The ControG8 Network Document

03.May.01 - The G8 think they rule the World and de facto they do, with no mandate and no legitimisation by treaty or international agreement. G8 just answer to and self-legitimate themselves, though they have recently been faced with rising opposition. Behind the "G8" label are hidden the most powerful countries of the planet (Canada, France, Germany, Japan, Great Britain, Italy, Russia and the United States), in agreement with the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, with the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the World Trade Organisation (WTO). The policies they apply and export worldwide are subordinate to the free market dictatorship, which is creating huge economic gaps between the countries and the classes that are rich and getting richer and others that are poor and getting poorer. In order to keep their hegemony, they continually empower their military forces and equipment. These facts explain both the current Russian military policy and the new aggressive re-formulation of the principles of NATO, which has extended its theatre of operations worldwide, and has recently compelled Italy to take active part in a useless, unjustifiable and offensive war. Our refusal of global government by G8 countries has its starting-point in the analysis of the prevailing dynamics among the rich and powerful countries that are attempting to control the so-called globalisation. Though these countries often affirm that they are not deaf to the claims of the poorest nations (many proclamations of generic sensitivity to those claims have filled the concluding speeches of former World summits), the system they actually back has led to the development and consolidation of a trend of rising oligarchy, squandering, inequality, extreme injustice. And, while the poor in developing countries starve and are oppressed by dire poverty, poverty and hunger actually exist in the so-called rich countries as well. The globalisation of international finance, of markets, of industries and the infrastructures of information and the media- which is shaping an increasingly integrated and interdependent world - is a matter of fact. Globalisation requires governments and people to make specific choices in the fields of economy, social justice, civil rights and in those regarding the organisation and the redefinition of institutional power. In the last 20 years the process of globalisation has led to an extremely aggressive and authoritarian dominating model of living, between different nations and inside single nations based on competitiveness. This model has produced unequal and unbalanced societies, inside countries as well as on a planetary scale. All over the world, peoples are witnessing a transfer of power and sovereignty from the local governments - that, though obviously not without faults, are subject to the control of citizens - to disguised and socially irresponsible private actors. . This transfer is considered to be inevitable. In this alarming framework the requirements of a global society which is sustainable, fair, pacific and democratic have been defined urgently and with determination by the global network of formal and informal organisations representing the rights of the citizens of the world.

OUR REQUESTS: Each person is called upon to make precise choices leading to real cooperation and to the rejection of the paradigm implying huge economical and social gaps inside countries and between different countries; the uncontrolled exploiting of natural resources: imperial, colonial and patriarchal policies; the use of war as a mean of solving controversies between nations. For these reasons, we believe that, during the G8 meeting, Genoa should be transformed into the meeting-place of the human rights movements; asserting, first of all, equal rights for all men and women: beginning with the right to a dignified life, to freedom of speech, of expression, of movement, opposing the globalisation of rights to the globalisation of finance and trade. In particular, we demand:

The enforcement of the fundamental regulations as defined by the International Labour Organisation against all forms of exploitation of workers, or of child labour;

The drawing up and the enforcement of policies allowing the free circulation of people, ensuring the right of asylum for refugees and the abolition of "centres of temporary reception" and to the social and political regularisation of immigrants, granting them full civil and social rights;

The reform of international organisations and institutions such as the WTO, IMF and the World Bank, leading to profound reflections on the role of these organisations, in order to submit them to international democratic control;

The revival of the role of the UN, as the highest expression of the democratic and cooperative collaboration of peoples; the reform of its decisional procedures in order to equally involve all its members;

The enforcement of multilateral agreements regarding the environment, development, health, work and human rights which must have priority over trade agreements, and chiefly over the WTO and its decisions;

The prohibition to patent life or any form of fundamental human knowledge;

The enforcement of the precaution principle, as defined in the 1992 world meeting on environment in Rio de Janeiro and reiterated in 1999 at the international conference on biodiversity in Montreal; we call for a ban on the free use and release in the environment of genetically modified organisms;

The active commitment for the immediate abolition of the bilateral debts and for the abolition of the multilateral debt for the poorest nations;

To fight against financial speculation, even through imposing a tax (e.g. the Tobin Tax) that requires limited withdrawal of money for all financial transactions; and to invest the money thus obtained in local and international projects of development and occupational support;

The substitution of military forces for the resolution of conflicts with the institution and the strengthening of structures and organisms of popular diplomacy, of conflict prevention, mediation and unarmed interposition.

The Anti-G8 network is determined to fight against the "masters" of the planet by means of massive non-violent direct action, through:

Non-violent but determined street action aimed at blocking the G8 summit and at assuring world media coverage of our demands and of our network.

Massive independent information about the G8, and on the consequences that the G8 meeting will have on the city of Genoa, involving as many citizens and local organisations as possible in our protest and in our actions.

The ControG8 Network