From: •••@••.••• Date: Tue, 20 Jun 2000 13:52:38 -0300 ########################################## SAND IN THE WHEELS (n°35) ATTAC Weekly newsletter - Wednesday 06/14/00 ____________________________________________________________ Content 1- The first World Social Forum 2- ATTAC in South America 3- E Coli ______________________________ The first World Social Forum ____________________________________________________________ During the parallel social summit in Geneva that will be held from June 22nd to June 24th (on the 25th there will be a demonstration in front the WTO) several proposals will be made according to thematic workshops and continental ones. You can participate to this work by contacting •••@••.••• and or register with the help of the website http://attac/org/geneve2000/ where documents are also available. But we would like to give a special place to this proposal that will be made during the June 24th WORLD SOCIAL FORUM •••@••.••• Porto Alegre, Brazil January 25-30, 2001 The World Social Forum will be a new international arena for organizing against neoliberal policies and for building economic alternatives that prioritize social justice. It will take place every year in the city of Porto Alegre, Brazil, during the same period as the World Economic Forum, which happens in Davos, Switzerland, at the end of January. Since 1971, The World Economic Forum has played a key role in formulating neoliberal policies throughout the world. It's sponsored by a Swiss organization that serves as a consultant to the United Nations and it's financed by more than one thousand corporations. The World Social Forum will provide a space for building economic alternatives, for exchanging experiences and for strengthening South-North alliances between NGOs, unions and social movements. It will also be an opportunity for developing concrete actions, to educate the public, and to mobilize civil society internationally. The World Social Forum developed as a consequence of a growing international movement that has gained greater visibility since the mobilizations against the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI), which happened in Europe in 1998, the demonstrations in Seattle, during the WTO meeting in 1999, and the recent protests against the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, DC, among others. For decades, these international financial institutions have been making decisions that affect the lives of people all over the world, without being subject to any sort of democratic control. People in Third World countries, as well as the poor and excluded sectors of industrialized countries suffer the devastating effects of economic globalization and the dictatorship of international institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, the WTO and the governments that serve their interests. We need to continue pressuring these institutions to be accountable to our societies. Similarly, our governments must be made aware that this oversight will be exercised with increasing intensity over their actions. Many of us have struggled in our own countries, regions, or cities, thinking that we were isolated. Recently, we have begun to realize that together we can constitute a planetary archipelago of resistance. The World Social Forum represents a new opportunity toward the construction of an international counter-power. Brazil is one the countries that has been greatly affected by neoliberal policies. At the same time, different sectors of Brazilian society are resisting these policies, in rural and urban areas, in shantytowns, factories, political parties, churches, schools, etc. The richness of Brazilian grassroots organizations represents a source of inspiration for the development of the World Social Forum. The Brazilian Organizing Committee invites international networks of NGOs, unions and social movements to help us build the World Social Forum. We hope to receive support from organizations in the Americas, Africa, Asia and Europe with a commitment to contribute with this organizing process and to send delegations to Porto Alegre in January. We are asking for a special commitment from organizations in the First World to help funding delegations from their partner organizations in Third World countries, in order to guarantee diversity within the World Social Forum. The World Social Forum will represent a historic moment for organizing and social change. Let's build it together! Brazilian Organizing Committee: The Brazilian Association of Non-Governmental Organizations (Associação Brasileira de Organizações Não Governamentais, ABONG) Action for the Taxation of International Financial Transactions in Support of Citizens (Ação pela Tributação das Transações Financeiras em Apoio aos Cidadãos, ATTAC-BR) The Brazilian Commission of Justice and Peace (Comissão Brasileira de Justiça e Paz) CIVES - Brazilian Association of Businesses for Citizenry The Central Union Federation (Central Única dos Trabalhadores, CUT) IBASE - Brazilian Institute for Social and Economic Analysis Global Justice Center (Centro de Justiça Global) The Landless Workers Movement (Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra, MST) - Organizational Issues Regarding the World Social Forum 1) The World Social Forum (WSF) will take place in Porto Alegre, Rio Grande do Sul state, Brazil, from January 25-30, 2001, the same period in which the World Economic Forum occurs in Davos, Switzerland. 2) It will take place in the Events Center of the Pontifical Catholic University of Porto Alegre (Pontifícia Universidade Católica de Porto Alegre, PUC), with the capacity for 2,500 people in a single auditorium. The PUC Events Center is a modern facility with up-to-date technological resources. The Center also has several smaller auditoriums. 3) The WSF will consist of three types of activities: a) A series of daily plenary sessions with several invited speakers; b) presentations of current initiatives and exchange of experiences; c) strategy meetings to develop networks and to strengthen ties among groups that engage in similar forms of organization. The plenary sessions will be scheduled by the organizers of the WSF in accordance with suggestions by participants. The other meetings will be organized based on the interests and requests of the participants. 4) The Events Center also has a large space for information tables and art exhibits. 5) The Rio Grande do Sul state government and the Porto Alegre city government (both are PT-- Workers Party administrations, the latter one for 10 consecutive years) officially support the World Social Forum. 6) The International Committee of the World Social Forum will organize its first meeting on June 24, 2000 in Geneva, Switzerland at the same time as the Social Summit of the United Nations' Copenhagen + 5, which will bring together organizations and activists from all over the world. 7) Our priorities until then will be: - To invite networks of NGOs, unions and social movements to form the International Committee of the World Social Forum, with the responsibility of organizing the event at the international level; - to establish topics for speeches and presentations to be given during the WSF, in common agreement with the International Committee; - to invite speakers to the WSF; - to prepare the first meeting of the International Committee in Geneva, Switzerland. - to invite Brazilian organizations for the National Support Committee of the WSF; - to organize logistical issues, such as the communications systems, in conjunction with the support committee in Porto Alegre, 7) We expect to attract 2,500 representatives of NGOs, unions and social movements, as well as elected representatives. Participants must be registered by their organizations. We will establish quotas for different sectors and geographic areas. 8) The Brazilian Committee and the International Committee will be responsible for guaranteeing the presence of Third World organizations, in particular from Africa, Asia and Latin America. 9) Parallel events involving the WSF speakers can be organized in coordination with the Brazilian Committee. 10) The World Social Forum is not a decision-making body. Participants, however, can disseminate proposals and positions resulted from organizing meetings. 11) At the Forum's closure, we will organize a large public event. We will also evaluate our organizing process and make decisions for the following year. To get involved or to request further information, please write to: •••@••.••• ______________________________ ATTAC in South America ____________________________________________________________ 1- ATTAC in Argentina •••@••.••• ATTAC took part in protest demonstrations against IMF policies in Buenos Aires on May 31st. The Argentine declaration : AGAINST the rules laid down by the government and the IMF, and for a tax on speculative capital to finance social development. The IMF delegation has come to Argentina to keep a close eye on how the government is implementing fiscal adjustments designed to guarantee interest payments on the debt. Over the last years, the inland revenue deficit has been growing larger and larger for different reasons, including tolerance with regard to tax evasion by the big groups; lack of customs control, which is an inducement to smuggling by friends of the authorities; business concerns that dodge their responsibilities concerning the pension scheme, to the detriment of workers; and enormous sums being diverted into the circuits of corruption and graft. The government's way of covering this deficit has been to get deeper and deeper into debt, both internally and externally. This chronic borrowing has not only been at the origin of some juicy business opportunities for the "big banks", which buy into secure state bonds, but has also mopped up all the funds of the credit system, which otherwise would have been available for the private sector. The piling of debt upon debt has been a decisive element in the total increase of the country's external debt. And because of the growing public debt, interest paid by the state is the most strongly growing public spending sector, representing, to date, 18% of the budget. The IMF, which to-day is demanding adjustment and austerity for the poor, is the same which has repeatedly condoned and approved the fiscal imbalance of the Menem government. The present government, which was supposed to be an alternative representing real change, is treating this problem with a threadbare orthodoxy. Although the proposed adjustment will be an operation making use of anaesthetics and tranquilizers, it will cause a deterioration of living conditions for many workers. It will also dampen down demand, and have an adverse effect on state allowances in all the sectors which suffer from reductions of budget and hence of staffing. Paradoxically, the plan of adjustment provides for restrictions in fiscal and customs services, the consequence of which will quite obviously be to reduce tax revenue and encourage dodging tactics. What is more, the possibility of putting off or negotiating payments on the debt has not even been considered by the government. The plan of adjustment comes at a moment when international interest rates are rising, which generates negative conditions for financing developing countries. Besides, it comes at a time when the state of the economy calls for policies that stimulate or, at least do nothing to strangle, demand. ATTAC takes part in the protest demonstrations against the adjustment plans of the government and the IMF. Our participation also bears witness to the fact that the situation Argentina is living through at this moment is a part of a general situation involving increasing power for financial capital and for the international organisations which manage the international financial system. ATTAC stresses the necessity for regulating the international capital gains market and for applying a minimal tax on international financial transactions, such as was proposed by the American economist and Nobel laureat, James Tobin. The funds thus obtained should be destined to finance social development programmes in under-developed countries. ATTAC-Argentine calls on our national, provincial and local legislators, inviting them to join the world-wide campaign of parliamentarians whose aim is to establish this tax. •••@••.••• First appeared in Correo Informativo n° 38 •••@••.••• Translation Barbara Strauss •••@••.••• 2- ATTAC in Brazil •••@••.••• •••@••.••• For a world without barriers ATTAC, the MST (Brazilian landless rural workers' movement) and the German Green party are in Sao Paolo today debating alternatives for an agricultural system that would respect both rural workers and the environment. This event comes in reply to repression against the landless and shows that co-operation between social movements is a dream that moving closer to reality every day. You cannot kill ideas with arms! Violently repressed by a government that reacts to popular mobilisation with "zero tolerance", a choice target for a press obviously close to those in power, the MST will be dialoguing with Brazilian society today, Monday 29th May. The subject to be covered is "alternatives for world agriculture after the failure of the world trade organisation's (WTO's) 'millennium round'". At ATTAC's and the Heinrich Böll Foundation's invitation, a member of the MST national bureau, Gilmar Mauro, will debate this subject with German Green-party Euro-MP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler and Professor Angela Mendes de Almeida. Discussion on the aims of agriculture could not take place at a better moment. After the failure of its "millennium round" the WTO has re-opened negotiations aiming at opening up markets to multinational companies. Since the beginning of the year, two special-interest working groups, on Agriculture and on Services, have been created in the organisation's Geneva headquarters. The Brazilian government maintains its defence of the widespread opening-up of agricultural markets and of ending farmer protection such as that practised in Europe and Japan. It sees these measures as a means of increasing Brazil's agricultural exports, especially "tropical products". It has no concern for the unavoidable consequence of this: the country becoming more open to mass-produced foreign imports at prices impossible to compete with locally. In addition, to make agricultural deregulation easier, the government is prepared to open up Brazil's service markets. Presented by the media as being in the nation's interests, these measures have never been debated in any depth. Today's debate will highlight the fact that, on the whole, these measures are of interest only to the USA, the agribusiness and Brazil's large land-owners. It will present an alternative: defending agricultural multi-functionality, considered by a growing number of agricultural movements as "The Option" in the face of the policies their States have chosen. A member of ATTAC and the instigator of various works on the subject, Professor Angela Mendes de Almeida (Rio de Janeiro Federal University) recently wrote an article on the differences between these two positions. According to her, the Brazilian government says that it is strengthening the characteristics of the Brazilian agricultural structure that are the most inhuman: "crops grown over huge surfaces, and maintained under the major landowners' orders, mainly produce for export and take no account of nature". This type of model, which is of obvious interest to the agri-industry's major multinationals, is what Angela calls "productivist agriculture". It is characterised by "producing at a low cost, aiming mainly at profit-making, without taking into account the products' quality (using hormones in cattle rearing and planting transgenic crops) or environmental protection, and certainly not the 'social' problem". Supporters of the alternative proposal, explains Angela, see agriculture as having other functions: "firstly, producing for the groups of society who have problems, exporting being a subsidiary activity only"; "being a factor for bringing people together in an activity that they enjoy and are proud of"; "being concerned with the products' quality"; "integrating a high number of workers in complementary tasks, thus creating increased circulation of merchandise and money"; "protecting the environment" and "being concerned with the beauty of the rural landscape, a landscape dense with humanity". Presented in writing to the debate's organisers, German MP Wolfgang Kreissl-Dörfler's speech is notable in its criticism of the left wing in relation to EU agricultural policy. Wolfgang does not question public aid to farmers, but remarks that most of this aid "gets to the wrong address": big producers, who receive aid according to quantity and surface, the hauliers and the silo owners". In co-operation with the "environmentalists" and alternative agricultural organisations, he demands "a different agrarian policy for the European Union". He proposes to direct subsidies to producers who respect a set of ecological and social criteria, such as those against the abusive use of chemicals and for an increase in the number of people employed in rural areas. The Green-party MP also criticises productivism, and the proposal for agricultural deregulation defended by the Fernando Henrique Cardoso (FHC) government. "If the EU totally opened up its markets, Brazilian land-owners would push even harder to expulse small farmers from their land, to produce even more for export", he reminds. In consistency with this position, he also condemns the subsidies the EU proposes for exporting agricultural products: "we, the Green party, believe that Europe should focus on its internal market. What is the point in encouraging European cattle producers to produce so much beef and milk, using cheap Brazilian soya, and subsequently flood the Brazilian market with meat and dairy produce sold cheaper its than national products?". Gilmar Mauro's opinions are awaited with great curiosity and caution. Angela maintains that "the movement (MST) has everything to do with multi-functionality" as, instead of bringing about a population drain like large estates worked by machines, small estates would on the contrary populate rural areas, bring the excluded out of the cities and create a new rural landscape, with a dense human population". In addition, in Latin America the landless are one of the organisations that are working to build "Via Campesina", an international front made up of peasant movements who are fighting for alternative agriculture. Article written by Antonio Martins of ATTAC Sao Paulo. Translation by Greta van den Bempt, Sand in the Wheels' correspondent in Porto Alegre (Brazil) •••@••.•••. ______________________________ E Coli ____________________________________________________________ The City of Walkerton, in the Province of Ontario, in the Country of Canada, has experienced a widewspread outbreak of a bacteria that has killed to date seven people and has been implicated in many more deaths. What has turned up in the course of investigation as to why a municipal water supply could be so contaminated is the reduction of funds to the provincial Ministry of Environment such that reports of contaminated wells in as far back as 1995 were not heeded and responded to by the Ministry of the Environment because cutbacks to that Ministry left the Ministry without the means to follow up. The shit has hit the proverbial fan. Walkerton has been the wake-up call. All municipalities are now testing their water on a daily basis. The latest news is that Lloydtown is now a community faced with E.coli present in their water source of the strain which killed the seven people in Walkerton. Torrential rains continue. A psychiatric hospital in St. Thomas is reporting E. coli in its water supply. What is becoming more apparent is that the Conservative government led by Mike Harris, having cut back funds to the environment, is now in a race to save face. But there's no amount of propaganda, though he well tries, to save the government of the day. The opposition has tabled a bill calling for the resignation of the government, but it's not likely that it will receive second reading. Meanwhile, as rain continues to fall and farms, both private and on an industrial-scale, continue to be inundated, the danger of this deadly form of E. coli persists. As each day goes by, one wonders when the next community faces the diagnosis that this deadly bacteria is in their water supply. Here is a primary example of a conservative government who boldfacedledly declares itself, in partnership with private interests, a protector of the common interests. Yah, right. I am now seeking the means to have an election called when these issues are ripe in the people's mind. If anyone can help in the strategics of such a call to vote, please, my email is •••@••.•••
