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Date: Thu, 26 Jul 2001 19:16:53 -0400
From: Jubilee USA Network <[log in to unmask]>
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To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [jubilee-usa-net] Genoa a Bust, but Debt Campaign Still Growing
Dear Jubilee campaigners and supporters,
Genoa was a bust. The rich nations’ club known as the G8 (Group of 8) met
for its annual economic summit in late July and once again its leaders
failed to act in any way to alleviate debt.
No proposals were made at Genoa that directly address the crushing debt
of impoverished nations. The G8 (made up of the US, UK, France, Germany,
Japan, Canada, Italy and Russia) made grand statements about helping the
poor, but ignored the cries of billions of people for genuine debt
cancellation, for increased support for the fight against AIDS, and for a
real commitment to eradicate poverty.
President Bush made a proposal just before the summit convened in support
of making half of future World Bank loans into grants, a proposal that we
support in principle as a small step towards reducing future debt, while
noting its formidable shortcomings. This proposal will do absolutely
nothing for the debt that is now siphoning more than $250 million out of
Africa each week.
The fight against global AIDS was also supposed to be on the agenda, and
here the summit record was equally dismal. The G8 pledged a miserly $1.3
billion first year contribution to the new UN global fund for AIDS, TB
and malaria, virtually all of which had been previously announced. UN
Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked for $10 billion annually for the
fund. Africa alone is economically bled of more than $13 billion annually
in debt service charges.
Nonetheless, the struggle for global debt cancellation and an all-out
response to the AIDS pandemic is continuing to grow and gather strength
all over the earth. Here in the United States, Jubilee USA is turning up
the heat again on the Bush Administration and Congress. With your
support, we will see 100% cancellation of debt owed to the World Bank and
IMF by impoverished nations soon, and deeper debt cancellation in our
lifetimes.
Jubilee USA joins with people of good will everywhere in calling for an
end to the violence of an apparently very small (but too large) number of
protestors and many police that marred the Genoa street protests. We
especially regret that the violence of a few has obscured for many the
much deeper issue of the structural violence of a global economic system
that daily devours the lives of tens of thousands of children condemned
to live in preventable poverty. We believe it is all the more important
now that people of faith and good will become more deeply engaged in
nonviolent struggle for global justice.
In the next week we will be posting a series of appeals for specific
actions in conjunction with Jubilee USA members and allies. Please stay
abreast of our latest activities and action alerts on our website at
www.jubileeusa.org. If you would like to get involved in a local Jubilee
coalition or start your own group- please call us at 202-783-0129!
This update includes:
I. Jubilee USA Press statement July 20 on Pres. Bush's World Bank
proposal (For more details on why this proposal falls short, see our
July 18 Press Release/Briefing Paper on http://www.jubileeusa.org/ ).
II. Jubilee USA press statement July 21 on violence at Genoa and the
structural violence of the global economic system.
III. Statement on the Bush Administration proposal from our colleagues
and friends of Jubilee South.
IV. Statement from our colleagues and friends at the London-based Drop
the Debt. Drop the Debt has led the short-term campaign to cancel IMF and
World Bank debts by the Genoa Summit and is now ceasing operations. While
the short-term goal has not been met according to schedule, we are
confident that the excellent campaigning done by Drop the Debt and
activists around the world will bear fruit soon. All of us at Jubilee USA
Network offer our best wishes to Adrian, David, Jamie, Lucy and all as
they transition and continue the campaign in new places. Thank you!
I. Bush Proposal Needs to be Applied Retroactively
"It’s Time to Cancel the Debt, NOW!"
July 20, 2001
GENOA, ITALY– As Bush arrived in this port city for today’s G-8
meeting, Jubilee USA Network members were on hand to greet him.
"We welcome the Bush proposal to make grants rather than loans for
poverty reduction, yet even a well constructed building won’t last long
on a flawed foundation. This plan won’t work if impoverished countries
must continue to pay billions out on debt. Most of those loans should
have been grants in the first place," said Bill Ferguson, co-chair of
Jubilee USA Network, a coalition of over 60 religious, labor, and health
groups working to cancel third world debt. "We call on the G7 leaders
to build their plans for poverty reduction on a solid foundation of
definitive debt cancellation."
"The G-8 initiative promises of real debt relief are looking more and
more empty," added Ferguson. "Each week, more than $250 million flows
out of Africa in debt service repayments. Meanwhile the G-8’s total
contribution to the global AIDS fund is less than a month’s worth of
debt payments for Africa."
Jubilee campaigners are concerned with what kind of conditions might be
attached to grants slated for poverty reductions. "Grants must not be
provided with the typical conditionalities applied by the World Bank and
the International Monetary Fund, such as ‘user fees’ that charge the poor
for water and health care. Bush says he would like to lower poverty
through greater economic growth, but experience has shown that relying on
markets and trade alone has not worked," stated Ferguson.
Members of the US Congress, including from Bush’s own political party,
have joined the call to provide real debt cancellation.
"The Jubilee USA Network will be an enthusiastic participant in
Saturday’s historic march and rally for debt cancellation. Our work will
continue long past the G-8 meeting in Genoa. Our allies in Congress have
initiatives that will have an impact on the President and US policy,"
said Mara Vanderslice, Outreach Coordinator for Jubilee USA. "The coming
months will be critical in this fight for a definitive solution to the
deadly debt crisis."
Grassroots activists across the US, including people of faith and
conscience, have generated more than ten thousand letters and calls to
Bush appealing for debt cancellation. The rock group U2, whose lead
singer Bono supports debt cancellation by the World Bank and IMF asked
Jubilee USA activists to invite concert-goers during their US tour to
write the President. Over thirty healthcare, AIDS and religious groups,
including the American Public Health Association, recently joined the
appeal to drop the debt in order to free up funds to fight AIDS.
Jubilee USA Network, formerly Jubilee 2000 USA, is the ongoing US wing of
the international Jubilee movement to cancel the debt of the Global
South. Jubilee USA Network is made up of more than sixty faith-based and
non-governmental organizations.
###
II. Jubilee USA Denounces Violence that has Killed Protestor
and G8 Inaction on Debt Cancellation
July 21, 2001
As protestors made their voices heard in the streets of Genoa, Italy at
the G8 Summit, the Jubilee USA Network criticized summit leaders for
failing to take further steps on third world debt cancellation.
"There has been much talk about poverty reduction at this Summit.
However, we can not effectively address poverty when huge debt payments
suck away vital resources from health, education and the fight against
AIDS in impoverished countries. By ignoring the debt issue, the G8 missed
the opportunity to address a root cause of poverty," said Mara
Vanderslice, Outreach Coordinator for the Jubilee USA Network.
Jubilee USA argues that the current World Bank and IMF debt relief
program, know as HIPC, has been inadequate. "All but 6 of the 23
countries that have received small amounts of debt relief so far are
still paying more each year in debt service than on health care for their
citizens," stated Vanderslice, "HIPC is by no means ‘an exit to the debt
crisis’."
The Jubilee USA Network denounces the violence that occurred on the
streets of Genoa today resulting in the death of one protestor. "We offer
our prayers for that young man’s family, the police and our leaders in
Genoa," said Rev. Tim Atwater, National Coordinator of the Jubilee USA
Network.
"The seeds of this kind of violence are sown in the unsustainable
inequalities in the global economy. Our movement is about stopping the
economic violence which claims tens of thousands of lives each day
through poverty, disease, and debt," continued Atwater.
"It is our hope that the violence between police and protestors will not
detract from the substance of the peaceful protesters’ concerns about
such life and death issues as global AIDS and the end to the debt
crisis," said Bill Ferguson, Jubilee USA Network Co-Chair who has been on
the streets in Genoa, along with Jean and Bill Lesher of Bay Area Jubilee
Debt Cancellation Coalition.
Jubilee USA Network is the successor organization to the Jubilee 2000
Campaign in the United States, including such groups as the AFL-CIO,
mainline churches, Oxfam USA and Global AIDS Alliance. The cause has been
championed by, among others, the Pope and rock star Bono of U2. Jubilee
USA is among more than 60 Jubilee campaigns worldwide calling for
definitive debt cancellation without economic austerity conditions.
###
III. Statement by Jubilee South, Lidy Nacpil
Thursday July 19th, 2001 Genoa, Italy
Jubilee South calls Bush proposal "a farce".
Jubilee South today termed US President George Bush's proposal an
attempt to sidestep the critical, oustanding issue of unconditional debt
cancellation demanded by the peoples of the South and North.
Lidy Nacpil, JS spokesperson, called the loan-to-grant proposal "a
farce", adding that "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". Jubilee
South is a network of debt coalitions and movements from Africa, Asia
and Latin America.
Jubilee South delegates gathered in Genoa insist 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 G-8".
"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. "We do not accept the concept
of grants from North to South, because what is due to us is, in fact,
reparations".
Jubileee 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 adjusment and
neoliberal reforms will be a condition for accessing such "grants".
This latest 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.
###
IV. Press statement from our British colleagues at Drop the Debt:
Verdict on Genoa Summit
Adrian Lovett, Director of Drop the Debt:
The G8 leaders in Genoa had a golden opportunity to finish the work they
started on debt two years ago. In private meetings, they acknowledged
that existing measures will not be enough to end the debt crisis, but
they failed to offer any concrete solution. That is the kind of thing
that gives the G8 such a bad name.
We all have to ask ourselves what events like this achieve. The cost of
inaction from the G8 on the debt crisis is too high. The financial cost
of the summit is excessive. Appallingly, this weekend there has been a
direct cost in human lives.
The problem is not just the unnecessary scale and glitz of these summits.
It is the failure of these leaders to use their great wealth and power to
attack poverty for example by cancelling IMF and World Bank debt. These
summits should be about direct action by the G8, in the form of
meaningful polices which are substance not spin.
The G8 need to look at alternatives. For forthcoming summits, the G8
should be looking not at maps of remote islands or the arctic circle but
at a map of Africa. On the way to Canada leaders should visit the
continent and recognise the scale of its needs, in the form of concrete
action on deeper debt relief, trade reform and more aid. African leaders,
and those who support them, were the voices of sanity in Genoa.
Peaceful protest works, and it has made a hugely positive impact on
recent G8 Summits. The violence we have seen in Genoa achieves nothing.
Peaceful campaigners must reflect on how we make sure our concerns are
addressed without the risk of hijack by violent extremists.
###
Sent to you by the Jubilee USA Network. Please contact us at:
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