No to Imperialist Dictate! A Different World Is Possible!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

G8 Summit:
No to Imperialist Dictate! A Different World Is Possible!

The annual summit meeting of the G8 was held from June 8-12 in Sea Island, off the coast of Georgia in the US – a location which epitomised the isolation of the governments of these countries from the aspirations of the world’s people. These big powers ride-roughshod over the people’s role in determining their own fate. They style themselves as the eight most powerful industrial states, in contradiction with the balance of the world’s forces and also obscuring the hegemonic global role of the US which is intensifying the tensions and dangers throughout the world, including with the other G8 states, which besides Britain include Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Russia.

            These summits have become increasingly opposed by the people and at odds with their interests. At the same time, they have demonstrated the unleashing of state terrorism against the people and the contempt for national and international rule of law by US imperialism and the other G8 powers.

            The 2004 summit was dominated by discussions about the future of Iraq, as well as the political situation throughout the Middle East and North Africa, and attempts by the US to introduce its “Broader Middle East Initiative”. The state of the world economy and the issue of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries were also on the agenda and talks were held involving the big powers and several countries in the Middle East and Africa.

            The discussions at the G8 summit reflect the aims of the big powers, and the US in particular, to continue to intervene throughout the world, and to impose neo-liberal globalisation under the guise of promoting “universal values”. However, even before the summit started, several countries in the Middle East criticised the attempts of the US to intervene and impose its notion of “democracy” in the region, and Egypt, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia declined an invitation to attend. The US was also forced to modify its plans due to opposition from some of the other big powers, particularly those in Europe, who pursue their own strategic interests in the region. The fact that the US plans initially made no mention of the rights of the Palestinian people clearly showed the reactionary nature of the “Initiative”. Nevertheless, the summit endorsed the US proposals, which although now including support for “a just, comprehensive and lasting settlement to the Arab-Israeli conflict” and a “Partnership for Progress and a Common Future”, remain a plan for increased big power interference in the Middle East and North Africa under the guise of support for “democratic, economic and social reform”.

            The start of the G8 summit coincided with the unanimous vote in the UN Security Council on a motion on Iraq sponsored by the US and Britain. The UN resolution seeks to legitimise the invasion and occupation of Iraq and provides international backing for the interim government, which is due to assume “sovereignty” on June 30. However, the main feature of the resolution is precisely to circumscribe the power of this government, which is widely recognised as the creation and puppet of the US, and to maintain the occupation forces led by the US and Britain. The British government’s assertion that the “world community” was now united over Iraq received an immediate rebuff when Anglo-American attempts at the summit to encourage greater military intervention in Iraq by NATO were immediately rejected by the French President, Jacques Chirac.

            The last day of the summit focused on the G8’s relations with Africa, the poorest continent in the world, in which economic conditions are now worse than they were 25 years ago. Here too, even before the summit began, there was widespread criticism of the G8 by African trade unions and NGOs. Demands by a delegation of six African countries for the cancellation of debts owed to the IMF were rejected by the summit, which instead extended the provisions of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) programme by another two years. Although the majority of countries qualifying for debt relief under the provisions of this programme, which began under IMF and World Bank auspices in 1996, have been from Africa, to date it has only led to the cancellation of $31 billion, about 10% of the total debt owed by African countries. The main decision of the G8 summit, in regard to Africa, was to offer to train 75,000 “peacekeepers” for the continent, a plan which will inevitably lead to more intervention in Africa by the big powers.

            The G8 Summit signalled the determination of Britain the US and the big powers to continue to ignore the demands of the times, which require a new world in which the needs of the world’s peoples are put in first place. Rather the summit demonstrated that the big powers will continue along the reactionary path of neo-colonial intervention and exploitation in the interests of the big monopolies and financial institutions, a path which has let to so much instability, poverty and misery throughout the world.

            The people’s forces must continue to build up their unity in struggle against the G8 global agenda and for a different world in which it is the people’s will which holds sway.

No to Imperialist Dictate! Another World Is Possible!