View from a village

(This may be shared freely as long as it is kept intact).

I have visited a village where every house is made of mud and thatch. There is no glass. No iron sheets. Floors are made from beaten earth. People are dressed in woven rags or animal skins. Their teeth are blackened and twisted or missing. Many have sores or the scars they leave behind, the result of disease. Few are old. Many are children, though many of them will not reach adulthood. Perhaps one in five does not see their fifth birthday. Hunger is common, despite the chickens and goats running around the settlement. Harvests are plentiful or sparse at the whim of the gods. When there is great hunger, sometimes there is war, a fight for scarce resources. There is no piped water. It has to be carried from the far-off river in earthenware jars. There are no baths or showers, no flush toilets. Not even pit latrines have reached this village so cholera and diphtheria are commonplace. There is no electricity, no television, no radio. Not even books or a school. Children learn what they need to know at their parents’ side and, if they are lucky, are later apprenticed to an artisan to learn a trade.

There is no hospital or clinic, but wise women and wizards invoke spirits and use barks and roots from the haunted forest. Some are effective, some useless or worse. Many women die in childbirth. They cannot control their fertility. Children come when the gods decree and depart as mysteriously, though rituals and prayers sometimes help.

No-one from this village will become rich or travel more than a few miles from where they were born, unless in pursuit of war. They will not fly in a plane, ride in a car or even on a bicycle. When they look heavenwards they cannot contemplate sending one of their number to walk on the moon or a craft on a voyage through the solar system and beyond, bearing pictures of home and beaming back pictures of strange worlds from the coldness of space.

Their world and their lives are the village, the tales of their ancestors and dreams of a life beyond death when the struggle to survive is finally lost.

Seeing this village reminded me in many respects of others I had seen in Africa. I rode through it in a driverless buggy, listening to a commentary as I watched villagers frozen in their activities and imagined their lives. For this was the Jorvik Centre in York, the reconstruction of a Viking settlement that existed over a 1,000 years before, yet surely representative of the lives of the bulk of humanity from the depths of history to almost the present. Even today you are the exception if you are never hungry. In the sense of having no food at all. Not missing lunch. You are in the minority if you can read, if you have been educated, have running water, have electricity.

If you expect your children to outlive you, you are privileged indeed.

So please stop complaining. We live in a golden age of human achievement. Telepathy has been realized with mobile phones – you can talk to your loved one wherever they may be. You can travel the world either physically or from the comfort and safety of your armchair. If you are sick you expect to be made well. Treasures beyond the imaginings of Kings and Queens of old are on every high street and within your grasp.

Okay, you are of the privileged elite of the planet if you are reading this. But even in the rest of the world, where insecurity, sickness and death are commonplace, it is still a golden age or, at the very worst, it is no worse than in the Jorvik village.

The trickle down theory of development may have turned out to be a crock of shit, but there are still crumbs from the table of the rich. Like bicycles and pit latrines. Chlorination tablets and vaccinations. Condoms and mosquito nets. Radios and books. Metal tools and spectacles. Hybrid crops and fertilizer. Jobs, maybe back-breaking, unsafe and lowly paid, but still a world away from Jorvik village.

If you visit Jorvik village and say you would prefer to live there than live in the modern world, I won’t call you a liar, but I will find it hard to believe. We have never had it so good. There is much to be proud of and much to enjoy.

Yes, I know it is easy to see the negative, but I am not thinking of that today. Sometimes we should remember the positive.

If you want a challenge, try to make things a little bit better. Picture the world you want to live in and do what ever you can to make it reality. This is how we have arrived at today. Everything human made was once a dream in someone’s head.

WTO and the Simultaneous Policy

Learning from the World Trade Organisation

by Mike Brady, Simpol-UK Local Group Network Coordinator

Global justice campaigners have mobilized to lobby, expose and even to try to derail or destroy the latest World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial meeting, taking place in Hong Kong. This is a good time to reflect on what we can learn from the way the organization operates, particularly if we are supporters of the Simultaneous Policy (SP) campaign. SP Adopters around the world are discussing, developing and will ultimately approve the Simultaneous Policy package to address global problems, such as unfair trade, climate change and unsustainability. SP is to be introduced simultaneously by governments and could be described as the people’s globablisation policy. So what can we learn from WTO, the engine of neo-liberal, corporate globalisation?

Firstly, the positive. WTO is a multilateral organization, with a membership of 149 countries, representing 90% of world trade. Most of the countries not yet in membership are clamouring to get in. In theory, all countries have an equal voice and the organization is democratic in a way that the International Monetary Fund and World Bank are not. And there are no in-built special powers given to an elite group of countries as in the United Nations Security Council.

Governments established WTO in 1995 under a set of agreements arising from the so-called Uruguay Round of the GATT (General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade). According to WTO : “At the heart of the system — known as the multilateral trading system — are the WTO’s agreements, negotiated and signed by a large majority of the world’s trading nations, and ratified in their parliaments. These agreements are the legal ground-rules for international commerce. Essentially, they are contracts, guaranteeing member countries important trade rights. They also bind governments to keep their trade policies within agreed limits to everybody’s benefit. The agreements were negotiated and signed by governments. But their purpose is to help producers of goods and services, exporters, and importers conduct their business. The goal is to improve the welfare of the peoples of the member countries.”

Agreements on trade, agreed multilaterally with the goal of improving the welfare of people? At first sight WTO could be the embodiment of one possible part of the Simultaneous Policy. Certainly, SP’s aim of introducing simultaneous global policies is nothing outlandish. WTO is already doing it.

WTO has a dispute resolutions process and an effective enforcement mechanism. If a government breaks the rules other countries can fine it by placing tariffs on its exports. Such tariffs not only cost a country business by making it harder to sell its products, they become political weapons. In 2002 the European Union won a case against the US’s import duties on steel, which President George W Bush had introduced to protect the inefficient American industry following promises made during his election campaign. The EU was allowed to impose punitative tariffs and decided to apply these to orange juice to hit the industry and Bush’s support in the key state of Florida. The US quickly backed down, removing the duties on steel. Not only the EU benefited, but Brazil which had heavily invested to develop the world’s most efficient steel industry. Having done what the economists at the IMF and World Bank had instructed, it was particularly galling for Brazil to find the US practicing protectionism instead of free trade.

If WTO can hold even the US to account, why is it blamed for promoting injustice, entrenching the power of the already powerful and exacerbating poverty? The answers can inform the way the SP policy development process should develop.

Although most of the world’s countries are members of WTO and take part in negotiations, in practice some countries wield more power than others and trade rules are skewed. WTO purports to promote free trade, but enables rich countries to get away with protectionism, subsidies and dumping while forcing poor countries to open their markets. The incline of the playing field means the net flow of wealth is from poor countries to the rich.

The World Development Movement (WDM) is one of the campaigning organizations working hard to expose the injustices. WDM explains why poorer countries are disadvantaged in the WTO negotiations. The following is drawn from their briefings (see http://www.wdm.org.uk/wto/):

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· Unbalanced. The European Union has sent a team of 688 negotiators to Hong Kong. The USA has 356 on its team. Japan has 229. At the other end of the scale 46 countries have less than 10 delegtes (including Bolivia, 7; Rwanda, 7; Honudras, 6; Nicaragua, 6; The Gambia, 2).

· Starved & Exhausted. Negotiations go on long into the night, sometimes lasting as long as 48 hours. With no meal breaks or toilet breaks, negotiators are tired and hungry and ready to accept anything.

· Secrets. 'Green Room' negotiations are held in secret with only the big players invited. Poor country delegates are not informed and not invited to take part, often they only find out by accident that meetings are taking place.

· Blackmail. It has been reported that EU and US negotiators have threatened to withdraw aid and loans to poor countries that did not sign deals in favour of the rich countries.

· Bribery. By negotiating deals to reduce agricultural subsidies, the bullies want to create a good image for themselves. What they don’t want us to know is the price poor countries have to pay for these long promised reforms – opening up their markets and handing over control of their economic development.

****

Past meetings have collapsed without agreements as developing countries have decided no deal is better than a bad deal. It looks likely that Hong Kong will go the same way. When the last WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed, the US and European Union embarked on a round of bilateral agreements with developing countries, attempting to lever advantage using similar arm-twisting tactics used to pressure governments at WTO.

If WTO worked, if developing country governments had the power to force a fair agreement, if people within each country had the information to know what was being decided in their name and a chance to have their say, it could deliver trade justice.

If trade agreements were developed in a joined-up way with solutions to other global problems they could deliver far more. For example, trade impacts on climate change and sustainability, but these are dealt with separately. A coherent approach could address more than one problem and force us to face the conflict between ever greater trade and the world’s limited resources and capacity to absorb pollution.

A coherent vision is exactly what SP aims to achieve by enabling SP Adopters to discuss, develop and approve the policies they wish to see implemented to address global problems. The International SP Organisation (ISPO) and National SP Organizations (NSPOs) exist, or are in the process of formation, to manage the process. ISPO links Adopters internationally at all levels, from helping local groups to twin to bringing NSPOs together. NSPOs accept suggestions from Adopters in their country, communicate these to other Adopters and enable Adopters to prioritise and approve the policies they wish to see implemented, while continually sharing ideas arising in other countries. Prior to implementation the policy package will be finalized and put to all citizens, not just Adopters, for approval.

Throughout this process it is essential the failings of WTO are not repeated. Fortunately many of the pressures that lead to the problems with WTO do not exist with SP. Implementation of the complete policy package is to take place simultaneously when all, or sufficient, governments have pledged to do so alongside other governments. Hence the fear of losing competitive advantage is removed. The threat from business leaders that action will cause disinvestment and loss of jobs is neutralized when countries act together. There is nowhere else to go. ISPO and NSPOs maintain their independence by accepting no funding from commercial organizations. Of course, business leaders have as much right to be involved in policy development as any other Adopter. But they have no greater right or influence than any other Adopter.

Many people can visualize the world they would like to live in, but, as the old joke about asking for directions says: “If you want to get there, I wouldn’t start from here”. An advantage of SP is we are not looking to win concessions from existing institutions. Perhaps SP's greatest strength is it will achieve revolutionary change, not incremental change. We start with a blank sheet of paper and the question ‘How do you want the world to be?’

SP Adopters are developing the rules for a world where countries cooperate to effectively address global problems. Adopters give an ultimatum to our leaders: pledge to implement our policies or lose our support and lose power. Politicians from across the political spectrum are already signing the pledge. Some are perhaps motivated by slim majorities and the chance to pick up votes from Adopters, or the fear of losing votes to rival candidates who have signed. But most seem to be signing because they see the merits of the SP strategy. Politically, signing involves no risk because until implementation is triggered it is business as usual and politicians continue pursuing party policy. By signing, however, they are hastening the day when implementation is achieved and effective action is taken to deal with global problems (and SP only addresses global problems – the bulk of the political agenda is outside the scope of SP).

SP is not only about a better world at some far off date. In campaigning for SP, Adopters are helping to raise awareness of global problems and possible solutions, so acting as a catalyst for more immediate action. We still need to wrest concessions from our leaders in the shorter term and encourage people so support conventional campaigns.

The policy content of SP is a work in progress. Suggested policies are being collated by ISPO and NSPOs and communicated to Adopters. Periodically Adopters will rank policies in the process of building consensus nationally and internationally. You can find discussion papers and policy suggestions in the ‘policy zone’ of the Simpol-UK website (http://www.simpol.org.uk/) where you can also sign up as an Adopter.

Policies will have to be finalized when sufficient governments have signed the SP pledge for implementation to proceed and the policy package will be put out for approval by all people, not just Adopters. Implementation ushers in a world where nations co-operate to promote global justice and sustainability under the control of the new systems developed and accountable to we, the people.

WTO itself provides an example of the power of the SP approach. George Monbiot has proposed in his book ‘The Age of Consent’ replacing WTO with an International Fair Trade Organisation to promote trade justice, not free trade. The provisions for this, with necessary safeguards (such as funding for all countries to have equal number of delegates) could be included in SP. When implementation is triggered the Organisation could be established to take over from WTO to a timetable established by SP.

Developing the detail of the Simultaneous Policy is complex, but implementation is not imminent and we have time to involve as many people as possible in the discussion. As policy development proceeds we must take great care not to repeat the failings of WTO. Adopters in rich countries should not have greater influence over the process than those in poor countries. Within each country efforts must be taken to ensure involvement of both sexes and all sectors of society.

Simpol-UK has decided to introduce Equal Opportunities type monitoring as the number of Adopters grows so it can adapt its campaign to involve any group that is being excluded.

When the dust settles after the Hong Kong WTO summit it is unlikely that the cause of global justice will have progressed. Perhaps the most we may hope for is injustice will not be exacerbated. We must continue the fight. At the same time encouraging people to sign up as SP Adopters and to join in the campaign will help us to deliver the global policies we need, not just those that will be tolerated.

The collapse of civilisation?

There is an excellent article by Timothy Garton Ash in today's Guardian drawing from the New Orleans tragedy the lesson that civilisation is worryingly fragile.

You can read the article at:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1564944,00.html

Mr. Ash has a website where comments on his articles can be posted. See: http://www.freeworldweb.net/

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Comment by Mike Brady on "It always lies below."

Joseph Conrad said of civilisation "We live in the flicker." The return to the dark ages could lie a few years beyond the first dirty bombs in the financial capitals.

Yet when there is much to lose, there is also much to protect. It is possible that Katrina and other disasters linked to human folly will galvanise our leaders to take action.

But unlikely they will do enough or in time.

Our leaders already operate under the law of the jungle. If they let their country slip in the global economic competition, they will be out. Time and again the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) warns Tony Blair or Gordon Brown that climate change measures are going too far or business taxes are too high. 'Investment could simply drain away to more amenable locations' the CBI threatens.

However much our leaders want to take a global view it is the Bush doctrine of do nothing to harm the economy that prevails. No action on climate change. No reform of the global trading system. No meaningful regulation of increasingly powerful transnational corporations.

We are now faced with a stark choice.

Continue as we are with the risk of civilization's collapse as Timothy so eloquently warns.

Retreat to ever strong fortresses, if we have the wealth and power to construct them, while the rest of the world is increasingly enslaved.

Transform the relationship between countries by developing a vision of the world which the majority can support and demand our leaders implement the policies chosen by 'we, the people'.

My preference is the third of these options. Which is why I support the Simultaneous Policy campaign. SP brings people around the world together to develop the policies we want to see implemented. Campaign supporters, known as Adopters, call on politicians to sign a pledge to implement SP alongside other governments. Simultaneous implementation removes the threat of disinvestment.

Parliaments in several countries already contain elected representatives who have signed the SP pledge. In the UK members of all major parties have done so.

SP is a long-term strategy and not an alternative to demanding immediate action, but it has the potential to usher in the polices that are necessary, not only those that will be tolerated by powerful vested interests.

It is free to join the campaign at http://www.simpol.org.uk/

If you are outside the UK see http://www.simpol.org/

Nestle’s Pure Life in Brazil

Recently I was fortunate to travel to São Lourenço in Brazil with Franklin Fredrick, author of the article “Protecting the Right to Water” in the Autumn 2004 issue of the Simultaneous Policy newsletter, It’s Simpol !

Earlier, on my visit to Brasilia (see previous blog), I had met politicians, civil servants and campaigners to piece together the story about Nestlé’s water bottling operations in São Lourenço and action at the Federal level to hold it to account.

In Sao Lourenco Nestle's pumping in an historic mineral water park is blamed for ruining the healing springs on which tourism in the small town is based. Contrary to federal law, Nestle demineralised the water to manufacture its Pure Life brand. While Nestle claims there has been no negative impact, tests commissioned by the BBC for a Face the Facts programme on the case and official government test results found the opposite.

Nestlé built its Pure Life factory and surrounding wall in the area of high risk to the aquifer, contrary to Federal Law (DNPM 231/98). Trees close to Nestlé's borehole (from which it was pumping over half a million litres per day) are dying (see map and pictures on the Baby Milk Action website).

The Public Prosecutor in the town, Pedro Paulo Aina, brought a legal action for compensation after campaigners gathered 3,000 petition signatures, prompting an investigation. He said:

"We began an inquiry to find the facts and after about seven months of investigation we came to the conclusion that there were two principle and fundamental problems. The illegal nature of the exploitation of the Primavera Spring and the over-exploitation of the mineral water aquifer. The excessive exploitation is dangerous not only for tourism, and the whole city lives on tourism, but also in the sense that it puts at risk a gift of nature that is not just Sao Lourenco's but of all humanity."

The legal action stopped exploitation only briefly as Nestle won an appeal to continue working while the case was heard. Four years later, the case is still tied up in the courts.

Nestle acquired the water park in the historic spa town of São Lourenço in 1992 when it took over Perrier. In 1996, without authorisation, it sank 158 metre deep wells into the aquifer and later began producing its Pure Life brand of processed water. Pure Life production was stopped in October 2004 as demineralizing the precious waters from the park is against Federal Law. However, the campaign continues as Nestlé is still pumping water so it can extract the gas to carbonate other brands. For a past Baby Milk Action article on this case see http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=580

Federal Deputy, Dr. Rosinha organised a public hearing into Nestlé's Pure Life operation before the Consumer Defence Committee in the House of Congress on 1 July 2004 after Nestlé challenged an order paralizing water extraction in court. The head of the regulatory authority, DNPM, spoke at the hearing.

The Congress journal reports: "According to DNPM, the contract for Nestle to exploit mineral waters in the Park of Sao Lourenco does not permit the expansion of wells, which requires new environmental impact studies, that had not been done. The director of DNPM also said that the demineralisation of water is against the fundamental principles of the Mineral Water Code, that requires the integral protection of mineral salts."

For an in-depth article on the case, backed by legal and other documents, contact mikebrady@simpol.org.uk

For a wealth of information in Portuguese see the website http://www.circuitodasaguas.org/

A similar story was found at Sanctuary Springs in Michigan in the US. Campaigners there won a legal battle to stop over-exploitation after they found changes to water levels, most dramatically where a stream had dried up, in an area of ecologically significant marshland. Lawyer, Jim Olson, told the BBC: "The judge ultimately in the case shut down the well and concluded that there was no property right or legal right or water right for a company to extract water in a fashion that would diminish the flow or reduce the level of any lake, stream or wetland." Yet again, Nestle appealed to continue operating while the case is heard and, again, the case is tied up in the courts. BBC Face the Facts reported on the São Lourenço case and a similar situation in Michigan, USA, on 22 July 2005 (click here).

London bombs, the G8 and an end to dictatorship

I am writing this on 7 July 2005, the day of the terrorist attack on London. The latest figure of confirmed deaths is 37, with 1,000 injured, many with horrific injuries, such as lost limbs. Perhaps one of my best friends is amongst them. I am still trying to contact him from Brazil, where I am presently based. Having called round family and other friends to check if they were affected, I can imagine the anguish of those whose worst fears become reality. Many bereaved families and injured people face difficult days ahead and my thoughts are with them.

Mixed in with this are thoughts about who has done this and the timing. There are apparently 4 bombs and a group claiming allegance to Al Queda has claimed responsibility. How big was the cell of fanatical idiots who thought this was justifiable? Maybe as few as eight? Eight people wanting to change the course of history, who have succeeded in gaining global coverage for their cause. Terrorists rejoice in the attention they receive. For a few days they dictate the news agenda, even if they do not succeed in achieving the policy changes they are seeking from our leaders.

And the timing? The G8 was meeting at Gleneagles in Scotland. The leaders of the world’s richest countries stood shoulder to shoulder as Prime Minister Tony Blair condemned the attacks and told the terrorists they would fail to change the British way of life. He is right and he is wrong. People will be back on the underground trains and buses as soon as they are running again. Most likely they will be massing to demonstrate their contempt for the bombers. But there will be fear, particularly if there are further attacks. There will probably be draconian knee-jerk reactions from the government and Muslims will suffer attacks from racists looking for an excuse. And in the days to come there will be heart-rending funerals and stories from survivors.

Nothing can excuse the deliberate targeting of civilians, targeted at rush hour to cause maximum casualties. Some will try to justify it because of the links made by the apparent perpetrators with the invasion of Iraq conducted by Blair and Bush. George Galloway, leader of Respect, the anti-war party, has already blamed Blair for bringing the attack on the country. Iraq is no justification. Yet for a family sitting in Iraq that has lost family members from the apparent indiscriminate bombing of their homes there may well be a grim acknowledgement that perhaps we have glimpsed something of their suffering. In an average month 200 innocent people are killed in Iraq, some by the occupying forces, more by those fighting the occupation and people they label as collaborators. A few kilograms of explosives have done their work in London and the world is watching. Many tonnes of explosives have rained down on Iraqies and the death toll has not even been counted. Are our lives more valuable? Is our pain more deeply felt? Are the deaths of innocents acceptable if the greater cause is just, if the invasion of Iraq is just?

Perhaps we should nurse our pain and feel empathy with all who suffer, before anything else. Those of us not directly affected by tragedy today should remember the fear we felt as we ran through the people we know in London, not knowing if they had been killed or maimed. For many in the world such fear is a daily reality, and all too often those fears are realized.

Those responsible for this act are a small group of perhaps eight people. They alone are responsible. If they had not walked out the door this morning with bags of explosives none of this would have happened. Eight people, who wanted to change the world, timing their attack to coincide with the meeting of eight other people at the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland.

Many people are wanting to change the world. Sometimes similarly small groups can succeed in bringing their cause global attention without resorting to violence. What a contrast there is between the images today and those of a week ago when Bob Geldof’s Live8 concert was watched by an estimated 3.5 billion people. His organizing committee brought together world famous musicians. The Non Governmental Organisations (NGOs) that formed the Make Poverty History coalition mobilized millions with their campaign. As with the bomb attack, the eight people of the G8 were the target. The International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO), as yet a small group, is bringing people together to decide the rules ‘we, the people’ want to live under, breaking the hold on power of the elites who currently set the rules behind closed doors.

The G8 was due to discuss, hopefully will still discuss, debt relief for poor countries and changing of trade rules to make them fairer for countries desperately doing everything they can to work their way out of poverty. 30,000 children die from poverty every day, according to the Make Poverty History campaign, while many more lead miserable lives of suffering those of us in rich countries can barely comprehend.

Make Poverty History has called for the G8 leaders to make historic decisions to help end the obscenity of needless death and suffering. The indications are they will make small concessions, big promises and continue to dictate the rules to ensure they win the competition between nations (Click here).

Brazil, where I am writing this, knows about dictatorship. Twenty years of dictatorship ended in 1985. In the 1990s I lived briefly under the dictatorship of Dr. Hastings Banda in Malawi and saw his fall from power.

Dictatorship. The ruling of the many by the few. These dictatorships ended by people taking a stand, sometimes risking or losing their lives, demanding the right to vote to choose their leaders. The end of dictatorship brought an end to censorship and a free press is essential to hold democratically elected leaders to account.

Democracy and transparency are surely the antidotes to dictatorship, whether it is national government, attempted dictatorship by terrorists or the G8 leaders fixing the rules to keep their countries rich.

Terrorism must be seen in perspective. This was the act of perhaps 8 people, not an entire community and we are wise if Muslims and non-Muslims in our communities unite instead of fearing each other. While increasing vigilance, we should not be paralysed by fear. More people will die this week in accidents on the road than have been killed in London.

Terrorism attempts to justify itself by attaching itself to causes such as the Iraq invasion. Rejecting that justification, does not mean the Iraq invasion is legitimized, though we may see certain politicians attempting this. The arguments over the invasion remain. Terrorism and the invasion can both be condemned without contradiction.

Similarly there is no contradiction in condemning both terrorism and the injustice of the global rules which keep half the planet’s population in poverty. Demanding action on debt relief and trade rules is not giving in to terrorism. Ending the dictatorship of the G8 and rich, powerful nations over global rule setting requires democracy and transparency. It can be argued that the G8 leaders themselves are limited in their scope for action, are themselves prisoners of the global system and that competition between nations can only be transformed by some form of global, coordinated change (see http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2005/06/315279.html. One way to achieve this is through the Simultaneous Policy (SP) campaign. SP brings people together around the world, across national borders, to discuss the global policies we want to see implemented. Policy development is an open, transparent and democratic process. Anyone can become involved by signing up as an Adopter at http://www.simpol.org.uk/.

Adopters require our leaders to implement the Simultaneous Policy alongside other countries. Not through force. Not through terrorism. But through the democratic process. Adopters undertake to encourage their preferred party to sign a pledge to implement SP. Adopters without a party preference can encourage any and all politicians to sign the pledge and at elections give their preference to any reasonable candidate who has done so. This has brought cross-party support for SP into the UK Parliament following the recent general election, when 10 candidates who had signed the pledge were elected. As the number of candidates and governments who have signed the pledge increases, we move closer to implementation of SP and the transformation of competition between nations to cooperation.

The terrorists won’t win, even though they succeed in hurting us. In this time of suffering we have seen strangers of different races in cosmopolitan London helping each other, a reminder of the fundamental decency of humanity. When the dust has settled, let us remember the suffering of others and redouble our efforts to strengthen our communities, locally, nationally and internationally.

Can the G8 satisfy the demands of global justice campaigners?

[Hearing a church leader in Brazil applauding the decision of the G8 finance minister to write off US$40 billion of debt prompted me to write the following].

The meeting of the 7 richest industrialized countries, plus Russia, the so-called G8, taking place in Gleneagles, Scotland, in July has been the focus of global justice campaigners for over a year. The mobilization is reminiscent of the Live Aid outpouring of public support for Africa 20 years ago. Then the aim was to provide food for the starving. Today the aim is to tackle the root causes of poverty and inequality. On the campaigning front it is going well. The UK ‘Make Poverty History’ coalition of Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) including Oxfam, Christian Aid and War on Want, reports over 3 million white wrist bands have been sold. Tickets for Bob Geldof’s G8 concert are highly sought after. Hundreds of thousands if not millions will turn out to demonstrate.

Campaigners are already been rewarded with positive headlines promising debt relief and action on climate change. UK Prime Minister Blair and his Chancellor, Gordon Brown, have been hailed as the ‘Lennon and McCartney of global development’ by pop star Bono, music to the ears of the architect and the banker of Britain’s participation in the war on Iraq. Perhaps their place in the history books will be less infamous than they feared.

Tony Blair is making the most of the UK’s leadership of the G8 group of industrialised countries and forthcoming presidency of the European Union to seize the initiative and secure his legacy, before handing over to Brown, leader in waiting who made a high profile tour of Africa earlier in the year. They appear to be knocking heads together and making progress where it has been lacking for decades.

But, and there is a but, the headlines hide the detail of the text of what is being negotiated. Not only are the concessions wrested from our leaders less than first appears, the double-dealing could actually make the situation in poor countries worse, not better. This raises the question, can our leaders ever deliver what global justice campaigners are seeking?

The simple fact is that the world economy operates to rules developed by rich countries and rich countries are in large part rich because they grab the wealth of other countries. It is a hard to grasp when we see the dirt-poor people in African villages, the recipients of our aid handouts, that the net transfer of wealth is from these people to those of us in the rich world.

How could the world be so unjust? How could our leaders permit this to happen, engineer it to happen? How can we let them get away with it?

But the sad fact is we are rich because they are poor. The terms of trade penalise poor countries, and the rules are set by the rich. The UK Food Group report Food Inc. Corporate Concentration in the Food Chain quotes a study from Robbins (2003) who calculated that had the prices for the top ten tropical commodities risen in line with inflation from 1980 to 2002, suppliers of these goods would have received US$243 billion more than their actual receipts – five times the total world aid budget. This is the effect of the rules set without our knowledge or consent. While processors and retailers have shown growth in profits, producers have lost out in real terms.

Capital flows further perpetuate the injustice. Anne Petifor of the New Economics Foundation said: “Orthodox textbooks teach us that with financial liberalisation capital should flow from where it is plentiful, to where it is scarce. Tragically, the reverse is happening today. This is a form of global theft of the world’s poor – and helps explain rising tensions in the world”. NEF highlights to role of the dollar-based financial system in its alternative global economic report in 2003 (the next is due this year), showing how poor countries are helping to subsidise the US debt with a net transfer of US$48 billion per year – more than the aid provided to poor countries by rich countries each year, usually with strings attached. Transnationals pocket profits of US$55 billion made in developing countries and US$97 billion is deposited by people from the developing world in banks in rich Northern countries, some as genuine investment, but much is illegal capital that finds its way into the accounts of all too willing banks in the North

If the campaigning around the G8 changes the rules, in the small print the status quo will prevail.

In advance of the Gleneagles meeting, the G8 Finance Ministers have agreed to write off US$40 billion of debt. What a triumph for campaigners! Here in Brazil I have just listened to a church leader praising this act of justice. But this is a hollow victory for to qualify for debt relief countries are required to open their markets to foreign competition and to further privatize their public services. Debt relief becomes another crow-bar to open target economies to our investors and corporations. The governments of these poor countries will be expected to applaud our generosity as they watch profits being repatriated. The practicalities can be obscene. In the past Malawi eased the impact of drought by buying from farmers at time of plenty, storing surpluses and selling it back at times of famine. The service was privatised prior to the 2002 drought, surpluses sold to other countries and when famine hit profits were maximised by holding pack food so the price soared. Though the drought was less serious than others, more people starved to death.

On climate change the news is no less gloomy. President Bush famously said that he would take no action that would prejudice the US economy and expecting polluters to pay for their pollution would do just that. While Tony Blair is seen as calling in his favour of supporting Bush over Iraq, the UK position is not all it seems. In the European Union system implementing the Kyoto Protocol the Blair government has backtracked on commitments to reduce carbon emissions in the face of industry lobbying. Why? Because it would harm the UK economy. Business holds a powerful threat over governments: take action business does not like and investment and jobs will go to more amenable locations.

The richest countries in the world are winning the competition against other nations. It has not been a fair fight and we should not expect our leaders to penalize themselves by giving up their power voluntarily. Campaigning will undoubtedly give some movement. Our leaders are human and perhaps can be touched by compassion. They certainly can be swayed by the fear of losing public support and votes.

Yet there is a starker truth our leaders face than thousands of protestors wearing white wrist bands. Most voters will stay at home and their over-riding concern is not global justice, it is the economy. Yes, they care about starving people in far off places, but of greater importance is food on their table and a job to pay their mortgage and ballooning credit card bills. All the leaders at the G8 will be out of power in pretty short order if they take action that puts their country on the slide in the global league table. So there will be crumbs from the table of the rich, but no fairer sharing of the cake belonging to all humanity.

When the dust settles after the Gleneagles meeting, most people who took to the streets will happily listen to their CDs of Bob Geldof’s concert feeling they have helped to make a difference. It will be many years before many can be stirred to take action again. For some, such as George Monbiot, it is worse than useless to accept the double-dealing that is likely to come from the G8 in place of real change (click here). It is a betrayal of the countries the global justice movement wishes to help.

Protest is essential, however. Every person who puts on a white wrist band is one more voter wanting to ‘Make Poverty History’. But there is also a parallel strategy being promoted by the International Simultaneous Policy Organisation (ISPO) that has the potential to deliver the change the global justice movement is demanding.

If the policies developed by our leaders sell the people of the world short, why not develop the policies ourselves?

ISPO is bringing people together, through the mechanism of National Simultaneous Policy Organisations, to discuss and develop the global rules we want to see implemented. Instead of powerful vested interests setting the agenda, it is campaign supporters, known as Adopters. Within the ISPO policy development process all Adopters have a voice and ultimately will approve the Simultaneous Policy (SP) package.

Our leaders are required to implement SP as a complete package alongside other governments. Simultaneous implementation neutralizes double-dealing and removes the threat of disinvestment that financial markets and transnational corporations hold over governments to get their own way. The means to compel our leaders to take this action is to deny them power unless they sign a pledge to implement SP alongside other governments. Clearly this has more impact at election time. In the recent UK election from a standing start the newly formed National SP Organisation, Simpol-UK, gained signed pledges from candidates in 33 constituencies, 10 of whom, from all main political parties, were elected to Parliament. It is a foundation on which to build in the coming months and years until the government as a whole pledges to implement SP alongside other governments. The same process is happening in other countries. SP is already represented in the Australian Senate and European Parliament and has the support of the Foreign Minister of East Timor.

Developing a consensus amongst the people of a world may seem hopelessly ambitious. Gaining meaningful pledges from politicians may seem naïve beyond belief. And our leaders may really be listening to the protests and the G8 will deliver.

Time will tell.

In the meantime, all it takes to support the SP campaign is to sign up as an SP Adopter, which costs nothing. Adopters undertake to encourage their preferred party to sign the SP pledge or, if they don’t have a party preference to vote for any reasonable candidate who has signed the pledge. The more Adopters, the more pledges from politicians and one day we wake up with enough government pledges to trigger implementation of SP. By then the problems the world faces will likely be far worse than they are today. On that day not implementing SP will be the senseless option.

See http://www.simpol.org.uk/ for further information and to sign up as an Adopter.

Brazil milk banks and baby milk law set example to the world

You can see the three powers in the city of Brasilia from the air. Brazil’s capital, constructed on the Planalto in 1,000 days in the 1950s to fulfill the electoral promise of Juscelino Kubitschek, is laid out like a bird. Accommodation is in low-rise blocks along the wings, with the government along the body, the ministries like horizontal dominoes either side of a wide dual carriageway leading to the head of the bird laying in Lake Paronoa
(click here for a view from space). There the executive, legislative and judiciary have their palaces and chambers, sculpted in concrete, some appearing to float on the placid lakes that surround them.

I arrived at my hotel as the Sem Terra were marching down one side of the dual carriageway. The Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra – the landless workers movement – had gathered in Goiania, the capital of the neighbouring state, and 12,000 had marched for 16 days to reach Brasilia, camping overnight in 12 great circus tents. The demands they presented to President Luis Lula Inicio de Silva included support for an inquiry into Brazil’s internal and foreign debt, the banning of the sales of weapons in Brazil and, most importantly, honouring an election commitment to provide land to 400,000 families. 78,000 families had benefited from the scheme introduced by the government and the government responded to the march by saying the pace would pick up and 120,000 families will be settled by the end of the year. I’ll write more about this subject at a later date (also see
http://www.mstbrazil.org/?q=mstmarchreport)

Calling politicians to account was in the news on other fronts. The Brazilian media revels in its freedom since the end of the dictatorship in 1985 and sees exposing corruption as a central role. The leading news weekly, Veja (http://www.veja.com.br/), exposed a senior manager in the postal service apparently accepting a bribe to win contracts from undercover reporters, after explaining how the system operates. The manager, like 20,000 other posts in the government machinery and para-statals, had been nominated by one of the political parties in the governing coalition. Video recordings of the sting appeared on the Sunday news and during the week I was in Brazil the leading politician implicated in the scandal stood up in the chamber to dispute the allegations as government leaders swung into action to stop a panel of enquiry being formed by Federal Deputies and Senators. Efforts to stop the enquiry failed, perhaps inevitably given the widespread public and media support for it to go ahead, prompting one columnist to contend that the government’s real strategy was to test the loyalty of party members and allies as they begin to plan for elections in 2006 (reminding me of the loyalty test our own Labour Party ran when pushing through planned Tory cuts to benefits to single mothers in the early days of their first Parliament).

With these high profile events unfolding I had come to Brasilia to praise Brazil for the example it sets to the world in protecting infant health. This was in my role as Campaigns and Networking Coordinator at Baby Milk Action (see http://www.babymilkaction.org/), still the day job as I work a notional 2 days per week, telecommuting from Brazil.

Brazil was hosting the II International Milk Bank Conference, and its own IV National Milk Bank Conference. Brazil is the world leader in human milk banking (see http://www.redeblh.fiocruz.br/index_i.htm). The Federal District of Brasilia alone contains 14 milk banks, as many as the whole of Great Britain. The bulk of donated and pasteurized milk is used for premature infants whose own mothers may be in the process of establishing lactation. Survival rates are far higher than for infants fed with artificial milks. In the UK it takes dedicated staff raising money through raffles and fetes to establish a new milk bank (see http://www.ukamb.org/), whereas in Brazil it is government policy to expand the network beyond the present 185 and to share the results of its research and technological development. At the conference a pact was signed by the Minister of Health with representatives from Latin American countries to this end.

Brazil is also an example to the world in controlling the aggressive marketing by baby food companies, successively strengthening legislation implementing marketing requirements adopted by the World Health Assembly since 1981. I joined partners from the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN -
http://www.ibfan.org/) from Brazil, Costa Rica and Guatemala on a panel explaining the marketing requirements and how they are being implemented. As well as praising the strong efforts made by these countries, I had come to warn against complacency. Companies have been prosecuted or otherwise held to account by enforcement authorities in these Latin American countries. In Brazil breastfeeding rates, which declined through decades of aggressive marketing, have been recovering significantly over the past 10 years, which is helping to reduce infant mortality and morbidity. Where my wife Sonia worked in São José dos Campos, it was a rare event if a mother left the municipal hospital not breastfeeding after her three-day stay. With support virtually all mothers are able to do so. Breastfeeding rates at 4 months in São José are now amongst the highest in São Paulo state and infant mortality rates are now about 12 deaths per 1,000 live births, comparing to 6 in the UK. When we saw formula promotions in the supermarkets a quick call to the health inspectorate or consumer protection agency would see them stopped the same or next day.

So for Brazilian politicians and health workers the aggressive marketing seen in countries without strong legislation is largely unknown. My message at the Conference was that this is not because the companies are ethical, as they claim, but because of the legislation. I presented evidence from IBFAN’s monitoring report Breaking the Rules, Stretching the Rule 2004 (
http://www.ibfan.org/english/codewatch/btr04/btr04contents.html) which shows, with examples of the companies’ own materials, the misleading and idealizing messages they use to convince mothers that artificial feeding is the same as or better than breastfeeding and the other aggressive techniques they use to try to increase sales of their products. Vigilence is required as even when countries have introduced legislation, the companies do not tire from trying to undermine it. IBFAN campaigning had helped to oppose just such an attack on Brazil’s exemplary legislation in 2004 (see
http://www.babymilkaction.org/CEM/compjune04.html#2). India, another country with a strong law, saw Nestle taking the government to court in an attempt to have the law struck down after the company was itself taken to court for failing to put required information on labels of infant formula in the correct language. Case studies from seven countries provided an overview of those that had succeeded in regulating marketing and others that had bowed to industry pressure and introduced only voluntary codes which are incapable of stopping malpractice (see
http://www.ibfan.org/english/news/briefing/checksandbalances.html).

IBFAN is an unusual network. It has no headquarters and does not set up groups but links organizations working to monitor the baby food industry against WHA standards. As I was speaking in Brasilia IBFAN members from every continent were at the Assembly taking place in Geneva to raise awareness of the latest concerns over marketing strategies (e.g. increased use of idealizing health claims) and scientific findings (e.g. the worryingly high rate of contamination of powdered infant formula with Enterobacter Sakazakii, which has been linked to deaths in Europe and elsewhere). IBFAN’s strength comes from knowing what the companies are really doing on the ground in the over 100 countries where there are members of the network. Groups strategize and act in concert to achieve controls that are helping to save lives and protect a mother's right to receive independent and correct information.

It is a model from which other campaigns, such as that for Simultaneous Policy, can usefully learn.