In preparation for the June 2002 meeting of the G8 nations, to be held in Kananaskis Park, Alberta, Primer Minister Chretien made a call for public input into the contents of the G8 meeting, hoping that people might bring a “uniquely Canadian perspective on global affairs.”
I don’t know what “uniquely Canadian” perspectives Chretien is referring to, but elements that sorely need to be brought to bear on global affairs are the strengthening of democracy, the rule of law and the peaceful resolution of conflicts, all at the global level, and the enforceable commitment to guarantee human rights and protection of the environment in all global economic, military and political relations and activities.
This won’t happen in the G8.
“Public debate and engagement with civil society is useful as a means of strengthening the legitimacy of the G8 process.” [John Manley, Canadian Deputy Prime Minister, address to the G8 Foreign Minister’s Meeting, Rome, July 18, 2001]
On May 8th, in Toronto, I attended a session of the House of Commons Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade. I argued that the correct position for Canada to take vis-à-vis the G8 – what would certainly be a unique position -- is for Canada to formally withdraw from the G8.
The G8 is an exclusive, elite gathering of the rich and powerful nations of the planet, plus representatives of global businesses and banks and the corporate dominated media. Canada should withdraw not simply because the G8 “represents an elite group of countries” (as the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade refers to it), that violates basic notions of fairness, openness and equity, but more importantly because of the underlying assumptions and policies that guide Canada’s participation in the G8.
In preparation for these public hearings, the Political & Social Affairs Division of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade prepared an “Outline of Key Issues and Questions for Public Discussion” focusing on four global issues: promoting a better global economy for all; building a new partnership for Africa’s development; fighting terrorism; the G8’s future role in meeting global governance challenges.
Prime Minister Chretien claims that Canada wants to establish and construct a “new partnership” with Africa. But nowhere in the document does one find an explanation of the ‘old partnership’. Given that much of Africa is characterized by endemic and high levels of impoverishment, war and repression, do G8 members understand that they have been and are part of Africa’s problem? Go back in history: Do the G8 understand and acknowledge the devastating legacies of the slave trade and colonialism to be part of the “old partnership”?
And just as colonialism was formally ending, do the G8 understand that 40 years of western support for some of the most brutal military regimes in history, in the name of “fighting communism”, and 20 years of G8-imposed IMF structural adjustments programs are part of the ‘old partnership’ that so devastated Africa?
There is no mention of these historical and on-going economic, military and political factors. In Kananaskis, the G8 will decry “poverty” and discuss the woes of Africa in an historical vacuum. Without an honest assessment of how Africa got into its current state, there is little hope that the policies recommended will provide an alternative to the military, political and economic-development policies and strategies of the past that have opened Africa up to more G8 investment and resource extraction and seen impoverishment increase!
A second major theme for the G8 meetings is how to promote a better global economy for all. The answer to this question depends entirely on how one understands why there is endemic impoverishment across the globe. In the Canadian government documents, one finds no discussion of the root causes of poverty. One is left thinking that impoverishment is mere misfortune, natural, or somehow god-given.
In the measure that G8 nations do not have the honesty to understand that our financial and commercial “development” policies are part of the problem, then the G8’s economic recipe will be to continue to promote increased use of natural resources and increased production and consumption of goods, resulting in more environmental destruction; all of this, combined with the strengthening a wealth-and-poverty distribution system wherein -- in the increasingly small global village -- millionaires and billionaires live happily beside an impoverished 60-70% of the planet’s population, including close to 3 billion people who survive and die on $2 / day.
Likewise with the third major theme of this year’s G8 conference – the so-called war on terrorism. How can the G8 end terrorism if we can’t admit that we are part of the problem, and that we must change some of our own policies and actions as well? The document claims that “since 1978 the G7/ G8 has been a central international forum for the fight against terrorism.” Beyond irony, this is willful blindness. G8 nations have sometimes been directly and indirectly involved in terrorism across the globe, before and after 1978.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, the United States provided weapons, training, economic and political support to military regimes and movements across Latin America and Africa that used State and paramilitary terrorism as a tool of repression against their own people. The document, let alone our media and politicians, make no reference to how G8 nations have ‘aided and abetted’ terrorism, let alone directly participated in it.
And finally, the G8 will debate the issue of global governance, and the “democracy gap”, yet no where in the document does one find even a hint of a question that the G8 nations undermine the possibility of democracy and the rule of law at the global level. Without pretending that the United Nations – the only exiting global political institution – does not have serious, even fatal problems, it is willful blindness that the G8 nations won’t even discuss how they refuse to democratize the “Security Council”, the foremost decision-making body of the UN, that is completely undemocratic and dominated by the United States, France, Britain and Russia [leaders of the G7/G8 club]. One can make similar critiques about the complete lack of democracy and accountability within the IMF, World Bank, World Trade Organizations, etc. The G8 nations do not really want global democracy, and – in many instances -- actively undermine it.
Pick your global issue, the G8 nations will address many of them. Yet, there is no political will from the G8 nations, and our economic and political leaders, to have an open and honest debate about how the G8 nations, historically and today, contribute directly and indirectly to the root causes of impoverishment, repression and terrorism and impunity at the global level.
If Canadians take seriously to heart democracy, fairness and equality, then they have a right to demand honesty from their government. While Canada hosts this G8 summit, to the exclusion of those “less developed” countries whose interests Primer Minister Chretien claims to have in mind, Canadians need to take stock of Canada’s very real participation, along with all G8 countries, in the devastating results of on-going elitest domination of the global political, military and economic order. To the extent that these simple truths are unacknowledged and then challenged, the G8 should be seen as illegitimate and Canada should call for its disbandment.
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Grahame Russell works with Rights Action (a tax-charitable NGO) that
funds and supports community development and human rights projects in
Mexico, Central America and Peru. For more information:
www.rightsaction.org
info@rightsaction.org
416-654-2074 (Toronto)