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DEVELOPMENT: Mobilisations against G-8 Summit Get Underway

Gustavo Capdevila

GENEVA, May 29 2003 (IPS) - The reception planned by civil society activists for the annual summit of the Group of Eight (G-8) began Thursday with street protests and cultural events in towns surrounding the French Alpine city of Evian, where the eight heads of state and government will gather Jun. 1-3.

The yearly meeting serves as a forum for the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, United States, Canada, Japan and Russia to discuss the international political and economic panorama.

This informal group was established in 1975 as the Group of Seven, gathering for the first time in the French city of Rambouillet, and focused on the rivalry of its members with the now-defunct Soviet Union.

In the 1990s, Russia joined the group of powerful nations – which by then had become a target of civil society’s condemnations.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) representing an array of issues criticise the G-8 for acting as a sort of illegitimate global government, and they have even demanded the dissolution of the group they have dubbed "the cartel of the global economy’s majority shareholders."

In the eastern French city of Annemasse, near Evian and Geneva, Berard Pinaud, head of the Centre for Development Research and Information, a French NGO, spoke out against the G-8 policies and the fact that "it presents itself as the directorate of the world."

Thousands of activists known as "alternative-globalisationists" expressed the same position – under the slogan of the Porto Alegre World Social Forum: "Another World Is Possible" – marching in torrential rains in the southwestern Swiss city of Lausanne, some 40 km west of Evian.

Activists from around the world, but mostly from Europe, have begun arriving in the towns of France and Switzerland neighbouring Evian, a city of just 7,500 people on the shore of Lake Leman, which is shared by the two countries.

Jean Christophe Sauterel, spokesman for the Swiss police, said that several incidents and some "mishaps" on the trains bringing activists to the region had been reported.

The entry of some individuals into Switzerland had been barred because of their police records, he told a press conference in Lausanne.

More than 30,000 French and Swiss troops and police have been deployed to Evian and the surrounding areas to protect the summit participants.

A section of the Geneva airport, shared by France and Switzerland, is under the control of 1,000 German police who were sent specifically for that duty.

In Lausanne and Geneva, the groundfloor façades of buildings in shopping and banking districts have been covered with sheets of plywood – at a cost of 1.6 dollars per square metre – to protect them from potential attacks by radical protesters.

The fear of violent protests is based on the experience of the last G-8 summit held in Europe, which took place in July 2001 in the northwest Italian city of Genoa. Student Carlo Giuliani was shot to death by the Italian police.

The 2002 summit took place amidst calm, as the heads of state and government were surrounded by a beefed-up security apparatus, and the meet took place in the remote mountain resort of Kananaskis, in southwest Canada.

Swiss political scientist Blaise Lempen rules out the possibility that incidents like those of Genoa could occur in Evian, noting that the small French city lacks the activism tradition that characterises the Italian port city.

The "alternative-globalisation" organisations will stage demonstrations in Geneva and aim to march on Jun. 1 to Annemasse, where the "Summit for another world" – also known as the "Counter-Summit" – will take place.

That civil society meet will discuss the same agenda as the G-8 and will present alternative proposals for global governance and development, to be delivered to French President Jacques Chirac, the host of the summit of heads of state.

Among the issues the G-8 plans to discuss is the matter of solidarity in relation to the world population’s access to water and the projects of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), a group that includes all nations of that continent.

Also on the agenda is debate on the financial, environmental and social responsibilities of governments and companies, an issue that gained notoriety in the wake of the major fraud scandals uncovered last year in U.S.-based transnationals.

Terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, as well as consideration of democracy and dialogue with civil society round out the list of topics to be covered by the leaders of the world’s eight most powerful nations.