement as deeply
and widely as possible...
David.
>Six Hundred Representatives of Southern People's Movements
>will Demonstrate throughout Europe in May and June 1999
>
>600 representatives of Southern grassroots movements will come to Europe
>from the 22nd of May to the 21st of June to protest at the gates of the
>major transnational corporations, multilateral institutions and at the EU
>and G8 Summits. These are the people who are most directly affected by a
>development model imposed and maintained from the North in collaboration
>with Southern elites, a development paradigm which is condemning them to
>poverty, destroying the natural resources on which their livelihoods are
>based, taking control of their lives out of their hands and making them
>dependent on extremely exploitative and highly volatile multinational
>capital.
>
>This initiative has been proposed by the Indian farmers' movements, one of
>the strongest and most dynamic actors in the global civil society. These
>movements have been struggling for years in order to make their demands
>heard both at national and international level, but the results of their
>efforts have been limited by the fact that policy-making happens
>increasingly far away from the place where they live, too far away for
>their protest to be registered or even known about. They have thus resolved
>to send a delegation of 500 representatives to Europe, in order to have
>direct contact with people of all walks of life, dialogue with a wide range
>of organisations about the destruction caused by globalisation and about
>alternative development models, and take direct action against the centres
>of power that are at the root of their problems. They will be joined by one
>hundred representatives of grassroots movements in other countries.
>
>Frequently asked questions about the Inter-Continental Caravan (ICC)
>********************************************************************
>
>-> Who are the Southern people coming to participate in the ICC?
>
>Out of the 600 participants, 500 will be representatives of different
>Indian grassroots movements. Most of these 500 will be representatives of
>Gandhian farmers' movements, and there will be smaller numbers of
>representatives of Adivasis (the indigenous peoples of India), Fisherfolk,
>people resisting the construction of big dams in their regions and
>representatives of the revolutionary struggles in the states of Bihar,
>Orissa, West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. The other 100 participants will
>represent peasant, indigenous, women's and other grassroots movements from
>other Southern countries.
>
>-> Who are the people receiving them in Europe?
>
>A large number of organisations are working in the 'welcoming committees'
>set up in each country to prepare the caravan. There are organisations of
>all kinds, ranging from peasant organisations such as the French Peasant
>Confederation or the Dutch Agriculture Association to squatted social
>centres such as Leoncavallo in Milan, EuroDusnie in Leiden and the
>Reithalle in Bern, from anti-nuclear networks such as For Mother Earth to
>the migrants' organisations of almost all European countries, from direct
>actions groups such as Reclaim the Streets! to academic institutions such
>as the Institut Argent et SocietÈ, from women's organisations such as
>Espace Femmes International to unemployed groups such as AC! Lille, from
>activists' support groups such as Theaterstraat to development NGOs such as
>CETIM, from Zapatista committees in many different cities to groups working
>against genetic engineering such as Biotechnologie Archief NoGen, from
>youth environmental groups such as A SEED to the Italian Christian peace
>movement. This list is in no ways exhaustive, in fact it is growing every
>day, and there are many people who do not belong to any organisation and
>are actively involved in the preparations.
>
>-> What is this caravan about?
>
>The political contents of the ICC are (in order of importance):
>(1) Global policy-making, with particular emphasis on the push for "free"
>trade and economic globalisation.
>(2) TNCs and transnational capital.
>(3) Agribusiness, Green Revolution, Biotechnology, and Patents on Life.
>(4) 3rd World Debt.
>(5) Militarism and nuclear issues.
>
>These contents are ellaborated in a manifesto which is being discussed by
>the Indian participants of the caravan. This manifesto will be the
>ideological basis on which they are coming to Europe, and clearly reflects
>the view that if the world is to survive we need a far-reaching and
>participatory process of political, economic and social change, a bottom-up
>process initiated and controlled by grassroots movements, not by
>governments or multilateral institutions. This is the basis on which the
>PGA process is taking place.
>
>-> What are the objectives of the caravan?
>
>(1) Bringing its political contents close to people's lives in all the
>places where actions will take place.
>(2) Encouraging as many as possible to get actively involved in the
>preparation and realisation of the actions and to remain active in
>confrontational non-violent action in these issues after the project.
>(3) Promoting more contact and co-operation between all the organisations
>(from Europe and other continents) involved in the project
>(4) Attracting local, national and international media attention on the
>political contents of the programme. Strengthening and building up new
>autonomous media.
>(5) Preparing the field (in Europe and everywhere else) for the PGA days of
>action against the WTO during the third Ministerial Conference in fall 1999.
>(6) Promoting non-violent direct action and civil disobedience as tools for
>political change.
>
>-> What will the participants of the caravan actually do in Europe?
>
>They will meet as many European as possible directly, face to face,
>communicate with them not through newspaper articles or video
>documentaries, but at the human level. They want to convey directly their
>understanding of the world system of governance to people of all walks of
>life, not just to those who are already politically active.
>
>Many of them do not speak English, but they will use different ways to
>communicate with Europeans, many of which are more direct and real than
>language - the most important of which is action. There will be plenty of
>action during the caravan, action at the gates of headquarters of corporate
>criminals such as Nestle, Monsanto, Cargill, Novartis and Shell, action in
>front of multilateral institutions at the roots of misery like the WTO and
>NATO, action on the face of the 'global leaders' responsible for slow
>genocide at the EU and G8 summits. We will also have other activities, like
>public meetings with speakers and audience, open-air picnics, living
>together with farmers or squatters, press conferences, parties, video shows
>and so on, but action will be at the heart of the caravan.
>
>-> Who came to the idea of organising such a notoriously complicated project?
>
>The idea of the caravan was proposed by the Indian peasant movement KRRS
>(Karnataka State Farmers' Association), the biggest Indian grassroots
>movement with a constituency of approximately 10 million people (the total
>population of Karnataka is 50 million).
>
>The KRRS has been since two decades struggling for comprehensive social
>change in Karnataka, for the ideal of the Village Republic and for
>sustainable and equitable policies and technologies. They proposed the ICC
>due to their conviction that unless people mobilise in large numbers in the
>countries where the global centres of power are located, their protest will
>continue to be ignored. They know that the destruction of their livelihood
>is caused primarily by global forces which can afford ignoring their
>protest, but cannot (yet) afford ignoring the protest of people in the
>North.
>
>Their proposal was immediately picked up by all major Indian movements,
>since they all share the same analysis regarding the impact of capitalist
>globalisation and the inability of isolated action to stop it. The farmers'
>movements of Andhra Pradesh, Bihar, Gujarat, Haryana, Karnataka, Kerala,
>Madya Pradesh, Maharastra, Punjab, Rajastan, Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh and
>West Bengal will be represented in the caravan, as well as the indigenous
>peoples of several states.
>
>-> Who is paying for the caravan?
>
>The finances of the Caravan are organised in an as decentralised and
>participatory manner as possible. The activists from the South pay their
>own travel expenses to Europe (see below). Food and accomondation, as well
>as all the costs of local actions and publicity are borne on the local
>level by the local welcoming committees. The costs of travel within Europe
>and of co-ordination are centralised, but fundraising efforts are shared by
>all welcoming committees, which are still very busy asking for donations,
>organising concerts, applying for funds and selling t-shirts in order to
>gather all the money necessary to make the caravan happen (about 210.000
>US$). No money for the central costs will accepted from multinational
>corporations, national governments, EU institutions, or political parties.
>
>-> How can poor peasants and indigenous peoples pay a flight ticket to Europe?
>
>The case of India is quite special: the European groups are preparing to
>receive such a large number of Indian representatives in order to make it
>much easier for them to participate, since their flight expenses per person
>will be less than one half of the normal cost of a return ticket. It is
>still a lot of money for the participants, people who are among the most
>exploited and marginalised in the world. However, these are also people who
>have been struggling for decades in their country on the basis of
>self-reliance (i.e. they do not accept donations from any source other than
>the constituency of their own movements), and many Indian activists have
>spent this kind of amount travelling around India as part of their
>campaigns. It was their proposal since the very beginning that they cover
>the travel expenses.
>
>-> Does this mean that the participants of the caravan are relatively rich
>peasants?
>
>No. Most of the participants own between 2 and 5 hectars. Just for the
>purpose of comparison, a farm in the European Union must have at least
>around 40 hectars to be considered economically viable (information
>provided by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft B”uerliche Landwirtschaft). And the
>Indian government does not pay the kind of subsidies that the EU does.
>There will also be some participants who will not pay for their flight
>(landless peasants, indigenous peoples, representatives of the
>revolutionary struggles) since they cannot afford it but the Indian
>organisers consider their presence as politically important. Their travel
>expenses will be shared among all the other participants.
>
>These Indian peasant activists give enough political importance to this
>project as to devote large amount of resources to it - and this was one of
>the things that has really touched us (the organisers in Europe) and
>encouraged us to do our best to make this project a success. We see their
>determination as a clear sign of their deep understanding that they have to
>contribute to increasing awareness and action at a global level if they are
>to survive.
>
>-> There are few people working against capitalist globalisation in Western
>Europe. Does it make sense to invest so much of this limited potential of
>work and resources in one single project, one single month?
>
>We believe that the inter-continental caravan is one of these rare projects
>which generate much more energy than it requires. We see already that many
>different groups which were not working on global issues and many people
>who were not particularly involved in politics before are now joining local
>welcoming committees, because the caravan appeals to their imagination and
>motivates them to participate in a struggle that so far was not really
>theirs.
>
>Furthermore the caravan is not conceived as an isolated project: we see it
>as the beginning of a long-term process of organic (i.e. not 'organised')
>convergence between a large diversity of organisations and individuals with
>similar views on social change - people who agree on the need to reclaim
>our lifes, challenging the current structures of power from below, and
>constructing alternatives controlled by the people.
>
>-> Can I participate in this crazy project?
>
>Yes! The number of people who will be physically in the caravan will be
>rather limited, but there are many ways to join this project - no matter
>whether you are in Europe or not. You can join by making information
>available to the press and the people in the place where you live, by
>organising an action in June 18 (during the days of action against
>financial centres), by engaging in similar activities, etc. And of course,
>we need lots of help of all kinds (economic, organisational, etc). Please
>contact the secretariat if you want to be part of this project:
>
>Inter-Continental Caravan
>European Coordination Office
>P.O. BOX 2228,
>2301 Leiden, NL
>Tel/Fax 00 31 71 517 3094 or 00 31 71 517 3019
>email: [log in to unmask]
>Web page: http://www.agp.org or http://stad.dsl.nl/~caravan
>THE ALTERNATIVE SUMMIT
>Cologne 1999
>
>18.-20. June 1999
>
>>From 18th to 20th of June 1999 the last World Economic Summit of the seven
>richest countries (G-7) will take place in Cologne.
>
>In Germany, social movements and NGOs are preparing several alternative
>events, among them a demonstration and a human chain.
>
>>From the 18th to th 20th of June an international congress, the
>Alternative World Economic Summit, will take place.
>
>The congress is prepared by an alliance of different organisations, among
>them Friends of the Earth Germany (BUND), medico international, the
>Heinrich-B–ll-Foundation, the Youth Organisations of the socialdemocratic
>and green party, the Federal Congress of Development Action Groups (BUKO)
>and others. The conference-project is co-ordinated by WEED.
>
>The main-purpose of the congress is the discussion and promotion of
>alternatives to the neo-liberal world order. In the light of the deepening
>crisis of the dominant economic paradigm the political conjuncture for
>alternatives has never been more favorable in the last decade.
>
>The congress will focus on three main issues:
>
>* the future of labour
>* migration
>* towards a different world economic order, in particular the finance
> system.
>
>The first day of the congress will focus in three parallel panel meetings
>on these issues. International and German experts and civil society
>representatives will be invited, among others: Elmar Altvater, FranÁois
>Chesnais, Susan George, J–rg Huffschmid, Saskia Sassen.
>
>The second day will integrate the results of the commissions in the
>plenary and try to further process alternatives. Prominent figures from
>social movements from over the world, academics etc. will be invited. We
>shall try to get personalities like Wole Soyinka, Vandana Shiva and Pierre
>Bourdieu.
>
>The congress will be held with simultaneous translation in English, French
>and German.
>
>We shall keep you informed on the progress of preparations.
>
>Contact:
>
>WEED- Weltwirtschaft, ÷kologie & Entwicklung e.V.
>Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz 13
>D - 53111 Bonn
>Tel. +49-(0)228-76613-0
>Fax: +49-(0)228-696470
>Spendenkonto: Sparda-Bank K–ln (BLZ 370 605 90)
>Konto-Nr. 947 466
>e-mail: [log in to unmask]
David Wood.
Press Officer
North-East of England Green Party.
8 Whittonstall Terrace
Chopwell
Newcastle upon Tyne
NE17 7FL
Tel:
0191 222 5305 (day)
01207 560026 (evening)
e-mail:
[log in to unmask]
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