Making the G8 a History
Walden Bello
Focus on the Global South, 6 July 2005

(Speech delivered at the massive 250,000-strong "Make Poverty History" in Edinburgh , Scotland , on July 2, 2005, timed to coincide with the Group of Eight annual meeting.)

We are here to declare our common humanity with the three billion people in the world living in poverty. We are here to say that we are one with the child dying of AIDS in Malawi , the indigenous woman doomed by racism to a lifetime of poverty in the highlands of Peru , the Filipino farmer driven off his land by the cheap imports of subsidized grain from the European Union and the United States .

But let us be clear about one thing: We are marching not for charity. We are marching for justice.

The G8 say that they are writing off the debt of 27 poor countries. We ask: why not cancel the debt of all developing countries since they have paid off the debt many times over?

The G8 claim that they will double aid to Africa . We ask what conditions are tied to this aid, for conditions there surely are? And we say that no aid is better than tied aid.

Poverty is a massive problem. But it is rooted in an even more fundamental problem—a system that built on exploitation, disempowerment, dispossession, and marginalization. When asked give that system a name, the financier George Soros said, candidly, "global capitalism."

Global capitalism has many faces. There are, of course, the transnational corporations that are the driving force behind global warming. There is the International Monetary Fund which enforces the claims of the creditors on the debtor nations of the South. There is the World Bank which, under the guise of eliminating poverty, is actually making our economies more hospitable to exploitation by the foreign firms. There is the World Trade Organization which legalizes the theft and privatization of centuries of accumulated knowledge by our indigenous communities.

Then there is the Group of Eight. The G8 is, friends, not part of the solution. It is part of the problem

Finally, let me ask, can we really feel the pain of our brothers and sisters in Africa suffering poverty without at the same time feeling the pain of our brothers and sisters in Iraq suffering from a horrible foreign occupation?

For is not pain indivisible? Is not justice indivisible? Is not solidarity indivisible?

So let us tell Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair, Mr. Berlusconi and Mr. Koizumi: we will not allow you to use the rhetoric of fighting poverty in Africa to deflect our attention from your criminal occupation and violations of human rights in Iraq .

So let us by all means devote ourselves to ending global poverty. But we must also end, unconditionally and immediately, the foreign occupation of Iraq .

Let us make poverty history. Let us make war history. Let us make the G 8 history.