Nick Dearden | ukwatch.net

Financial markets can not govern us!

Alex Doherty — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:26:57 +0000

Gordon Brown’s conversion to financial regulation this weekend is certainly better late than never. He has joined a wide range of statesmen
who, despite their role in maintaining “hands off” global finance, have come to see the error of their ways. In May the great and the good of
European social democracy, led by Jacques Delors and Jacques Santer, both former Presidents of the European Commission, declared in a letter that
“Financial markets can not govern us!”.

In fact much of the world has been governed by financial markets for decades, and the severe poverty which still exists in so many developing
(and indeed developed) counties can in no small measure be laid at the door of all-powerful financial globalisation. Indeed the freeing up of the
financial sector – to be as reckless as it chooses – has been the real essence of the globalisation project over nearly 30 years.

Real progress towards solving the world’s problems, poverty or climate change most prominently, would mean that the vast bailouts and injections
of money that have been announced in recent days were not merely another form of ‘socialism for the rich’, but used to fundamentally reform global financial architecture.

A little discussed conference taking place in Doha in late November is a perfect opportunity for Brown to show his new-found credentials. The UN’s
second Financing for Development conference will discuss the principles that should underlie aid, debt relief and funding for climate change. While
campaigners currently fear the conference may represent a step backwards from the first conference held in Monterrey in 2002, it does have the
potential to show the ‘have-nots’ of the world that global leaders are serious.

The starting point is the fact that financial globalisation allows massive transfers of money from developing to developed countries, with
unprecedented ease. What in times past would have required guns boats and armies can now be achieved with a few clicks of a mouse.

To give a few examples, $160 billion is lost to the developing world every year through tax evasion, based on the fact that most trade takes place
within global corporations and those corporations now have the ability to move that money around the world with few restrictions or questions asked.
$250 billion is lost because $11.5 trillion of global assets are currently held in tax havens, like the UK, one of the centres of financial globalisation.

The global money markets turn over a mind-blowing $3.2 trillion every day – much of which is so-called ‘hot money’, speculative capital which
moves very rapidly in and out of countries and currencies, causing immense damage. Indeed currency speculation played a large role in the South East
Asian crash in 1997. Another $1.6 billion a day is transferred from poor to rich countries in debt ‘repayments’, based largely on loans recklessly
thrust on newly independent countries in the 1960s and 70s by financial institutions who promptly raised interest rates to extortionate levels.

Needless to say these gigantic sums dwarf aid budgets.

Solutions to run-away finance are out there. A Currency Transaction Tax could be introduced to reduce volatility on the money markets or a
restriction placed on the selling of developing country debt on secondary markets which would prevent ‘vulture funds’ profiting from the misery
of developing countries.

It would be possible to prevent ‘capital flight’ removing the ability of countries to effectively tax corporate and individual activities within
their jurisdiction through better policing and control of financial flows, allowing the international community to effectively shut down tax havens. A
fair, transparent and participative mechanism could be introduced to work-out debt disputes and reduce the dependence of developing countries on
financial markets and unelected, unaccountable organisations like the Paris Club.

These would be just the first reforms that would be necessary to put finance back in its box, return sovereignty to nations, and ensure a more
equitable future for everyone.

The financial crisis does not mean that these solutions will be adopted, but there is an opening. Unfortunately many in the world of finance will
push for business as usual as soon they have offloaded their problems onto the suddenly-so-necessary state. But there is now an opportunity. Last
Thursday the Financial Services Authority temporarily banned some short-selling. Despite a few howls from the unruly children unable to take
their medicine, the financial system has not collapsed, as would have been predicted in earlier times. So it has been proved that it is possible to
intervene to stop unhelpful types of speculation. Much more unorthodoxy will also be proved in coming months.

What happens next is up to us. Public intervention is busy changing private debt into public debt. The price the public demands for this
service should be clear – to re-take control of a financial sector which has caused so much misery for so long.

Breaking the Chains

tim — Thu, 22 May 2008 23:31:47 +0000

In May 1998, 70,000 people from across Britain and the world formed a human chain around the G8 summit in Birmingham demanding an end to developing country debt.

It was a huge demonstration on an issue which had received little public attention, made all the more impressive by the huge range of people who showed up for the protest. They came from all walks of life and from all points on the political spectrum.

The issue of debt was catapulted to the top of the G8 agenda, leading over the years to a whole programme of debt cancellation for some of the poorest countries in the world. It was a turning point in the ability of ordinary people directly to pressure world financial institutions.

Ten years later, $88 billion of debt has been wiped out, but stringent economic conditions have been attached by international financial institutions the World Bank and IMF, including trade liberalisation and privatisation.

These conditions mean that debt cancellation in itself has become a form of domination to those countries participating. For example, the IMF refused to allow Zambia to employ more health-care workers, even when the Canadian government offered to foot the bill for five years. Malawi was similarly declared “off track” for daring to borrow money from domestic banks to deal with food shortages caused by a drought.

So harsh are many of these conditions that some countries, such as Kyrgyzstan, Bhutan, Laos and Sri Lanka, prefer not to enter the debt relief scheme.

And, although $88 billion has been cancelled, poor countries are still shelling out more than $100 million a day in debt payments on a total external debt stock of $2.7 trillion.

For every $1 that developing countries receive from rich countries in aid, they return $5 in debt repayments.

Based on an “ethical poverty line” estimating that everyone needs $3 per day to live on, we have calculated that around $400 billion of debt is still “unpayable” – governments cannot repay that debt while still providing basic services to their people and abiding by their human rights obligations.

The debt issue put global economic issues on the protest agenda in Britain for the first time. Since then, the WTO, World Bank, IMF and a host of other institutions have come under attack for the injustice and iniquities being visited on the developing world by globalisation. But debt remains key to understanding the globalisation process.

The genesis of the crisis lies in a world economy saturated by dollars in the 1960s and ’70s, as the dollar replaced gold as the currency of exchange, and the world paid for a growing US budget deficit.

When oil-exporting countries in OPEC reduced oil supply in 1973 and oil prices soared, much of this profit was again deposited in dollars in Western banks. Banks, eager to reduce the supply of dollars, to prevent a collapse in the dollar price and to make profit, lent out more money to developing countries, many of which were newly liberated from colonialism. Little thought was given to how useful these loans were or to whom they were being lent.

Then, Ronald Reagan came to power in the US. Interest rates soared and the price of commodities, on which many poor countries depended, slumped. Poor countries earned less for their exports and paid more interest on their loans. They had to borrow more simply to repay the interest. The debt crisis was born.

Today, these debts are like a new form of empire and lie behind all manner of problems facing the world, from the food crisis to climate change.

Take Haiti, the poorest country in the western hemisphere, which, in recent weeks, has been gripped by violent protest against the rise in food prices.

Haiti still owes $1.3bn to international creditors like the World Bank. Some 40 per cent of this was run up by Papa Doc and Baby Doc, who stole parts of these loans for themselves and used the rest to repress the population. When the US flew Baby Doc out of Haiti in 1986, he is estimated to have taken $90m with him.

In the 1980s and ’90s, like all indebted countries, Haiti had to follow structural adjustment policies designed by the World Bank and IMF, including cuts in government expenditure on health and education, privatisation and the removal of import controls. Indigenous Haitian industries were wiped out.

In 1995, the IMF forced Haiti to slash its rice tariff from 35 per cent to 3 per cent, enriching US business through soaring imports. A country that was self-sufficient in rice is now dependent on foreign imports at the mercy of global market prices.

Today, 80 per cent of Haiti’s population live in poverty as defined by the World Bank, earning under $2 a day, and the average life expectancy is just 52 years. Yet Haiti failed to qualify for debt relief under the heavily indebted poor country initiative, which was established in 1996 to make the debts of the most severely indebted poor countries more sustainable.

It has recently been allowed to join, but it could spend several years jumping through economic hoops until its debt stock is cancelled. So, while some Haitians are reportedly eating dirt to quell their hunger, their government is forced to send almost $1m each week in debt service to wealthy banks supposedly established to fight poverty.

Study after study has shown that the debt which has been cancelled has translated to money being used to eradicate poverty.

In Uganda, for example, debt cancellation allowed the government to abolish school fees, leading to a doubling of enrolment and almost completely eliminating a pattern whereby girls were denied the opportunity to go to school because it was too expensive. It is estimated that nearly 20 million Africans are in school today largely because of savings afforded by debt cancellation.

This treatment must be extended to the remaining countries that require cancellation. On top of this, much of the remaining debt is unjust and should be cancelled outright on the grounds of illegitimacy.

The Suharto regime in Indonesia was reputed to be one of the most corrupt and brutal governments in modern times. Suharto stole up to $35bn from his country and killed up to 1 million people in political witch-hunts, yet the World Bank still lent it $30bn. Today, the Indonesian people continue to pay $2m every hour for their former dictator’s debt, while 100 million Indonesians live in poverty.

In a similar way, the Democratic Republic of Congo continues to pay ex-dictator Mobutu’s debt and South Africans continue to pay apartheid debt.

We call for an immediate end to unpayable and unjust debt, as well as root-and-branch reform of the international lending system in order to prevent a future debt crisis from occurring.

Ten years on, justice requires debt cancellation more urgently than ever.

Corporate Mercenaries

Alex Doherty — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 14:26:18 +0000

In March 2004, four American guards were attacked and killed in the Iraqi town of Fallujah. Their charred bodies were beaten and dragged through the streets in front of television cameras, and two of the corpses were hung from a bridge over the river Euphrates.

The following month, eight commandos engaged in an intense firefight with Iraqi militia during an attack on the US government headquarters in Najaf, calling in their own helicopter support to supply ammunition and take away the wounded.

In November 2005, a ‘trophy video’ was published on the internet showing soldiers randomly shooting civilian cars from out of the back of their vehicle on the road to Baghdad airport.

The ‘soldiers’ involved in each of these incidents are not part of any national armed forces; they are employed by global corporations. They are paid to provide a wide range of services, from acting as armed guards for convoys and oil installations to running border patrols and training of local police and military forces, and they are regularly involved in direct combat with Iraqi militia fighters. More than 48,000 are employed by corporations as mercenaries in Iraq – a force six times larger than the official UK armed forces presence in the country. As pressure mounts for UK and US troops to be withdrawn, it is to mercenaries like these that governments increasingly look to fight the war for them.

While Iraq represents bloodshed and death on a massive scale to most people, to Private Military and Security Companies (PMSCs) it has brought a boom time, boosting the revenues of British-based PMSCs alone from £320 million in 2003 to more than £1.8 billion in 2004. In the same year income for the industry worldwide reached $100 billion.

In addition to fostering a gold rush mentality for corporate mercenaries, the situation in Iraq has also created a lawless place for them to operate. It is this attitude which has led to things like the infamous ‘trophy video’ of a former Aegis employee showing corporate mercenaries randomly shooting automatic weapons at civilian cars in Baghdad. The video is only one of hundreds of reported incidents of contractors firing indiscriminately at civilians.

At Abu Ghraib prison, employees of two PMSCs were implicated in the prisoner abuse scandal, including allegedly raping a male juvenile detainee, directing the use of dogs and other forms of torture during interrogations, ordering a prisoner not to receive his prescription pain killers, and forcing a male prisoner to wear women’s underwear.

Despite these cases and many more, no private military contractor has been prosecuted throughout the war in Iraq because their actions are not governed by any laws. Under Coalition Provisional Authority Order 17, all foreign contractors have immunity from prosecution in Iraq.

The pattern is reflected in other conflicts around the world. In Colombia a subsidiary of British PMSC giant ArmorGroup has been implicated in providing detailed intelligence about community leaders protesting against an oil pipeline project to the the Colombian Army, which has been linked to executions and disappearances.

Several DynCorp employees in Bosnia were accused of running a prostitution ring that used under-age girls, as well as purchasing illegal weapons and forging passports. The firm’s site supervisor was accused of videotaping himself raping two young women. Employees were dismissed, but did not face criminal prosecution.

PMSCs have also played a role in many African conflicts, including Sierra Leone where the current Chief Executive of Aegis Defence, Tim Spicer, who today coordinates all PMSC activity in Iraq thank to an American contract, contravened a UN arms embargo by delivering weapons to the Sierra Leonean government. Spicer, who had already been jailed in Papua New Guinea, claimed both the knowledge and approval of the UK government.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. PMSCs are also involved in stockpiling and transporting weapons into conflict zones and assisting weak governments and rebel groups, especially in Africa, to shift the balance of war. De Beers, Texaco, Chevron, British Gas, Amoco, Exxon, Mobil, Ranger Oil, BP, American Airlines and Shell have all contracted DSL (now part of UK PMSC ArmorGroup). Halliburton specialises in energy exploration and construction, but also provides logistical support to the US military.

PMSCs are a dangerous and lawless outgrowth of our military industry. But the government has sat back and allowed them to spiral out of control because they play an increasingly large part in our war planning.

PMSCs allow governments to maintain a global reach while avoiding the need to send troops and thereby evading accountability from a public increasingly unwilling to pay the costs of war. Indeed it is believed that the UK and US would now struggle to wage war without PMSCs operating as their paramilitary partners.

Given how fast the industry has already expanded, it is essential that legislation ends these fantasies before they get any more concrete. But this will not be achieved simply by outlawing the right of corporations to have troops on the ground.

A binding international framework of rules under the auspices of the UN remains the long-term goal in regaining control over mercenary operations. But in the meantime national legislation in countries at the forefront of the industry, like the UK, is essential and long overdue.

There is broad agreement that PMSCs must not be allowed to take part in direct combat operations, but there is considerable resistance within the Labour government to outlawing the use of PMSCs, partly because of their strategic usefulness but partly also due to their economic value to the UK.

The government must not allow warfare to be privatised. PMSCs must not be involved in combat or combat support, as defined in their widest senses, and must be subject to the strictest form of regulation for all other services they provide.

Profiting from the Occupation

Alex Doherty — Thu, 06 Jul 2006 13:25:37 +0000

We hear little from the Palestinian Occupied Territories other than endless death, destruction, poverty and despair. While living standards plummet and the death toll rockets, its difficult to imagine a less likely place to make a profit. But despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding, and the international attention it receives, names familiar on high streets across Europe and the US are actively supporting Israels Occupation of Palestine through their business practices threatening to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people for many years to come.

US multinational construction company Caterpillar has already been singled out, supplying as it does militarised bulldozers to the Israeli Army through the USs Foreign Military Sales programme. A recent War on Want fact-finding mission confirmed the opinion of an Israeli military Commander, who calls these monster machines the key weapon in the ever deepening colonisation of the West Bank. The litany of war crimes which these machines are used for is shocking demolition of many thousands of Palestinian homes, sometimes on top of their residents; destruction of agricultural land, water supplies, olive and fruit trees; and the construction of the illegal Separation Wall currently encircling Palestinian towns, separating communities and turning the West Bank into a giant prison. All the more incredible then that Caterpillars Chief Executive Jim Owens can still claim that Caterpillar does well by doing good around the world.

The disinvestment campaign against Caterpillar has sparked debate about corporate complicity throughout many Christian Churches; not least in the Church of England where the General Synod has voted to begin a divestment process, while the Church Commissioners who hold the purse strings, have taken a different decision. In recent weeks the Methodist Church and the United Church of Toronto have voted to use the threat of divestment as a means of pressuring companies to stop aiding the Israeli Occupation.

But Caterpillar is not alone. Many people in the south-east of England will have fond memories (or otherwise) of French train operator Connex, which ran trains out of London for seven years before its franchise was terminated for poor financial management in 2003. Less well known is that one year earlier Connex, as the main partner in a consortium called CityPass, was awarded a $500 million contract to construct a light railway system connecting Jerusalem to illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. Road works around Jerusalems Old City mark the beginning of the project which is planned for completion in 2020. Connex will run the operation of the line for the next 30 years, while another French partner, Alstrom, will provide the trains.

The problem is that East Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Indeed the Palestinians hope one day to have their capital here. But Israels illegal annexation of East Jerusalem threatens this dream. Israel has encouraged 200,000 settlers to move into East Jerusalem over the last 40 years, and is currently using these settlements, along with the Separation Wall, to cut off East Jerusalem, on which tens of thousands of Palestinians depend, from the rest of the West Bank. Israeli peace campaigner and Nobel peace prize nominee Jeff Halper told us that Israels current expansion programme around East Jerusalem will render any future Palestinian state nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations.

The Israeli government has openly stated that the Connex train system is part of this same programme, to complete the annexation of East Jerusalem. During the contract signing ceremony in July 2005 then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pointed out that this project would help strengthen Jerusalem, construct it, expand it and sustain it for eternity as the capital of the Jewish people and the united capital of the State of Israel. The implications of this project are not limited to the suffering being endured now, but effect the possibility of peace in the Middle East for many years to come.

Unless we live on a bus route in Wales, few of us are likely to run into Connex. Central to our lives, however, is the behaviour of high street supermarkets. Lack of control over what we eat is becoming an everyday concern for many. Here again, one look at the reality of Israels Occupation is enough to suggest that supermarkets arent telling the whole truth about their Israeli produce.

Israels settlements across the West Bank represent the physical reality of the Occupation for most Palestinians on a daily basis. These settlements violate the Geneva Conventions and their creation is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Yet settlements increased at breakneck speed during the Oslo Peace Process, stealing Palestinian land and resources, and fuelling Palestinian resentment and the ultimate breakdown of Oslo. Today there are 450,000 settlers who use, together with Israel proper, 83% of the West Banks water resources, travelling on racially segregated roads which link them to Israel. Across the West Bank cranes and bulldozers symbolise on-going settlement expansion today.

The Jordan Valley, along the eastern edge of the West Bank, is a particularly large-scale settlement production centre. While Palestinians are cramped into small villages surrounded by closed military zones, vast plantations of fruit and vegetables line the landscape. One million palm trees have been planted here, and the Israeli government plans another million in the next five years. The partially state-owned export company, Agrexco, is responsible for 60-70% of all produce exported from settlements, and business is booming, with a 72% increase in revenue in the last 3 years. 60% of all Israeli vegetables exported end up in the UK. We met one Palestinian farmer growing aubergines in his field, but they were dry and shrivelled compared to the well watered grapes that grow on the plantations which have been stolen from him. The water these plants constantly get comes through my land, he tells us, yet I have no access to it.

Despite the centrality of the settlements as an obstacle to peace, supermarkets like Tesco and Waitrose still stock products grown or manufactured in West Bank settlements, labelling them as Made in Israel. Although EU law requires settlement produce to be labelled for customs purposes, so as not to apply preferential tariffs to them, this information is not passed onto the customer, so settlement produce ends up mixed in with other Israeli fruit, vegetables and herbs.

Some products are easier to spot. Wine produced by Barkan is on sale in Tesco, Selfridges and Sainsburys, while snacks by Beigel & Beigel are sold in Tesco and Waitrose, skin care products by Ahava in Selfridges and soda stream products from Mishor Adumin in Argos. All of these products are manufactured wholly or largely in West Bank settlements. Wine from the Golan Heights, Syrian territory also occupied in 1967, is even more openly marketed in Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsburys.

Finally Caterpillar isnt the only construction company involved in house demolitions. Though their operations are particularly egregious given that they supply the Israeli Army with military equipment we saw Volvo, Daewoo and JCB bulldozers or cranes being used, on a contractual basis, in the construction of the Separation Wall.

It is not sufficient for companies to live in a world of glowing corporate social responsibility reports, while shutting their eyes and ears to the actual impact of their operations. It is inconceivable that Connex and Caterpillar are unaware of the fact that their products and services are being used to implement war crimes. If Tesco and Waitrose are unaware of the origins of the products they sell as Made in Israel, it is because they havent asked the requisite questions of their suppliers. And if Volvo, Daewoo and JCBs management dont know that their bulldozers are being used in violation of international law, they cannot have spent even half a day in the Occupied Territories. In any case, they all know now.

It is up to all of us to use our power to pressure these companies to change the ways in which they operate. But ultimately the problem is not purely a corporate one. After the First World War the idea of war profiteers disgusted a generation scarred by the horror of conflict. Today wars happen a little further a field, but the consequences are no less devastating. Corporations continue to profit from this suffering in overt and subtle ways. To stop this we need to turn against the economic orthodoxy of our age that the profit motive is the sole element on which social organisation should be based. Corporations do not need more freedom, but less.

War on Wants Report Profiting from the Occupation: Corporate Complicity in Israels Occupation of Palestine is available on-line at www.waronwant.org or from the office on ++ 44 207 549 0555. The report will be launched at a conference on Sunday 9 July in London.

Israel and the West - New Government, Old Policies

Alex Doherty — Mon, 29 May 2006 15:06:42 +0000

Coming only four weeks after the European declaration of sanctions against the Palestinian Authority, Ehud Olmerts announcement of a new Israeli Government should raise profound questions in any Western country truly interested in a balanced approach towards the Middle East.

It appears that the explicitly racist Yisrael Beiteinu party, which advocates creating an Israel cleansed of Palestinians, will now not be a coalition partner, though Olmert remains open to the idea of their entry into government as apparently does the Labour Party, which has now joined Kadima in the coalition. Former Israeli parliamentarian and peace activist Uri Averny recently commented that Yisrael Beiteinus leader, Avigdor Lieberman, could give lessons to Jean-Marie Le Pen and Joerg Haider.

Nonetheless, Olmerts government does contain many politicians responsible for the last five years of terror and impoverishment on the West Bank, who fall foul of the conditions the Quartet (US, EU, UN and Russia) has seen fit to place on the Palestinians. Consider the denunciation of violence. Israel is currently dropping bombs on civilian populations on a daily basis in the supposedly free Gaza Strip. During the week of April 12, the Israeli Army fired more than 950 artillery tank shells and 46 F16 missiles in this densely populated strip of land. Overall 19 Palestinians were killed by the Army, including three children, during that week. Three Palestinians were beaten up by soldiers, including a 6-year-old girl.

On the EUs other conditions on Hamas recognition of Israel and abidance by the Oslo Accords and Road Map Prime Minister Olmerts new cabinet, much like his old one, falls down rather badly. Olmert himself, in January this year, made clear that We firmly stand by the historic right of the people of Israel to the entire Land of Israel. Every hill in Samaria and every valley in Judea [the West Bank] is part of our historic homeland. This is the same, in reverse, of Hamas historical claim to the whole of mandate Palestine, which the West believes makes them unsuitable for government. Moreover Olmert doesnt stop at theory: Israel will maintain control over the security zones, the Jewish settlement blocs, and those places which have supreme national importance to the Jewish people, first and foremost a united Jerusalem under Israeli sovereignty. Meanwhile Olmerts Foreign Secretary, Tzipi Livni, who retains her position in the new government, recently told a legal conference that: “One does not have to be a genius to see that the fence will have implications for the future border.

In other words, in total violation of international law, the Oslo Accords and the Road Map, Olmert has clearly stated that he will incorporate the largest settlement outposts in the West Bank, including in Jerusalem, into Israel proper, and re-draw the map of Palestine to include an Israeli presence on the eastern side of Palestine in the Jordan valley. Any state which does result from this exercise will be cut into several sections, with no control over its borders, or its international and trade relations or its security it will have no sovereignty. In no way does this constitute recognition of a Palestinian state.

The majority of Israels political establishment, including the governments of Sharon and Olmert, have spent many years preventing the emergence of a two-state solution through expanding settlements, the Separation Wall, a system of racist settler roads, gateways and tunnels which mean two people living separate and unequal lives within the Occupied Territories themselves. Indeed, this was the conclusion of EU diplomats in Jerusalem in a suppressed report leaked before Christmas, as well as a more recent report by UN Human Right Special Rapporteur John Duggard last month. Israeli peace activists such as Jeff Halper from the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions are quite clear that the two-state solution in now dead.

So Israel violates all three of the Quartets conditions to the Palestinian Authority yet you search long and hard to find Western politicians voicing public condemnation of these policies. Although the Palestinians are not the perpetrators but the victims of countless violations of international law, it is they who are now suffering a sanctions regime perpetrated by Israel, the US and EU a regime which is sending the Palestinian economy into freefall. It is they who are now targeted by a Western attempt to destabilise their democratically elected government. On 14 February, the New York Times reported that senior officials in the US State Department were discussing with Israeli officials the best ways to destabilize the Palestinian government so that newly elected Hamas officials will fail and elections will be called again. They discussed Israel withholding tax revenues which it owes to the Palestinian Authority, and which provide the Palestinians with a major source of revenue, and conditions being placed on Hamas to ensure that Western aid stopped flowing.

And so it has come to pass. The 152,000 people employed by the PA, running health clinics, hospitals, primary and secondary schools, now face the real prospect of unemployment or non-payment of salaries. The World Bank and United Nations have predicted increases in poverty to around 75% of the population, and the economy is expected to shrink by 27%. In addition, Israel is trying to prevent the Palestinian government from functioning by preventing the free movement of ministers around Palestine and banning their travel to the outside world.

These steps have been condemned by all aid agencies and human rights campaigners working in the region. Oxfam have said that this is the worst possible time to cut funding. Amensty International has said it is a dereliction of duty by the international community, and expresses concern that the decision to severe financial aid could have very serious consequences impacting on the health, education and other economic and social rights of Palestinians. Indeed the consequences of the present course of action are well known throughout the world after a leak from a cabinet meeting at which government advisor Dov Weisglass joked that the current policies would put the Palestinians on a starvation diet.

Yet this seems to mean nothing to the UK or the EU. Campaign Against the Arms Trade recently reported that UK arms sales to Israel have doubled over the last year to £25m. Since Sharon came to power the UK has sold £70m worth of arms to Israel, including machines guns, tear gas, leg irons, components for surface to surface missiles, tanks and helicopters. As coroners courts in the UK decided that journalists and peace campaigners James Miller and Tom Hurndall were murdered by the Israeli Army, barely a word was uttered by the Foreign Office. In contradistinction to the EUs refusal to consider the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, to put pressure on Israel for its ongoing human rights abuses, sanctions on Palestine seemed to require little discussion or political will.

Hamas dream, one day, of a Palestinian state covering the whole of Israel/ Palestine, is no different from the dream of the Prime Minister of Israel that Israel will one day (if not now) cover the same area. The difference is that one party is trying to put its dream into effect by a mixture of violence, breached agreement and serious violation of international law. The other is abiding by a year-long ceasefire and offering to extend it. Yet they dont even receive equality. One side, the Occupier and the cause of poverty in Palestine, is given weapons, trade agreements and the offer of a blind eye from the West, the other side has sanctions imposed and attempts to destabilise its democracy for daring to stand up to a 40-year Occupation that the international community has done nothing to end despite its international obligations.

Hamas election was, amongst other factors, a result of Western hypocrisy and inactivity towards injustice in the Middle East over many decades. Its reactions to that election do not merely prove the point, but threaten devastation to an already desperate, deserted and traumatised society. In the words of Seumas Milne in the Guardian recently, we are playing a highly dangerous role … in the most inflammatory conflict on the planet; one that risks a rising spiral of violence and impoverishment which will haunt the planet for many decades to come.

__www.waronwant.org/palestine __

ESF Interview

eddie — Sat, 27 May 2006 20:17:00 +0000

UK Watch caught up with NIck Dearden, campaigns officer for War on Want, toward the end of this year’s European Social Forum in Athens

UK Watch: War on Want is an anti-poverty campaigning NGO and the goal of eliminating poverty is one that would be shared by probably everybody coming to the ESF. Do you think the ESF and the social forum movement in general has had positive consequences for the struggle against poverty?

Nick Dearden: Oh yeah, I think definitely. Anything that brings people together and connects people in their ideas or in their campaigns is obviously a good thing. I mean thats ultimately our objective. The World Social Forum process on a global scale has had phenomenal effects if you look at the different partners that weve managed to link together, for example landless struggles in Brazil and landless struggles in South Africa, people in the south learning from each other. But I think also when thats linked with the north, with campaigns and awareness raising here, its bound to have even more of an effect so I think in general its a very positive thing.

UKW: How do you view the trajectory the ESF has taken? We were just remarking that this one appears to be a bit smaller – do you think that in certain respects its declining, are there things that you think should be changed to improve matters?

ND: I think its definitely declining in terms of turnout and therefore obviously in terms of importance. And I think there are a number of reasons for that: one is the fact that the ESF is specifically against taking strategies, positions on anything. Its a space for discussing and thats worthwhile but once youve been for a couple of years it tends to become quite repetitive. I mean this social forum has had some interesting seminars that we havent seen before because of where it is, so for example Cyprus and Turkey – theres been a lot of stuff on that, theres been a lot of stuff on the Balkans, and thats quite interesting. But generally I think people tend to go to the seminars that they know most about, that theyre involved in, and if you do that not much changes, to be honest, from year to year and you dont learn a lot. So one problem is that there is no development and I dont really see how it can develop in terms of its strategic direction; people need to think about that.

The second thing is that surely one of the reasons for moving it around all the time is to involve more people in it, so involve local populations from wherever it is, basically, and then get them involved in all the different issues and campaigns and whatever that are going on. And Im not sure how successful that has been. At the social forum you tend to see an awful lot of people you see at all the other social forums and it feels a bit like its just the same group of people travelling around Europe meeting each other again, whereas really this social forum should have been completely overwhelmed by people from Greece, I didnt feel in any way that it was. I think thats a bit of a problem, its a bit of a Eurovision Song Contest thing where a country agrees to put on this conference for the same group of people rather than thinking of it as an opportunity to really hype up the level of political struggle on their own country.

UKW: In saying that you think it might be a good idea if the ESF moved more in the direction of organising and developing strategies, youre not alone – Ive heard that from a number of different places. What do you think is stopping that happening – do you think there is a majority view amongst organisers against that or is there any other kind of impediment?

ND: Well, I mean obviously its made up of an awfully diverse range of groups and individuals, I mean we agree that want to see some sort of generally defined progressive change in the world but I suspect that a lot of people probably dont agree very much beyond that. So in order to maintain the diversity of attendance and interest in the ESF I think theres been a conscious decision not to go down any one particular route or another. So it is very difficult to see a strategy that can encompass everybody, but perhaps not impossible. I just kind of wonder the degree to which these things are talked about at all to be honest – Im not party to the committee meetings and I dont tend to go to the all the organising preparatory meetings because you could spend all your life doing that but I do sort of wonder how much thinking there is going there about the future direction of the ESF. The logistics of organising these things seem to be so all-consuming, they take so long in themselves, and the battles about who speaks on which seminar and whatever seems to be such a big issue that it seems that thinking into the future isnt really left with any time at all.

UKW: The ESF generally is an outgrowth of what you might call the movement against neoliberal globalisation, which obviously became significantly more visible after the protests against the WTO in Seattle [in 1999]. Weve just had another round of WTO talks in Hong Kong and War on Want has been very critical of whats happened there – can you tell us a bit about whats been going on there?

ND: Well basically theres this thing called the Doha development round which was an attempt by the countries which control the WTO, the western countries, to dissipate criticism of the WTO which arose at Seattle by saying, look, encouragement of international trade is good for development and is good for the poor and is ultimately good for the environment and good for everything else you can imagine. So they launched the Doha development round – a real PR offensive on their part – to try and convince any waverers that what they were doing was very reasonable and to try and make people reassess their anti-globalisation, if you like, stance towards the WTO. And thereve been three conferences now which have tried to embrace this development round and none of them have done a thing in terms of development or poverty eradication. One of them in fact, in Cancun, completely broke up because the developed world and the developing world couldnt agree on a forward strategy. And its basically because the developed world doesnt actually see trade as a good in itself, even though it comes across as they do sometimes: they see trade as a way to increase their own wealth and their own power in the world, both economic and strategic power. So what theyre doing is ripping open the markets of developing countries – an awful lot of the time you really wonder how western states differ from corporations based in their countries, they seem to be mouthpieces for corporate interests, so one of the things they ensure is that corporations are able, for example, to invest in and take over basic services like water, electricity and so on in the developing world,. Its all part of GATS. Its a trillion dollar industry thats up for grabs and therere various western countries competing to make sure their corporations get a share in that industry. And theres the Non-Agricultural Market Access Treaty which is all about ripping open industrial markets of third world countries.

By the way this isnt really least developed countries, theres not much money to be made from them, so theyre exempted from most of this stuff. But in terms of Brazil and India and those middle countries where theres a lot of money to be made, those countries are saying ok, we have some interest, possibly, in opening up some markets but if this is about development and poverty eradication and this is supposed to be helping us we need to see the benefit too, and the west continues to hypocritically maintain all sorts of bars to the free trade of its own products while forcing open the free trade of products of developing countries. Its a completely one sided game and the rules are created by the west in order to ensure they maintain their hold on the world. So thats what happened in a nutshell in the last three conferences, exactly the same thing happened in Hong Kong. Again, Hong Kong broke up without any real agreement and they decided theyre now going to try and do it in back room deals so at the moment there are all sorts of ministerial and other meeting around the world especially in Geneva to try and sew up the deal that they didnt manage to come up with in Hong Kong.

UKW: Youve just been talking earlier today about the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. How is that connected with War on Wants other work, why is it a campaign that youve chosen to focus on? Its not something that many people, Id say, in the UK, where youre based, really know much about.

ND: Well, specifically on Western Sahara were actually the only agency really thats been campaigning on Western Sahara throughout the last twenty years and we were the first agency to stand up and say something about it in the UK so we have a historical responsibility, I feel, to it. But in terms of how it fits in with our other work, theres really two sides to our campaign work. One side is about what can broadly be called economic injustice, so its about trade, debt, aid conditionality, corporate power, privatisation, those sorts of issues. And then the other side of our work – and I think this is what separates us from other quite a lot of other development agencies – is more to do with strategic power, its more to do with looking at western strategic interests in the world, and how the drive for those strategic interests has caused impoverishment and human rights abuses in various parts of the world. There are various case studies we look at and one of them is Colombia, an obvious one at the moment is Iraq, one is Palestine and the final one that fits in to all of that is Western Sahara. Because international law is very very clear that Western Sahara needs to be given a referendum on self-determination, it needs to go through the decolonisation process that every single other country in Africa has been through, and the west needs to ensure that happens. And the west has failed to ensure that happens because at the end of the day its got more to gain from dealing with Morocco – whether it be selling arms with them, trading with them, keeping them on side in the war on terror, whatever it is – Morocco has far more to give it than 150,000 refugees living in the middle of the desert. So, as we see over and over again on all sorts of issues, its power that dominates and not international law, international law can go to hell as long as theres more to be gained from not listening to international law. If were ever to get a world that most of us at the ESF probably want to see we need some sort of effective international law to protect the weak from the strong, to try and equalise the world, to try and make things fairer and more just, and Western Sahara is such a glaring example of how the world has failed to do that that we think it needs bringing up again and again in order to reinforce the message and hopefully eventually get something done about it.

See also

www.ukwatch.net/article/1859

www.ukwatch.net/article/1854

Forgotten Occupation

Tim Holmes — Tue, 23 May 2006 16:56:51 +0000

The justifications put forward by European powers for their failure to reign in Israels defiance of international law usually centres around Israeli security or the corruption of the Palestinian leadership. A vote in the European Parliament, over a little known conflict in North Africa, shows these reasons up for the flimsy excuses they are.

Western Sahara has been occupied for 30 years by Morocco, after the latter signed a secret and illegal deal with the territorys colonial master Spain, in the very final act of the Francoist government. Every year the UN reaffirms the right of Western Sahara to self-determination and they have had a Mission on the ground for nearly 15 years to organise a referendum. 165,000 Saharawi refugees have created a democratic and educated society in exile in the Algerian desert, laying down their arms, denouncing forever the use of terrorism, simply asking the international community to help them return to their homeland. Yet instead of championing this seemingly exemplary resistance movement, the European Union has continued to arm the Occupier while building ever closer economic and political ties.

As if this were not bad enough, the European Parliament today voted to steal the resources of the Saharawi people from under their noses. The vote concerned the signing of a Fisheries Agreement with Morocco. Such Agreements are not uncommon, but this one has a difference it fails to specify the Southern limit of its operation, thereby allowing Morocco to define the extent of its territory and effectively allow European boats to fish in the very rich but also very occupied territorial waters of Western Sahara. On 16 May Parliamentarians had the opportunity to vote on a Green/ GUE (left) amendment which would have made the issue clear and excluded Western Sahara from the operation of the Agreement. Despite resistance from close to 200 MEPs; pressure from Member States like Sweden, Finland and Ireland; rebels from both Socialist and Conservative groups; and despite a campaign coalition drawn from 19 EU countries, the Parliament rejected the Amendment. At the end of the day the profits of the European fishing industry were simply too important to jeopardise for the sake of international law and 165,000 refugees.

The matter will now go to the Council of Ministers on Monday, but no great hope is being placed there. The UK Government has already said that despite clear opposition from the Polisario Front, the representatives of the Saharawi people, they are unlikely to amend the Agreement, or even to include a statement on the rights of the Saharawi people and the need to end the Occupation. Other argue that the Saharawi people still living in the Occupied Territories of Western Sahara will benefit from the Agreement. The truth is that European fishing corporations will be the real beneficiaries of this Agreement, together with the Moroccan Generals who control the industry in Western Sahara.

The refugees, far from seeing any benefit, realise that the EU has given Morocco just one more reason to flout international law. Only one month ago Moroccan King Mohamed VI made a controversial visit to the Occupied Territories of Western Sahara, which sparked demonstrations and mass detentions by the Moroccan security forces. Mohamed made clear that while he supported some degree of autonomy, Morocco would not give up one inch of soil in the Western Sahara.

It seems that neither the existence nor absence of terrorism, corruption or any other charge which can be levelled against a resistance movement, makes any difference to the European Commission in its desire to uphold international law. The issue boils down very simply to the question of self-interest.

www.fishelsehwere.org

Saharan Fish and the EU

Alex Doherty — Sat, 18 Mar 2006 10:59:05 +0000

A decades-old, impoverished refugee population, tens of thousands of settlers, a 1000-mile wall, a stalled peace process and now an intifada in an occupied territory. This is not a description of Palestine, but a territory known as Western Sahara, a few hundred miles from the Canary Islands, which was occupied by Morocco in 1975. In 2006, Saharawi refugees will commemorate 30 years a lifetime to many of them in the Algerian desert waiting for the international community to live up to its promises to give them a referendum on self-determination over their homeland.

A world away, in Brussels, the European Union is putting the finishing touches to an agreement which will hinder that process still further. The EU-Morocco Fisheries Partnership Agreement is similar to a host of deals being signed down the West African coast, allowing European fishing access to African waters to make up for the over-fishing of European waters in recent decades. But this deal has one exception: it will allow EU boats to fish in the illegally occupied water of a country which the West has done its best to forget.

International law has been clear on Western Sahara since 1975 when the International Court of Justice ruled that Morocco had no claim to the Spanish colony. Two weeks later the Moroccan Army marched in regardless, and refugees fled for their lives into the Algerian desert. Although the United Nations General Assembly deeply deplore[d] the Moroccan Occupation, and the Security Council called for immediate withdrawal, no action followed. Then, as now, the great powers of the world preferred to accommodate the expansionist dreams of the Moroccan monarchy than implement justice for a few thousand refugees.

Liberation was left to the Polisario Front, representatives of the Saharawi in exile, who fought and recaptured some of their land. In the last three decades they have built a society in the desert, with 95% literacy and a democratic government in which women play a leading role, and which has ruled out forever the use of terrorism as a means of obtaining justice. Former UN Envoy to the territory (and Secretary of State under Bush senior), James Baker, said that it was a society the West should be championing from a strictly human-rights standpoint, if only it wasnt so important to maintain close relationships with Morocco.

When Polisario agreed to lay down its weapons in 1991, it was on the promise that the UN would organise a referendum. Even when the Polisario made its historic compromise that illegal Moroccan settlers too would be allowed to vote in their referendum in a proposal that obtained unanimous support from the UN Security Council, Morocco blocked it. The proposals designer, Baker later resigned, saying recently: I’m sure the Saharawi are going to say, wait a minute, what do we have to do here to get a shot at self-determination? The lack of will by the West to go any further than sticking their hand in the air once a year, is played out in Minurso, the UN mission to Western Sahara, which was aptly described by former deputy chair Frank Ruddy as a mission that is doing so little that if all of its members went on strike no one would notice.

Now EU countries plan to compound their failure by stealing the wealth of those it has deserted from under their noses. Commissioner Borg, responsible for European fisheries, protests that the Agreement doesnt even mention Western Sahara. But thats exactly the point. By failing to define Moroccos southern border, it allows Morocco to decide where to apply the Agreement, knowing full well that they will apply it to Saharawi waters. El Ayun, Western Saharas capital, alone accounts for 40% of Moroccos total fish catch, by far the largest proportion from any port.

The Saharawi will see almost no benefit from the Agreement. Unsurprisingly, its the corporations that control fishing in Western Sahara, mostly Moroccan or Spanish, that will gain most. Even through the employment that filters down to ordinary workers, the majority are likely to be Moroccan settlers, and not Saharawi.

Previous agreements with Morocco have also allowed fishing in Saharawi waters. But this is different in that trade unions, NGOs and politicians from across Europe have come together to try and stop the inclusion of Western Sahara in the new Agreement. This renewed interest may be due to the thirty-year anniversary of the occupation, or because even the US, when signing its Free Trade Agreement with Morocco in 2004, specifically ruled out application to Western Sahara.

It probably helped that last year Morocco embarked on new round of human rights abuses in the occupied territory itself. The occupied territory is still home to tens of thousands of Saharawi who didnt leave in 1975 and now live alongside Moroccan settlers in a police state, unable to advocate independence or display their flag. This blanket of silence was broken last summer as a small intifada broke out after peaceful demonstrations were fiercely repressed by Moroccan security forces. One young demonstrator, Hamdi Lambarki, was beaten to death. Many other human rights activists were arrested and incarcerated in El Ayuns infamous Black Prison, where prisoners have been on hunger strike against ill-treatment and torture.

It isnt too late to stop the EU plunder. A coalition is rapidly building across Europe to ensure that human rights and international law come for once before Western profit. Its time to bring an end to the longest running conflict in Africa, and end the Occupation of Africas last colony.

The Agreement will come before the European Parliament in the next two months. To contact your MEP go to: http://www.fishelsewhere.org or email ndearden@waronwant.org.

Even-Handed in the Middle East

Alex Doherty — Thu, 12 Jan 2006 15:43:17 +0000

The British Government likes to portray itself as an honest broker in the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, seeing blame on both sides. Perhaps because
such a position finds no basis in international law, the Government dislikes
international institutions getting too involved as seen when it tried to
prevent the International Court of Justice ruling on the illegality of the
Separation Wall 18 months ago. And when this fails, there is nothing left
but retreat into pure fantasy, which describes its policy over the last
year.

In truth, the Palestinians represent an incredibly persistent local
difficulty; a thorn in the side of countries interested in running the
Middle East to their own advantage. While the UK pays lip service to
international law, its actually busy helping Israel to get away with
murder.

In the first six months of 2005 the UK granted licenses for £10.5m of weapon
components to Israel, over three times the amount sold by the same point in
2004. Meanwhile the European Union, fully supported by the UK, continues to
reward Israel for its appalling human rights record with the EU-Israel
Association Agreement, allowing Israeli products preferential access to
European markets. Although the Agreement is based on respect for human
rights, and so should actually be suspended under its own terms, such a
course appears unthinkable from the fairy-tale world of Whitehall.

Although the Foreign Office sometimes admits that their strategy of close
engagement with Israel has failed hardly surprising given that the
strategy appears to consist of mentioning the issue at a handful of
meetings their alternative is even closer engagement through the European
Neighbourhood Policy (ENP). The ENP provides for closer ties with Europes
neighbours, including Israel, to go beyond co-operation, to involve a
significant measure of economic integration and a deepening of political
co-operation. In other words, the exact opposite of suspending economic
preferences.

Of course, the Government falls over itself to praise the Disengagement from
Gaza, ignoring the worsening situation on the West Bank, where an additional
14,000 illegal settlers have moved this year, more than compensating for the
8,500 settlers who left Gaza. The honesty of Sharon and his advisors, who
describe Disengagement as an attempt to prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state, is ignored by the Foreign Office, contradicting as it
does the story they tell the public and the world.

Perhaps it is unsurprising then that the UKs position has become worse
since Disengagement. Foreign Office Minister, Kim Howells, set the tone in
an interview with the Jerusalem Post in September in which he stated that
recent Israeli air strikes on the supposedly independent Gaza Strip
constituted a proportionate response to the firing of rockets from Gaza
into Israel which had already been condemned by the Palestinian Authority.
The strikes included Israel resuming its policy of illegal targeted
assassinations of militants and launching about 30 aerial attacks on Gaza,
destroying schools and homes, with scores of civilians injured and welfare
projects raided, not to mention over 400 arrests carried out on the West
Bank amidst a fragile election process.

When asked what he was expecting of Sharon following Disengagement, Howells
replied nothing it was up to the Palestinians now. Faced with an
impassioned speech by Phyllis Starkey MP in Parliament, Howells ripped up
even the pretence at even-handedness retorting that, yes it was a terrible
situation, but mostly because of the Palestinians stupidity in looting the
Gaza greenhouses, the selfishness of the Arab states hoarding their oil
wealth and the corrosive corruption of Arafats cronies. The Israeli
Ambassador couldnt have put it better.

British law finds about as much respect as international law. In September,
Jack Straw, apologised to the Israeli government after a British court
issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Major General Almog on war crimes
charges. Head of the Israeli Armys Southern Command from 2000-4, Almog was
responsible for dropping a one-ton bomb on Gaza in 2002 which killed 15 and
injured 150, and for the destruction of 59 homes in Rafah refugee camp.

Almog was made aware of the arrest and refused to leave his plane at London
Heathrow, promptly returning to Israel. Nonetheless, Straw felt the need to
apologise as a courtesy and explain that he wanted to find a way to
bridge the gap so this doesn’t happen in the future. Heaven forbid British
courts should arrest war criminals on British soil.

As calls to hold the Israeli government to account grow louder, the British
government disappears further into the mythical world of its own propaganda.
Perhaps the introduction to the European Neighbourhood Policy, which states
that the EU and Israel share the common values of democracy, respect for
human rights and the rule of law, has a good deal of truth to it. Certainly
none of those things seems to matter to either if they get in the way of
self-interest. As in the fight against injustice in South Africa, it will
have to be ordinary activists who help bring justice for the long suffering
Palestinians.

Making the G8 History

jo — Tue, 10 May 2005 17:05:35 +0000

2005 has been touted by UK development charities as the most important year for campaigning in a decade. As the leaders of the richest nations in the world meet in Gleneagles, Scotland in early July, tens of thousands will converge on Edinburgh, under the broad coalition Make Poverty History, demanding an end to the poverty which continues to blight humanity.

The worlds leaders do have the ability to wipe out poverty. Poverty is about systematically unfair trading rules which have sent global inequality soaring; an international debt structure which keeps the Third World in hock to Western investors; and so-called aid, conditioned on Third World countries taking the correct attitude towards economic reform. In the world today poverty is not primarily about natural disasters, it is about vested interests, imperialist finance structures and politicians promising candy with one hand in order to snatch away bread with the other.

Enthroned at the centre of this system is the corporation the most powerful entity on earth. While governments could reign them in if they chose, they prefer to represent them, setting up institutions like the IMF, World Bank and WTO which dictate to the Third World the economic structures most beneficial to the corporation, regardless of the impact on people or the planet. The corporation is the epicentre of neo-liberalism and corporate globalisation.

While Bush does little to hide his strategy of capitalism for the Third World and socialism for western corporations (handing out subsidies, forcing other governments to choose US products), Blair and Brown have a more subtle approach. But for all their promises prioritising Africa, increasing aid, dropping the debt the British government is no less pro-corporate or less problematic to development than other G8 members.

At the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the UK has been at the forefront of the EUs aggressive free trade agenda. Dismissing the pleas of developing countries that they should be allowed to defend infant industries from the onslaught of multinationals, the UK has pushed an offensive agenda which aims to further open developing markets to EU exports. This blatant self-interest risks the break-down of the WTO summit in Hong Kong in December, mirroring the break-down of Cancun.

Beyond the WTO, the UK and EU are signing a series of free trade deals (Economic Partnership Agreements or EPAs) intended to bilaterally force open up to 90% of the markets of African, Caribbean and Pacific countries to EU exports. Against the might of the European Union poor countries are totally unable to defend themselves. Even the European Commissions own impact assessment has predicted that these agreements could lead to the collapse of the manufacturing sector in West Africa.

The UK has taken the lead in promoting privatisation of public services in developing countries. Scandalously the government has channelled millions of pounds of development aid money to privatisation consultants such as KPMG, PricewaterhouseCoopers and the ultra-neo-liberal Adam Smith Institute, to advise developing country governments on how best to sell their public services to western corporations.

While making climate change a G8 priority, the UK has failed to control its own greenhouse gas emissions, backing down on its targets in the face of industry lobby groups. Global warming is already having a severe impact on the poorest people in the world.

But nowhere is the governments pro-corporate stance more obvious than in its undermining of international calls to hold multinationals to account for their activities overseas. Instead, the UK has sided with business groups in championing voluntary corporate social responsibility, a multi-million dollar industry in its own right, which replaces progressive social policies with public relations.

Forcing countries to do as theyre told at the point of starvation has much in common with old-fashioned colonialism. And if none of this carrot works, theres always the stick, Iraq being an example to the rest of the world.

For the worlds richest leaders, the G8, to meet and take decisions about the future of millions of people in closed sessions is reminiscent of emperors, monarchs and sultans sitting in palaces, drawing lines on maps. To believe that positive change will come from such a body is truly unrealistic. At the same time, positive change is possible. Grassroots groups working around the world are risking their lives fighting for different forms of globalisation or de-globalisation.

Thats why coming to Edinburgh this July is so important. The size of the march on 2 July will send a clear message to the British government that it is time to represent people rather than corporations on the world stage, to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem. But our Counter-conference on 3 July is no less important, because if we are to entrench real change, we need to build democratic global structures to replace the G8, WTO, IMF and World Bank. As with the fight against poverty, environmental destruction, and corporate tyranny, so the fight for global democracy will come from below.

The World Development Movement, the NUS, People and Planet, Friends of the Earth and War on Want are organising a counter-conference in Edinburgh on Sunday 3 July. Nick Dearden is a Campaigns Officer at War on Want.