Editorial from KP15, July 21, 2001
Despite all that has been done to frighten the demonstrators, more than 100,000
people have flocked to Genoa, Italy, where the club of the rich countries, headed
by the US and George W. Bush, is holding the G8 Summit in the midst of the aggravating
world economic crisis.
Before the summit, the English Prime Minister Tony Blair has denounced the anti-globalisation
movement and the demonstrators as "undemocratic", and the US president
has stated "they are not friends of the world's poor".
But the G8, which fundamentally is a undemocratic club making decisions that
have consequences for the rest of the world without any notice to this world
and its populations, fears the demonstrators, who are just the local physical
expression of the world-wide opposition to the imperialist globalisation, which
the G8 is pushing forward, to such an extent that the city of Genoa has been
proclaimed under martial law.
Never ever have there been carried out so extensive "security measures"
as at this summit: Rocket defence, robots and special-trained soldiers are just
some of the elements that are part of the protection of these "democrats"
and "friends of the world's poor". In addition to approximately 20,000
policemen, nearly 3,000 soldiers, special-trained in using nuclear weapon, chemical
weapon and in rocket defence, have been called out in Genoa. Rocket launchers
have been set up in order to "hinder terrorist attacks from the air"!
Close to the summit, a letter bomb exploded, wounding an Italian policeman.
Of course, the international media dealt with this as an expression of the "terrorist"
character of the protesters. But the letter bomb is, of course, a provocation
placed at the right time and place for the heads of state and the Italian government.
Italy has a long tradition of bomb provocations carried out by fascist groups
and meant to discredit progressive people. And in Italy, there are not only
secret fascist groups. The fascist Fini and his party, which carries on the
black legacy of Mussolini, is the coalition partner of Berlusconi's black government.
Fascism has its own pillars in the ruling elite, in the police and in the army.
The letter bomb in Genoa only had one single purpose: to discredit the 150,000
demonstrators who were on their way to the city.
The international media has developed a wild hysteria against the anti-globalisation
demonstrators of whom the vast majority belongs to groups, which are against
any use of violence, even in self-defence. But the new and more rigorous control
measures of the EU as well as the very special "Berlusconi measures"
have resulted in a thorough surveillance of everything and everybody, and at
the same time the media's smear campaign against the demonstrators has reached
new levels.
In this way, it is being ensured that the messages of the demonstrators are
ignored: For example that the former G8 summits, which promised to cancel the
debt of the poorest countries, have shown to be nothing but pure rhetoric, just
as the promises from the summit in 1999 in Cologne, Germany, were it. The 41
most indebted and poorest countries have only got a 34 billion dollars reduction
of their debt, which in total amounts to 213 billion dollars. The international
trade conditions, with low prices on raw materials and high prices on oil, have
been very hard to the developing countries - and the debt alleviation will be
completely gone in 2010.
But the summit takes place as the political situation is becoming still more
sharpened and explosive in the world. Firstly, the negative social consequences
of the neo-liberal policy, which has been pushed forward by the G8 countries
and their instruments like the IMF, the World Bank and the WTO, have made their
appearance with full force. Almost all countries in the so-called third world,
as well as Russia and many East European countries, have subjugated to the harsh
economic dictates of these organisms in order to get loans from them. The poverty
and misery is exploding, but also the struggle against imperialism and its mechanisms
is exploding in form of mass protests and popular uprisings in a number of countries.
Secondly, the world economic crisis is deepening. The US is in recession. The
EU countries are on their way, too. Japan is again in recession, and Argentina
is going through an acute crisis, which is affecting all Latin America. The
crisis of 1997-98 has not been passed, but has become still more deepened. The
"answer" of the G8 Summit to this is to strengthen globalisation,
that is, to increase the exploitation and misery.
This is why there are protests in Genoa, but the protests there are only the
tip of the iceberg. Therefore, the heads of state must protect themselves by
using the police and army, as if they were trying to win a civil war!
July 17, 2001