What is the G8?
In 1975, at the beginning of the neo era these annual elite meetings began
growing to include the richest 7 nations (USA, Canada, Italy, France, Germany,
UK, and Japan) plus Russia (because they have lots of nuclear weapons.)
In the Okanawa meeting of 2000 the G8 vowed “unwavering (ie,
regardless of the will of the people) commitment to structural change…and
more adaptable labour markets". The last means, of course, lower wages and
worse conditions.
They also promised to achieve the Kyoto protocol limiting climate change and
strengthen the anti-ballistic-missile treaty. In 2001 Bush was inagurated.
Perhaps G1 would be a better title.
In general, the G8 are trying to take over the job of the UN. The difference
is that in the UN the poor have a say. "It’s likely, for example, that the
governance structure of the new UN fund targeting infectious diseases will be
decided not by the UN but by the G8/G7 ministers." says Tom Barry of the
Interhemispheric Resource Center.
Genovacide
During the 1999 Cologne meeting $100bn in debt relief was promised. Two years
later in Genova the G8 lived up to its promise by promising the same promise
again. If the promise is ever actually fulfilled it will be too little to make a
real difference anyway.
"Promises have been broken. Only a fraction of the $100bn promised at the
G8 Summit in Cologne two years ago has been delivered. Most poor countries are
paying more in debt servicing than on vitally needed health care or education
programmes" says Henry Northover, Debt expert at the Catholic Aid agency
CAFOD ( "no friends of the poor" - Bush).
Commentators said that there might at least be a minor announcement on
helping debtor countries facing oil price shocks. There was none.
A Global Fund on Health had been announced before the G8 summit.
The $1.25bn promised - which will probably simply be stolen from current aid
budgets, and given to drug corporations - is tiny compared to the problem
anyway.
Tony Blair claimed that the above crumbs are a 'Marshall plan for Africa'
- an insult to the origional Marshal plan.
The meeting with African leaders, and the focus on Africa in the 2002 summit
(meaning India etc. and the Americas will be ignored), seems suspiciously like
the George W Bush electioneering strategy of a near-daily photo op with blacks.
(90% of US black voters are not as stupid as Bush thinks they are, and voted
against him.)
Commenting on the G8 final Communiqué, Jessica Woodroffe, Head of Policy at
the World Development Movement said:
"Ultimately these summits must be judged by the benefits they deliver to
the world's poor. The result this year has been an anti-poor trade plan, nothing
on debt and a feeble fund."
The G8 final Communiqué is at http://www.genoa-g8.it/eng/index.html
and the WDM response is at http://www.wdm.org.uk/cambriefs/Debt/g8resp.pdf
But the G8 said they would cancelled third world debts!
Actually, they have decided to "continue progress", whatever that means.
Maybe the ink ran out halfway through signing the paper and now they need to
find a new pen.
"Continue progress" is just a code word for making more of the same promises
that they have always broken.
Their so called "debt cancellation" has so many strings attached that Laos
and Ghana have decided that keeping their debts would mean less suffering than
meeting those conditions!
A cold calculation
In 1996, the World Bank, the IMF, the G7 (as it then was) and the "Club de
Paris" launched an initiative to improve the capacity of what they call "Highly
Indebted Poor Countries" (HIPCs - actually only 41 out of 187 poor nations) to
effectively repay an unbearable debt.
Why?
The debt burden had to be reduced, they said, to avoid persistent
accumulation of debt arrears - in short, the poor were so poor they would become
incapable of paying. For the rich to live on the backs of the poor, the poor
need to have backs that will not break.
With this in mind, the IMF and the World Bank promised to cancel 80 per cent
of the HIPCs' debt. (By 1999 the poor were paying 25% MORE, according to the
World Bank itself.)
At the heavily protested 1999 G7 summit in Cologne, they promise to cancel 90
per cent of the total debt of the HIPCs.
Sort of - the number of nations was narrowed down to 22, and in 1999, the
HIPCs repaid US$1.68 billion more back to the World Bank and the IMF than they
were receiving in new loans.
In an attempt to confuse the growing numbers of protestors, the IMF has
replaced the notorious "structural adjustment" policies with shiny new "Poverty
Reduction and Growth Facilities" and the "Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers" -
which are exactly the same thing, but with a new logo.
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