[Deuda-QdQ] Semana de Acción Global contra la Deuda Externa y las IFIs, 12 - 18 octubre 2009

[Tom Kucharz - Ecologistas en Acción]

Estimadas/os amigas/os:

Adjunto la versión en inglés del llamado internacional para la Semana de 
Acción Global contra la Deuda Externa y las IFIs (12 - 18 octubre 2009), 
la versión en castellano llegará pronto, pero por lo urgente del asunto, 
lo enviamos ya en inglés, es urgente que la campaña ¿Quién debe a quién? 
tome decisiones cuando antes sobre la convocatoria de la Semana de 
Acción Global contra la Deuda Externa y las IFIs y para definir las 
acciones. Para tales fines y para empezar a tratar el asunto, proponemos 
una reunión por skype el día 3 de septiembre a las 18.00 de la tarde 
(por favor enviar confirmación o desacuerdo, así como vuestro nombre 
skype a ese correo, NO A LA LISTA para no saturarla, gracias).

Un abrazo grande,

Ecologistas en Acción



Hello everybody ¡!

This has taken much longer to get together than anyone hoped or thought, 
but in the process there has been a fair amount of informal consultation 
and discussion around two important aspects of the Week:  the dates, and 
the themes/central demands.  The following proposals seek to reflect 
what is as close to some consensus as we have been able to secure - but 
now is the time for additional comments and suggestions before we move 
beyond the movements and organizations most directly involved in the S-N 
Campaign on Illegitimate Debt, for further endorsements

DATES:  The proposal is to confirm the dates of the WEEK this year, for 
OCTOBER 12 - 18.  Organizing around those dates is already well underway 
in several countries, and they seem to be the best compromise possible, 
particularly at this late date.  There seem always to be two conflicting 
perspectives:  either that the WEEK needs to stand on its own, to enable 
us to really focus on Debt and the IFIs; or that the WEEK is best 
overlapping with other key struggles and constituencies, lending 
strength to efforts to articulate.  An initial proposal, launched from 
the World Social Forum in Belem in order to insure inclusion of the Week 
in various Calendars, was a 10 day period from October 7 - 17, seeking 
to join this year's IMF/WB meeting dates in Turkey (October 5-7), with 
the Call of Indigenous peoples for global action in Defense of Mother 
Earth (originally October 12, now Oct. 12 - 16), and the "standing 
dates" of October 15 - Debt Repudiation Day in honor of Thomas Sankara; 
October 16 - food sovereignty;  and October 17 - poverty eradication. 
We all have busy schedules this Fall/Spring - taking into consideration 
just the G20 mobilizations planned for Pittsburgh (Sept. 24-26), the 
Annual Meetings in Turkey, additional G20 meets in UK later on - and 
all the Climate agenda.  Many have expressed strong feeling that we need 
to retain the idea of a WEEK (7 days in most calendars), so that was 
another consideration.  Request:  agreeing that the process has not been 
as good as many of us would have liked, we hope that there can be 
agreement to at least live with these dates this year¿?¡!  Strong 
objections should be heard... but hopefully they will be few at best.

THEMES: General consensus on continuing the thrust of last year's focus 
relating THREAT RENEWED DEBT CRISIS to deepening ECONOMIC AND SYSTEMIC 
CRISIS and in particular, REJECTION OF FALSE SOLUTIONS to Debt, Climate, 
Economic, Food, etc crises.  The following draft CALL seeks to set a 
general tone, in as short a text as possible.  NOW IS THE TIME TO MAKE 
YOUR SUGGESTIONS ON THE DRAFT CALL, keeping in mind that one of the key 
objectives of the Week is to reach out and help build new  alliances and 
that everyone locally, nationally, can and will add their own special 
info and demands, shape and use the call as appropriate.  Not every 
demand nor every nuance can be included in one short statementl ¡!  Many 
fortunate folk seem to be on holidays these days, but let's try to have 
everyone's suggestions and CONFIRMATION OF INITIAL ENDORSEMENTS by 
Friday, September 4, so as to incorporate, and unless there are major 
issues to be sorted out, be ready to initiate more broad-based call for 
sign-ons, the following Monday.

ORGANIZATION:  Thus far, it is primarily ODG in Spain, JDC in UK, and 
JSglobally  that have been trying to stoke the fire.  Please let us know 
who can help support global promotions for the Week, and how (¿graphics? 
web design and/or maintenance? translations? news and press work? etc...).

  Meawhile, all the best for your organizing efforts¡!  We look forward 
to hearing/receiving your news and info

Beverly Keene
Jubilee South

  Draft version for comments and endorsements

October 12 – 18, 2009
Week of Global Action against Debt and the IFI’s
No More False Solutions:
People and the Planet  need Debt Cancellation and Reparations, NOW!

The global financial and economic crisis has devastating consequences on 
the lives of millions of people the world over, both South and North, 
and on our common home, the planet Earth. Together with the food, 
climate, and fuel crises, it has led to massive job and wage losses, 
cut-backs in the provision of basic human rights to healthcare, 
education, housing, water, electricity, and social security, violent 
evictions from land and territories, increased concentration of 
corporate control and exploitation of natural resources, and a rise in 
racist, gender, religious, and sexual discrimination, among others. The 
costs of this truly systemic crisis continue to rise, including also 
skyrocketing social crisis and heightened militarization, war, and 
criminalization of protest, even while the profits of speculators and 
other vultures begin to rebound.

Debt levels throughout the global South are suffering as well from the 
impact of these crises unleashed in the heart of the global capitalist 
economy, as a result of policies designed to favor the free flow of 
capital in a market that was declared to be self-correcting.  As a 
result, a new debt bomb is set to explode: reduced earnings and taxes, 
falling remittances from migrant workers, and heightened social, 
economic, and environmental demands is pushing many South governments 
into a desperate search for the nearest money-lender, wiping out any 
recent gains and again falling prey to those who offer little if 
anything besides more illegitimate debt.


The debt that is accumulating is not just financial however. The false 
solutions being promoted to the finance, climate, food, and fuel crises 
are provoking a potentially irreversible increase in the ecological, 
climate, social, and economic debts owed to the peoples especially of 
the South. Among those false solutions we could cite new lending for 
crisis needs or for agrofuels, megaenergy projects or so-called clean 
development mechanisms; conditioned, lender-driven debt relief; the 
carbon market and giving a central role to “time to retire” institutions 
such as the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, the Financial 
Stability Forum, or the World Trade Organization.  Instead of 
recognizing the need for fundamental transformation of a system whose 
failure has become increasingly evident, guaranteeing compensation and 
reparations for their responsibility in provoking a criminal crisis and 
the disproportionate use of the world’s wealth and natural resources, 
the responses of Northern governments – in particular the G7-, 
corporations and their complices in the South have aimed at saving the 
system and profiting from the crises on the backs of the same peoples 
and countries that for a long time now have been paying the costs of 
their enrichment.


Enough is enough!  We, the peoples, must unite locally and globally to 
build alternative ways of life for all, the buen vivir of equity and 
equilibrium, without debts or domination.  We thus call on all movements 
and organizations, on people everywhere, to join forces in the WEEK OF 
GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST DEBT AND IFIs, October 12-18, 2009.  Together with 
Indigenous Peoples who are calling us to action in Defense of Mother 
Earth, October 12-16, and uniting the struggle for freedom from debt 
domination and financial capitalism with the struggles for climate 
justice (October 13), food sovereignty (October 16) and Poverty 
Eradication (October 17), let us mobilize for lasting solutions that 
will make another world, a just world, possible. Take action and demand:

     * Cancellation of all illegitimate financial debts without 
conditionalities

     * Restitution and reparations for ecological, climate, economic, 
social and historical debts, on the basis of comprehensive and 
participatory audits
     * Respect for the sovereign right of countries to stop servicing 
debt claims in order to meet their human and environmental rights 
obligations
     * Solutions to the economic, climate, energy and food crises that 
neither increase the debt burden on South peoples and the environment 
nor the militarization and criminalization of social protest
     * Creation of new financial institutions and global and regional 
financial architecture that put people and the planet before profits and 
corporate power.

The peoples of the South do not owe and should not pay!

Reparations Now for Climate and Ecological Debt!


Coordinadora Internacional/
International Coordinator
JUBILEE SOUTH - JUBILEO SUR

Piedras 730
1070 Buenos Aires, Argentina
T/F +5411-43071867
beverly en jubileesouth.org
www.jubileesouth.org
www.jubileosuramericas.org
skype: BeverlyKeene