| We dispute
the legitimacy of G8 and we require his dissolution. Trade union of the majority
shareholders of the world economy, left board of guardians on the highest level, G8 will
meet in France, in Evian, the beginning of June for the twenty-eighth time of his history.
Since 1975, the seven richest countries of the world, (the United States, Japan, Germany,
the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Italy, more since 1997 Russia), are found every
year to discuss the problems of the world within a confidential framework (the personal
talks in camera are privileged). With the origin, it was a question of
improving the co-operation between capitalist countries: the international monetary system
entered in crisis, the suspension by the United States of convertibility out of gold of
the dollar in 1971 causing the generalized undulation of the currencies. The members of G7
hold the majority of the capital of the World Bank
and the International Monetary Funds, but they quickly wanted to indicate at these
institutions the conduits economic to follow, the first of which figure liberalization of
trade. The will to accelerate the negotiations of GATT, then of OMC, is constantly
reaffirmed in the official statements. The financial potential of the IMF must be
increased and its encouraged actions. The actions of OECD are described in an eulogistic
way.
For if it does not decide officially anything, G 7 is a jet set of most influential: in
2000, the 7 countries, accounting for 12% of the population, added up 45% of the world
production. The military expenditure of these countries accounted for 60% of the total
expenditure in the world. In this unit, the share of the United States remains dominating
(about half from the production and 60% of the armament of G7).
The G7/G8, with which the Commission joins, is not a world government, the more so as
there is not world people, but either a show. With its periodic meetings of the Heads of
State and ministers, its permanent "
sherpas ", advisers who assure the secretariat of it, his very broad mobilization of
experts of any nature, its relays in all the international institutions, its permanent
access to the whole of the medias, it functions like a permanent world institution.
However, this small group of Heads of State representing the privileged people
of planet assumes the monopoly to decide for all. Admittedly, the leaders of G8 were
democratically elected to lead their country, but no one did not elect them to control the
world: their claim to play this part is thus illegitimate.
To see behind the words: One of the great difficulties of the appreciation of the role
of the G7/G8 resides in possible confusion between the word and the action, between what
is known as in the official statements and the share that the tops in the control of the
businesses of the world take. One knows what says the G7/G8 and not what it makes. It is
thus necessary to read behind the words
Its creed is explicitly formulated at the beginning of the Eighties. After having
engaged to control the fluctuation of the rates of exchange and the stability of the
prices, after having tightened the rows vis-a-vis OPEC and with the oil crises, G7 affirms
its political good-will. With coming out of the recession of 1982 to the United States,
the growth rebounds, opening one era of triumphalism néolibéral. The policies of
Thatcher in the United Kingdom and Reagan in the United States, the rigour put on the
agenda by the socialist government in France seem to bury inclinations keynésiennes.
Curiously, in spite of the recall of unemployment " in some of our countries ",
of the will cause a drop in the interest rates, and of the need for vigilance compared to
the monetary and financial mechanisms, American optimism is essential in the official
statements of G7. Implicitly, according to the sales leaflet of the declarations, the
United States had made the demonstration of the superiority of the nex-liberalism.
In spite of the contraction of the growth rates, the official statements of 1991 to 1994
continue to affirm the principal dogmas of the creed néolibéral, in particular those of
the balance in the budget and the remuneration of the saving. The last official
statements, of 2001 and 2002, remain dumb on the recession of 2000-2001 in the United
States or, in all the countries, on the fall of the Stock Exchange. Crisis of the debt of
the countries of the periphery, succession of the monetary and financial crises in Asia,
Russia, Turkey and Latin America... The events do not have a catch on the philosophy of
G7: the countries of the periphery must go front in
the liberalization of trade, of the movements of capital, the balance in the budget and
the structural reforms. In the official statement of 1998, the Asian crisis is analyzed
without excessive emotion: " the world prospects remain in the unit good. Since our
last meeting, however, they were temporarily obscured by the financial crisis in Asia
". The creed néolibéral is then reaffirmed with the usual conviction: 1, the crisis
is due to the lack of transparency and the bad management of the public businesses; 2, the
plan of the IMF is the short-term solution (G8 stated to appreciate the " control
exerted by the IMF on the international monetary system
"); 3, later on, it is necessary to reinforce the freedom of the trade and the free
movement of the capital!
Since 1998, the same ones however recognized that the crisis had also clarified certain
" weaknesses " at the level of the evaluation of the risks and, therefore, that
it was necessary " to reform the international financial institutions ". It is
not a question to call in question the rules, but to control operation of it, taking into
account the damage. In the spirit of the persons in charge of G7, this damage milked less
with the reduction of the growth rates of certain countries engaged in the néo-liberal
reforms or with the growth of the inequalities and misery, that with monetary and
financial instability likely to compromise the universalization of the
neoliberalism. The reform, such as it is described in the official statements, would aim
initially to increase the information and the control exerted by the IMF (of which the
warnings could, if necessary, being doubled by the pressures of the governments of certain
countries), as well as the control of the financial markets.
This concern doubles finally awakening of the rise of the dispute and resistances.
Result: an increasingly important place is taken by the finer feelingss in the official
statements, which empty real substance
thus. At the beginning of years 2000, one could believe that the concern number one of the
governments of the principal countries is from now on the fight against poverty, the
improvement of the living conditions and the safeguarding of planet! The zeal néolibéral
yields here largely the place to propaganda, even if nobody has indeed interest with the
perpetuation of the aspects more shocking economic and ecological imbalances world.
Positive measurements are suggested besides, like the reduction of the debt of poorest
(initiative taken
in Cologne, in 1998), then its possible extension (it relates to 23 country today).
The IMF recognizes indeed that between 1980 and 1999, the Third World countries
refunded 3.350 billion dollars, that is to say six times more than what they owed in 1980.
The total foreign debt represented
into 2000 the equivalent of 37,4 % of their rough interior products (GDP) cumulated,
against 18,2 % in 1980, and 114,3 % of their export earnings, against 84,4 % twenty years
ago. But the financing by the countries of G8 of the " loss of earnings Initiative
reinforced in favour of the PPTE ", promised into 2002, remains to be proven: the
financing of the first two countries to have profited within this framework from a
reduction from debt on behalf of France, actually, was taken on budgets already registered
in the accordance with the co-operation.
In 2001, G8 was finally obliged to recognize that: " Beyond the lightening of the
debt ", the discussions " concentrated " on a " greater participation
of the DEVELOPING COUNTRIES in the world trade "
and on " the increase in the private investments " which did not give, up to
now, results many and many times announced. Particularly in certain areas: crushed under
the weight of the debt, sub-Saharan Africa on average attracts only 4% of the direct
investments bound for the developing countries (of which 60 % concentrate on South Africa,
Nigeria and Angola). With the top day before of Evian, Jacques Chirac announces that the
meeting will be the occasion " to prove that the contract concluded within the
framework from the NEPAD, New partnership for the development, between G8 and Africa is
the source of a new dash and allows the realization of concrete projects which will
transform this continent ".
G8 also engaged to fight against the AIDS, which touches more than 40 million people in
the world, including 90 % in the countries in the process of development. (95 % of the
patients of sub-Saharan Africa do not have access to any treatment and are condemned to
died). But force is to note that the 10 billion dollars annual promised by G8 into 2001 to
stop the epidemic were still not indeed committed. Moreover, the Report/ratio of the UNDP
2002 notes that " any industrialized countries from where the large pharmaceutical
laboratories are originating, exert pressures on the DEVELOPING COUNTRIES to dissuade them
to produce generic versions likely to replace these drugs under patent ". It is thus
not astonishing that G8 believed good, for its part, to
reaffirm, in a few months of the Conference of OMC with Doha, its " determination to
maintain ownership intellectual strong and effective " (2001). In this context, it is
thus at the very least exaggerated to declare that " the measurements taken by
pharmaceutical industry " aimed " at making the drugs more accessible "
(2001).
The shift is immense between the posted intentions of G8 and the policies followed by its
leader members, true orchestration of the order néolibéral. On the environmental
questions, for example: whereas G8 asked for, in 1997, the introduction of "
practices for the durable management of the forests ", and, into 2000, to want "
to help the indigenous communities " to arrive there, a proposal for an acceleration
of the agreements of free trade for the forest products declared was made with OMC by the
principal wood exporters (the United
States, Canada). Japan is opposed to it, but Europe favours a total negotiation without
exception. Measurements currently in force for the protection of the forests which OMC
could question are eco-certification or prohibition to export barks.
The position of G8 with respect to UNO is at the very least astonishing: it claims a
process of reforms, made necessary by " the impact of the universalization of the
economy " (Lyon 1996). But no financial resource will be devoted there: it is
specified that " the real growth rate of the budgets of the institutions is null or
negative ". In the design of this program of reforms, it is surprising of reading
that UNO is invited " to identify its comparative advantages " (1996), which
questions its universal role. Does there however exist, despite everything its
imperfections, an international institution presenting of the " comparative
advantages " higher than UNO as regards economic, social and cultural rights?
The positions of G8, with regard to the " civil sociaty ", are ambiguous as
much. To prepare the world Summit on the durable development from August 2002 in
Johannesburg, G8 envisaged to start " an inclusive preparatory process with the civil
company " (Genoa 2001), whereas outside its enclosure, the same top excluded this
company while launching its troops against it, with violence which one knows " We
cannot let a violent and irresponsible minority disturb our discussions on the serious
questions which arise in the world "
(communicated of 2001). Minority which gathered however more than 300.000 people come to
shout their opposition to political decisions, stopped on their behalf without the least
dialogue. For the creed "mondialisator ", as for him, is reaffirmed with usual
violence: " To integrate the poor countries in the world economy is the surest means
to answer their fundamental aspirations " (official statement of 2001).
Toe to the lake Léman: G7 and its policy were called into question dice 1984. But dice
the beginning of the years 1980, the riots of the hunger which occurred in many Third
World countries by name showed the
IMF and indirectly G7. The participants of The Other Economy Summit (TOES, " toe in
English ") thus target the shareholders of the IMF during the meeting of G7 in London
in 1984. TOES will rather confidentially take place until 1988. The collapse of the
Eastern bloc and the generalization of the policies of the " consensus of
Washington " to the whole of the countries and continents then transform the
institutions and international structures - G-7, the IMF, the World Bank and OMC, as from
1995 - into decisive actors of the installation of what one will call later " liberal
universalization ".
The year 1989 corresponded to the bicentenary of the beginning of the French
revolution. François Mitterrand wanted to give a glare particular to these festivities by
coupling them with the meeting of G-7. The top was thus disputed by all those and all
those which, united, wanted to be made the echo of the " third-state " of
planet:
were organized demonstration and concert, against-top, first " Summit of the Seven
people among poorest " of July the 15 and 16. By denouncing the philosophy even of
G7, it took its opposite course on two to its bases: not richest, but poorest, not the
States but of the nongovernmental witnesses of the people " Debt, apartheid,
colonies, that suffat like Ci ", the slogan invented by Renaud met a major need for
radical expression
But the movement did not have a following day. The dispute of G7 took again 7 years
later in Lyon in a context of strong social mobilization in France (strikes of December,
European steps against unemployment). In Lyon, at the time of the " Summit of 7
resistances ", the report emerges that the policies of the 7 dominant countries dig
the inequalities between North and the South, but as within each one of these worlds, and
thus as the social questions in North were to also be at the court of the debates and the
mobilizations. The social
forces, associations and trade unions then become essential actors of the against-top and
demonstrations of street. To Lyon, one passes moreover from a logic where the ONG of North
have the monopoly of the bonds with movements of the South which they " help and
support ", with new logical: from now on, the movements of
North and the South are organized directly to act jointly and develop interdependent
actions (" intergalactic " meetings organized by Zapatistes in Chiapas, during
the summer 1996, then world social Forums).
As from 1996, G7 is taken with part systematically. It is on this date besides, noting
that the hearths of claims multiply, that the members of G7 recognize the " civil
company " and the ONG, by mentioning them from now on in the official documents.
The countryside Jubilee 2000 indeed decided to center its claims on G-7, structure where
the Heads of State and government sit " majority shareholders of the international
financial institutions " and, for this reason, in situation of great responsibility
with respect to the debt position for the Third World countries. At the time of the
meeting of G-7 of Birmingham, in 1998, Jubilee 2000 mobilized more than 70.000 people in a
human chain surrounding the Summit. The demonstrations were also very important the
following years, the against-top launching into 2000 a call to G8, for the first time
since " that suffat like Ci " of 1989. After Genoa, G8 is exiled into 2002 in
rock Canadian; against top him to it road of Siby takes, a small city of Mali.
This year, it will be held in Annemasse and Geneva, during the top of Evian. A
contribution of international movement ATTAC, addressed to the G-World, will be sent to
him. It will show that, vis-a-vis a self-proclaimed directory of planet, another world is
possible. This is why, we dispute the legitimacy of G8 and we require his dissolution.
Attac France.
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