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Iewpoint Nternational International Viewpoint IV411 April 2009 NTERNATIONAL IEWPOINT News & Analysis from the Fourth International – April 2009 # 411 Economic Crisis: “A G20 Also in this issue: meeting for nothing” France: The New Anti- Capitalist Party, a promising birth Europe: Conference and meeting of the anti-capitalist left in Strasbourg Sri Lanka: For an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka and Pro-privatisation plans of 5th recognition of the Tamil right World Water Forum to self-determination Denounced Greece: Left perspectives on It’s not for people and the December Revolt workers to pay for the crisis, Anti Capitalist Movement: The the capitalists should pay! socialist project has been The swine flu crisis lays bare betrayed and must be the meat industry’s reinvented in the 21st century monstrous power Martinique: The time of anti- Thailand: The other side of the capitalist and anti-colonial scenery contestation G20: their agenda and ours South East Asia: Malaysia between change and The Economy in a World of 1political tension Trouble International Viewpoint IV411 April 2009 In this issue Economic Crisis A G20 meeting for nothing .................................................. 2 Pro-privatisation plans of 5th World Water Forum A G20 meeting for nothing Denounced........................................................................... 3 Damien Millet, Éric Toussaint It’s not for people and workers to pay for the crisis, the capitalists should pay! ......................................................... 5 The G20 summit meeting in London from April 1st onward was loudly announced and publicized. Those 20 The swine flu crisis lays bare the meat industry’s monstrous industrialized and emergent countries (G20) were meeting to power................................................................................... 6 find solutions to the crisis. But long before the end of the summit, it was clear that they would not rise to the challenge. The other side of the scenery .............................................. 8 Malaysia between change and political tension................ 11 The New Anti-Capitalist Party, a promising birth............... 14 Conference and meeting of the anti-capitalist left in Strasbourg.......................................................................... 19 For an immediate ceasefire in Sri Lanka and recognition of the Tamil right to self-determination ................................ 20 Left perspectives on the December Revolt........................ 20 The socialist project has been betrayed and must be reinvented in the 21st century .......................................... 23 The G20 was not created in order to provide genuine The time of anti-capitalist and anti-colonial contestation. 27 solutions; it was hastily summoned a first time in November 2008 to salvage the powers that be and try and to plug the G20: their agenda and ours ............................................... 32 breaches in capitalism. It is therefore impossible for this body to opt for measures that are sufficiently radical to save the The Economy in a World of Trouble .................................. 33 day. [ Public opinion will be told to look in the two directions that International Viewpoint are expected to focus aggravation: tax havens and the IV is the English-language review of news and analysis published CEOs’ incomes. under the auspices of the Executive Bureau of the Fourth International. appears in a monthly .pdf document and online Tax havens have to be abolished, that goes without saying. at: To achieve this it should be easy enough to make it illegal for www.internationalviewpoint.org companies and residents to have any assets in, or relationships with partners located in, tax havens. The EU We reply on readers’ donations.-- By bank transfer to Barclays countries that function like tax havens (Austria, Belgium, the Bank, UK, Luxembourg…) as well as Switzerland must do away 876-878, Stockport Road, with bank secrecy and put an end to their outrageous Manchester M19 3BP, Britain; practices. Yet such is not at all the orientation chosen by the Account number 40259691; G20: a couple of emblematic cases will be cracked down on, Sort code 20-26-20 minimal measures will be required from those countries, and a black list of non-cooperative territories eventually made From outside Britain, public will have been carefully vetted (the City, Luxembourg Our IBAN code is: IBAN GB30 BARC 2026 2040 2596 91. or Austria have already been promised they will not be on it). Our bank’s SWIFTBIC code is: BARCGB22. On the other hand CEOs’ incomes, including golden By post to IV, PO Box 1109, London, N4 2UU, Britain. The Fourth parachutes and other bonuses, are indeed outrageous. In International also publishes reviews in French, Spanish and time of growth the employers claimed that those who brought German. You can visit them online at these locations:Inprecor, in such benefits to their companies had to be rewarded to French language journal http://www.inprecor.org/ prevent them from moving to another. Now that we live in a Punto de Vista Internacional, Spanish-language time of crisis and those companies have to admit to journal increasing losses, the same executives still claim similar http://puntodevistainternacional.org/ rewards. The G20 will try to regulate their incomes for a Inprekorr, German-language monthly magazine limited duration. The logic of the system is not questioned. http://www.inprekorr.de/ Apart from tax havens and CEOs’ superbonuses, which will not be hit by any specific penalties anyway, the G20 2 International Viewpoint IV411 April 2009 countries will further bail out their banks. Though globally The G20 will see to it that the core of neoliberal logic is left discredited and de-legitimized, the IMF will be put back at the untouched. Its principles are asserted again and again, even hub of the political and economic game thanks to a new though they have blatantly failed: the G20 maintains its provision of funds which will have been made available by attachment to a global economy based on an open market. 2010. Its support to the god of free market is non-negotiable. Everything else is hocus-pocus. The G20 strategy is to put a fresh coat of paint on a world which is collapsing. Only a strong popular mobilization will Damien Millet is president of CADTM France. With Eric make it possible to lay solid foundations to build another Toussaint, he co-authored the book "Who Owes Who?" world in which finance is at the service of people, and not the published by Zedbooks, London, 2004. other way round. The 28 and 30 March demos were big ones: 40,000 people in London, thousands and thousands in Eric Toussaint is President of the Committee for the Vienna, Berlin, Stuttgart, Madrid, Brasilia, Rome, etc. with Cancellation of the Third World Debt (CADTM). the common motto “Let the rich pay the crisis!” Other recent articles: The week of global action called for by the social movements from all over the world at the WSF at Belém last January thus had a gigantic echo. Those who had announced the G20 end of the movement for another globalization were wrong. It has proved that it is able to bring large crowds together, and this is only the beginning. The success of the mobilizations in France on 29 January and 19 March (three million demonstrators were in the streets) is evidence that the Protesters challenge water theft workers, the unemployed and young people all want other solutions to the crisis than those which consist in bailing out bankers and imposing restrictions on the lower classes. Pro-privatisation plans of 5th As a counterpoint to the G20 summit, the president of the UN World Water Forum General Assembly, Miguel d’Escoto, has called a general meeting of Heads of States and Governments in June and Denounced asked the economist Joseph Stiglitz to chair a commission that will draft proposals to meet the global crisis. The Peoples Water Forum suggested solutions are inadequate because too timid, but they will at least be discussed at the the UN general Assembly. Istanbul, March 19, 2009 A new debt crisis is looming in the South, it is a consequence After Mexico City 2006, which was an important milestone of of the real estate private debt bubble bursting in the North. the continuous work of the global movement for water The recession that now affects the real economy of all justice, we have now gathered in Istanbul to mobilize against countries in the North has led to prices of raw material the 5th World Water Forum. We are here to delegitimize this plummeting, which considerably has reduced the strong false, corporate driven World Water Forum and to give voice currency revenues with which governments of countries of to the positive agenda of the global water justice the South repay their external public debts. Moreover the movements! current credit crunch has induced a rise in borrowing rates for countries of the South. The combination of these two Given that we are in Turkey, we cannot ignore that this factors has already resulted in suspensions in debt country provides a powerful example of the devastating repayment by those governments that are most exposed to impacts of destructive water management policies. The the crisis (starting with Ecuador). Others will follow suit within Turkish government has pushed for the privatization of both one or two years. water services, watersheds and has plans to dam every river in the country. Four specific cases of destructive and risky The situation is absurd: countries of the South are net dams in Turkey, include the Ilisu, Yusufeli, Munzur and creditors to the North, starting with the US whose external Yortanli dams. debt is over US$ 6,000 billion (twice the total external debt of all the countries of the South). Central banks in countries of For ten years, affected people have intensively opposed the South buy US Treasury bonds instead of setting up a these projects, in particular, the Ilisu dam which is part of a democratic bank of the South to finance human development larger irrigation and energy production project known as the projects.
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