Three reasons to stop the G8

The leaders will have 30 hours of photo opportunities, golf, big game hunting, feasting, sleeping, and of course "informal and intimate" meetings in bear country.

At these meetings the G8 will continue to determine the future of the other 6 billion people on this planet, pushing their agenda of privatization, deregulation, militarization and environmental devastation.

The three priorities of the 28^th summit are strengthening global economic growth, building a new partnership for Africa’s development (NEPAD) and fighting terrorism.

Or, as "sherpa" Robert Fowler, Personal Representative of the Prime Minister for the G8 Summit and Africa so definitely put it, "the economy and how to grow it, Africa and how to fix it and terrorism and how to stop it." He was speaking at an "information sharing session on the 2002 Kananaskis G8 Summit" at the Royal York Hotel Alberta Room. They’re so clever.

In the age of neo-liberal globalization driven by the G8 countries the average income in the richest 20 countries is now 37 times the average in the poorest 20 — a gap that has doubled in the past 40 years according to the World Bank’s 2000/2002 World Development Report.

Almost half the world’s population — 2.8 billion people — lives on less than $2 a day. Over 1.2 billion of these people live on less than $1 a day.

The divide between rich and poor within countries has also grown. The "boom" of the 1990’s saw the gap between rich and poor in Canada grow even wider.

The folks who brought you the Enron scandal will be leading the charge for "global economic growth". Their logic used the tragic events of September 11 to justify laying-off tens of thousands of people. In January corporations eliminated thousands more. Ford Motor Company alone announced 22,000 lay-offs, 1,700 in Canada.

The only economic growth the G8 produce is for their own pockets and the pockets of their corporate backers.

Chrétien addressed the World Economic Forum in New York City on February 1. He spoke about the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, a document that will be used as the basis for discussions during the summit to develop what is being called the G8 Africa Action Plan.

This "new Marshall plan for Africa" as British Prime Minister Tony Blair simplistically describes it, is intended to "build durable peace and security" while "addressing the crisis in health care and education" and "strengthening democratic governance". How will this be done? Through trade and investment.

"It would be short sighted of us not to help them," Chrétian told the audience of corporate CEO’s and government leaders. "Thriving economies in Africa will create new foreign investment opportunities. And consumers with money in their pockets to buy goods and services that we want to sell … it’s not just the right thing to do. It’s a good investment," he assured.

NEPAD is "about putting in place the conditions that will allow investment to come to Africa, because private investment is going to bring to Africa far, far more than any foreseeable amount of global assistance could bring," said Fowler.

There will be no increased aid for Africa. There will be no debt cancellation. Slavery, colonialism and now Structural Adjustment Programs have destroyed the African continent. Now the G8 dare to propose another neo-liberal prescription to "fix it".

In the name of the "fighting terrorism" the G8, led by the United States, Britain and Canada, mercilessly bombed the tiny third world country of Afghanistan. Even before the bombs began to drop, Afghanistan was a country devastated by war, famine and drought. Life expectancy was 43 years.

The first theatre of the war on terrorism killed more then 4,000 innocent civilians — men, women and children.

Now the war on terrorism is hunting for new targets. Iraq is Bush’s favourite, but not the only one. Bush’s dirty war in Colombia has escalated from a "war on drugs" to part of the war on terrorism. It threatens to spread if Latin American instability continues. Six hundred US troops have moved into the Philippines to oust local "terrorist cells". Russia has intensified its campaign against rebels in Chechnya, calling them terrorists. And the list goes on.

Governments also used the climate of fear after September 11 to attack civil liberties. G8 countries passed legislation similar to Canada’s Bills C-35, C-36 and C-42. Racial profiling and attacks against people of Muslim and Arab decent rose. The "Fortress Europe" model of racist and restrictive immigration policies was introduced here as "Fortress North America".

The G8 Summit in Kananaskis is the next stage in the battle for the better world that we know is necessary. We can only eliminate poverty, end the pillage and plunder of Africa and create a world without war when the decisions that affect the world’s population are made by those 6 billion and not the G8. Agitate the G8 — all out to Kananaskis!