PGA Bulletin
Number 1, March 1997
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Table of contents:
1. Letter from the Geneva Welcoming Committee
2. Peoples' Global Action Manifesto
3. Plans of action
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[1]. Letter from the Geneva Welcoming Committee
Friends of the world,
Together with people's movements from all continents (more than
300 delegates from 71 countries), we gathered in Geneva 23rd to
25th February to discuss joint actions against World Trade
Organisation (WTO), "free" trade and corporate rule.
We shared our anger when witnessing the devastating social and
environmental effects of globalisation, promoted by WTO and other
institutions catering to the interests of transnational capital,
such as the International Monetary Fund, The World Bank, and
regional "free" trade agreements like NAFTA, APEC and Maastricht
We also shared our hopes and ideals, our strategies for
constructing alternative worlds beyond corporate control.
We met with teachers hungerstriking against privatisation of all
public education in Argentina; women organising against
quasi-slavery in the "Maquillas" factories of Mexico, Bangladesh,
Salvador, and Nicaragua; women's rights activists; farmers
struggling against globalisation in India, Philippines, Brazil,
Estonia, Norway, Honduras, France, Spain, Switzerland, Bangladesh,
Senegal, Mozambique, Togo, Peru, Bolivia, Columbia and many other
countries; Ogoni, Maori, Maya, Aymara, U'wa and other indigenous
peoples, fighting for their cultural rights and physical survival;
students struggling against nuclear power or the repression of
striking workers in Ukraine and South Korea; postal workers from
Canada resisting privatisation, militants against "un-free"trade
from the United States, environmentalists, unemployed, fisherfolk,
anti-racists, peace mobilisers, animal rights activists... Such a
world-wide meeting of women and men of grassroots movements was an
extraordinary experience, bringing new vision, hope and
determination to us all.
For fighters of such movements it was easy to see that the same
"free" trade blackmail is at work when "Maquila" factories cross
borders overnight as when transnational corporations delocalise
from France to Scotland; that the same agribusiness monopolies are
driving out small farmers in Mexico, France, Africa, India,
Switzerland and the Philippines; that the same transnationals are
transforming public services into private profit in Argentina,
Canada, France and Eastern Europe. Despite the huge material
differences, struggles in privileged and under-privileged parts of
the corporate empire have more and more in common, setting the
stage for a new and stronger sort of solidarity. (The conference
itself, largely housed in squatted halls and houses, depending
entirely on the freely offered work of the genevan "alternative"
sector, was an example of this.)
This conference showed the energy that the unification of these
diverse struggles could untap. Struggles must always be rooted in
the local and particular. At the same time there is a more
general, global problem. Just daring to meet and name it gives us
all more courage to refuse the "realistic" solutions. The
struggles are local, but together they take on a new and deeper
meaning. We can - and must - aim for the head of the monster.
It is difficult to describe the warmth and the depth of the
encounters we had here. The global enemy is relatively well known,
but the global resistance that it meets rarely passes through the
filter of the medias. And here we met the people who had shut down
whole cities in Canada with general strikes, risked their lives to
seize lands in Latin America, destroyed the seat of Cargill in
India or Novartis's transgenic maize in France. The discussions,
the concrete planning for action, the stories of struggle, the
personalities, the enthusiastic hospitality of the Genevan
squatters, the impassioned accents of the women and men facing the
police outside the WTO building, all sealed an alliance between
us. Scattered around the world again, we will not forget. We
remain together. This is our common struggle.
Delegates committed themselves with enthusiasm to the central goal
of the conference: a global call for decentralised actions all
around the world against WTO, to protest the second WTO
Ministerial Conference (May 18-20th), a conference which will also
"celebrate" the 50th anniversary of the first "free" trade
agreements of GATT/WTO. A press group formed of grassroots
activists from different parts regions, will be present in Geneva
to centralise information and to inform the international press
and the PGA network about protests around the world. Resistance to
the "new world order" will also be global!
The Geneva welcoming committee thanks every delegate, once again,
for coming. Your presence also gave us in Geneva a unique occasion
to come together, to live concretely and collectively (be it by
cooking a meal or carrying mattresses!) our dream of a world with
less "free" trade and more free exchanges. We are happy and proud
to have been able to receive you.
The Geneva Welcoming Committee
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