CAMPAIGN GENOA 2001 - GLOBALIZE RESISTANCE
AGAINST THE SUMMIT OF THE 8 "GLOBAL RULERS"

Genoa, July 20-22, 2001

This summer, the italian city of Genoa will be the next stop of the movement that was born in Seatle, and now has spred all around the world with the mobilisations in Melbourne, Prague, Seul, Nice, Davos, Porto Alegre. On July 20-22, the G8 Summit (the seven richest countries - USA, Germany, France, Britain, Canada, Italy - together with Russia), will take place in Genoa. It is the meeting of the "global rulers", the directorate of all international institutions that determine the fates of world capitalism. At the G8 summits, they decide the directives to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, the organisations that force the Third World people into starvation and impose austerity with their "structural adjustment programms" in Turkey, in Korea, in Argentina. At the G8 summits, they decide the directives to the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and the free market policies, according to the wishes of the huge multinational companies, not giving a damn for the lives and the environment of millions of people. At the G8 summits, they produce the conflicts that lead to NATO interventions, the depleted uranium bombs and all the other horrible instruments of death. Two are the priorities of this year's agenda of the G8 - the recession of the american economy and the deregulation of the world markets in services. The workers in big industries, already know what the first priority means: 17,000 workers sacked by General Motors while the company shuts down factories in the US and Europe, 10,000 in Daimler-Chrysler, cuts in Ericson and all the telecommunication and new tecnology industries, that until now were "the miracles" of the "new economy". Behind the technocratic terminology about the "service markets", is hiding an effort for complete privatisation in health, education and social security. In Greece, we know very well all these "priorities". Workers in public hospitals, doctors and nurses together, are fighting against the sell out of the National Haelth Service in the interest of private companies. People, in many districts in Athens, live under the continous fear of destruction in their neighbourhood for the sake of the Olympic 2004 profits. A new law is prepared for the destruction of the public social security system and the spread of big private insurance companies. In education, the ministers openly admit that they will line themselves with the "Bologna declarations" and the criteria of "competitiveness in international education services". Thousands of workers, young people, students, pensioners, unemployed, are mobilising against this perspective. We do not want the priorities of profit to be before the people's needs. And we are not alone. The slogan "People before profit" united us in common action against the IMF in Prague, united us with the anticapitalist demonstrators from all around the world. In Genoa we shall be many more. The Non Govermental Organisations, who fight to save Africa from the huge debt burden to the international bankers, gathered in Dakar in Senegal, are calling everyone to Genoa. The Porto Alegre Forum is calling to Genoa. Joze Bove and the french movements that organised in Millau, Nice and Montpellier are calling to Genoa, as well as the Davos anticapitalist demostrators in Switzerland. The initiative "Globalize Resistance" has already started the campaign in Britain and is calling for an all European mobilisation in Genoa. All these movements state that a new world is possible, a world free of all the disasters of capitalism. This is why we shall all be there. Genoa will be the next step and the escalation of every fight we give here, in our schools and in our hospitals, in our universities and our neighbourhoods. We call everyone to fight for the building of local commitees "Initiative Genoa 2001 - Globalise Resistance!", so that this message will reach every place. The first public rally of our campaign will be on April 2nd in central Athens.

For more information you may contact

  • Petros Konstantinou (National Coordinator "Prague 2000"): 0932 828964
  • Yannis Paraskevopoylos (Green Politics) 01 8213034
  • Sotiris Georgopoulos (Movement for United Action on the Left)