Reflections on global campaigning for civil society activities
Release Date: 26 September 2006
By Kumi Naidoo, CIVICUS Secretary-General
Dear e-CIVICUS Subscribers,
In this week's column, I would like to share with you an article by CIVICUS MDG Campaigning Manager, Henri Valot, on the global launch of the GCAP Month of Mobilization, and with some reflections on civil society engagement in Singapore and Indonesia, around the IMF/WB. Warmest regards.
Campaigning Works!
By Henri Valot, MDG Campaigning Manager
The Global Call to Action against Poverty (GCAP) Month of Mobilisation 2006 was launched on September 16th. Coinciding with the World Bank (WB) / International Monetary Fund (IMF) Annual Meetings, the launch aimed to highlight the harmful impact of World Bank and IMF policies on poor countries. Under the slogan of ‘We Must Have a Voice’, GCAP highlighted the role the IMF and World Bank play in restricting the ‘voice’ of poor countries in determining their own economic policies, as well as highlighting the lack of ‘voice’ that poor countries have in the way the two institutions are governed.
Poor countries have no voice at the World Bank and IMF. In fact the 44 countries of Sub-Saharan Africa get just 2 seats on the executive board, whilst Europe gets 9 seats. Despite this lack of representation the Bank and Fund make many decisions affecting poor countries, not least attaching damaging conditions to aid or debt relief, such as the privatisation of public services and the ‘liberalisation’ of markets.
Meanwhile, at the opportune time, OXFAM launched earlier in September its powerful “Essential services” campaigning report and our ally Joseph Stiglitz published this year “Making globalization work – The next steps to Global Justice”, where he pursues the themes presented in 2002 in “Globalization and its discontents”. The first chapter is titled “Another world is possible”, and the Nobel Prize Laureate even affirms: “another world is necessary and inevitable”.
For campaigners in Singapore and Battam/Indonesia, it has been an important week. We launched the Month in various countries on 14, 15 and 16th September. We held a silent protest at the so-called protest zone of the Singapore Convention Centre and we walked out of an open meeting here with World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz and International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Rodrigo De Rato on15 September. We co-convened the International People Forum vs the WB/IMF in Battam, Indonesia; on 15/17 September where we held a “campaigning against the IFIs” skillshare session and we took part to the Debt and Poverty Tribunal.
But for many of us, accredited to the Annual Meetings of the WB/IMF or en route to Battam the problem was reaching Singapore… Our struggle for justice and human rights against authoritarian governments and the WB/IMF is just starting. Our friends from Forum-Asia are documenting the cases from those who were harassed or deported from the Singapore airport, to bring them to the Special Representative of UN Secretary General on HR Defender. Forum-Asia will also be sending an open letter to Singapore government, the WB/IMF and the UN, protesting and asking for appropriate action against those perpetuators who were responsible for HR violations. Please send any relevant info to our comrade Anselmo Lee, at anselmo@forum-asia.org or heidi@forum-asia.org
“The GCAP participants flew to Singapore in good faith, armed only with stories of the harmful effect of IMF-WB policies. In return, they were treated like common thugs. But the forces of repression have not succeeded, the Poverty and Debt Tribunal will continue. Our voices will be heard”, said Marivic Raquiza, GCAP-Asia Convener. South Korean Hyekyung Kim, Chairperson of the International Affairs Committee of the Citizens Coalition of Economic Justice, was interrogated by no less than 20 police officers; and then, along with 3 other GCAP delegates was detained and deported back to their respective countries. Hyekyung Kim sent a poignant letter to GCAP comrades that I quote: “It's a long story for me, but it's a trivial thing to many people who are oppressed by the absolute authorities' power. Singapore is a rich and prosperous country. Some people told me Singapore is very nice place to live as the police control violence and crime very well. However, my first impression on Singapore was very authoritative and uniform. How come the government can ban a non-violent NGO meeting in a neighbour country in this way? How come the government detains, searches, and deports innocent NGO activists who transit to the neighbour country like this? The success of IMF/WB meeting must be much more important to the Singapore government than individuals' human rights. This is obvious oppression of human rights. The sad thing is that the Singaporean government knows that but doesn't care about their reputation. Once again I realized the value of freedom and real democracy. We should always remember what our rights are and put efforts to protect, promote, and realize human rights”.
GCAP holds ‘silent’ protest on 15th September: Under the banner of 'Stand-up Against Poverty: We Must have a Voice' over 30 people donned T-shirts and face masks and silently protested against the Bank and IMF's policies that restrict the voice of the poor, as well as highlighting the lack of scope for dissent at the meeting. This media action took place in the “protest zone” in the Conference Centre, an area about the same size as the penalty area of a football field. It was surrounded by barriers, and all protesters had to swipe their identity pass through the computer as they entered and left the protest zone. The event was a huge success, with hundreds of press gathered around as the GCAP people marched silently into the protest zone, swiped their passes and then stood in rows in front of the press.
Civil society organisations walked out of an open meeting with WB President and IMF Managing Director on 15th September: Civil society groups refused to accept the Bank and Fund's lukewarm response to the issue of denial of access and treatment of civil society representatives by Singaporean immigration officials. Both Wolfowitz and De Rato have acknowledged that the acts of Singapore are in clear violation of the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two institutions and Singapore as the host of the 2006 Annual Meetings. However, civil society groups were frustrated that despite these statements, the Bank and the Fund have not committed to further action beyond verbal denouncements of Singapore's actions. While the official meetings begin on 19 September, civil society representatives have started arriving for the civil society events and forums traditionally held in the week preceding Bank and Fund meetings. A representative of Social Watch, Filipino academic Filomeno Santa Ana was held and questioned for six hours at the airport. Ironically, Santa Ana was in Singapore earlier this year to participate in the official organizing process, organized by the World Bank, the IMF and the Singaporean government, for civil society participation at these very meetings.
Our friend Roberto Bissio argued at the meeting held at the Singapore Townhall that this went beyond individual cases and insisted that the obligations under host country agreements must be respected as these agreements are the pillar of inter-governmental and international meetings and that these meetings cannot function without such fundamental guarantees of access to all delegates. He then cited as precedents - occasions when inter-governmental meetings have been suspended and shifted to other locations for violations of duties of the host country and asked if the Bank and the Fund would consider a similar move with regard to the 2006 Annual Meetings. Consequently, Civil society organizations walked out of the meeting and not less than 163 NGOs launched a boycott of the official civil society events at the meetings in protest of these restrictions and in solidarity with banned and deported colleagues. “Too Little Too Late”, they rightly said despite the Singapore government’s September 15 press statement that it would allow 22 of 27 officially blacklisted individuals to enter the country. One should also note that many more than 27 civil society representatives were denied entry to Singapore and that nobody ever saw the official list of the 27 blacklisted poeple.
“These events will not prevent us from bringing the issues we’ve come to Battam to raise, which is poverty and debt,” relentlessly repeated Lidy Nacpil, International Coordinator of Asia and the Pacific Movement for Debt and Development-Jubilee South (APMDD). Lidy successfully convened the International People’s Forum vs. the IFI, which gathered around 500 participants in Battam. Many of its participants, who were refused entry to Singapore, had to be re-routed to reach Battam. The International People’s Forum sponsored by a large number of social movements and NGOs, including CIVICUS, produced a Call for Global Actions against the IFIs, which is available in several languages at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/GLOBALACTIONSvsIFIS
GCAP held a Debt and Poverty Tribunal in Battam/Indonesia on 17th September: Despite the banning, detention and deportation of delegates to the International People’s Forum vs the IMF-WB, the policies and practices of the IFIs were put on ‘trial’ at the Poverty and Debt Tribunal that took place on the 17th of September in Battam, Indonesia. Its verdict says:
“We, the Judges of this Asian Peoples’ Tribunal on Poverty and Debt, after a most careful consideration of the testimonies brought here by advocate witnesses, find the Respondents, the IMF and the World Bank, guilty of the following charges:
- The intensification of poverty and deprivation,
- The violation of basic human rights,
- The curtailment of basic political and civil liberties,
- The undermining of sovereign and democratic governance, and
- The subversion of the right to development attendant to and resulting from the debt problem.
Their responsibility lies in policies and actions that make them either active perpetrators and/or knowing accomplices.
The Tribunal recognizes as legitimate the following demands:
1. Immediate and 100 percent cancellation of multilateral debts as part of the total cancellation of debts claimed from the South, without externally imposed conditionalities.
2. Open transparent and participatory External Audit of the lending operations and related policies of the IMF and the WB.
3. Removal of all conditionalities inherent in neo-liberal policies and projects.
Finally, this Tribunal thus calls on global society to stand with the Petitioners and demonstrate their commitment to the dignity and worth of the human person and the economic right of peoples. The widespread and flagrant abuse, subjugation and impoverishment of the people for who advocate witnesses spoke out cannot be allowed to continue”.
Campaigning works: In the UK, GCAP and Christian Aid held a march and rally on 14 September attended, by 3,000 people. The event called on the UK government to withdraw its funding from the IMF and the World Bank until they stop imposing damaging economic policy conditions on poor countries. The day got off to a great start with Hilary Benn's announcement that morning that the British government would withhold £50 million of its funding to the IMF. Politically we have clearly made progress. Hilary Benn had met a Christian Aid delegation led by Charles Abugre, accompanied by partners, the day before. The next day, the government position had shifted. Benn stated that the UK government would withhold £50million of its contribution to the World Bank in protest against the organisation’s continued use of economic conditions on loans to poor countries. However, as Charles Abugre said “this only a first step. We now urge Britain to go the extra mile and withhold all its monies”.
Let’s not forget that the Annual Meeting’s central theme was accountability in development, and that it was to discuss the Bank’s strategy on governance and anti-corruption. But do we also know that early August, Wolfowitz offered amnesty to companies that would voluntarily admit to have corrupted World Bank-funded projects? By its own admission, the WB said 10% of its budget, US$ 1 trillion over decades, had gone to corrupted heads of states, government officials and companies. Wolfowitz is now offering amnesty as long as they “come forward with information about past wrongdoing”, and is even allowing them to take part in future projects. According to Wolfowitz, it is a “practical and cost-effective way” to move the Bank forward; it can also be seen as a trillion-dollar scandal.
Its not only a question that the poor have no voice, but it is also a question of leverage, because more than half of the world’s population have no leverage. How do we conquer leverage and make the decision-makers vulnerable? Campaigning works, we shall then say with Christian Aid. As in 2005, GCAP 2006 shows an example of mixed campaigning actions, from protests in the streets, lobbying politicians, media work and using the law, following the important initiative from Forum-Asia.
We shall continue to put pressure and to denounce the denial of access of accredited individuals to the Annual Meetings of the WB/IMF. We indeed believe that the WB/IMF share equal responsibility for the Singapore government's actions as the institutions agreed to host the meetings in the city state renowned for its strict restrictions on free speech and public protest. For some of us that advocate a constructive engagement with the IFIs, the Annual meetings in 2006 are a lesson.
Our Month of Mobilisation will culminate with the Stand Up event on 15/16 October and the celebration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, on 17th October. Let’s all join forces. Campaigning works!
In Solidarity,
Henri Valot
Below you will find all previous columns published within e-CIVICUS editions.
