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
Trócaire 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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