1 July 1999 Edition

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New World Order challenged in Cologne

By Simon Jones

Eight men in suits. Seventeen thousand riot police. Fifty thousand activists from all over the world. It was G8 summit time again on 19 June in Cologne, Germany, a meeting of heads of state and a gathering of citizens of the world.

The official summit passed off as usual; the presidents and prime ministers of France, Germany, Italy, Canada and Japan joined Bill Clinton and Tony Blair to carve up the world for another year. The Russians were invited as second-class players but the Chinese are still not on board. After the meeting, they announced it had been a great success, but gave away little about the content of their decisions.

The real action was elsewhere. Two years ago a coalition of NGOs like TrĂ³caire and Oxfam around the world decided to start working for the cancellation of foreign debts owed by poor countries. They planned to gather 21 million signatures on a petition and hand it in to the G8 leaders at the last summit of the millennium. The Jubilee 2000 campaign was begun.

It reached a climax here in Cologne when Bono handed over the millions of signatures collected all over the globe. The G8 men came up with the usual blarney and a promise to cancel debts which they had already written off as unpayable - another stab at free publicity. But Cologne was buzzing.

The Thursday before the summit, an alternative summit started. Some 400 people gathered to discuss the new world order and strategies for defeating it and creating alternatives. Enthusiasm outweighed concrete decisions, but a lot of information was shared about struggles around the world and everyone agreed on the need for co-operation between them.

On Friday 19 June, while the alternative summit was still underway, the Intercontinental Caravan For Solidarity and Resistance arrived in Cologne. Most of the 500 members of this caravan, which had been travelling around Europe for the previous month, were small farmers from India who are struggling to prevent their traditional way of life (and themselves) being destroyed by multinational food companies like Monsanto. A nasty reception was waiting for them. As they left the train station they were surrounded by riot ploice and many were arrested, beaten up and held until three in the morning. But the next day they were back on the streets and protesting.

The Jubilee 2000 Campaign encircled the city centre the next day: 40,000 people linked hands to form a human chain around the G8 summit, and as the chain was completed, another 10,000 started a loud and colourful demonstration led by the Indian farmers and a group of refugees on hunger strike against deportations and the treatment of asylum seekers in Europe.

While the human chain demanded an end to debt, the demonstration's demands were more extensive. We have not come to Europe looking for handouts, the spokesperson of the Intercontinental Caravan said. We demand respect for our rights as human beings and for our traditional ways of life. The policies of the industrial countries are destroying our cultures, our livelihoods and our people. And they are destroying the whole planet. That is why the people of the rich countries have nothing to lose and everything to gain by joining the struggle against the G8 and neoliberal economics.

As the demonstration wound its way though Cologne, the sun blazed out of the sky and the streets resounded with slogans of protest and solidarity in different languages. The peoples of the world were coming together again.

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