Join the protests

MOST PEOPLE would have cheered the news that 18 of the world’s
poorest countries are to have their World Bank and International
Monetary Fund debts cancelled. How could anyone justify the situation
where for every dollar of aid granted to developing countries, more than
$13 came back in debt repayment?

Henry Reeve and Gareth Davies

However, this new aid agreement is still just 3% of the $50 billion
dollars a year that the Make Poverty History campaign is calling for.
Many countries have already paid back more than they originally borrowed
under earlier International Monetary Fund schemes.

So far the ‘summit’ meetings have changed very little. That’s why
tens of thousands of people will still be joining the protests at the G8
meeting in Gleneagles on 6 July or the Make Poverty History demo in
Edinburgh on 2 July.

US President George Bush allocated the miserly sum of $674 million
extra for aid – very small change for the world’s largest economy.
Compare this to the huge amounts of ‘aid’ Bush gave to some of the US’s
allies in 2004. $782 million went to Colombia ($630 million on military
aid). $2.2 billion went in military aid to Israel; $1.3 billion on
military aid to Egypt.

On average, $12.9 billion is spent by African and Middle Eastern
states each year on arms, 86% of which come from the US, Britain, France
and Russia (all G8 countries). One person a minute is killed by arms, so
wealthy elites can profit from the export of arms, averaging in excess
of $25 billion.

Meanwhile, a third of the world’s people cannot afford essential
drugs and the number of African children dying due to poverty-related
diseases has risen to over 500 every hour. Only 10% of global health
research is devoted to diseases that account for 90% of the world’s
disease burden, like malaria, which kills a child every thirty seconds.

The pharmaceuticals industry is becoming increasingly profitable (its
rate of return of over 18% is more than 4% higher than commercial banks)
as an ever-smaller number of ever-expanding companies control the global
drugs market.

Voracious self-interest

The G8 summit has done nothing to curb the voracious self-interest of
the world’s richest, most powerful capitalist companies. That is bad
news for the poorest people in the world.

In recent years more and more of aid given has been linked to forcing
developing nations into privatisation. This has had devastating effects.

Britain’s Department for International Development (DFID) has given
up to £9 million a year to the Adam Smith Institute since 1997. This
right-wing ‘think tank’ thought of such bright ideas as Thatcher’s poll
tax, privatising Britain’s railways, and partially privatising the NHS.

The DFID gives the Adam Smith Institute more than countries like
Liberia or Somalia received in aid. They paid them over half a million
in UK aid money for organising a campaign to convince Tanzanians of the
virtues of privatisation such as a video claiming: "Our old
industries are dry like crops and privatisation brings the rain."

This rings hollow after eleven million South Africans had their water
and electricity disconnected after privatisation despite a three million
strong general strike with workers protesting: "We didn’t fight for
liberation so everything we won could be sold".

The struggle in Tanzania forced the government to pull out of IMF
plans to privatise the water supply under British company Biwater.
Workers can resist neo-liberal policies.

Aid given to multi-national corporations

Aid is also given directly to multi-national corporations. Since
1992, the World Bank has given over $6.9 billion dollars of public money
to Halliburton, Chevron Texaco, Unocal, British Petroleum, Exxon Mobil
and Petronas to build oil pipelines that are literally pumping the
wealth out of developing countries.

As the IMF and World Bank force "free trade" upon poorer
countries, Britain’s government is providing a welfare state for the
rich by spending £3.9 billion a year (more than enough to get all the
world’s children into school) on the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Britain’s richest man, the Duke of Westminster, gets over £896 a day
from the CAP, whereas a single mother with two children, on the lowest
income bracket, gets just £7 a day in family tax credit.

These huge subsidies (£47 million paid to the biggest 224 farms) are
pushing the prices of crops down, forcing more and more of the world’s
people into poverty.

What causes this catastrophic misallocation of resources? Within a
system of private and undemocratic ownership of industry, economic
decisions are made that maximise profit, whatever the consequences. In
order to tackle poverty we must create a democratic socialist system,
with an economy geared to need, including an international public health
service and global provision of education.

If you agree with us, join us in protest at Edinburgh and
Gleneagles!