By IPS Correspondents
PORTO ALEGRE, Brazil, Jan 27 2005 (IPS)

Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva led a global call Thursday for a worldwide fight against poverty. In his address to the fifth World Social Forum, however, the leftist leader was also the target of harsh criticism from party activists even farther left on the political spectrum.

Lula took part in the official launching of the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP), a civil society movement that is pushing governments to keep the promises they have made for development assistance.

Addressing the 12,000 people packed into Gigantinho Stadium in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, where the fifth World Social Forum (WSF) is under way, Lula expressed his solidarity with the movement, which is made up of hundreds of civil society groups from around the globe.

Amidst the crowds that cheered his name, a small group of activists from the far-left PSTU (Socialist Party of United Workers) shouted criticisms against Lula for his trade union reform bill and for his attendance this week at the World Economic Forum, a gathering of heads of state and corporate executives in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos, simultaneous with the WSF.

Nevertheless, in his address, Lula paid little heed to criticisms.

“I’m here because I believe that you are taking an important step, an historic step for the Forum. You are growing from being a mere group of people, each one with their own demands, towards resolving an issue like hunger, which is a social problem and a political problem,” he said.

The GCAP demands that the rich countries of the industrialised North immediately dismantle their farm subsidies, comply with their pledges to set aside 0.7 percent of their gross domestic product for international development aid, and cancel – along with all of the multilateral credit institutions – the foreign debt of the poorest nations.

The movement also urges governments around the world to protect public services against the incessant wave of privatisations, to ensure the population’s access to food and medicines, to require greater transparency of the big corporations, and to redouble their efforts to achieve by 2015 the Millennium Development Goals set by the United Nations General Assembly in 2000.

“This should be the year in which governments keep their promises and respond to the more than one billion people who are living in absolute poverty, who demand justice,” said Guy Ryder, general secretary of the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions.

The governments also “have to respond to the more than 185 million unemployed people who are looking for decent work,” he added.

Ryder stressed that “one out of six children in the world work, when they should be in school.”

“From Porto Alegre we are together – trade unionists, civil society representatives, political authorities – in issuing a call that reaches Davos, reaches the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world. Ending poverty is necessary and it is urgent. Those who are hungry cannot wait,” he said.

John Samuel, director of ActionAid International and part of the GCAP initiative, underscored the need for governments in the industrialised North to change the focus of their agendas.

“At a time when bombs, security and terror dominate the political agenda it’s imperative to bring poverty into the centre of government thinking,” he said.

“We just can’t afford to keep quiet when 50,000 people die of poverty related causes every day and the rich and the powerful choose to ignore it. GCAP is a wake up call to people in both rich and poor countries to mobilise and force their governments to take action,” Samuel said.

The GCAP plans this year to announce “white band days”, to coincide with the next summit of the Group of Eight most powerful countries, in Britain, the U.N. General Assembly, and the ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation. Activists are encouraged to wear a white band as a symbol of protest and to raise awareness about the anti-poverty campaign.

Coumba Toure, GCAP representative in Africa, presented Lula with a white band in recognition of his leadership role in the campaign.

“This is a really crucial moment in the global fight against poverty. We are a massive and diverse group which has come together this year to demand change. It is high time for rich countries to take action on fair trade, improve aid and debt cancellation,” said Toure.

” So, our message today is that united we cannot be ignored by our governments,” said Toure.

The World Social Forum is a massive gathering of international civil society which this year is estimated to have drawn 120,000 people to Porto Alegre for discussion, debate and perhaps some fun through Monday, Jan. 31. (END/IPS/WD LA/DV MD WF/TRASP-LD/RP/DM/05)

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