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Sign
up to E-NewsWDM at the G8: Counter-conference
WDM at the MPH march, 02 July 2005. More from the
march.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
- 02 July: Make Poverty History march
- 03 July: Counter conference
- 06 July: Gleneagles protest
- What is the G8?
- Previous G8 Summits
Sunday, 03 July 2005
10pm
The Yes Men, 03 July 2005. More photos from the
conference.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
The Yes Men enthused the conference audience in the final session with their hilarious exploits as Activist Tricksters - spoofing the World Trade Organisation with their outrageous impersonations, which even fooled former WDM Director, Barry Coates, who completed a full TV Q&A session with them without realising they were imposters!
WDM featured in the clips of their film, which had the audience in stitches at their antics - not however the WDMers who appeared to be sleeping throughout the session, but had in fact been planted by the Yes Men - causing some puzzlement in the audience as the big screens kept on focussing on them!
Nnimmo Bassey, 03 July 2005. More photos from
the conference.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
Nnimmo Bassey, from Campaign against Shell Nigeria, spelled out the human and environmental devastation caused by Shell Oil production facilities in Nigeria.
Shell, who were kicked out of Ogoni in the Niger delta region because of popular protest in the early 90s, are now trying to regain a license to drill there. Nnimmo explained how, although environmental damage caused by oil leaks is often blamed on sabotage, this is not true - most leaks are caused because the pipes are well past their safe lifespan, but the company won't spend money replacing them - so oil being pumped at high pressure bursts out and kills the land.
Amit Srivastava, 03 July 2005. More photos from
the conference.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
Amit Srivastava, Director of the India Resource Centre and Head of the International Campaign against Coca Cola, spoke to a packed audience during the conference session Challenging Corporations. He talked about the devastating impact of water extraction and dumping of waste by-products by the Coca Cola company across 50 plants in India, affecting millions of people.
Amit explained that the rural communities affected by these plants rely on natural water supplies for basics like drinking and growing crops and this water is being stolen by Coca Cola. As villagers have to dig ever deeper wells to find water, so they find that what they extract from around the plants is increasingly polluted, including toxic metals such as lead and cadmium. Even Coca Cola's own products are now so polluted with this water that they contain 34 times the pesticide levels that would be allowed under US or EU regulations.
However, Amit went on to highlight some successes in the campaign, including a recent decision in the Indian High Court which will compel Coca-Cola to state the levels of pollutants on all their products and the forced closure of Coca Cola plants, one by one across the country.
During
his session, Walden Bello answered a question about what
those activists who could not go to Hong Kong should do. He replied,
"It is extremely important that all those who cannot go to the WTO meeting in Hong Kong should bring pressure to bear on their own governments through organisations such as the Trade Justice Movement and its members like the World Development Movement."
5pm
Some
great new photos have come in of the march through
Edinburgh yesterday.
3:30pm
Walden Bello speaking at the G8 Counter-conference, 03 July 2005. More
photos from the conference.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
The second session of the G8 Counter-conference has now ended. To another packed audience, Samir Amin, Director of the Third World Forum in Senegal, and Walden Bello, Executive Director of Focus on the Global South, spoke on Challenging Global Trade Rules.
Responding to Gordon Brown's speech yesterday, Samir Amin said that the UK's position on debt cancellation did not go far enough. He claimed that what was needed was an audit of debt and that "an audit of developing country debt would reveal that most of this was odious debt. If there were a law covering international debt in the way that there is for national debt then the IMF, political leaders and corporations would be charged with conspiracy and gangsterism."
When asked a question about whether the WTO should be replaced, Walden Bello said that it should: not with a centralised jurassic system, but with a pluralistic system of checks and balances at the global level that allows developing countries choice in their trade policies to support development. He pointed out that "the kind of trade policies pursued by Asian countries in the 1950s and 1960s would now be deemed illegal under WTO rules."
Visit the official counter-conference website
Remember to keep refreshing this page as we are updating frequently!
2:00pm
Trevor Ngwane speaking at the G8 Counter-conference, 03 July 2005. More
photos from the conference.
Credit: Paul Harper/WDM
The G8 Counter-conference is in full swing. Against a backdrop of the World Development Movement banner, George Monbiot, Trevor Ngwane (South African Anti-privatisation Forum) and Berenice Celeyta (co-founder of NOMADES, which undertakes research and social activism in Columbia, and Human Rights Secretary of CINTRA-Cali Trade Union in Columbia) spoke to an audience of several hundred activists. Everyone joined in a debate on Challenging Privatisation, which included Samir Amin, Director of the Third World Forum in Senegal.
Berenice Celeyta said that she lived under daily threat of death because of her ethical stance. There had been thousands of deaths of anti-privatisation activists in Columbia even though they were involved in peaceful resistance through such things as occupations and hunger strikes. She said,
"The struggles in my country are the same as those in Africa, in Chile and in Argentina. This is a global problem and we all have an ethical duty to organise and build global resistance at a grassroots level - tell the G8 we are not alone in Columbia!"
Trevor Ngwane told the G8 leaders: "You are the problem, your system. We do not want your charity, you owe us, we demand reparations". To the people in the UK, he said, "We must unite to fight the system".
10am
More
photos have come in from the march yesterday, including this one
of WDM Worthing and WDM Bexhill and Hastings groups on
The Meadows before the march.
Last night, after the MPH rally, hundreds of activists danced the night away at the Reson8 club night co-organised by the World Development Movement. Read more.
Today is the G8 Corporate Dream/Global Nightmare G8 counter-conference, in Edinburgh and co-organised by WDM, featuring speakers such as George Monbiot, Trevor Ngwane, Meena Raman, Walden Bello, Caroline Lucas, Amit Srivastava (Campaign Against Coca Cola) and The Yes Men. Free entry. Be sure to make it!
Bookmark or refresh this page now for up-to-the-minute reports of and photos from the weekend.
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