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PEOPLES' GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST 'FREE' TRADE
AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION:
EVENTS FOR 1999
Dear friends,
This message contains brief descriptions of the major projects inspired by
the international network "Peoples' Global Action against 'Free' Trade and
the World Trade Organisation" (PGA) for 1999. These projects are the
outcome of a planning meeting of the 10 movements from all continents who
form the current convenors committee of PGA, listed at the end of the email.
If this is the first time that you have heard about PGA (a global
instrument for communication and coordination for all those fighting
against the destruction of humanity and the planet by the global market,
while building up local alternatives and peoples' power, created in
February 1998 in Geneva) and wish to know more about it, please visit
www.agp.org or send a message to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
CONTENTS:
1. The second PGA conference, which will take place in Bangalore (India)
in August.
2. Inter-Continental Caravan for Solidarity and Resistance: 400 Indian
activists and farmers and 100 activists of other Southern countries will
come to Europe in May/June to confront the governments, institutions and
economic interests responsible for their exploitation and the destruction
of their environment.
3. June 18th 1999: A international day of action aimed at the heart of the
global economy - the financial and banking districts - coinciding with the
first day of the G8 summit.
4. Worldwide mobilisations during the Third Ministerial Conference of the
World Trade Organisation (WTO), which will take place in Seattle, USA
Novemeber - December 1999.
******
1. THE SECOND PGA CONFERENCE
The second PGA conference will take place from the 23rd to the 26th
of August 1999 in Bangalore, India. This event will be of key importance
for the PGA process in several senses.
a) The conference will launch a discussion process among peoples'
movements from the around the world on the role and functions that an
international coordination and communication network like the PGA should
play, and how it should fulfil those functions. This discussion could not
take place in the first PGA conference (23-25 February 1998, in Geneva)
since most of that time was devoted to discussion of the PGA manifesto, and
to coordinating actions to coincide with the Second Ministerial Conference
of the WTO in May 1998. We feel that a wide and inclusive discussion should
start as soon as possible in order to consolidate and move forward the PGA
process.
b) The conference will also provide a great opportunity to plan massive
mobilisations against the Third WTO Ministerial Conference (see point 4
below), along with generating new plans for action.
c) The PGA manifesto will also be revised during the conference (although
we will devote less time to this discussion than during the first
conference) and a new Convenors' Committee will be elected.
d) As the conference will be hosted by the Karnataka State Farmers'
Association (KRRS), one of the biggest social movements in South Asia, it
will enable all who travel to Bangalore to get acquainted with the work of
this very inspiring grassroots movement. It will also offer the possibility
of getting to know other movements in Karnataka and the North of Kerala. To
this purpose, there will be a series of exposure trips before and after the
conference (15th-19th and 27th-31st August) to rural areas where important
struggles are taking or have taken place.
e) Just before the conference (20th-22nd August), a number of roundtable
discussions will take place in Bangalore, giving the participants to
exchange information and opinions and share experiences in issues such as
biotechnology, the struggle of indigenous peoples, the organisational
processes of afro-american communities, or the negotiations agenda in the
WTO.
f) Of course an important part of the conference is to meet people, feel
inspired - to feel that we, in our groups around the world, are part of
something far bigger.
If you want more information about the conference and the events
that it will be linked to (roundtable discussions and visits to areas of
struggle) please write to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. We will soon post the whole
conference documentation available at http://www.agp.org
******
2. INTER-CONTINENTAL CARAVAN FOR SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE
Several hundred activists from all over the world will go to Europe
in May-June 1999, to participate, jointly with European groups, in
non-violent actions against the most important centres of power of the
continent (like headquarters of TNCs, banks, multilateral institutions,
corporate lobby groups, parliaments, etc.), and meet groups from many
European countries.
The timing of their visit will coincide with two major political
events: the summit of heads of state of the European Union and the G8
summit (or World Economic Summit, which brings together the heads of state
of USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Canada, Italy and Russia). The G8
summit, which marks the end of the visit, will be the highest point of the
caravan, and will coincide with other initiatives going on at the same
time, such as the June 18th global day of action targeting financial
centres.
Since this project was originally conceived in India (by KRRS), a
large share of the participants will be Indian farmers, but the programme
is open for activists from all over the world and different social sectors
to join it. It is anticipated that there will be about 400 activists from
India, and about 100 from other countries.
The caravan was inspired by and is co-ordinated through the PGA
network. Its political position is based on the PGA philosophy of
non-violence, non- hierarchical structures, and will maintain a
confrontational attitude and practice non-violent civil disobedience and
direct action (rather than lobbying) as tools for political change.
For more information please contact:
European co-ordination office, c/o PO BOX 2228, 2301 CE Leiden, Holland.
Tel/fax: 00 31 71 517 3094
E-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, website: <http://stad.dsl.nl/~caravan>
******
3. JUNE 18th 1999: A DAY OF PROTEST, ACTION, AND CARNIVAL IN FINANCIAL
CENTRES ACROSS THE GLOBE
June 18th 1999 will be an international day of action aimed at the
heart of the global economy: the financial centres, banking districts and
multinational corporation power bases. The idea is to encourage as many
movements and groups as possible to organise their own autonomous protests
or actions, on the same day (June 18th), in the same geographical locations
(financial/corporate/banking/business districts) around the world. Events
could take place at relevant sites, eg. multi- national company offices,
local banks, stock exchanges. Each event would be organised autonomously
and co-ordinated in each city or financial district by a variety of
movements and groups.
It is hoped that a whole range of different groups will take part,
including workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, women, students, the
landless, environmentalists, unwaged/unemployed and others...everyone who
recognises that the global capitalist system, based on the exploitation of
people and the planet for the profit of a few, is at the root of our social
and ecological troubles.
Already groups in 30 countries are preparing events for June 18th.
Individual groups include Diverse Women For Diversity (USA), North Sumatra
Peasants Union, Bangladesh Garements Workers Confederation, Policy and
Information Centre for International Solidarity (Seoul, South Korea), and
Chikoko (an umbrella movement linking different indigenous peoples fighting
oil exploration in Nigeria). Some countries already have June 18th
coalition groups, including Australia, UK and the USA. Protests are being
planned in many of the world's financial centres, such as London, New York,
Sydney and Seoul.
For more information send an email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the
following request:
subscribe J18DISCUSSION Your Email Address
then messages sent to [EMAIL PROTECTED] will automatically go to
other interested groups around the world to facilitate wider discussion of
this day of action. Or visit the website on http://www.gn.apc.org/june18
Also if your group is planning an event on June 18th send an email
to [EMAIL PROTECTED] to allow a global list of groups involved to be
compiled.
Information about June 18th is on the website
http://www.gn.apc.org/june18
******
4. THIRD MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO), USA,
29th NOV.- 3rd DEC. 1999
The Northern governments and the TNCs the world over want to
further expand the regime of the WTO, which sets the rules of exploitation
and destruction of global capitalism and guarantees its continuity. They
expect the Third Ministerial Conference to serve their interests by:
1) launching a new round of negotiations within the WTO to further
'liberalise' trade and investment, incorporating into the WTO regime an
agreement similar to the defeated Multilateral Agreement on Investment
(MAI) that was negotiated in the OECD (among others);
2) expanding the Agreement on Agriculture of the WTO, which is one of the
main reasons for the misery of small farmers in all the continents, the
ellimination of food security policies, the increasing cocentration of
productive resources in the hands of agribusiness and the introduction of
genetic engineering in fields and kitchens all over the world;
3) expanding the TRIPs agreement on intellectual property, which forces all
countries which are members of the WTO to give private property rights over
life forms (in the form of patents).
Only a massive worldwide outcry against these policies can stop
this onslaught on the lives of millions of people and on the future of the
planet. The second PGA conference will provide a good opportunity to
strengthen the awareness of peoples' movements of the issues that will be
discussed at the WTO III conference, as well as to discuss and plan a
global campaign against the WTO regime, including actions all over the
world to coincide with the WTO conference (29 Nov-3rd Dec 99).
A project that our friends from the Americas have already started
to prepare is a second Inter-Continental Caravan, mainly composed by
representatives of Latin American movements, which would travel though the
USA ending at the WTO III conference in Seattle. This will be discussed
further at the Bangalore conference.
An email list has been set up to organise against the 3rd WTO
Ministerial. To subscribe send a message to
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. For more information, please write
to <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> or go to
http://members.aol.com/mwmorrill/pga.htm
******
5. CONCLUSION
As we realise that no issue is single, be it exploitation of
workers, the peasant farmers going bankrupt, the indigenous peoples getting
displaced by 'development' programmes or our environment being destroyed,
we also realise that we must act together. In the global economy the
ground is being laid for huge social and political changes. Social
movements from all over the world are strengthening their collaboration.
Never before has there been a time when co-ordinated action across the
planet has been so necessary and so possible.
We realise that the projects described above make up a very
ambitious programme, but we think that there is an urgent need to speed up
the processes of collaboration between peoples' movements. Only a strong
global mobilisation at grassroots level can take power away from
multilateral institutions and TNCs and give it back to people. We do not
expect to finish this job in 1999, but we hope that the projects of this
year will help to take this long-term process a few steps further, enabling
us to reach out to and create awareness among wide sectors of society.
We hope that you can also become part of this collective effort. Go to
http://www.agp.org or contact us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] for further information. We
hope to see many of you in Bangalore!
In solidarity,
The Convenors' Committee of PGA, composed of:
Black Communities' Process (Colombia)
Canadian Union of Postal Workers
Committee of Female Workers of El Salvador
Confederation of Education Workers of Argentina
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador
Maori Independence Movement (Aoteoroa - New Zealand)
National Alliance of People's Movements (India)
Reclaim the Streets London (UK)
Rural Organisation for Mutual Help (Mozambique)
Socio-Ecological Union (federation of over 200 groups in Central/Eastern
Europe).
*******************************************
Peoples' Global Action [EMAIL PROTECTED]
against 'Free' Trade www.agp.org
and the WTO (PGA)
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