jubileesouth

2012-01-02T21:43:00.002-03:00

Appeal for Solidarity for Victims of Typhoon in Mindanao, Philippines

2011-12-28T15:23:00.000-03:00

The Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD) appeals to the international community for support to the victims of Typhoon Sendong that hit the southern part of the Philippines last December 16, 2011.

Just a week before the Christmas holidays, villages were swept away by flash floods and landslides as Typhoon Sendong struck provinces in Northern Mindanao and unleashed more than a month’s worth of rainfall in 12 hours.

The hardest hit are the cities of Cagayan de Oro and Iligan. Nearly 1,500 people were reported to have been killed. As of December 20, 2011, the national disaster agency reports that more than 338,000 people in 13 provinces were affected, with almost 43,000 still in evacuation centers such as schools, churches and gymnasiums. Around 10,000 houses were damaged, of which a third were ruined. More than $340,000 worth of crops were also damaged.

We demand governments of rich industrialized countries to provide finance as part of climate debt reparations. We also urge the international civil society community to send assistance, whether in cash or in kind, to ease the burden and suffering of the victims of this climate catastrophe.

Donations can be coursed through our member organizations in Mindanao, the Freedom from Debt Coalition – West Mindanao Chapter and GITIB. Please send donations to:

Freedom from Debt Coalition – West Mindanao Chapter

Contact Person: Lucita Gonzales or Lourdes Anabieza

Tel. No.: (6388)5213771

Email: fdcwestminda@yahoo.com

GITIB

Contact Person: Roldan Gonzales or Naome Medina

Tel. No.: (6388)5212168

Email: gitib2001@yahoo.com

South countries must defend rights and not sell out

2011-12-08T16:54:00.001-03:00

Green Climate Fund: FOR PEOPLE OR POLLUTERS?

Durban, December 7, 2011 - Jubilee South Asia-Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (APMDD) released a statement today urging South country governments "not to be cowed, not to sell us out" and lauding the efforts of those who have "valiantly and brilliantly fought for our rights." Referring to negotiations on the contentious Climate Fund, industrialized countries are charged with seeking to enshrine the principle of "Pay the Polluter", as well as keeping the door open for World Bank involvement despite its long track-record, and current engagement, in climate destruction. Read more

No more delays, No more deception, No more evasion!
In a related statement also issued from Durban, JS-APMDD denounced the escalation of efforts by developed countries, led by the United States, and seconded by Canada, Japan, Russia and Australia, to undermine and overturn Climate Convention principles and legally binding agreements. "In Durban they are trying to sell new words -- 'A Durban Mandate', 'A New Treaty', even 'A New Protocol'. But these are all part of their effort to delay action, pave the way for lower ambitions and more loopholes, and further entrench the 'pledge and review' system being pushed by the US as the basis for 'legally binding agreements'." The statement concludes by urging South governments to "be steadfast in demanding the enforcement of existing agreements and higher targets for emissions cuts by developed countries to be met through domestic measures," and by calling on the governments of developed countries: "No more delays, No more deception, No more evasion!"

International Campaign on Climate Refugees’ Rights

2011-12-07T18:22:00.002-03:00

JS member organizations from Bangladesh and elsewhere demand new legal institutional framework

[Durban, 6 December 2011] Speakers in a public dialogue titled `climate justice for climate refugee: demanding new legal framework’ said that climate change catastrophe not only pose mortal danger but also lead to the destruction of the means of livelihood which threat to millions of people in the global south to become refugee. Recent studies show that around 30 million people from the coastal areas of Bangladesh, 300 thousand from the Maldives, 10 million from Vietnam, 10 million from Mediterranean Egypt, and 600 thousand from Guyana among others will be displaced due to loss of land as a result of climate change effects. Read more

Movements launch Call to Mobilize toward Rio+20 and beyond

2011-12-06T01:32:00.005-03:00

Movimientos sociales lanzan Llamado a movilizarnos frente al Rio+20
Mouvements sociaux lancent Appel a mobiliser face à Río+20
Movimentos sociais se mobilizam para Rio+20

Durban, December 5, 2011 - Social movements and networks from throughout the Americas and beyond, including among them Jubilee South/Americas, launched from the mdist of the Peoples's Space convened in Durban, South Africa, in parallel to the ongoing UNFCCC climate negotiations, a Call to popular movements and organizations around the world to join together in mobilizing for Rio+20 and beyond. Their call, to join forces in Rio - towards the Peoples's Summit for Social and Environmental Justice, against the mercantilization of life and nature and in defense of the Commons and the realization therein of a Permanent Peoples' Assembly, centers on the urgency of strengthening resistance and alternatives to the greenwashing of capitalism now underway through diverse "false solutions" , including the commodification and financialization of all life forms, and the need to visibilize the alternatives that people are building the world over. Endorsements of the Call are welcome at movilizacion.rio20@gmail.com

Durban Workshop on Ecological Debt and Climate Justice, Dec. 6 Peoples' Space

2011-12-06T00:44:00.002-03:00

Durban, December 2011 - The Economic Justice Network/FOCCISA, together with Jubilee South regional formations and numerous other networks and movements, invite participation in the workshop to be held on Ecological Debt and Climate Justice, December 6th from 9 am.
Through sharing case studies of ecological debt accumulation and climate injustice, as well as an array of experiences in holding popular Tribunals on a diversity of aspects related to denouncing the causes and responsibilities for ecological debt, and contributing to the identification and strengthening of strategies for obtaining justice and reparations, among other things the Workshop will address questions on how to continue this global initiative launched in 2009.

Rio+20: Faced with the mercantilization of Life and Nature - Our Resistance and Alternatives

2011-11-23T17:47:00.006-03:00

JS/Am se posiciona camino a Rio+20

Rio de Janeiro, 21.11.11 - Jubilee South/Americas released an initial position paper looking at the issues and conflicts that will shape the agenda of the forthcoming Rio+20 Conference on Sustainable Development (June 2012, Rio de Janeiro). The statement reflects on the links between the processes of illegitimate financial indebtedness and the historical and ecological debts due to peoples and countries throughout the South, as part of efforts to galvanize popular mobilization globally in the build-up toward Rio+20. JS/Am calls for the development of collective strategies and actions to confront the wave of "greenwashing" that threatens to turn the urgent need for economic transformation into a "greenrush" of capitalist interests fixated on commodifying all of life as the basis for further profit accumulation, no matter what the costs to people and the planet. Text available now in English, and in brief in French and Portuguese. Version formatted for printing, available on request

JS condemns detention of Indonesian and Filipino activists at rally in Bali to protest ASEAN Summit

2011-11-21T10:30:00.009-03:00

November 19, 2011 - Three civil society activists from Indonesia and four from the Philippines were detained by Bali police for more than 12 hours starting November 18 at 3 pm until 4 am November 19. Among the detainees were JS-APMDD coordinator Lidy Nacpil and staff, together with activists from JS member organizations WALHI (FOE Indonesia) and FDC (Philippines). The incident happened after the local police clamped down on a rally that passed several foreign consultate offices in Bali, including those of the US and Japan. The rally was organized by Indonesian civil Society Coalition to coincide with the ASEAN Summit attended by the world´s most powerful countries' leaders including Barack Obama. Read more

November 20, 2011 - Activists may face deportation after detention following rally calling on ASEAN governments to defend their people's rights and sovereignty and meet the needs of their people first before serving rich countries' drive to plunder and control the remaining natural resources of their countries.

They further called on the ASEAN country leaders to claim reparations and restitution of ecological debt, including climate debt, owed by industrial countries to the peoples of the South. Read more

Jubilee South/Americas en route to Rio+20

2011-11-15T19:54:00.002-03:00

Version formatted for printing available on request

Faced with the Mercantilization of Life and Nature:

Our Resistance and Alternatives!

The Jubilee South network, since its founding in 1999, took on the task of contributing to a deepening of the relation between the illegitimate financial debt claimed of our countries, and the generation of historic, social, and ecological debts. From the beginning of the colonial era, the global North - through its governments, corporations, and financial institutions - has exploited and plundered the wealth, nature, knowledge, work, and life of South peoples.

In this direction that we have been moving, together with allied networks and movements, the recognition of Ecological Debt assumed greater priority given its worsening. The undertaking of megaprojects and megaevents by governments and transnational and translatina corporations, financed through processes of public indebtedness promoted by the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) and private banks, has given rise to countless impacts, many of them irreversible, on ecosystems, the climate, the biodiversity of the planet, and the rights of communities, persons, and Nature.

The concept of Ecological Debt was first strengthened with the observation of the North’s historical responsibility for environmental degradation in the United Nations’ Conference on the Environment and Development - Rio ‘92 -. Later, by incorporation of the principle of common but differentiated responsibilities into the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). This principle has remained a dead letter, however, given that those guilty of the problem, those responsible for generating the Climate Debt, continue to evade their historic and present responsibilities.

Climate discussions at the 15th Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC (COP 15) in Copenhagen (2009), and the agreement sealed later at COP16 in Cancun (2010), together with other processes of international negotiation, have unmasked the corporate capture of these multilateral spaces. They confirmed the power of the market and the geopolitical interests of the big powers over the decisions of the vast majority of countries of the periphery, leaving totally aside the democratic right of peoples to express themselves and be taken into account in decision-making that affects them directly. They ignored, for instance, the Cochabamba Peoples’ Agreements which resulted from the Global Peoples’ Summit on Climate Change and the Rights of Mother Nature (2010), in which more than 35,000 representatives of social movements and organizations from 140 countries participated.

South country governments, in the climate negotiations, have not sustained a solid political position vis à vis the more industrialized countries, in order to highlight their responsibility in the worsening of this crisis and in giving rise to this debt to Nature and peoples, particularly in the global South. It was the Bolivian government, together with a few others, that dared to demand that the North settle the enormous Ecological Debt that it has with the South, rather than continue to demand payment of a notably illegitimate financial debt. But it was marginalized and virtually excluded from the framework negotiations.

Given present perspectives, there is no reason to think that the COP 17 in Durban (Decembr 2011) will in any way modify the trend toward increasingly mercantilized negotiations that neglect the real causes of global warming and are rolling-back any form of emissions reduction commitments that would be sufficient and binding. On the contrary, human rights and the rights of nature find themselves in a state of tremendous defenselessness and vulnerability in the face of the agreements that are being sought and whose implementation via a proliferation of “false solutions” will only worsen, not resolve, the problem.

New “solutions” to sustain the system

Since the ‘70s, the capitalist system has been searching for new ways to overcome its crises of overproduction, overvaluation of capital, economic growth, and diminishing profit rates. Some of these ¨solutions¨ have been structural adjustment plans, privatizations, indiscriminate market openings, perpetual profiteering from usurious processes of indebtedness, and the constant plundering of human labour and the material bases, principally in South countries, needed in order to guarantee growth and capitalist accumulation. This is a typical neoliberal process known as “take, don´t make”, but even so it is not sufficient. Today, not only do they want to expand these same policies but they want also to profit off the economic, food, and ecological crisis they have provoked, through the creation of new commodities and the application of “false solutions” to climate change.

This implies a process of extreme commodification and mercantilization of nature, including its cycles and functions which are the basis of life itself. Forests, water, even the air we breathe are transformed into commodities to be sold according to the rules of the market. This will have a huge impact on biodiversity, the land, and life, above all of indigenous peoples, peasant and traditional communities. In their territories, these populations already face daily environmental conflicts with businesses and governments in order to defend and secure a different relationship with nature: one of complementarity, interdependence, and solidarity, rather than exploitation, depredation, and plunder.

These processes of mercantilization are accompanied by a further financialization of nature, whereby any and everything can be bought or sold in any international market or exchange. In this new phase of capitalism, for example, with its carbon markets, Programs for the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs), Environmental Services and the like, aboriginal peoples, peasants, afrodescendants and other populations become the suppliers of a new kind of salaried labour, their forests are transformed into commodites, and nature and its processes become mere “environmental services”.

There is no end to the proliferation of “false solutions” to climate change, generating huge impacts on the most vulnerable communities. We are seeing entire communities being thrown off their lands. We are talking about the very concrete life of millions of persons, men and women, in rural as well as urban areas, who are suffering daily from the voracity of capital that affects their lives, customs, knowledge, cultures, and beliefs. All of this so that the corporations can accumulate more power and multimillionaire profits at the expense of the lives of the weakest and of nature.

Over recent decades, the large capitalist corporations, their public and private institutions, as well as their most renowned idealogues and thinkers, promoted ideas that sought to position market solutions as the big solution to the “environmental question”. At the time of the Stockholm Conference of 1972, “protection” of the “environment” was presented as an obstacle to “development”. In Rio ’92, visionaries were already suggesting that the corporate world should raise the banner of “sustainable development” because there was a chance of turning it into good business. By Rio+10 (Durban, 2002), the concept of “corporate social responsibility” had become the system´s slogan, selling the private sector as the answer to the environmental crisis and setting the stage for the present proliferation of “false solutions”.

NO more Debt!

Additionally, there is an monumental process of public over-indebtedness of our governments due to the fact that the countries of the North are not fulfilling their obligations with regard to climate change. The costs of stopping climate change are transferred to South peoples, as are the costs of the economic crisis in the North: these are crises that the peoples of the South have suffered historically and for which they have already paid several times over with their labour, their wealth, and their lives.

The World Bank, despite ever sharper criticism, has emerged unscathed from recent climate negotiations. Indeed, it has strengthened its position in the current context. It now projects itself as the organism that has the “solution” for the very crisis of which it is one of those primarily responsible. That is why any participation of this organism is unacceptable, whether in the design or administration of funding, in the negotiations around climate, or the search for solutions to environmental problems.

The IFIs should be out of climate altogether. They promote and finance “solutions” that they indicate are going to resolve the climate problem, brazenly lying as they have done historically with the complicity of governments. The purported “solutions” now being implemented, such as CDM, REDD+, and others, are going to make the situation even worse and give rise to ever larger Ecological and Climate Debts as well as additional illegitimate financial debt.

Faced with this new process of “evergreen indebtedness”, in the present context of worsening global financial and economic crisis, peoples and governments throughout the region must take coordinated, sovereign measures that move us in the direction of transforming the system into one that is truly at the service of the rights of peoples and of nature.

Rio+20 and beyond...

The peoples of our America, their organizations and social movements, today face the challenges of generating strong popular mobilization and coordinating strategies in order to be able to stand up to the coming voracity of capitalism.

As we also follow-up on the UNFCCC negotiations and their implications nationally, the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (UNCSD) - Rio+20 -, that will also have a huge impact on nature, the climate, our economies, and rights, finds us at this crossroads.

We face the urgent need to generate a huge popular mobilization, such as we were able to do at another juncture through the Continenal Campaign against the FTAA, in order to confront the advance of big capital, now baptized and marketed under the attractive guise of the “green economy”, or “a green new deal”. They are coming for all that remains for them to dominate: forests, territories, water, the air, biodiversity, seeds, food.

This is why we consider that what Rio+20 represents must be addressed far beyond the UN Conference itself. It will be a moment for governments and the representatives of big international capital to reach agreements, the consequences of which will be felt by the planet and all who inhabit it for years to come.

They want us to believe that the same development, the same systems and technological logic, the same market, the same jobs, and the same institutions that have caused and still provoke so much social and environmental injustice, painted green, will now resolve those very problems.

That is why social movements and civil society must assume a clear and forceful protagonism. Without an articulation of ideas, political praxis, and transformative strategies, we will not rise to the challenges we must now confront. We are thus committed to ensuring that the Peoples’ Summit for Social and Environmental Justice, against the Mercantilization of Life and Nature and in Defense of the Commons – to be held in Rio de Janeiro at the same time as the UN Conference -, not be just another fair of ideas and activities. It must be developed as an autonomous space, both in relation to the official Conference and the governments gathered there as well as from market forces, at the service of the popular struggles and resistance that are being waged throughout our region and the world over.

The most important priority of Rio+20 is its potential to contribute to the strengthening of the processes of mobilization, formation, and articulation among popular, anticapitalist, and antiimperialist forces, both regionally and throughout the South and globally. Our objective is to strengthen processes of popular education, making visible the struggles and resistance that are being waged and articulating with other networks and social movements in the building of common perspectives and the capacity to act collectively.

The people and communities most affected by the capitalist system, climate change, the development model, and debt - the heart of the system -, should be the principal protagonists of this process and the Rio+20 Summit. It is they, together with nature itself, who on a daily basis and with great dignity, are confronting the barbarity of capital and are building, through their efforts and struggles, that Other possible world.

Jubilee South Brazil and Jubilee South/Americas have been working hard as part of the Brazilian Civil Society Rio+20 Facilitating Committee (CFSC) - together with other organizations, networks, and movements - in order to build a Peoples´ Summit in which those who are most affected by the present situation are the protagonists. Together we can weave the threads of a new civilization that makes a definitive break with capitalism.

For these reasons and in the face of this situation, we call for the strengthening of popular unity:

•to bring together counterhegemonic forces in order to potencialize our energies, resources, ideas, and perspectives;

•to project new models of society, post-capitalist, non-extractive, free of all forms of debt, domination, and oppression;

•to expose the reality that there is no way for capitalism to be either human or green; green will only be the color of the dollars it accumulates at the expense of human life and that of nature;

•to coordinate efforts to fight for alternatives that move us beyond the present situation, including:

ü total and unconditional cancellation of illegitimate debts claimed from the peoples and countries of the South and the realization of comprehensive and participatory debt audits;

ü reparations for historic, social, financial, ecological, and climate debts and the promotion of structural changes in the relations among and within countries such that they become equitable and just;

ü World Bank out of climate! For climate reparations that mobilize new, additional, and non-debt creating public funds; elimination of the carbon market and of any role for the World Bank and regional or national development banks in climate finance;

ü demand emissions reductions in Northern countries and acknowledgement of their responsibility for global warming;

ü rejection of market-based "false solutions", including among others the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), REDD+, nuclear energy, agro-fuels, illegitimate debt;

ü for the de-financialization of our economies and the closing of International Financial Institutions such as the IMF, the World Bank, WTO, and regional banks like the Inter-American Development Bank; demanding an end to impunity and reparations for the crimes committed;

ü review and reversal of the trade agreements, investment protection treaties, and all forms of application of intellectual property rights and current technological packages - agrochemicals and GMOs - as well as other "false solutions" such as geo-engineering, nanotechnology, terminator technology and the like;

ü promote the refounding of regulatory institutions and mechanisms so as to end the supremacy of financial interests over human rights and the rights of nature;

ü ensure access to basic human rights such as health, education, housing, retirement, decent work, water and sanitation, transportation, financial services, telecommunications, energy resources, and natural goods, protecting them from privatization;

ü leave fossil fuels in the ground and promote a change in the model of production and consumption on the basis of harmony, complementarity, solidarity, and equilibrium among and with all;

ü ecological restructuring of cities, to combat real estate speculation, environmental injustices, deregulated interurban competition, gentrification, and the displacement of poorer communities within cities;

ü promote alternative energy sources appropriate to the natural environment, sustainable, clean, renewable, decentralized, diverse, affordable, and respectful of the environment;

ü recognize and protect the rights of people forced to immigrate due to the causes and impacts of climate change;

ü guarantee, protect, and defend the territories of indigenous peoples and peasants who maintain ecosystems that protect the climate. Encourage peasant agriculture and agro-ecological production modes. Respect the lifestyles of people and communities in the South and their life choices;

ü do not allow new projects that aggravate the environmental and climate crisis. It's time to stop the exploitation and oppression of nature and the reproduction of development models imported from the North, to learn from ecologically sustainable communities and peoples, to de-mercantilize life and ensure full reparations for the Ecological Debt;

ü defend food sovereignty, understood as the right of peoples to control their own seeds, land, water, and food production, and the reversal of the agricultural model based on agro-business and its social, economic, and cultural model of capitalist production with its logic of food for the market. We affirm that monoculture tree plantations are not forests.

We reject the mercantilization and financialization of Nature, false market-based solutions, imposed indebtedness, the green economy, environmental services, and turning a profit on the destruction of life.

Our world is not for sale, and neither is our dignity, our love for the land, knowledge, and cultures. Nature, Mother Earth, Life: these are NOT for sale NOR to be indebted! They must be defended!

"You cannot buy the wind.

You cannot buy the sun.

You cannot buy the rain.

You cannot buy the heat.

You cannot buy the clouds.

You cannot buy colors.

You cannot buy happiness.

You cannot buy my life!

Let us draw the road...

Let us walk together...

Here you can breathe struggle!

Here we make our stand!”

-Calle 13 (13th Street)

November 15, 2011 - JUBILEE SOUTH/AMERICAS

Regional Secretariat: jubileosur@gmail.com - www.jubileosuramericas.org

Global Week of Action on Debt and IFIs, October 8-16

2011-10-10T21:20:00.018-03:00

KAU, Indonesia

Semaine globale d'action contre la dette et les IFI

Semana global de Acción contra la Deuda y las IFIs
The Global Week of Action against Debt and IFIs quite literally kicked off in Rio, where the Jubilee South Brazil Network is a key organizer behind the growing network of local communities mobilizing around the impact of megaevents, such as the coming World Cup Soccer Championship and the Olympic Games. With the initial round of eliminatories for the 2014 World Cup coinciding this year with the start of the global Debt Week, they leafletted at major stadiums across the country, raising awareness of the diverse costs of such megaevents - including huge new indebtedness - and urging people and the environment before public monies for private profits.

More debt is a goal against Brazil!

"Red Card the Debt! Yes to the World Cup, but not with MY Money!!" is one of their main slogans - drawing links to the impact of the public spending for the Greek Olympics and other similar megaevents and their present economic debacles. "Yes to the World Cup, No to its social costs!"

Check out their flyer, in portuguese, here.
More news from activities in Latin america, including actions in Trinidad and Tobago, Argentina and Brasil, is available at the Global Debt Week Blog: http://debtweek.wordpress.com/actions-activities/latin-america/.
A round-up of the Week's events, in Spanish is also available here. Resumen de actividades en América Latina y el Caribe

In Zimbabwe, ZIMCODD commemorated its second Debtweek from October 12 to 15, in a collaborative effort with theatre artists. Nightly showings of the play "No loans for US, without US!", developed by the Savannah Arts Trust, were a highlight of this years's activity. More info on the Week and Debt demands in Zimbabwe
Check out the great review from Zimbabwe Newspaper!
News from Global Debt Week activities in Asia can be found at www.apmdd.org, including a report from Bangladesh street action, Climate Justice Caravan in the Philippines and similar actions in Nepal and Bangladesh, opposing World Bank role in the design and functioning of the Global Climate Fund and in Climate in general
As this year's Week of Global Action against Debt and IFIs unfolds, October 8 to 16th, more actions will be carried out by movements, organizations, debt campaigns and others around the world, highlighting the pressing reality of Illegitimate Debt and the need for comprehensive Audits, repudiation of illegitimate claims and payments, and immediate steps toward restitution and reparations. Read the 2011 Call to Action! and check out activities planned.

Indignation at the renewal of the MINUSTAH in Haiti

2011-10-08T23:50:00.000-03:00

Groups Call on Latin American and South governments to withdraw their troops from the MINUSTAH

Buenos Aires, October 14, 2011 – Argentine Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Adolfo Perez Esquivel expressed indignation at the vote today to renew the mandate of the UN Mission for Stabilization in Haiti (MINUSTAH) for another year, a decision he indicates that fails to take into account the urgency of a profound transformation of international policies towards Haiti.

"This is a vote to continue the military and economic occupation of Haiti," stated Pérez Esquivel. "It is a decision that undermines the sovereignty and self determination of that country`s people, usurps resources they need for their welfare and fails to address the MINUSTAH´s serious record of murder, rape and other human rights abuses." Pérez Esquivel further noted that "decisions like this deepen the Security Council´s loss of prestige and legitimacy, by continuing to affirm that Haiti, rather than foreign intervention, is the problem, and by not recognizing that the Haitian people have the ability and the right to build their own country and future."

Notwithstanding the recent vote, Beverly Keene, of Dialogue 2000 Argentina and the international coordination of the Jubilee South network, ratified the call to governments throughout Latin America, and the South in general, to immediately withdraw their troops which constitute almost the entire Mission. "We support the demands of our partner organizations in Haiti, who reject the presence of this occupation force and demand that the UN, instead of bringing new problems such as rape, murder and the cholera epidemic that has so far claimed more than 6000 lives, proceed to apply exemplary sanctions and offer compensation to the victims."

"We have a ‘debt of gratitude' to Haiti,” emphasized Nora Cortinas, Mother of May Square- Founders' Line, echoing the words of Eduardo Galeano during his recent visit to Buenos Aires.  "Haitians were the first people in the world to throw off the double yoke of slavery and colonialism - and it is unfathomable that they continue to be trampled on as is now the case. We must support them in the struggle against impunity, to regain what has been stolen from them, to ensure that they are not further indebted and that reparations are made for the historical, social, and ecological debt that is due to them. "

From Sao Paulo, the secretary of the Jubilee South Brazil Network, Rosilene Wansetto, reinforced the commitment to advancing the Haiti NO Minustah campaign, noting that there will be an important Continental Act for Troop Withdrawal in that city in brief, a hearing with the Brazilian Defense Minister, and in February 2012, the II International Solidarity and Fact-finding Mission to Haiti. "It is not enough to reduce troop levels to what they were before the earthquake - said Wansetto -. The troops are still an occupying force, they continue to train in Haiti to return to the slums and shantytowns of our countries to suppress and control the population, and this is unacceptable. We must redouble our efforts to achieve a true partnership with the people of Haiti, like the kind of solidarity that Cuba has carried out for years, or Venezuela, or what the MST is doing today.  Policies of real cooperation are possible. "

Perez Esquivel, fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams, the Mothers of May Square-Founder’s Line Mirta Baravalle andNora Cortinas, writer Eduardo Galeano, the musician Victor Heredia, theologians Leonardo Boff, Frei Betto, and Ofelia Ortega, World Council of Churches’ president for Latin America, among other prominent peace and human rights activists, academics, community leaders, and hundreds of organizations from 45 countries and all regions of the world, including the Jubilee South global network and the Service for Peace and Justice in Latin America, recently addressed an Open letter to UN and OAS Secretary Generals, members of the Security Council and the MINUSTAH and the international community as a whole, calling for an end to the MINUSTAH and the adoption of a new paradigm of cooperation with Haiti. The letter was delivered as part of the GlobalWeek of Action on Debt and IFIs (8 to 16 October), in further recognition of the need to achieve total and unconditional cancellation of the debts still being claimed of that country and the reparation of historic, financial, ecological, and social debts due to the Haitian people.

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For additional information:
Dialogue 2000 Argentina dialogo2000@gmail.com  Tel +54911 5569-0140

Jubilee South/Americas jubileosur@gmail.com   www.jubileosuramericas.org

Jubilee South www.jubileesouth.org

Global appeal for troop withdrawal from Haiti launched

2011-10-06T21:24:00.007-03:00

Se lanza la Carta abierta por el retiro de la MINUSTAH, con rueda de prensa en Buenos Aires

October 5, 2011- Hundreds of popular organizations, community leaders, scholars, human rights and peace activists, artists, writers, and musicians from around the world have joined in an Open Letter calling on the UN and OAS Secretary Generals, Security Council members and other involved countries, to withdraw the multilateral troops now occupying Haiti and put an end to the MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission established there in 2004. Initial presentations of the Letter took place today in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Port-au-Prince and more are scheduled for the coming days. Organizations are encouraged still to add their endorsement, by sending an email to haiti.no.minustah@gmail.com, and to make presentations of the Letter to governments, parliaments, UN and OAS offices, relevant embassies, and the press before October 14th when the Security Council is expected to vote on MINUSTAH renewal.
Full report from Buenos Aires Press Conference and presentations in Chile and Haiti

Mouvements sociaux lancent appel a se mobiliser vers Río+20

2011-10-06T01:05:00.003-03:00

Mouvements Sociaux au Sommet des Peuples pour la justice environnementale et sociale, contre la marchandisation de la vie et de la nature, et pour la défense des biens communs

Nous nous mobilisons ensemble en route vers Río+20 et au-delà

Pour nos droits et les droits de la Nature,

contre la marchandisation de la vie et le verdissement du capitalisme

Nous, organisations, réseaux et mouvements sociaux, qui sommes impliqués dans la construction du Sommet des Peuples pour la justice sociale et environnementale, contre la marchandisation de la vie et de la nature, et pour la défense des biens communs qui se tiendra à Río de Janeiro, Brésil, du 18 au 23 juin 2012, face au déroulement simultané dans cette même ville de la Conférence des Nations Unies sur le développement durable (Río+20), lançons un appel à la mobilisation et à la coordination des luttes en tous points de la planète. Pour garantir que tous les peuples, en particulier les plus vulnérables, auront le droit d’accéder à l’eau, aux aliments, à l’énergie, à la terre, aux semences et aux territoires et à des moyens de vie dignes, et pour revendiquer les droits de la Terre Mère, nous sommes en train d’édifier ensemble, comme activité de ce processus d’articulation, l’Assemblée permanente des Peuples, qui se tiendra à Rio.

Cette assemblée aura pour défi de faire entendre la voix des femmes et des hommes, jeunes et âgés, qui résistent jour après jour à l’avancée d’un modèle de développement par définition non durable, dont le caractère déprédateur et inhumain cherche à soumettre chaque aspect de la vie à l’action du marché, faisant toujours passer les bénéfices de quelques-uns avant le bien-vivre de tous, alors qu’il essaie de présenter un visage toujours plus « vert » derrière lequel il peut se dissimuler.

Ce fut pendant la Conférence sur l’environnement et le développement de Río en 1992– dénommée Sommet de la Terre, ou Río 92 –, qu’une mobilisation sociale presque sans précédent face à un rendez-vous des États vit naître, entre autres choses, la Convention sur la diversité biologique et la Convention-cadre des Nations Unies sur le changement climatique.

Or, les principes fondateurs de cette Convention sur le changement climatique – la responsabilité historique des pays industrialisés dans le changement climatique, la dette écologique et climatique, et par conséquent les responsabilités communes mais au traitement différencié – souffrent aujourd’hui les attaques du capital le plus concentré, dans sa tentative de transformer la vie en une marchandise asservie à ses buts lucratifs. Après les reculs observés lors des négociations de Copenhague (2009) et de Cancún (2010), rien ne laisse espérer des résultats moins décevants de la CdP 17 à Durban (du 28 novembre au 9 décembre 2011). De même, à partir de la CdP 10 de la Convention sur la diversité biologique qui eut lieu à Nagoya en 2010, la marchandisation de la nature prit le devant de la scène grâce à la proposition de « mécanismes financiers innovant », qui reprennent la même logique erronée des marchés du carbone.

Mais ce fut aussi à Río 92 déjà, que le monde des grandes entreprises commença à brandir le drapeau du « développement durable », car il était possible d’en faire une bonne affaire. Ce même concept, complété lors de Río+10 par celui de « responsabilité sociale des entreprises » et pourri jusqu’à la moelle par l’ouverture et la déréglementation néolibérale, et par la mondialisation de l’économie capitaliste hégémonique, cause aujourd’hui des ravages dans la vie des peuples et de la planète, et menace d’en produire encore davantage. Et cette tendance s’amplifie par le biais des mécanismes et des politiques d’ajustement structurel de ce qu’on appelle l’« économie verte ». Tout comme le calendrier néolibéral de privatisations des services publics dans les années 90, elle libéralise la Nature et la met à la disposition des marchés, en la divisant en composants – comme le carbone, la biodiversité ou les services environnementaux – pour faciliter en même temps la spéculation financière, la mainmise des entreprises, la perte de la souveraineté alimentaire et le dépeuplement des territoires.

Face à cette réalité, il faut que nous fassions de Río+20 un processus mondial de forte mobilisation, afin de lutter contre un système meurtrier qui cherche à se perpétuer à tout prix, et pour renforcer les luttes et les résistances nécessaires à notre survie grâce à l’élaboration d’alternatives non capitalistes comme la souveraineté alimentaire. La continuité et la profondeur des crises actuelles, leur caractère systémique et chaque fois plus militarisé et violent, le manque de réponses adéquates de la part de la majorité des gouvernements, et le détournement des instances de négociation multilatérales au profit des intérêts géopolitiques et commerciaux, mettent en évidence la nécessité urgente de construire un espace propre, pluriel, démocratique et autonome, porteur d’un message fort et avec des réussites concrètes, capable de s’instituer non seulement en caisse de résonance de nos dénonciations et de nos revendications, mais aussi en multiplicateur de notre créativité et de nos points forts, de notre solidarité et de notre espoir.

Face à l’énorme kermesse des fausses solutions que préparent pour Río+20 les grandes entreprises, les banques et institutions financières internationales et les gouvernements complices, dans le but de consolider un capitalisme reverdi comme unique réponse aux multiples crises déclenchées par eux – crises économique, écologique, alimentaire, énergétique, démocratique, climatique, de droits, de genre, crise de civilisation pour tout dire -, le Sommet des Peuples devra répondre au défi de tisser et de rendre visibles les vraies solutions qui sont en voie d’élaboration par les peuples, à la campagne, dans les forêts, dans les usines, dans les communautés, les quartiers, les écoles et autres lieux de travail et de rencontre.

Nous invitons donc à nous impliquer dans ce processus et à nous mobiliser partout en vue de Río+20, en lançant des campagnes et des initiatives de débat et de formation, d’élargissement de plates-formes de stratégie et d’action conjointe, de coordination et d’appui solidaire entre les luttes concrètes et les revendications rassembleuses.

Nous appelons les peuples et les mouvements qui luttent contre toutes les formes de déprédation et de domination, à s’unir à nous en une Assemblée permanente des Peuples où, face à la marchandisation de la vie et au « reverdissement » du capitalisme, nous affirmerons nos droits et ceux de la Nature par-dessus la rhétorique de « l’économie verte ».

Au moyen de témoignages et d’analyses, d’échanges et de solidarité, de mobilisation et d’actions concrètes, cette Assemblée devra relever le défi de renforcer les luttes présentes et de convoquer à de nouvelles actions et à de nouvelles initiatives, qui créeront de nouvelles plates-formes d’unité. En ce sens, dans l’Assemblée permanente des Peuples, les lésés hommes et femmes, les vrais créanciers des dettes sociales et financières, écologiques et climatiques, démocratiques et de genre – que le capitalisme, le patriarcat, l’impérialisme, le racisme et l’anthropocentrisme accumulent – auront pour gageure de contribuer de façon significative à la coordination de nos efforts divers pour construire des économies et des sociétés non capitalistes, justes et équitables, en harmonie avec toutes et tous et avec la Nature, pour surmonter la faim, la paupérisation, l’exploitation et l’oppression, en prenant appui sur les nombreuses luttes en cours, et en nous aidant à nous préparer pour affronter les défis stratégiques des temps prochains.

Nous réaliserons en outre des activités d’autogestion autour des aspects vitaux du processus de transformation systémique et civilisatrice, nous chercherons à connaître et à appuyer directement les luttes des habitants de Río de Janeiro et de toutes parts, dans leurs efforts de survie face à la poussée du capitalisme et de son visage reverdi, en incluant les méga-événements, l'accaparement des terres, les mégaprojets, les mécanismes dits de développement propre et tout le fatras de sigles et de noms trompeurs comme REDD, REDD+ ou biocombustibles. Nous dénoncerons les responsables, nous organiserons des actions directes et aussi, comme il convient, nous célèbrerons la vie et l’espoir qui naissent et se nourrissent de nos combats et de nos conquêtes.

Nous appelons à nous mobiliser pour construire le Sommet des Peuples pour la justice sociale et environnementale contre la marchandisation de la vie et pour la défense des biens communs, et l’Assemblée permanente des Peuples, sur la base des multiples luttes en cours, pour défendre la vie, la souveraineté – alimentaire, énergétique, financière, territoriale, politique -, l’autodétermination, l’égalité et les droits de l’homme et de la nature, en analysant les origines de la crise actuelle et les nouvelles modalités d’accumulation capitaliste, de colonisation et d’esclavage. Unissons-nous en tant que mouvements, organisations et réseaux sociaux pour que Rio+20 devienne une grande mobilisation populaire qui affermisse les bases locales, régionales et mondiales nécessaires pour repousser la charge du capitalisme « vert ». Rio+20 devrait être un point de départ pour un monde plus juste et plus solidaire.

Nous vous attendons pour construire ensemble !

On ne vend pas la vie, on la défend !

C’est nous, les peuples, qui sommes les créanciers !

Mondialisons la lutte, mondialisons l’espoir !

Nous marcherons jusqu’à ce que nous soyons tous libres !

- 4 décembre 2011

Amis de la Terre d’Amérique Latine et des Caraïbes, Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas, Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas, Grassroots Global Justice, Grito Continental de los Excluid@s, Jubileo Sur/Américas, Marche Mondiale des Femmes, Mouvement Mondial pour les Forêts Tropicales, Oilwatch, Via Campesina

Pour vous joindre à nous, veuillez vous adresser à movilizacion.rio20@gmail.com

Social movements launch Call to mobilize towards Rio+20

2011-10-06T00:53:00.006-03:00

Social Movements in the People's Summit for social and environmental justice,

against the commodification of life and nature and in defense of the commons

MOBILIZE TOGETHER TOWARDS RÍO+20 AND BEYOND

For our rights and the rights of nature,
against the commodification of life and the greenwashing of capitalism

We, organizations, networks and social movements, involved in the building of the Peoples' Summit for social and environmental justice, against the commodification of life and nature in defense of the commonsto be held in Río de Janeiro, Brazil, June 18 to 23, 2012, simultaneous to and in the same city as the United Nations’ Conference on Sustainable Development (Río+20), call for the mobilization and coordination of struggles across the planet. To ensure fulfillment of the rights of all peoples, especially those most vulnerable, to have access to water, food, energy, land, seeds, territories, and decent livelihoods, and to demand the rights of Mother Earth. As part of this process of articulation, we are building together an activity to be held in Río+20, the Permanent Peoples’ Assembly.

This Assembly will have the challenge to give voice to the women and men, young and old, who are resisting daily the advance of a development model that is by definition unsustainable: a model whose predatory inhumanity is trying to subject every aspect of life to the dictates of the market, always putting the profits of a few ahead of everyone’s buen vivir or wellbeing, while simultaneously trying to hide behind a green-washed face.

It was during the Río Conference in 1992 - the so-called Earth Summit, or Eco'92 – that an almost unprecedented social mobilization in the face of an official conference gave way, among other things, to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity and to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

It is the founding principles of that Convention on Climate Change- the historical responsibility of the industrialized countries for climate change, ecological and climate debt, and thus common but differentiated responsibilities for its treatment - which are now suffering as never before the onslaught of the most concentrated forms of capital in their attempt to turn all of life into a commodity at the service of their profits. Following on the setbacks marked in the climate negotiations in Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010), there is no reason to expect less disappointing results from the COP17 in Durban (from November 28 to December 9, 2011). Also after the COP10 of the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya (2010), the mercantilization of Nature also got a central role with the proposal of the so called innovative financial mechanisms that replicate the logic of the failed carbon markets.

But it was also in Río'92 when the corporate world began to raise the banner of "sustainable development," seeing the possibility of turning it into a good business. That same concept, complemented during Rio+10 by that of "corporate social responsibility" and subverted to the core by the simultaneous neoliberal opening and deregulation and global financialization of the hegemonic capitalist economy, is now wreaking havoc in the lives of people and the planet and threatens even worse impacts. It is this agenda that is being deepened through the mechanisms and structural adjustment policies of the so-called "green economy." Just like the neoliberal agenda of essential service privatizations in the ‘90s, the “green economy” is all about liberalizing market access to Nature, dividing it up into components such as carbon, biodiversity, and environmental services, while at the same time generating new instruments of financial speculation, corporate control, and the emptying of territories.

Given this reality, we need to turn Río+20 into a strong process of global mobilization that confronts the reality of a system of death that will stop at nothing to perpetuate itself, and strengthens our resistance and struggles for survival through the building of non-capitalist alternatives, such as food sovereignty. The continuity and depth of current crises, its' systemic and increasingly militarized and violent nature, the lack of adequate response by most governments, and the taking hostage of multilateral negotiations by geopolitical and big corporate interests, all lend urgency to the need to build this process as our own pluralistic, democratic, and autonomous space, with a strong message and concrete achievements. It must be able to give echo to our denunciations and demands as well as to reproduce our creativity and strengths, our solidarity and hope.

Faced with the huge festival of false solutions that the large corporations, banks and international financial institutions, and accomplice governments are preparing for Río+20, in order to consolidate a green-washed capitalism as the only response to the multiple crises they themselves are responsible for unleashing - economic, ecological food, energy, democratic, climate, rights, gender, in short, a civilizational crisis - the Peoples’ Summit will have the challenge to articulate and draw attention to the real solutions that peoples everywhere are building, in the fields and forests, factories, communities, neighborhoods, schools, and other places of work and livelihood.

We, therefore make a call to engage in this process and to mobilize everywhere towards Río+20: promoting campaigns, initiatives of debates and capacity-building, broadening platforms for joint strategy and action, coordination and solidarity support among struggles and specific demands that bring us together.

We call on the peoples and movements struggling against all forms of exploitation, depredation and domination, to join with us in building the Permanent Peoples’ Assembly, in order to affirm our rights and those of nature against the commodification of life and the greenwashing of capitalism, under the rhetoric of the "green economy".

Through testimony and analysis, exchange and solidarity, mobilization and concrete actions, the Assembly will also be challenged to strengthen participating struggles and call for new actions and initiatives, generating new platforms of unity. In this regard, in the Permanent Peoples’ Assembly, those who are affected and who are the true creditors of the social and financial, ecological and climatic, democratic and gender debts that throughout the development of capitalism, patriarchy, imperialism, racism, and anthropocentrism have been accumulating, will be challenged to contribute significantly to the coordination of our diverse efforts to develop non-capitalist economies and societies that are fair and equitable, in harmony with nature and all beings, overcoming hunger, impoverishment, exploitation and oppression, building on the basis of the many ongoing struggles and helping to prepare to confront the strategic challenges of the near future.

Self-organized activities will also be held on critical aspects of the processes of systemic and civilizational transformation, and the Summit will include opportunities to get to know and support directly the struggles of the inhabitants of Río de Janeiro and elsewhere in their efforts to survive the onslaught of capitalism and its greenwashing, including mega-events, land grabbing, mega-projects, the so-called clean development mechanisms, and many other acronyms and misleading names such as REDD, REDD+, biofuels, etc. We will denounce the perpetrators, organize direct actions, and, as befits, celebrate the life and hope that are born and nurtured in our struggles and victories.

Let´s mobilize together to build the Peoples’ Summit for social and environmental justice against the commodification of life and nature in defense of the commons, and the Permanent Peoples' Assembly, on the basis of the many ongoing struggles in defense of life, sovereignty -food, energy, financial, territorial, and political- self-determination, equality, and human and nature rights, analyzing the origins of the present crisis and new forms of capitalist accumulation, colonization, and slavery. As social movements, organizations, and networks, let us unite to ensure that Río+20 becomes a massive, global popular mobilization that strengthens our capacity to act locally, regionally, and globally in order to address capitalism`s green advance. Rio +20 must be a starting point for a more just society with more solidarity.

Let us build together!
Life is not for sale, it must be defended!We, the peoples, are the creditors!
Let’s globalize the struggle, let’s globalize hope!
We will continue until all are free!

-December 4, 2011

Continental Cry of the Excluded, Convergence of Movements of the Peoples of the Americas, Coordinator of Andean Indigenous Organizations, Friends of the Earth Latin America and the Caribbean, Grassroots Global Justice, Jubilee South/Americas, Oilwatch, Vía Campesina, World March of Women, World Rainforest Movement.

To add your support, contact us through: movilizacion.rio20@gmail.com

Movimientos sociales lanzan Llamado a la movilización frente a Rio+20

2011-10-04T00:47:00.004-03:00

Movimientos Sociales en la Cumbre de los Pueblos por Justicia social y ambiental,

contra la mercantilización de la vida y la naturaleza, en defensa de los bienes comunes

nos movilizamos junt@s camino a Río+20 y más allá

por nuestros derechos y los derechos de la naturaleza, contra la mercantilización de la vida y el reverdecimiento del capitalismo

Nosotr@s, organizaciones, redes y movimientos sociales, que estamos implicados en la construcción de laCumbre de los Pueblos por Justicia social y ambiental, contra la mercantilización de la vida y la naturaleza y en defensa de los bienes comunes, que se realizará en Río de Janeiro, Brasil, del 18 al 23 de junio de 2012, ante el desarrollo simultáneo y en esa misma ciudad, de la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Desarrollo Sustentable (Rio+20), hacemos un llamado a la movilización y coordinación de las luchas a lo largo y ancho del planeta. Para garantizar que se cumpla con el derecho de todos los pueblos, especialmente aquellos más vulnerables, a tener acceso al agua, alimentos, energía, tierra, semillas, territorios, y medios de vida dignos, y para reivindicar los Derechos de la Madre Tierra. Estamos construyendo junt@s, como actividad de este proceso de articulación, la Asamblea permanente de los Pueblos, a realizarse en Río+20.

Esta asamblea, tendrá el desafío hacer oír la voz de las mujeres y hombres, jóvenes y mayores, que día a día están resistiendo el avance de un modelo de desarrollo por definición no sustentable, cuya inhumanidad depredadora va buscando someter cada aspecto de la vida a la acción del mercado, anteponiendo siempre las ganancias de unos pocos al buen vivir del conjunto, mientras simultáneamente intenta asumir un rostro cada vez más "verde" detrás del cual esconderse.

Fue durante la Conferencia sobre Medio Ambiente y Desarrollo, en Río en 1992 - la llamada Cumbre de la Tierra, o Eco'92 -, que una movilización social casi sin precedentes frente a una cita de los estados vio nacer, entre otras cosas, la Convención sobre Diversidad Biológica y la Convención Marco de las Naciones Unidas sobre el Cambio Climático.

Son los principios fundantes de esa Convención sobre Cambio Climático - la responsabilidad histórica de los países industrializados por el cambio climático, la deuda ecológica y climática, y por ende las responsabilidades comunes pero diferenciadas para su tratamiento - que sufren hoy como nunca los embates del capital más concentrado en su intento de convertir la vida en una mercancía al servicio de sus ganancias. Luego de los retrocesos marcados en las negociaciones climáticas de Copenhague (2009) y Cancún (2010), no hay motivo para esperar resultados menos decepcionantes de la COP17 en Durban (del 28 de noviembre al 9 de diciembre de 2011). También luego de la COP10 de la Convención de Diversidad Biológica en Nagoya (2010), la mercantilización de la Naturaleza pasó a tener lugar central ante la proposición de los llamados mecanismos financieros innovadores que copian la misma lógica de los fallidos mercados de carbono.

Pero fue también en Río'92 cuando ya el mundo corporativo empezó a levantar la bandera del "desarrollo sustentable", pues había posibilidad de convertirlo en un buen negocio. Ese mismo concepto, complementado en Río+10 por el de "responsabilidad social corporativa" y subvertido hasta la médula por la simultánea apertura y desregulación neoliberal y la financiarización globalizada de la economía capitalista hegemónica, hoy provocan estragos en la vida de los pueblos y del planeta, y amenazan con impactos aún peores. Y es esta agenda que se profundiza a través de mecanismos y políticas de ajuste estructural de la llamada "economía verde". Tal cual como la agenda neoliberal de privatizaciones de servicios públicos en los 90, viene a liberalizar la Naturaleza y su acceso por parte de los mercados, dividiéndola en componentes -como el carbono, la biodiversidad o los servicios ambientales- para generar al mismo tiempo títulos de especulación financiera, el control corporativo, la pérdida de soberanía alimentaria y el vaciamiento de los territorios.

Ante esta realidad, precisamos convertir Río+20 en un proceso mundial de fuerte movilización, que confronte la realidad de un sistema de muerte que busca perpetuarse a cualquier costo y fortalezca las luchas y resistencias por nuestra sobrevivencia a través de la construcción de alternativas no-capitalistas como la soberanía alimentaria. La continuidad y la profundidad de las actuales crisis, su carácter sistémico y cada vez más militarizado y violento, la falta de respuestas adecuadas por parte de la mayoría de los gobiernos y el secuestro de los procesos de negociación multilateral por parte de los intereses geopolíticos y corporativos, van marcando con una necesaria urgencia la construcción de este espacio propio, plural, democrático y autónomo, con un mensaje contundente y logros concretos capaz de constituirse no solo en caja de resonancia de nuestras denuncias y demandas sino también en multiplicador de nuestra creatividad y fortalezas, nuestra solidaridad y esperanza.

Frente a la enorme fiesta de las falsas soluciones que están preparando para Río+20 las grandes corporaciones, los bancos y entidades financieras internacionales y los gobiernos cómplices, con el fin de consolidar un capitalismo reverdecido como única respuesta ante las múltiples crisis por ellos mismos desatadas - crisis económica, ecológica, alimentaria, energética, democrática, climática, de derechos, de género, en fin, crisis civilizatoria-, la Cumbre de los Pueblos tendrá el desafío de hilvanar y visibilizar lasverdaderas soluciones que desde los pueblos se vienen construyendo, en el campo, en los bosques, en las fábricas, en las comunidades, los barrios, las escuelas y demás lugares de trabajo y de convivencia.

Convocamos entonces a involucrarnos en este proceso y a movilizarnos en cada lugar camino a Río+20, impulsando campañas e iniciativas de debate y formación, de ampliación de plataformas de estrategia y acción conjunta, de coordinación y apoyo solidario entre las luchas concretas y las demandas aglutinadoras.

Llamamos a los pueblos y movimientos en lucha contra todas las formas de explotación, depredación y dominación, a unirse con nosotros en una Asamblea permanente de los Pueblos, donde afirmaremos nuestros derechos y los de la Naturaleza frente a la mercantilización de la vida y el "reverdecimiento" del capitalismo, sobre la retórica de la "economía verde".

A través de los testimonios y el análisis, los intercambios y la solidaridad, la movilización y las acciones concretas, tendrá además el desafío de fortalecer las luchas presentes y convocar a nuevas acciones e iniciativas, generadoras de nuevas plataformas de unidad. En ese sentido, en la Asamblea permanente de los Pueblos, los afectados y afectadas, los verdaderos acreedores de las deudas sociales y financieras, ecológicas y climáticas, democráticas y de género -que a lo largo de su desarrollo viene acumulando el capitalismo, el patriarcado, el imperialismo, el racismo, y el antropocentrismo- tendrán el desafío de contribuir significativamente en la coordinación de nuestros diversos esfuerzos por construir economías y sociedades no capitalistas, justas y equitativas, en armonía entre tod@s y con la Naturaleza, superando el hambre, el empobrecimiento, la explotación y la opresión, acumulando sobre la base de las múltiples luchas en curso y ayudando a prepararnos para confrontar los desafíos estratégicos de los próximos tiempos.

Se realizarán además actividades auto-gestionadas en torno a aspectos vitales del proceso de transformación sistémica y civilizatoria, buscaremos conocer y apoyar directamente las luchas de los pobladores de Río de Janeiro, y de todos los lugares, en sus esfuerzos de sobrevivencia ante la embestido del capitalismo y su cara reverdecida, incluyendo los mega-eventos, los acaparamientos de tierras, los mega-proyectos, los mecanismos llamados de desarrollo limpio y otras tantas siglas y nombres engañosos como REDD, REDD+, biocombustibles, denunciaremos a los responsables, organizaremos acciones directas y también, como corresponde, celebraremos la vida y la esperanza que nacen y se nutren de nuestras luchas y conquistas.

Llamamos a movilizarnos para construir la Cumbre de los Pueblos por justicia social y ambiental contra la mercantilización de la vida y en defensa de los bienes comunes, y la Asamblea permanentes de los Pueblos, sobre la base de las múltiples luchas en curso, en defensa de la vida, la soberanía -alimentaria, energética, financiera, territorial, política-, la autodeterminación y la igualdad y la defensa de los derechos humanos y de la Naturaleza, analizando los orígenes de la presente crisis y las nuevas modalidades de acumulación capitalista, de colonización y de esclavitud. Unámonos como movimientos, organizaciones y redes sociales para asegurar que Río+20 se convierta en una gran movilización popular que fortalezca las bases locales, regionales y mundiales necesarias para enfrentar la avanzada verde del capitalismo. Río+20 tiene que ser un punto de partida para una sociedad más justa y más solidaria. 4 de diciembre de 2011.

¡L@s esperamos para construir juntos y juntas!

¡La vida no se vende, se defiende!

¡Somos los pueblos los acreedores!

¡Globalicemos la lucha, globalicemos la esperanza!

¡Seguiremos en marcha hasta que tod@s seamos libres!

Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe – Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas – Coordinadora Andina de Organizaciones Indígenas – Grassroots Global Justice – Grito Continental de los Excluidos/as – Jubileo Sur/Américas – Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres – Movimiento Mundial por los Bosques – Oilwatch – Vía Campesina.

Para sumarse, comunicarse a: movilizacion.rio20@gmail.com

Declaration of the Alternative Forum on Climate Change, Panama

2011-10-03T20:17:00.006-03:00

Members of peasant communities and organizations, indigenous peoples, afrodescendants, academics, students, women, from throughout Panama and the Mesoamerican region, gathered in Panama City on October 1 and 2, in the "Alternative Forum on Climate Change", parallel to the start of another round of intersessional climate change negotiations. Final Declaration of the Alternative Forum on Climate Change. Declaración del Foro Alternativo sobre Cambio Climático

Vea también, "PRECOP Panamá: sin brújula en las soluciones al Cambio Climático...",

Nota, fotos y audio en: http://www.radiotemblor.org/2011/10/04/precop-panama-sin-brujula-en-las-soluciones-al-cambio-climatico/

Entregan carta a la ONU pidiendo el retiro de la MINUSTAH de Haití

2011-10-01T18:22:00.000-03:00

DIÁLOGO 2000

Buenos Aires, 05.10.11

COMUNICADO DE PRENSA

Cientos de organizaciones y personalidades de todo el mundo, encabezados por los Premio Nobel de la Paz Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Mairead Corrigan Maguire y Betty Williams y las Madres de Plaza de Mayo-Línea Fundadora, Nora Cortiñas y Mirtha Baravalle, hicieron pública hoy una carta dirigida al Secretario General de las Naciones Unidas, en la que solicitan el retiro de las tropas militares y el fin de la MINUSTAH, la Misión de la ONU para la Estabilización de Haití. Junto con una segunda Carta, dirigda a los Presidentes de América Latina en tono similar, la Carta también está dirigida a los Estados integrantes de esa fuerza militar y del Consejo de Seguridad, y al Secretario General de la OEA, y serán entregadas en diversos países en los próximos días, en anticipación de una nueva votación en el Consejo de Seguridad sobre la permanencia de esa Misión cada vez más cuestionada.

Foto: Hernán De Gennaro

En rueda de prensa en Buenos Aires, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Presidente del Servicio Paz y Justicia en América Latina, resaltó la hipocresía de las grandes potencias, quienes afirman que Haití es “una amenaza para la Paz y la seguridad mundial” para esconder su intervención militar, política y económica en ese país. “La gran amenaza a la Paz en Haití es la cólera, los terremotos, el hambre, la falta de salud y vivienda, los intereses extranjeros. Eso sí son amenazas para la Paz del mundo y para la Paz del pueblo haitiano,” dijo Pérez Esquivel al reclamar el retiro inmediato de la Minustah.

Pérez Esquivel enfatizó la necesidad de reconceptualizar la cooperación con Haití, tomando como ejemplos las prestaciones de Cuba y Venezuela. “Haití no necesita ocupaciones militares sino médicos, técnicos en salud y agricultura, en restauración ecológica, que estén dispuestos a trabajar hombro a hombro con el pueblo haitiano.” Así como se plantea en la Carta, “no se trata de solucionar los problemas que sí afectan a la paz y la seguridad social de ese pueblo con medidas coyunturales y asistenciales que agudizan la dependencia. El país necesita cambios donde el pueblo sea el protagonista de su propia vida y constructor de su propia historia.”

Rina Bertaccini, Presidenta del Movimiento por la Paz, la Soberanía y la Solidaridad entre los Pueblos (MoPaSSol) y Vice-presidenta del Consejo Mundial de la Paz, llamó a ampliar el diálogo entre los pueblos y los gobiernos, sobre todo en los países de la UNASUR y de toda la región, para lograr una frente unitaria a favor del retiro de la MINUSTAH y el establecimiento de una verdadera política de cooperación. “No podemos aceptar esta definición de Haití país peligro, mucho menos de parte de un Consejo de Seguridad tan cuestionado en su papel sobre todo por el poder de veto que allí ejerce EE.UU. y otros pocos países. La amenaza real son las tropas que EE.UU. va concentrando en todo el Caribe, que tienen en su mira no sólo a Haití, sino también a Cuba, a Venezuela, a todo país que diga No a los planes imperialistas.”

Víctor De Gennaro, Presidente de la Corriente Unidad Popular y referente histórico del Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina (CTA), señaló el Proyecto de Declaración por el retiro de las tropas argentinas, que la Diputada Graciela Iturraspe y otros han presentado en la Cámara de Diputados y recalcó que “es una inmoralidad, una vergüenza, que gobiernos que intenten hacer la integración latinoamericana, lo hacen con las armas y la presencia de tropas de ocupación. Hoy los ejércitos de Argentina, de Uruguay, de Brasil y de demasiados otros países de nuestra América, tienen el protagonismo de esta ocupación. Nuestro reclamo es el retiro inmediato de esas tropas y son nuestros gobiernos los que tienen en sus manos esa decisión.”

De Gennaro expresó además la importancia de una acción coordinada en toda la región en este sentido y para fortalecer ese camino, anunció los preparativos para una II Misión de Solidaridad e Investigación a Haití, a realizarse en febrero 2012. “Uno sólo puede entender la permanencia de las tropas en Haití, sabiendo que es una nueva escuela, como otrora fuera la Escuela de las Américas donde se preparaban para otro momento de represión. Hoy están practicando en Haití, como lo afirmó el jefe militar brasileño en Rio de Janeiro, para volver a las favelas, a las villas de miseria, para el control social en todo el continente. Esta II Misión de Solidaridad nos ayudará a ver que está pasando y como seguir fortaleciendo el intercambio solidario como el que están impulsando la Via Campesina, los Médicos del Mundo, la Alianza Internacional por el Hábitat, entre otros.”

La Madre de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora, Mirta Baravalle, recalcó el reclamo del pueblo haitiano a que no los siguen invisibilizando. Beverly Keene, integrante de Diálogo 2000 y Coordinadora Internacional de la red Jubileo Sur, enfatizó que se promueve esta iniciativa a partir del pedido de las organizaciones haitianas con quienes se viene colaborando, y que están movilizando en Haití por el fin de esta ocupación. Recordó Keene que “la MINUSTAH asegura un proceso de recolonización económica dirigido, ahora, por un virtual gobierno paralelo - la Comisión Interina de Reconstrucción de Haití - cuyos planes responden más a los prestamistas y empresarios que a los derechos de las y los haitianos”. Haciendo eco de las palabras recientes de Eduardo Galeano, finalizó enfatizando que tenemos los pueblos del mundo un deber de gratitud con el pueblo haitiano, por su protagonismo y generosidad en las luchas emancipatorias del siglo XIX. “Es fundamental respetar su derecho a la soberanía y la autodeterminación, apoyar su lucha contra la impunidad y la reparación de las deudas históricas, sociales, ecológicas y financieras que se tengan con ese pueblo y que necesita para su vida y dignidad.”

Entre todos, las organizaciones presentes también anunciaron la decisión de propiciar la conformación de una amplia y pluralista "Autoconvocatoria argentina de Solidaridad con Haití y por el Retiro de las Tropas", que podría tener una primera reunión en noviembre con vistas a la planificación de una agenda de acción común, incluyendo participación en la II Misión de Solidaridad e Investigación, durante el año 2012.

La Carta a ser presentada en los próximos días cuenta con el respaldo, entre otros, de las redes y organizaciones continentales Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe, Jubileo Sur, la Alianza Social Continental, el Servicio Paz y Justicia en América Latina, el Grito de los Excluidos, la Secretaría Internacional Cristiana de Solidaridad “Monseñor Romero”, la Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres y la Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos. Lleva la firma de cientos de movimientos y dirigentes religiosos, políticos, sindicales, ecologistas, de derechos humanos, de mujeres, de más de 42 países y todos los continentes, incluyendo el Movimiento Sin Tierra y la Via Campesina-Brasil, el PIT-CNT de Uruguay y la CTA de Argentina. Además, cuenta con el respaldo del escritor Eduardo Galeano, el músico Víctor Heredia y de los teólogos brasileros Leonardo Boff y Frei Betto, entre otras destacadas figuras de la actualidad latinoamericana.

000

Para ver la carta completa con las adhesiones hasta el momento entrar acá

Para más información dirigirse a:

Diálogo 2000 Argentina dialogo2000@gmail.com

Jubileo Sur/Américas jubileosur@gmail.com

Global Appeal for troop withdrawal from Haiti launched

2011-10-01T00:14:00.003-03:00

Buenos Aires, October 5, 2011- Hundreds of popular organizations, community leaders, scholars, human rights and peace activists, artists, writers, and musicians from around the world have joined in an Open Letter calling on the UN and OAS Secretary Generals, Security Council members and other involved countries, to withdraw the multilateral troops now occupying Haiti and put an end to the MINUSTAH, the UN Stabilization Mission established there in 2004. This initiative is also being coordinated with a special appeal to the presidents of Latin America, to honor their debt of gratitude to Haiti and withdraw their occupying forces.

The Security Council will vote on MINUSTAH renewal before October 15th, and Jubilee South together with other networks and movements in the Americas and globally are pressing this demand in support of JS member organizations, such as PAPDA, and others in Haiti. In addition to an end to all forms of foreign military and police intervention, the Letter also calls for the development of a new paradigm of solidarity cooperation with Haiti, including full debt cancellation, support for the struggle against impunity, ensuring that the Haitian people and their organizations are leading the processes of reconstruction and development, and reparations for the historical, ecological, social and financial debts due to Haiti.


Foto: Hernán De Gennaro

Nobel Peace Laureate Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, who together with fellow laureates Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams headed up the list of signatures, made a strong call for an end to the MINUSTAH farce in the press conference held in Buenos Aires to launch global presentations of the Open Letter. He emphasized the hypocrisy and impunity of the big powers who year after year pressure the Security Council to certify that Haiti is a threat to global peace and security in order to hide their military, political, and economic intervention in Haiti. "The big threat to Peace in Haiti is cholera, earthquakes, hunber, the lack of housing and healthcare, the presence of foreign interests. These are the real threat to Peace in the world, and for the people of Haiti, and what Haiti needs is respect and cooperation, not military occupation."

Elaborating further, Rina Bertaccini, vice-president of the World Peace Council and president of the local group MoPaSSol, stated "We cannot accept the definition of Haiti as a dangerous country, particularly coming from a Security Council whose very existence and role are so questionable due to the veto power exercised there by the US and others. The real threat is the build-up of US and NATO military forces in the Caribbean: forces that are aimed not just at Haiti, but at Cuba, Venezuela, and all of Latin America, at any country that says NO to imperialist pretensions."

Mother of May Square-Founder's Line, Mirta Baravalle, highlighted the long struggle of the Haitian people to overcome occupations and repression, and their plea not to be "invisibilized". In that spirit, Dialogue 2000 and Jubilee South Coordinator, Beverly Keene, pointed to the importance of the "global" nature of this appeal in support of Haitian organizations and their demands, citing in particular the significance of pronouncements in countries such as Nepal, the Philippines, Bangladesh, and Pakistan, which have military and police forces in Haiti now as part of the UN Mission. She also pointed to the urgency of connecting the military and police occupation of Haiti to the existence of a virtual parallel government, the "Interim Commission for the Reconstruction of Haiti", headed by former US president Bill Clinton, the World Bank, IMF and other so-called "international donors". "The MINUSTAH occupies Haiti to ensure a process of economic recolonization that has far more to do with the interests of money-lenders and international business than the rights of Haitian men and women," Keene argued.

Concluding the Buenos Aires launching of the Open Letter, union leader and President of the Popular Unity political formation, Víctor De Gennaro, called on the governments of Argentina and other South American countries to withdraw their troops immediately from Haiti. "It is immoral and shameful that governments that express their desire to advance in the integration of Latin America are doing it with arms and the presence of a military occupation. Our governments can, and must, decide to withdraw those troops now." De Gennaro went on to explain that "one can only understand the presence of those troops in Haiti by knowing that it is a new school - like the notorious US School of the Americas which trained Latin American military in other decades to repress their own peoples. Today our military and police are "practicing" in Haiti, as the Brazilian military commander in Rio de Janeiro himself confessed, to return to the "favelas" and slums of our countries, prepared to carry out new forms of social control."

Participants in the Buenos Aires press conference, which also called attention to the complementary Letter to Latin American Presidents, launched by School of the Americas Watch, and the presentation in the Argentine Chamber of Deputies of a proposed Declaration for the withdrawal of Argentine troops from Haiti and support for a policy of true regional support and cooperation. They also announced preparations for a II International Solidarity and Fact-finding Mission to Haiti, projected for February, 2012, and similar to the one organized by Jubilee South/Americas in 2005 which opened a real window on Haitian reality throughout the region and the launching of numerous people-to-people solidarity initiatives.

Foto: SOAWatch

In neighboring Chile, School of the Americas Watch and Jubilee South activists and friends joined in a street action to share information about the presence of Chilean troops in Haiti, before formally presenting the Open Letters to the offices of Chilean President Sebastiàn Piñera in Santiago. Members of a SOAWatch delegation visiting Haiti this week, also presented the letters publically in a press conference held in Haitian capital city Port-au-Prince. In Brazil, a first presentation to government officials was scheduled to take place October 6th, and there and elsewhere through the region, the call for Haiti NO MINUSTAH will be present in activities to be held in the framework of the Global Week of Action against Debt and IFIs, October 8 to 16.

Organizations are encouraged to add their endorsement to the Open Letter by sending an email to haiti.no.minustah@gmail.com., and to take action before October 15th, to present the Letter to governments, parliamentarians, local UN and OAS offices, relevant embassies, the press and others. Share your actions and help inspire others! //

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Alternative Forum on Climate Change

2011-09-12T17:19:00.017-03:00

Foro alternativo sobre Cambio Climático, Panamá, 1-2 octubre, antedentes y afiche Convocatoria

Programa

Forum alternatif sur les changements climatiques

A host of Panamanian and Mesoamerican popular organizations are preparing to address the reality of climate change in ways that the negotiators who will meet in Panama City October 1 to 7, probably will not. They will gather at the Alternative Forum on Climate Change to take place at the University of Panama Auditorium, October 1 and 2, organized by Jubilee South member organizations in Panama and the region, together with others.

During the Forum, communities already being affected by false solutions such as REDD, megadams, the expansion of agrofuels and other World Bank pilot projects in their country and the region will gather to examine the causes of climate change, the nature of the climate and ecological debts due to them, and to strengthen strategies of resistance and alternatives.
PROGRAM DETAILS
Contact for more information
Call to join the Alternative Forum on Climate Change
Background info
Download poster

Stop private finance from hijacking the Green Climate Fund!

2011-09-06T21:08:00.008-03:00

¡Paren el secuestro del Fondo Verde de Clima por parte de las finanzas privadas!

Non au détournement du Fond Vert pour les capitaux privés!

The Jubilee South global debt network, its regional formations and numerous national members were among the many organizations that joined together in an open appeal to the Transition Committee charged with designing the Green Climate Fund, to not allow private finance the upperhand. See text of letter and final list of signators

DECLARATION OF THE ALTERNATIVE FORUM ON CLIMATE CHANGE

2011-09-04T04:05:00.000-03:00

Panama, October 2, 2011

Members of rural communities and social organizations, indigenous peoples, Afrodescendants, scholars, students, women, from throughout the Mesoamerican region, gathered on the occasion of the Alternative Forum on Climate Change, held in Panama City, October 1-2, 2011,

Considering:

1. That the crisis of climate change, generated by the polluting industries and agribusiness of industrialized countries, the use of fossil fuels, is a reality and its effects are palpable across the globe, especially for those peoples who have the least responsibility for the existence of the causes of climate change.

2. That the peoples of the world are mobilizing in the search for alternatives given the indifference of governments to the needs of the people. Such exclusion poses a strong challenge to the principle of representativity, since in these circumstances states do not represent their people, nor can they represent them as long as there continues to exist a situation of internal colonialism of the diverse peoples living within the borders of states, as well as subordination of public interest and state authority to the centers of political, economic, and military power: transnational corporations and financial institutions (World Bank and International Monetary Fund).

3. Official talks in the framework of the Conference on Climate Change, taking place from October 1 to 7 in Panama City, despite being paid for with public monies that are the fruit of the people's labor, are undertaken in a closed, exclusive and antidemocratic manner.

4. The undemocratic nature of the Conference on Climate Change blocks any possibility of dialogue among different kinds of knowledge as well as the participation of the victims in the search for real solutions to the global problem of climate change, limiting the options to actions that do not solve the problem because they do not address its political, economic, and cultural causes.

5. The Conference on Climate Change reduces the problem to a choice of options for mitigation, adaptation, and financing, presented in a discourse that is not accessible to most people, in a bureaucratic and technocratic setting, under a false environmental discourse but with a strictly economistic decision-making rationality, tied to the power asymmetries of the "international community", without consideration of the justness of the options and the system of political and economic thought from which they arise.

6. That as inhabitants of the planet, children of Mother Earth, we have a duty to question, debate, and offer proposals on this subject of paramount importance for humanity on the planet.

Declare:

1. Economic processes promoted by the predatory and polluting capitalist system are based on the violation of the human rights of indigenous native peoples, peasant communities, traditional fishers and a growing number of people, through dispossession and exploitation in extractive and energy projects or unnecessary or unproductive activities aimed at profit and the satisfaction of the desires of a minority of humanity, with ecological consequences that also violate the human rights of victims.

2. One of these consequences is the climate crisis that bring us together now, froas a result of which they want to impose on people, under the discourse of development, false solutions such as carbon markets, "clean development mechanisms", REDD among others, based on the same logic of profit, speculation, hoarding of common goods and exploitation of the majority.

3. Among the consequences of economic activity guided by the dominant logic of profit, competition and economic growth, and the climate crisis such activity has generated, are deforestation, loss of the productive capacity of the soil, floods, droughts, changes in temperature and patterns of wet and dry seasons, loss of crops needed for food and the use of foodstuffs for other purposes, chemical and biological contamination of food, loss of family and community income, malnutrition that causes poor academic performance, loss of medicinal plants and trees to build homes and means of transport that are harmonious with nature, melting ice caps, rising sea levels, overexploitation and extinction of animal and plant species of land and water that are the staple food of peoples, rising prices, increased pollution, decreased river flows, pests and diseases, and an overall decline in living conditions of people.

4. These consequences affect all humanity, without distinction of social class, ethnicity, place of residence, gender, ideology, or any other sign of difference, but they provoke particularly severe impacts on those human groups traditionally most exploited: indigenous, Afrodescendants, farmers, urban poor, women, migrants and children, including future generations of humans.

5. Governments and international bodies do not respond to the needs of the inhabitants of any state nor defend their interests; they do not educate them as subjects with rights but rather as factors of production and consumers, indifferent and subjected individuals, without room for creativity. They do not defend our freedom, our rights, peoples' land and food sovereignty more than they do the freedom of capitalist enterprise, the rights of corporations, the grabbing of public goods and legal certainty for investors. They do not inform, nor consult, nor respect, nor represent us.

6. The deterioration or destruction of nature, the essence of life, impoverishes the relationship with Mother Earth and weakens the perspectives and traditional knowledge of peoples that is hidden or denied by so-called Western modernity, but which is capable of providing real answers to address the climate crisis.

Propose:

1. Recognize Mother Earth as the sole source of life and forge a new system based on the principles of balance between everyone and everything, complementarity, solidarity and equity, collective well-being and satisfaction of the basic needs of all while respecting the rights of Mother Earth; recognition of human dignity and respect for human rights, elimination of all forms of colonialism, imperialism and interventionism, peace and justice among peoples and with Mother Earth.

2. Conceive development and carry out actions that tend to it, away from the paradigm of economic growth and competition among countries and people, and contained rather in the paradigm of the solidarity economy, of well living, social welfare and the integral realization of the human being in harmony with the community and nature. In this regard, we reject the development of extractive and energy projects that are contaminating and not oriented according to the above mentioned principles.

3. Think politics as the need to build real democracy to effectively address the problems of the community, and democracy as the participation of individuals and peoples, which is impossible without the implementation of all individual and collective rights, especially economic, social and cultural rights, respecting the rights of Mother Earth which is the basis of all human possibility.

4. Build democracy through the promotion of participation and the development of mechanisms to this end, requiring the use and effectiveness of those existing for the population to decide, on different territorial scales and on varying topics of interest, through the knowledge and defense of human rights and the law, the dissemination of information to communities, the use and / or creation of communications media, the strengthening of the autonomy, self-management, education, organization and coordination among community and social movements, civil society and other approaches related to the principles expressed in this statement.

5. Develop programs of urban and family organic farming, traditional methods of production, agrotourism, inventories and native seed banks, revive traditional forms of production, recovery and protection of lands, waters and territories, networks for the support and fair trading of healthy products and knowledge among communities and small producers, the systematization and dissemination of successful experiences, civic and political participation from and for the care and solving of community problems, considering in particular women, children, youth and older adults.

6. Demand policies, legislation and environmental practices for the ecological management of marine and coastal goods, protection of water, rivers and forests, waste management, access to information, consultation and public participation, education, social justice and environmental advocacy, human rights and gender equity.

7. Reject the false solutions to climate change, closed conferences on issues affecting all humanity, undemocratic decision-making mechanisms within governments and international organizations, free trade policies, the granting of concessions for extractive and energy megaprojects that have no community interest and that prolong the dispossession and culminate in forced displacements, and the use of transgenics, agrotoxins and pesticides that contaminate and alter nature, including human beings.

8. Promote and defend food sovereignty programs, in which all individuals and groups in their cultural diversity, define and organize their sources and models of food production in order to access them in a sustained, adequate, safe, supportive and widespread manner, using their own seeds, common goods such as water and land, collective work and freely transmitted traditional forms, respectful of the earth, of nature and the rights of others, producing what is necessary in a self-sufficient manner without pollution or trade restrictions.

9. We urge governments to recognize, respect and ensure the effective implementation of human rights in particular the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and ILO Convention 169, among other pertinent instruments, in the negotiations, policies, and measures that are taken to address the challenges posed by climate change. In particular, we call on governments to legally recognize the prior existence of territorial rights on indigenous and peasant lands and natural resources therein, to enable and strengthen traditional ways of life and continue to contribute to the solution of climate change.

The solutions to the climate crisis are found in the daily activities of families, communities and peoples. They are not found in grandiose speeches ane incomprehensible vocabularies that hide the reality of its causes and effects, promoting them with different names so as to keep doing the same things without resolving anything.

We call for support in an organized and peaceful manner, of the different demonstrations that will take place in our country and throughout the region in commemoration of October 12, for remembrance and for the future, for food sovereignty, against the neo-liberal political vision, and for the overcoming of the capitalist system.

We call to participate in the Global Week of Action Against Financial and Ecological Debt and International Financial Institutions (Interamerican Development Bank, International Monetary Fund, World Bank), October 8 to 16.

We call for support in an organized and peaceful manner, of community and organizational activities on October 16, international day of food sovereignty in defense of native seeds and Mother Earth.

We call for the realization of organized and peaceful days of action with regard to the United Nations' Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio +20), to be held in Brazil from June 4 to 6, 2012.

We demand of governments that they respect our voices and lives during the realization of our demonstrations, activities and actions; it is the only way to ensure their peaceful and organized nature.

Rivers for Life, Not for Death
The land is not to be sold, but to be defended.
This is our home, no matter what our color or race, and we must defend it against these threats.
REDD and CDM No, Food Sovereignty Yes.

DECLARACIÓN DEL FORO ALTERNATIVO SOBRE CAMBIO CLIMATICO

2011-09-03T20:17:00.002-03:00

Panamá, 2 de octubre de 2011

Miembros de comunidades y organizaciones sociales campesinas, pueblos indígenas, afrodescendientes, académicos, estudiantes, mujeres, de la región mesoamericana, reunida en ocasión del Foro Alternativo sobre Cambio Climático, realizado en la ciudad de Panamá, del 1 al 2 de octubre de 2011

Considerando:

1. Que la crisis del cambio climático, generada por la industria y agroindustria contaminante de los países industrializados, el uso de combustibles fósiles, es una realidad y sus efectos son palpables en todo el planeta, especialmente en los pueblos con menos responsabilidad en la existencia de las causas del cambio climático.

2. Que los pueblos del mundo nos movilizamos en la búsqueda de alternativas ante la indiferencia de los gobiernos con las necesidades de los pueblos. Que tal exclusión plantea un fuerte cuestionamiento al principio de representatividad, pues en tal condición los Estados no representan a sus poblaciones, ni podrán representarlos mientras siga el colonialismo interno de los pueblos diversos que viven dentro de las fronteras de los Estados y la subordinación a los intereses de los poderes públicos de los Estados a los centros de poder político, económico y militar: las corporaciones transnacionales e Instituciones Financieras (Banco Mundial y Fondo Monetario).

3. Que las conversaciones oficiales en el marco de la Conferencia sobre Cambio Climático, desarrolladas del 1 al 7 de octubre en ciudad de Panamá, a pesar de ser pagadas con los dineros de los Estados que son fruto del trabajo de sus pueblos, se realizan de manera cerrada, excluyente y antidemocrática.

4. Que el carácter antidemocrático de la Conferencia sobre Cambio Climático bloquea las posibilidades de diálogo entre saberes y la participación de las víctimas para encontrar soluciones reales al problema global del cambio climático, limitando las opciones a acciones que no solucionan el problema por no atender las causas políticas, económicas y culturales del mismo.

5. Que la Conferencia sobre Cambio Climático reduce el problema a una escogencia de opciones de mitigación, adaptación y financiamiento presentadas en lenguajes no accesibles para la mayoría de las personas, en un ambiente burocratizado y tecnocrático, bajo un falso discurso ambientalista pero con una racionalidad estrictamente economicista en la toma de decisiones, encadenados a las asimetrías de poder de la “comunidad internacional”, sin considerar la justicia de las opciones y el sistema de pensamiento político y económico del cual surgen.

6. Que como habitantes del planeta, hijos de la Madre Tierra, tenemos el deber de cuestionar, debatir y
proponer sobre este tema de importancia superior para la humanidad en el planeta.

Declaramos:

1. Los procesos económicos promovidos desde el sistema capitalista depredador y contaminante se basa en violaciones a los derechos humanos de pueblos indígenas originarios, comunidades campesinas, pescadores artesanales y un número cada vez mayor de personas, a través del despojo y la explotación en proyectos extractivos, energéticos o actividades innecesarias o improductivas destinadas al lucro y la satisfacción de los deseos de una minoría de la humanidad, con consecuencias ecológicas que también atentan contra los derechos humanos de las víctimas.

2. Una de estas consecuencias es la crisis climática que nos reúne, a partir de la cual se quieren imponer bajo el discurso de desarrollo, falsas soluciones a los pueblos, como los mercados de carbono, “mecanismos de desarrollo limpio”, REDD entre otros, basada en la misma lógica de lucro, especulación, acaparamiento de bienes comunes y explotación de las mayorías.

3. Entre las consecuencias de la actividad económica orientada bajo la lógica dominante de lucro, competencia y crecimiento económico, y la crisis climática que ésta ha generado, están la deforestación, pérdida de la capacidad productiva de la tierra, inundaciones, sequías, alteraciones en las temperaturas y en los patrones de las estaciones seca y lluviosa, pérdida de cosechas necesarias para la alimentación y uso de alimentos para otros fines, contaminación química y biológica de los alimentos, pérdida de ingresos familiares y comunitarios, desnutrición que provoca bajo rendimiento académico, pérdidas de plantas medicinales y árboles para construir hogares y medios de transporte necesarios y armoniosos con la naturaleza, derretimiento de hielos polares, aumento en el nivel de los mares, sobreexplotación y extinción de especies animales y vegetales de tierras y aguas que constituyen la base alimenticia de pueblos, encarecimiento de precios, aumento de la contaminación, disminución de caudales de ríos, plagas y enfermedades, y en general una disminución en las condiciones de vida de los pueblos.

4. Estas consecuencias afectan a toda la humanidad, sin distinción de clase social, etnia, lugar de residencia, genero, ideología, o cualquier otra señal de diferencia, pero impacta con especial crudeza en los grupos humanos tradicionalmente más explotados: indígenas, afrodescendientes, campesinos, pobres urbanos, mujeres, migrantes, niños y niñas, incluyendo las generaciones futuras de seres humanos.

5. Los gobiernos así como los organismos internacionales, no responden a las necesidades de los habitantes de los Estados, ni defienden sus intereses, no los educan como sujetos con derechos sino como factores de producción y consumidores, individuos indiferentes, sometidos, sin espacios de creación, no defienden nuestra libertad, nuestros derechos, la tierra y la soberanía alimentaría de los pueblos más que la libertad de la empresa capitalista, los derechos de las sociedades anónimas, el acaparamiento de bienes comunes y la seguridad jurídica de los inversionistas. No nos informan, no nos consultan, no nos respetan, no nos representan.

6. El deterioro o destrucción de la naturaleza, esencia de la vida, empobrece la relación con la Madre Tierra, debilita visiones y conocimientos ancestrales de los pueblos, ocultos o negados por la llamada modernidad occidental, capaces de brindar respuestas reales para enfrentar la crisis climática.

Proponemos:

1. Reconocer a la Madre Tierra como fuente única de la vida y forjar un nuevo sistema basado en los principios de equilibrio entre todos y con todo, complementariedad, solidaridad, y equidad, bienestar colectivo y satisfacción de las necesidades fundamentales de todos respetando los derechos de la Madre Tierra, reconocimiento de la dignidad humana y respeto a los derechos humanos, eliminación de toda forma de colonialismo, imperialismo e intervencionismo, paz y justicia entre los pueblos y con la Madre Tierra.

2. Pensar el desarrollo y realizar las acciones tendientes al mismo, lejos del paradigma del crecimiento económico y la competencia entre países y personas, apegados al paradigma de la economía solidaria, buen vivir, del bienestar y realización integral del ser humano en armonía con la comunidad y la naturaleza. En tal sentido, rechazamos el desarrollo de proyectos extractivos y energéticos contaminantes y no orientados según los principios antes mencionados.

3. Pensar la política como la necesidad de construir democracia real para atender efectivamente los problemas de la comunidad, y la democracia como la participación de las personas y los pueblos, la cual es imposible sin la realización de todos los derechos individuales y colectivos, especialmente los derechos económicos, sociales y culturales, respetando los derechos de la Madre Tierra que es la base de toda posibilidad humana.

4. Construir democracia mediante la promoción de la participación y el desarrollo de mecanismos para tal fin, exigiendo el uso y efectividad de aquellos existentes para que la población decida en distintas escalas territoriales sobre distintos temas de su interés, mediante el conocimiento y la defensa de los derechos humanos y las leyes, la difusión de información a las comunidades, el uso y/o creación de medios de comunicación, el fortalecimiento de las autonomías, la autogestión, la educación, la organización y coordinación entre movimientos comunitarios, sociales, de la sociedad civil y otros enfoques afines a los principios expresados en esta declaración.

5. Desarrollar programas de agricultura orgánica, urbana y familiar, métodos tradicionales de producción, agroturismo, inventarios y bancos de semillas nativas, revitalizar la producción ancestral, rescate y defensa de las tierras, aguas y territorios, redes de apoyo e intercambio justo de productos sanos y conocimientos entre comunidades y pequeños productores, sistematización y difusión de experiencias exitosas, participación ciudadana y política desde y para la atención y solución de los problemas de las comunidades, considerando especialmente a mujeres, niños, niñas, jóvenes adultos mayores.

6. Exigir políticas, legislaciones y prácticas ambientales para el manejo ecológico de bienes marinos y costeros, protección del agua, ríos y bosques, manejo de desechos, acceso a la información, consulta y participación ciudadana, educación, justicia social y defensoría ambiental, derechos humanos y equidad de género.

7. Rechazar las falsas soluciones al cambio climático, las conferencias cerradas sobre temas que afectan a toda la humanidad, los mecanismos antidemocráticos de decisión en los gobiernos y organismos internacionales, las políticas de libre comercio, el otorgamiento de concesiones para megaproyectos extractivos y energéticos sin interés comunitario que prolongan el despojo y culminan en desplazamientos forzados, y el uso de transgénicos, agrotóxicos y plaguicidas que contaminan y alteran la naturaleza incluyendo al ser humano.

8. Promover y defender programas de soberanía alimentaria, en los que todas las personas y grupos humanos en su diversidad cultural, definen y organizan sus fuentes y modelos de producción de alimentos para acceder a los mismos de manera sostenida, suficiente, segura, solidaria y generalizada, mediante el uso de semillas propias, bienes comunes como agua y tierra, trabajo colectivo y formas tradicionales transmitidas libremente, respetuosas de la tierra, la naturaleza y los derechos de las demás personas, produciendo lo necesario con autosuficiencia, sin contaminación ni restricciones comerciales.

9. Exigimos a los gobiernos que reconozcan, respeten y garanticen la efectiva aplicación de derechos humanos en particular la Declaración de las Naciones Unidas sobre los Derechos de los Pueblos Indígenas, el Convenio 169 de la OIT, entre otros instrumentos pertinentes, en el marco de las negociaciones, políticas y medidas para resolver los desafíos planteados por el cambio climático. En especial, demandamos a los gobiernos a que reconozcan jurídicamente la preexistencia del derecho sobre los territorios indígenas y campesinos, tierras y bienes naturales en las mismas, para posibilitar y fortalecer formas tradicionales de vida y continuar contribuyendo a la solución del cambio climático.

Las soluciones a la crisis climática se encuentran en la actividad cotidiana de las familias, comunidades y pueblos. No se encuentran en grandes discursos y vocabularios incomprensibles que ocultan la realidad de sus causas y efectos promoviéndolos con nombres distintos para seguir haciendo lo mismo sin resolver nada.

Convocamos a apoyar de manera organizada y pacífica, las distintas movilizaciones en el país y la región en conmemoración del 12 de octubre, por la memoria y el futuro, por la soberanía alimentaria y contra la visión neoliberal en la política y por la superación del sistema capitalista.

Convocamos a participar en la semana de Acción Global contra la Deuda Financiera y Ecológica y las instituciones financieras internacionales (Banco Internacional de Desarrollo, Fondo Monetario Internacional, Banco Mundial del 8 al 16 de octubre.

Convocamos a apoyar de manera organizada y pacífica las actividades de comunidades y organizaciones el 16 de octubre, día internacional de la soberanía alimentaría, en defensa de las semillas nativas y la Madre Tierra.

Convocamos a realizar de manera organizada y pacífica, jornadas de acciones de acuerdo a la Conferencia de las Naciones Unidas sobre Desarrollo Sostenible (Río + 20), que se realizará en Brasil del 4 al 6 de junio de 2012.

Exigimos a los gobiernos respeto a nuestras voces y vidas durante la realización de nuestras movilizaciones, actividades y acciones, es la única forma de garantizar el carácter organizado y pacífico de las mismas.

Ríos para la Vida, No para la muerte
La tierra no se vende, se defiende
Somos de esta casa, no importa color ni raza y hay que defenderla ante estas amenazas.
REDD y MDL No, Soberanía Alimentaría Si.

Deadline extended to September 5th

2011-09-02T18:08:00.005-03:00

Sign-on in support of Debt-free East Timor

español Jubilee South Asia-Pacific Movement on Debt and Development and other members of the global anti-debt movement have joined and are inviting others to also support the initiative launched by the East Timor Movement against Debt (KONDENA) and the East Timor Action Network. The sign-on appeal for a debt-free East Timor comes in response to a bill recently approved by the national parliament that would allow the government to borrow internationally. The deadline for sign-ons has been extended to September 5 and we encourage you to Add your organizational signature now! Full text of appeal

Week of Global Action Against Debt and IFIs

2011-09-01T19:41:00.000-03:00

You are invited to confirm your endorsement and support of the Week, and to share your plans so that together each action will be strengthened. For more information, please contact us: debtweek@gmail.com or http://debtweek.wordpress.com

(in construction)

Break the chains of debt!

The system of debt continues to devastate the lives of people around the world. People in the South face the daily impacts and consequences of the financial indebtedness of their countries, which far from having been "relieved" is growing in step with the crisis and the pursuit of extraordinary profits by the most concentrated forms of capital. They continue also to bear the burden of the unpaid historical, social, ecological, and climate debts which are increasing as well to the rhythm of false solutions to the global crisis.

In Europe and North America, social security is being dismantled in the name of fiscal austerity, while millions of people cannot find a decent job and military budgets rise.South and North, people are fighting for the provision of public services and basic rights such as healthcare, education, housing, water, social security, land and urban reform, while governments favor the payment of services on an often ill-gotten debt.

It is the very foundations of the system that are showing their flaws. Nonetheless, most governments and the International Financial Institutions (IFIs) persist in seeking "solutions" that will only worsen the problems of our peoples, as they place financial markets and debt at the center of responses to the crisis they provoked.

Instead of new mechanisms of indebtedness and the perpetuation of illegitimate debt, people everywhere call for the repudiation of illegitimate and odious debts and the consolidation of economic and financial alternatives that are sovereign and democratic and based on respect for human rights and Nature.

Let us join forces and say NO to illegitimate debt: acquired on people's behalf but destined to benefit a few corrupt bankers and politicians, huge multinationals, speculative interests, and the criminalization and repression of popular resistence. Peoples the world over demand accountability and transparency in public finances. We demand the suspension of debt payments and the realization of comprehensive and participatory debt audits NOW! The protection of human rights must be the top priority of all States.

Let us break the chains of debt! so as to be able to resolve matters that are central to life like poverty eradication, the defense of human and peoples' rights and of Nature, political and financial sovereignty, the building of socio-economic systems that are inclusive and equitable for all, women and men alike.

To build this other possible world, mobilizing people is our main tool. We thus call on organizations and people everywhere to mobilize together in a Week of Global Action Against Debt and IFIs, October 8 - 16. We invite everyone to join, to maximize their creativity and carry out whatever actions are appropriate to make visible our common demands and support concrete struggles. The Week includes several special days that contribute to the forging of alliances with other struggles, movements, and networks. Among them:

• October 12: Day of Action in Defense of the Rights of Mother Earth and against Capitalism

• October 13: Day of Action World Bank out of Climate!

• October 15: Debt Repudiation Day in memory of Thomas Sankara and International Mobilization of the Movement of the “Indignant”.

We don´t owe - We won´t pay!

Audit and unconditional cancellation of all Illegitimate Debt!

Reparations Now!

Semaine globale d’action contre la dette et les IFI

2011-09-01T19:19:00.000-03:00

Nous vous invitons à envoyer vos adhésions et à nous faire part des actions que vous entreprendrez: écrivez-nous à semainedette@gmail.com ou visitez notre blog à l’adresse : http://semainedette.wordpress.com/ (dans la construction)

Brisons les chaînes de la dette !

Le système de la dette continue à ravager d’innombrables vies à travers le monde. Les peuples du Sud sont confrontés chaque jour aux impacts et aux conséquences de l'endettement de leurs pays, qui, loin de s'alléger, continue d’augmenter au rythme de la crise et de la recherche de profits extraordinaires de la part des grandes banques et multinationales. Ils continuent à supporter le fardeau des dettes historique, sociale, écologique et climatique qui n'ont jamais été reconnues ni réparées et augmentent également, au rythme des fausses solutions à la crise globale.

En Europe et en Amérique du Nord, la sécurité sociale est en train d'être démantelée au nom de l'austérité budgétaire, tandis que des millions de personnes ne trouvent pas de travail décent et que les budgets militaires augmentent. Partout, les peuples luttent pour l’accès à des services publics et aux droits fondamentaux tels que la santé, l'éducation, l'eau, le logement, la sécurité sociale, des réformes agraire et urbaine, tandis que les gouvernements privilégient le paiement du service d'une dette largement illégitime.

Les failles des bases mêmes du système sont mises à nu. Pourtant, la majorité des gouvernements et les Institutions financières internationales (IFI) persistent à chercher des « solutions » aux problèmes des peuples qui ne font qu'aggraver les choses puisqu'ils placent les marchés financiers et la dette au centre de leur réponse à la crise qu'ils ont provoqué.

Plutôt que la mise en place de nouveaux mécanismes d'endettement et le maintien d’une dette illégitime, les peuples demandent la répudiation des dettes odieuses et illégitimes et la consolidation d'alternatives de financement souverain et démocratique, basé sur le respect des droits humains et de la Nature.

Unissons nos forces et disons NON à la dette illégitime : contractée au nom des peuples, mais qui profite à une poignée de banquiers et de politiciens corrompus, aux multinationales, à la concentration du capital, aux plans de criminalisation et de répression contre la résistance populaire. Les populations à travers le monde exigent responsabilité et transparence dans la gestion des finances publiques. Nous exigeons la suspension IMMEDIATE du paiement de la dette et la réalisation d'audits portant sur l’intégralité de l’endettement avec la participation des mouvements sociaux! La protection des droits humains doit être la priorité des États.

Brisons les chaînes de l'endettement ! Débarrassés de la dette, nous pourrons dès lors travailler ensemble sur des questions vraiment centrales de l'existence : l'éradication de la pauvreté, la jouissance des droits humains, la protection des droits des peuples et de la Nature, la souveraineté politique et financière, et la construction d'un système économique et social sans discrimination et équitable pour toutes et tous.

Pour construire cet autre monde possible, la mobilisation des peuples est notre principal outil. Nous appelons les individus et les organisations du monde entier, au Nord et au Sud, à nous rejoindre, à maximiser leur créativité et à mettre en place des actions, du 8 au 16 octobre, pour rendre visible nos revendications communes et soutenir des luttes concrètes. Dans le cadre de cette Semaine globale d’action contre la dette et les IFI, nous soutenons plusieurs journées qui contribuent à renforcer la formation d'alliances avec d'autres luttes, mouvements et réseaux, parmi lesquelles:

- 12 octobre : « Minga » mondiale pour la défense des droits de la Terre Mère et journée d’action globale contre le capitalisme

- 13 octobre: Journée d’action "la Banque mondiale hors des négociations et financements pour le climat !"

- 15 octobre : Journée de la répudiation de la dette en mémoire de Thomas Sankara et journée de mobilisation internationale à l'appel du mouvement des Indignés

Nous ne devons rien, nous ne payons rien !

Audit et annulation inconditionnelle de la dette illégitime !

Des réparations SANS ATTENDRE !

Organisateurs initiaux:

Jubilé Sud, CADTM, Jubilé USA, Eurodad, Jubilé Sud/Amériques, Jubilé Sud-Asia et Pacifique Mouvement sur la Dette et le Déloppement, Campagne qui doit à qui? Observatorie de la Dette en la Mondialization, Ecologistes en Action (État espagnol), Coalition du Zimbabwe sur la Dette et le développement, Dialogue 2000 Argentine, Jubilé Sud Bresil, PACS-Brésil......

Forum alternatif sur les changements climatiques

2011-08-31T17:33:00.000-03:00

Panamá, 1-2 October

Une foule d'organisations populaires de Panama et Mésoamérique se préparent à aborder la réalité des changements climatiques de façon que les négociateurs qui se réuniront à Panama City Octobre 1 à 7, ne sera probablement pas. Ils se réuniront au Forum alternatif sur les changements climatiques qui aura lieu à l'Auditorium de l'Université de Panama, Octobre 1 et 2, organisé par les organisations membres de Jubilée Sud au Panama et dans la région, de concert avec les autres. Au cours du Forum, des communautés déjà touchées par les fausses solutions comme la REDD, les megabarrages, l'expansion des agrocarburants et d'autres projets pilotes de la Banque Mondiale dans leur pays et la région se réuniront pour examiner les causes du changement climatique, la nature des dettes écologiques et du climat qui leur sont dues, et à renforcer les stratégies de résistance et d'alternatives.

Contacter pour plus d'informations:

justiciaclimaticamesoamerica@gmail.com

Alternative Forum on Climate Change

2011-08-30T22:30:00.001-03:00

Panama, October 1 - 2, 2011

Call

We, women and men, rural, indigenous and peoles of African descent, members of this part of Mesoamerica, raise our voices to call for and self-convene ourselves to gather in Panama, on October 1 and 2, in an alternative forum to the intersessional negotiations meeting on Climate Change to be held also in Panama.

Why get together?

In Latin America and the Caribbean, we are experiencing processes that come together and deepen the conflicts and mechanisms related to nature, and to the very forms of life itself; conflicts that are manifested in the criminalization of protests, the marginalization and dispossession of communities and the depredation of the resources of Mother Earth. These processes are further compounded in those economies that are more fragile and dependent due to their subordination to capital.

So-called development models, based on the exploitation of nature, and of work, and the flexibilization of rights conquered historically. But at the same time, people are resisting. Evidence of this are the struggles in Haiti, Honduras, Ecuador, Chil,e and many other countries. In our continent, as elsewhere, countries have been converted into markets, cities and towns into businesses, and people into consumers. This is a permanent state of exception, where capital does everything to eliminate the enemies it finds in its way: those who fight for another way to live.

The same goes for climate change: a phenomenon used by power, in the name of a profound societal crisis, in order to renew itself and continue to earn profits, privatizing and self-enriching. In the perception of the powerful, however much they say otherwise, there is no real climate crisis. They may be saying yes, but they continue to deny it, because if they were really convinced they would have acted forcefully by now and not merely to use the phenomenon to continue to fulfill their interests and projects. Market and technology. This is their answer. Who can believe that the market, and technology, will get us out of this situation created by the market and technology themselves?. This is just a new form for an old problem.

And that's where the official negotiating processes are not viable; they do not respond or point to the true sources of the problem but rather, are spaces that have served to deepen the crisis, opening up to the participation of the multilateral agencies, large multinationals, who have seen this as a new opportunity to accumulate capital in the name of saving the planet. This way they sell us false solutions such as REDD, CDM, and other instruments that commodify nature, put aside any questioning of the origins of the crisis, and reward big capital at the expense of peoples and communities who are the ones that have historically and ancestrally preserved the life of forests and biodiversity as a whole.

For these reasons we convene, and we invite you to join us for these two days, in order to strengthen and to ensure a real give and take with the processes of struggle, to denounce the application of false solutions to the climate crisis and to the systemic or civilizational crisis as a whole, to raise awareness of the diverse life models that are being proposed and put into practice: models that propose a relationship of respect and harmony with Mother Nature and all the different life forms that inhabit her.

Alternative Forum on Climate Change

Saturday, October 1

8 am to 5 pm Alternative Forum on Climate Change. Auditorium of the University of Panama.

8 to 10 pm Reflecting on Climate Change. Andrés Bello Park on Via Argentina (film, music, art, etc.).

Sunday, October 2
Celebration of Mother Earth and Indigenous Peoples. Auditorium of the University of Panama.

We appreciate your solidarity in this effort, through the dissemination of material that we are able to make available and confirmation also of your support in the use of these materials and in forwarding them to other networks.

For more details on agenda and other information:

www.nofalsassoluciones.org
justiciaclimaticamesoamerica@gmail.com
www.jubileesouth.org

Foro Alternativo sobre Cambio Climático

2011-08-30T22:23:00.001-03:00

Panamá, 1 al 2 de octubre de 2011

Convocatoria

Nosotros/as

Mujeres y hombres: Campesinos, indígenas, afrodecendientes, miembros de organizaciones todos parte de esta Mesoamérica, estamos alzando nuestras voces, llamando y autoconvocandonos, para juntarnos en Panamá, los días 1 y 2 de octubre, en un foro alterno, a la reunión intersesional de Cambio Climático, a realizarse también en Panamá.

¿Por qué juntarnos?

En América Latina y el Caribe, estamos viendo procesos que aúnan y profundizan los conflictos y mecanismos relacionados a la naturaleza, y de las formas de vida en si mismo, conflictos que se manifiestan en la criminalización de las protestas, marginación y despojo de las comunidades y la depredación de los recursos de la madre tierra. Agravando aun más en las economías frágiles y dependientes subordinadas al capital.

Modelos llamados de desarrollo, basados en la explotación de la naturaleza y del trabajo y en la flexibilización de los derechos históricamente conquistados. Pero al mismo tiempo, también los pueblos están en resistencia. Evidencia de ello son las luchas en Haití, Honduras, Ecuador, Chile y muchos otros países. En nuestro continente, como en otras partes, los países son mercados, las ciudades empresas y los pueblos, consumidores. Se trata de un estado de excepción permanente, donde el capital hace de todo para eliminar a los enemigos en el camino: los que luchan por otra forma de vivir.

Pasa lo mismo con el cambio climático: un fenómeno utilizado por los poderes para, en el nombre de una profunda crisis societaria, renovarse, continuar obteniendo ganancias, privatizando y enriqueciéndose. En la percepción de los poderosos, por mucho que digan lo contrario, no hay una crisis real del clima. Pueden decir que sí, pero siguen negándola, porque si fuera el caso ya habrían actuado con fuerza y no usando el fenómeno para seguir logrando sus intereses y proyectos. Mercado y tecnología. Esta es la respuesta.¿ Quién puede creer que el mercado y la tecnología nos sacarán de esta situación creada por el mercado y la tecnología misma?. Se trata de una nueva forma para un viejo problema.

Y es entonces donde los proceso oficiales de negociación, no son viables, no responden y apuntan al verdadero origen del problema, contrario a ello, son espacios que han servido para la profundización de la crisis, abriendo la participación de los organismos multilaterales, las grandes trasnacionales, que han visto en ello una nueva oportunidad de acumulación de capital, en nombre de salvar el planeta. Así pues se nos venden las falsas soluciones como REDD, MDL y demás instrumentos que mercantilizan la naturaleza, hacen a un lado el origen de la crisis y premian al gran capital, a costillas de los pueblos y comunidades quienes son los que histórica y ancestralmente han preservado la vida de los bosques y la biodiversidad en su conjunto.

Así pues, nos convocamos, nos invitamos a juntarnos estos dos días, con el fin de retroalimentar de los procesos de lucha, de denunciar la aplicación de las falsas soluciones a la crisis del clima, a la crisis en su conjunto, a dar a conocer los modelos de vida que se proponen y practican, modelos que proponen una relación de respeto a armonía con nuestra madre naturaleza y las diferentes formas de vida que habitamos en ella.

Foro Alternativo sobre Cambio Climático

Sábado 1 de octubre

Foro Alternativo sobre Cambio Climático. Paraninfo de la Universidad de Panamá. Reflexión sobre el Cambio Climático. Parque Andrés Bello de Vía Argentina (documental, música, arte, etc.)

Domingo 2 de octubre

Celebración de la Madre Tierra y los Pueblos. Paraninfo de la Universidad de Panamá

Agradecemos, la solidaridad en este esfuerzo en la divulgación del material que en datos adjuntos enviamos. Igualmente su confirmación en la gestión de reenviarlos a sus medios y redes de comunicación.

Para mayor información de agenda y otras informaciones:

nofalsasosluciones.org

jubileesouth.org

Correo: justiciaclimaticamesoamerica@gmail.com

Background

2011-08-30T17:07:00.004-03:00

Alternative Forum on Climate Change

University of Panama
Panama City - October 1- 2, 2011.

Panama is preparing to host a negotiating session of the UN Conference on Climate Change that aims to advance agreements in preparation for the Summit in Durban, South Africa, to be held in late November and early December.

The main points to be addressed in Panama are:

The Kyoto Protocol.
Long-term cooperation.

The agenda to be discussed includes the points that were discussed at the Bonn meeting (June, 2011) on climate finance, technology transfer, mitigation, and reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation in developing countries, known as REDD.

Panama, in this sense, has been called upon to assume the responsibility to promote and manage this intergovernmental meeting despite the lack of publicity and citizen participation. Public opinion has no idea what is the role and effectiveness of the Panamanian government or what is at stake for it in relation either to the current socio-environmental reality or the meeting itself.

As for mitigation programs and climate change commitments, there are few achievements that Panamanian peoples can point to as positive results from all these summits. However, it should be noted that Panama has been one of the first countries to put into practice programs such as the Reduction of Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) and the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), without extensive outreach and consultation with civil society.

It should also be noted that in a more general sense, under the present government headed by Ricardo Martinelli, the peoples of Panama have experienced few real policy gains as laws have been approved in a very arbitrary manner, violating the rights of all citizens. As examples we could mention the omnibus law (known locally as the "chorizo", or "sausage" law), mining reform, adoption of Decree 155 (amending the Environmental Impact Studies), Law 14 (April 13, 2010) involving retaliation and harassment of persons exercising defense of the environment and concessions everywhere, generating uncertainty and failure to ensure food and ecological sovereignty.

Thus, public development policies have promoted a disproportionate number of new projects detrimental to human rights and the environment; they are not properly planned and executed, or based on comprehensive policies that give adequate consideration to alternatives, potential impacts, and effective measures to avoid them.

Furthermore, this increase in environmental destruction has led to conflicts that threaten and are affecting the rights of those seeking to defend the environment, as well as clashes with local communities. This situation threatens to deteriorate further, seriously exacerbating the human rights situation in Panama.

The Panamanian state, particularly in recent months, has taken decisions concerning public policies, standards, and the approval of large mining and infrastructure projects, systematically ignoring the framework of applicable international and national law, including international human rights law. This situation is further compounded by weak legislation on the adequate protection of the environment and affected communities. This has led to serious human rights violations, specifically the lack of participation and information, ignoring the rights of indigenous communities, the lack of access to justice, a lack of due process (including ineffective or inadequate institutions), and the criminalization of social protest. All of this in total disregard, as well, of the right to a healthy environment and other related human rights such as life, health, and personal integrity.

Currently in Panama, there is a disassociation between the environment, and human beings and their activities. This disassociation has its origins in an aggressive economic policy that does not take into consideration potential environmental or human rights impacts, nor the standards that have been established to protect them. This is manifest in limitations on the right to public participation, such as:

Restricted right to participate in matters pertaining to the state;
Lack of recognition of the right of indigenous peoples to be consulted;
Lack of access to information;
Reduced or insufficient guarantees;
Weakening of current regulations without consideration of international standards;
Inadequacy of existing administrative resources;
Lack of effective judicial remedies.

Faced with the news that Panama will be hosting an intersessional period of climate change negotiations in preparation for the upcoming Durban climate summit, and the Panamanian environmental reality, we feel the need to organize and mobilize for all of the above.

Justification:
1. Given the official negotiating session in Panama, the call to mobilize both national and international social forces (movements, networks, NGOs, rural communities, etc..) is of great importance for continuing the discussions and work sessions that have taken place in the context of earlier COPs.

2. Actions outside the official proceedings themselves must serve as an open denunciation of the lack of citizen participation and of broad-scale, public information.

3. These actions also constitute a demand on the part of vulnerable countries affected by the consequences of climate change, due to the lack of commitments from the countries that have been debating in previous international negotiating sessions.

4. It is necessary to promote and to constitute a platform of peoples who are victims of climate change, the decisions of which should become the basis for consensus among states rather than those of the international financial institutions.

PROGRAMA - Foro Alternativo sobre CAMBIO CLIMÁTICO

2011-08-28T19:51:00.005-03:00

Universidad de Panamá - Ciudad de Panamá
Campus Central Octavio Méndez Pereira.

Paraninfo de la Facultad de Humanidades
Vía Transismica y Avenida Ricardo J. Alfaro

Sábado 1 de octubre

8:00-9:00 Registro de Participantes.

9:00-9:15 Ritual a la Madre Tierra.

9:15-9:30 Inauguración del Evento

9:30-10:00 La Crisis del Cambio Climático: Orígenes, Impactos y Escenarios Futuros. Dr. Justo Medrano, Vicerrector Académico, Universidad de Panamá.

10:00-10:30 Realidad Climática en Panamá: El Cambio que se Impone. Arq. Raisa Banfield, Panamá Sostenible (PASOS).

10:30-11:00 Cambio Climático y Deuda: Profundización de Instrumentos de Control y Dominación para los Pueblos del Sur Global. Dr. Juan Jovane, Facultad de Economía, Universidad de Panamá.

11:00-11:30 Cambio Climático: Respuestas desde el Poder y Alternativas desde los Movimientos Sociales. Lic. Carolina Amaya, UNES – El Salvador.

11:30-12:30 Mesas de Trabajo

· Aspectos Económicos del Cambio Climático.

· Aspectos Políticos del Cambio Climático.

· Aspectos Culturales y la Cosmovisión de los Pueblos.

· Soberanía Alimentaria.

12:30-2:00 Almuerzo y Convivencia.

2:00-3:30 Continuación de Mesas de Trabajo y Preparación de Presentaciones.

3:30-5:00 Plenaria para la Presentación y Discusión de los Resultados de las Mesas.

5:00-8:00 Acto Cultural

Domingo 2 de octubre

8:00-9:30 Discusión del Borrador de Resolución.

9:30-11:00 Justicia Climática y Conflictos Socio-Ambientales en Panamá.

11:00-12:00 Acto de Clausura.

12:00-1:00 Almuerzo

2:00-5:00 Caminata por la Justicia Climática.

Contactarse con nosotros!:

justiciaclimaticamesoamerica@gmail.com www.nofalsassoluciones.org - www.jubileesouth.org Teléfonos (507) 6655-4716 - (507) 836-6453

More news and information from JS members & regions

2011-08-25T22:29:00.004-03:00

South Bank a step closer to reality

Bs. As., 7.9.11 - As the Argentine Congress prepared to finally approve participation in the South Bank, nearly four years after outgoing president Néstor Kirchner announced that the bank would be functioning in 90 days, Diálogo 2000, the Lutheran Program on Illegitimate Debt, and Attac-Argentina expressed their critical support in a statement presented to deputies. Among other aspects, they emphasized the need for citizen participation in the decisions that the Bank will take, in order to help ensure that the Bank becomes a transformative tool and not more "business as usual". They also called on legislators to approve other much needed instruments of financial sovereignty, such as a comprehensive debt audit - reminding them of the bill passed in commission and awaiting final approval for over a year now -, coordinated reserve policies and other measures to help dedollarize the regional economy. Read full text of statement in Spanish - Texto declaración sobre el Banco del Sur

Movements call on UNASUR Finance Ministers to operationalize the South Bank and audit debt claims

Bs. As., 12/8/11 - Jubilee South/Americas, together with other movements and networks from throughout the region, called on the newly formed South American Council of Finance Ministers and Central Bank Presidents to put a stop to the delays that have impeded the South Bank from becoming reality and to initiate Debt Audits throughout the region. More Texto completo Petitorio

Mobilization in Rio de Janeiro for the Peoples' Cup

Rio de Janeiro, 30/0711 - Social, political, sports, and human rights groups marched through the center of Rio de Janeiro coinciding with the draw for qualifying slots for the next World Cup Rio2014. Who will pay for the huge debt that is emerging from these mega-events in a city with deep social inequality and injustice? demanded Sandra Quintela, Jubilee South/Americas regional coordinator and member of the Rio Cup and Olympics Popular Committee. Read more

Haitian activist analyzes global crisis and alternatives

Activista haitiano analiza crisis global y alternativas

Havana, July 28, 2011 - In a speech given at the ALBA House, before a gathering of the Network of Networks in Defense of Humanity, Haitian economist and Jubilee South activitis, Camille Chalmers, analyzes the present global crisis of civilization and the challenges of building alternatives. Read more

Bangladeshi organizations express concerns over Climate Change Resilience Fund allocations

Dhaka, 15/7/11 - The Campaign for Sustainable Livelihood (CSRL) and Equity and Justice Working Group Bangladesh (EquityBD) expressed concerns on transparency and democratic ownership in response to recent disclosure from the Bangladesh Climate Change Resilence Fund (BCCRF) on the first tranche of allocations. More info

No to World Bank role in the new Green Climate Fund!

Send letters and messages now to Transition Committee!

In advance of its July 12-13 meeting, Jubilee South urges member organizations, allies, and others to pressure the Transition Committee, mandated by the UNFCCC to design the new Green Climate Fund, to keep the World Bank out. More information and links to sign-on

ZIMCODD analyzes lessons for Zimbabwe from the Eurozone Debt Crisis

The Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development and Jubilee Debt UK released in June a Policy Brief indicating that "the government of Zimbabwe has reportedly adopted what it calls a hybrid strategy, comprising of the 'best aspects' of the Highly Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC) and pledging of the country's mineral resources", in its search for a solution for its indebtedness. The Brief seeks to draw out some of the "intriguing parallels" between this effort and responses to unsustainable public debt elsewhere, identifiying key lessons and implications for Zimbabwe. Read more Go directly to the full policy brief

Se invita a firmar Llamado contra el financiamiento privado en el Fondo Verde de Clima

2011-08-25T21:13:00.005-03:00

La Carta siguiente fue enviada a los y las integrantes del Comitè Transicional en anticipación de su tercera reunión, a realizarse en Ginebra, del 11 al 13 de septiembre.

9 de Septiembre 2011

Estimados miembros del Comité Transicional (CT),

Al establecer el Fondo Verde de Clima (FVC), Uds. han sido mandatados a diseñar una institución que utilice el financiamiento para el clima para los países en vías de desarrollo de la manera más eficaz.

Las contribuciones centrales al FVC deberían ser previsibles, adicionales y públicas. Para asegurar que tales recursos apoyen las estrategias impulsadas por los países, su aplicación debería ser determinada por los países en vías de desarrollo, sobre la base de procesos soberanos y participativos de planificación. El FVC no debería canalizar recursos directamente a inversores y corporaciones multinacionales o a través de intermediarios financieros, lo que sería incompatible con este objetivo.

Llamamos a los miembros del CT a no establecer una ventana independiente para el sector privado ni proveer financiamiento o incentivos directamente al sector privado. Tal acción pueda plantear riesgos graves para el logro de procesos impulsados por los países. La participación del sector privado estaría mejor decidida, gestionada, regulada y promocionada a niveles nacionales, en el contexto de una estrategia nacional.

La propuesta de crear una ventana para el sector privado en el FVC es preocupante ya que recuerda a la Corporación Financiera Internacional (CFI) del Grupo del Banco Mundial, que tiene un historial problemático cuando se trata de cumplir con la misión anunciada del Banco Mundial de aliviar la pobreza y promover el desarrollo sustentable. Casi dos-tercios de las inversiones de la CFI en los países de ingresos bajos van a empresas con sedes en los países más ricos. En 2010, el Grupo de Evaluación Independiente del propio Banco constató que entre los proyectos de la CFI que revisó, menos de la mitad habían sido diseñados para entregar resultados en materia de reducción de la pobreza.

Además, el modelo de la CFI hace hincapié en el uso de intermediarios financieros (IFs) para apalancar el financiamiento privado. No obstante, este tipo de operación plantea obstáculos importantes para asegurar la transparencia y responsabilidad. La CFI no asegura que los subproyectos y empresas financiados a través de los IFs cumplen con salvaguardias o estén coherentes con los objetivos políticos determinados por los países. Por ejemplo, en 2009 más del cincuenta por ciento de las inversiones en el sector financiero de la CFI fue para proyectos con niveles medianos o altos de riesgo de provocar impactos sociales y ambientales dañinos. El FVC no debe desembolsar recursos a través de intermediarios financieros.

Finalmente, el CT debería explícitamente excluir el uso de instrumentos especulativos o de otra naturaleza para incrementar su capital a través de los mercados financieros. El parcelamiento de bonos en derivados e inversiones en el mercado de carbono, por ejemplo, son demasiado riesgosos desde un punto de vista financiero y ambiental. La volatilidad experimentada actualmente por las bolsas de valores constituye un claro recordatorio – si acaso hiciera falta – de que tales instrumentos no sean precisamente una base apropiada para la estrategia de financiamiento estable y previsible que requiera el FVC si va a cumplir con sus propósitos.

Les llamamos a asegurar un cambio decisivo, más allá de la rutina y hacia un camino transformativo hacia un desarrollo sustentable y comunidades resistentes.

Atentamente,

REDES INTERNATIONALES Y REGIONALES
ActionAid International
Africa Jubilee South
Alternatives Asia
Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA)
Campaña Mesoamericana de Justicia Climática
Christian Aid
European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD)
Focus on the Global South
Friends of the Earth International
Gender and Climate Change (GenderCC)
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
International Rivers
Jubilee South
Jubilee South- Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)
Jubileo Sur-Américas
Pan-Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)
Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo (PIDHDD)
Red Observatorio de la Sostenibilidad LatinoAmerica (SUSWATCH)
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)
Third World Network (TWN)

AMÉRICA DEL NORTE
Council of Canadians, Canada
Center for Biological Diversity, USA
Center of Concern (COC), USA
Center for Food Safety, USA
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, USA
Community Action for Justice in the Americas, Africa, Asia, USA
EcoEquity, USA
Gender Action, USA
groundWork, USA
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters-JPIC, USA
Human Nature, USA
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA
International Forum on Globalization, USA
Information Services Latin America (ISLA), USA
Jubilee Montana Network, USA
Labor Network for Sustainability, USA
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, USA
Marianists International, USA
New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, USA
Pax Christi, USA
Rainforest Action Center, USA
Sisters of the Holy Cross - Congregation Justice Committee Notre Dame, USA
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas-Institute Justice Team, USA
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA
Voices for Progress, USA

EUROPA
11.11.11- Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement, Belgium
CDM Watch, Belgium
Corporate Europe Observatory, Belgium
Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs (AITEC), France
HELIO International, France
Les Amis de la Terre/Friends of the Earth, France
LIFE e.V., Germany
Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM), Italy
Fair, Italy
Both ENDS, Netherlands
Transnational Institute (TNI), Netherlands
Forum for Environment and Development (ForUM), Norway
Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia
Carbon Trade Watch, Spain
Ecologistas en Accion, Spain
Soldepaz Pachakuti, Spain
Xarxa de l'Observatori del Deute en la Globalitzación ,Spain
Diakonia, Sweden
The Swiss Coalition of Development Organizations, Switzerland
CAFOD, UK
EcoNexus, UK
The Corner House, UK
World Development Movement, UK

ASIA Y EL PACÍFICO
Bangladesh Krishok Federation, Bangladesh
EquityBd, Bangladesh
SUPRO, Bangladesh
VOICE, Bangladesh
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India
Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation, India
National Forum of Forest People & Forest Workers, India
NGO Task Force on ADB, India
River Basin Friends and Rural Volunteers Centre, India
Koalisi Anti-Utang (KAU), Indonesia
KRUHA (People's Coalition for the Right to Water), Indonesia
Solidaritas Perempuan (SP), Indonesia
WALHI (Friends of the Earth), Indonesia
Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization (MSN), Malaysia
All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFa), Nepal
GEFONT, Nepal
Human Rights Alliance, Nepal
Jagaran, Nepal
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), Pakistan
Aksyon Klima (AK), Philippines
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Philippines
Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura ,Philippines
Assalam Bangsamoro People's Association, Philippines
Farmers Forum-South Cotabato, Philippines
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Philippines
FDC - SocSKSarGen, Philippines
FDC –Western Mindanao , Philippines
Gen. Santos City-Water Consumer’s Network, Philippines
Kalimudan Culture and Arts-Mindanao, Philippines
IBON Foundation, Philippines
People’s Movement on Climate Change, Philippines
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Philippines
Sagip Sierra Madre Environmental Society, Philippines
SANLAKAS Philippines
Sarilaya, Philippines
SocSKSarGen Climate Action Now! (SCAN), Philippines
Tambuyog Development Center, Philippines
ATTAC, Japan
Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition (PIPEC), Aotearoa/New Zealand
Sustainable Population, Australia

AMÉRICA LATINA Y EL CARIBE
Bolivian Climate Change Platform, Bolivia
Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social, Brazil
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais,Brazil
Caravana Ahimsa por la Tierra, Chile.
Fundacion Luis Felipe Velez, Colombia
National Union of Salvadoran Ecologists, El Salvador
La Mesa Nacional de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Indigena de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico del Mundo Maya,Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de las Verapaces de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico de Huehuetenango, Guatemala
Mesa Regional de Occidente , Guatemala
Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA), Haiti
Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos (AMAP),Mexico
Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC) , México
Mexican Center for Environmental Law, Mexico
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas (COVEC), Panama
Bishop (ret.) Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Argentina
Amalia Beatriz Molinari, Argentina
Ing. Ricardo Canese, Paraguay

ÁFRICA
Forum National sur la Dette et la Pauvreté (FNDP), Côte d'Ivoire
Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Center, Kenya
Coalition des Alternatives Africaines Dette et Développement (CAD), Mali
MAUDESCO (Friends of the Earth), Mauritius
African Network for Environment & Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Nigeria
Association des Femmes Africaines pour la Recherche et le Développement (AAWORD/AFARD), Senegal
Forum for African Alternatives, Senegal
Centre for Civil Society Climate Justice Project, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
groundWork, South Africa
Jubilee South Africa, South Africa
Groupe d'Action et de Recherche en Environnement et Développement (GARED), Togo
National Association of Environmentalists (NAPE), Uganda

Stop private finance from hijacking the Green Climate Fund!

2011-08-25T20:55:00.003-03:00

LETTER TO THE TRANSITIONAL COMMITTEE ON THE PRIVATE SECTOR AND GREEN CLIMATE FUND (GCF)

The following letter was sent to members of the Transitional Committee in advance of its third meeting, scheduled to take place in Geneva September 11-13.

September 9, 2011

Dear Members of the Transitional Committee,

In establishing the Green Climate Fund (GCF), you are tasked with designing an institution that makes the most effective use of climate finance for developing countries.

The core contributions to the GCF should be predictable, additional and public. To ensure that such money supports a country-driven approach its use should be determined by developing countries, informed by sovereign, participatory planning processes. The GCF should not channel money directly to multinational investors and corporations or through financial intermediaries, which would be incompatible with this goal.

We call on members of the TC not to establish a stand-alone private sector window, nor to provide finance or incentives directly to the private sector. Such action may pose serious risks to the achievement of a country driven process. Private sector participation is best decided, managed, regulated and incentivized at the national level, in the context of a national strategy.

The proposal for a private sector window in the GCF is worryingly reminiscent of the World Bank Group’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), which performs poorly in relation to the Bank’s stated mission of alleviating poverty and promoting sustainable development. Almost two-thirds of IFC investments go to companies based in the richest countries. In 2011, the Bank’s own Independent Evaluation Group found that less than half of the IFC projects it reviewed were designed to deliver poverty reduction outcomes.

In addition, the IFC model emphasizes the use of financial intermediaries (FIs) to leverage private sector finance. But money that passes through FIs is difficult to track and poses a significant barrier to ensuring transparency and accountability, since the IFC does not ensure that sub-projects and businesses financed through FIs comply with safeguards. For example, in 2009 more than fifty per cent of IFC financial sector investment went toward projects with a high or medium risk of causing harmful social and environmental impacts. The GCF should not disburse money through Financial Intermediaries.

Finally, the TC should explicitly exempt the use of speculative and other instruments to raise capital on financial markets. For example, the parceling of bonds into derivatives, and investments in carbon markets, are excessively risky from a financial and environmental perspective. The volatility that we are currently observing on the world’s stock exchanges provides a clear reminder, should one be needed, that such tools are hardly a basis for the kind of stable, sustainable approach to financing that the GCF requires if it is to meet its aims.

We call on you to ensure a decisive shift beyond business as usual and onto a transformational path to sustainable development and resilient communities.

Sincerely,

cc. Technical Support Unit

Endorsers to the Letter to the Transitional Committee on the Private Sector and the Green Climate Fund (GCF)

INTERNATIONAL & REGIONAL NETWORKS
ActionAid International
Africa Jubilee South
Alternatives Asia
Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA)
Campana Mesoamericana de Justicia Climatica
Christian Aid
European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD)
Focus on the Global South
Friends of the Earth International
Gender and Climate Change (GenderCC)
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
International Rivers
Jubilee South
Jubilee South- Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)
Jubileo Sur-Américas
Pan-Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)
Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo (PIDHDD)
Red Observatorio de la Sostenibilidad LatinoAmerica (SUSWATCH)
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)
Third World Network (TWN)

NORTH AMERICA
Council of Canadians, Canada
Center for Biological Diversity, USA
Center of Concern (COC), USA
Center for Food Safety, USA
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, USA
Community Action for Justice in the Americas, Africa, Asia, USA
EcoEquity, USA
Gender Action, USA
groundWork, USA
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters-JPIC, USA
Human Nature, USA
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA
International Forum on Globalization, USA
Information Services Latin America (ISLA), USA
Jubilee Montana Network, USA
Labor Network for Sustainability, USA
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, USA
Marianists International, USA
New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, USA
Pax Christi, USA
Rainforest Action Center, USA
Sisters of the Holy Cross - Congregation Justice Committee Notre Dame, USA
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas-Institute Justice Team, USA
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA
Voices for Progress, USA

EUROPE
11.11.11- Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement, Belgium
CDM Watch, Belgium
Corporate Europe Observatory, Belgium
Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs (AITEC), France
HELIO International, France
Les Amis de la Terre/Friends of the Earth, France
LIFE e.V., Germany
Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM), Italy
Fair, Italy
Both ENDS, Netherlands
Transnational Institute (TNI), Netherlands
Forum for Environment and Development (ForUM), Norway
Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia
Carbon Trade Watch, Spain
Ecologistas en Accion, Spain
Soldepaz Pachakuti, Spain
Xarxa de l'Observatori del Deute en la Globalitzación ,Spain
Diakonia, Sweden
The Swiss Coalition of Development Organizations, Switzerland
CAFOD, UK
EcoNexus, UK
The Corner House, UK
World Development Movement, UK

ASIA & THE PACIFIC
Bangladesh Krishok Federation, Bangladesh
EquityBd, Bangladesh
SUPRO, Bangladesh
VOICE, Bangladesh
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India
Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation, India
National Forum of Forest People & Forest Workers, India
NGO Task Force on ADB, India
River Basin Friends and Rural Volunteers Centre, India
Koalisi Anti-Utang (KAU), Indonesia
KRUHA (People's Coalition for the Right to Water), Indonesia
Solidaritas Perempuan (SP), Indonesia
WALHI (Friends of the Earth), Indonesia
Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization (MSN), Malaysia
All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFa), Nepal
GEFONT, Nepal
Human Rights Alliance, Nepal
Jagaran, Nepal
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), Pakistan
Aksyon Klima (AK), Philippines
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Philippines
Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura ,Philippines
Assalam Bangsamoro People's Association, Philippines
Farmers Forum-South Cotabato, Philippines
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Philippines
FDC - SocSKSarGen, Philippines
FDC –Western Mindanao , Philippines
Gen. Santos City-Water Consumer’s Network, Philippines
Kalimudan Culture and Arts-Mindanao, Philippines
IBON Foundation, Philippines
People’s Movement on Climate Change, Philippines
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Philippines
Sagip Sierra Madre Environmental Society, Philippines
SANLAKAS Philippines
Sarilaya, Philippines
SocSKSarGen Climate Action Now! (SCAN), Philippines
Tambuyog Development Center, Philippines
ATTAC, Japan
Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition (PIPEC), Aotearoa/New Zealand
Sustainable Population, Australia

LATIN AMERICA & THE CARRIBEAN
Bolivian Climate Change Platform, Bolivia
Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social, Brazil
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais,Brazil
Caravana Ahimsa por la Tierra, Chile.
Fundacion Luis Felipe Velez, Colombia
National Union of Salvadoran Ecologists, El Salvador
La Mesa Nacional de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Indigena de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico del Mundo Maya,Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de las Verapaces de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico de Huehuetenango, Guatemala
Mesa Regional de Occidente , Guatemala
Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA), Haiti
Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos (AMAP),Mexico
Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC) , México
Mexican Center for Environmental Law, Mexico
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas (COVEC), Panama

AFRICA
Forum National sur la Dette et la Pauvreté (FNDP), Côte d'Ivoire
Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Center, Kenya
Coalition des Alternatives Africaines Dette et Développement (CAD), Mali
MAUDESCO (Friends of the Earth), Mauritius
African Network for Environment & Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Nigeria
Association des Femmes Africaines pour la Recherche et le Développement (AAWORD/AFARD), Senegal
Forum for African Alternatives, Senegal
Centre for Civil Society Climate Justice Project, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
groundWork, South Africa
Jubilee South Africa, South Africa
Groupe d'Action et de Recherche en Environnement et Développement (GARED), Togo
National Association of Environmentalists (NAPE), Uganda

INDIVIDUALS
Bishop (ret.) Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Argentina
Amalia Beatriz Molinari, Argentina
Ing. Ricardo Canese, Paraguay

Timor-Este sin deuda

2011-08-25T18:18:00.002-03:00

Organizaciones de Timor-Este y alrededor del mundo, han lanzado un llamado a mantener a Timor-Este un paìs libre de deuda. La iniciativa viene en respuesta a una ley recientemente aprobada por el parlamento timorense, que autorizaría al gobierno por primera vez a endeudarse en el exterior. ¡ENVIAR MENSAJE hasta el 5 de septiembre CON EL APOYO DE SU ORGANIZACIÓN! Texto completo del Llamado, en inglés

For a Debt-Free East Timor!

2011-08-25T17:35:00.002-03:00

Appeal open for signatures until September 5. Please sign-on!

We, the undersigned Timor-Leste and international organizations, urge the government of Timor-Leste to keep the nation debt-free and refrain from borrowing money from international lenders.

We do not take this position to hold Timor-Leste back, but to protect its future generations. Rather than repeat the mistakes of other developing countries that have struggled with debt during recent decades, Timor-Leste should learn from their experiences, which often inflicted great hardships on their people. This is especially important because of Timor-Leste’s high dependence on exporting non-renewable oil and gas wealth, a resource which will run out soon.

More than thirty years ago, lenders made loans to developing countries, creating unsustainable debt and causing the "debt crises" of the 1980s and 1990s. Today, creditors continue to drain scarce resources that could have been spent on essential services like health care, education, water and sanitation. International financial institutions - like the IMF and the World Bank - forced countries which owed them money to implement so-called austerity measures, demanding cuts in public services in order to repay debt. This has included the privatization of state services like water and electricity.

The poorest and most vulnerable members of society have been forced to pay more for essential services, and salaries of public servants have been lowered. Even when loans are made at concessional interest rates, borrowing countries are legally obligated to repay the principal before spending money on their people’s needs.

Some argue that revenue from Timor-Leste’s oil and gas wealth can provide a cushion against which to borrow. History proves such thinking is wrong. The more oil a country produces and the greater its dependence on petroleum exports, the more debt that country is likely to accumulate – and Timor-Leste today is the most petroleum-export-dependent country in the world, with oil and gas providing 95% of state revenues.

Oil prices and interest rates are very volatile and beyond Timor-Leste’s control, leaving it especially at risk, as petroleum revenues will decline and interest rates may rise while loans are still being paid back. When Timor-Leste's oil and gas run out in less than 15 years, and debts still must be repaid, Timor-Leste’s children and grandchildren will suffer the consequences.

In most developing countries with oil resources, worsening economic and development conditions with little long term benefit are the result, including increased conflict, impoverishment, and corruption. Timor-Leste should avoid such a tragedy by learning from other’s experiences, not repeating them. The Democratic Republic of Timor-Leste began life in 2002 without owing money to anyone. For the sake of an equitable, prosperous, and environmentally sound future for today’s and tomorrow’s children, Timor-Leste should remain debt-free.

We urge Timor-Leste’s leaders and international institutions to use other ways to finance the country’s much-needed development.

INITIAL SIGNATORS:

East Timor

La'o Hamutuk

Hasatil (Haburas Agrikultura Sustentavel Timor-Leste)

ETADEP (East Timor Development Action and Peace)

Haburas Foundation

Mata Dalan Institute (MDI)

Ponta-Leste Watch((PLW)

Community Development Interest (CDI)

Movimento Kontra Deve (KONDENA)

Fundasaun Mahein

Instituisaun Edukasaun Popular (IEP)

Front Mahasiswa Timor-Leste

Movimentu Estudantes Fakuldade Ekonomia -Timor-Leste (MEFE-TL)

KNUA HABERAN COMUNIDADE (KHC)

International and other Countries:

East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN), USA

Jubilee South Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)

Sustainable Energy & Economy Network/Institute for Policy Studies

USAAidwatch, AustraliaProceso de Comunidades Negras (Palenke Alto Cauca) Colombia

Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice, Indonesia

JATAM (Jaringan Advokasi Tambang)/ Indonesia Mining Advocacy Network

JATAM/Friends of Earth (FoE) of East Java

Pantau Foundation, Indonesia

WALHI - Friends of The Earth Indonesia

Jamaa Resource Initiatives, Kenya

Foundation ProPapua, The Netherlands

Swedish East Timor Committee

Justice for Palestine Matters, Sydney, Australia

Jubilee USA Network

Jubilee NW, USA

Baltimore Nonviolence Center, USA

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space

Green Delaware , USA

EARTH (Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand)

Non au détournement du Fond vert pour le climat par le secteur privé

2011-08-25T12:22:00.002-03:00

9 Septembre 2011

Chers membres du Comité de Transition,

En instituant le Fonds vert pour le climat (FVC), vous êtes en charge de concevoir une institution en mesure d'utiliser les financements pour le climat pour les pays en développement de la manière la plus efficace.

Les contributions principales au FVC devraient être prévisible, additionnelles et publiques. Pour s'assurer que telles ressources appuient les stratégies impulsées par les pays, leur utilisation devrait être définie par les pays en voie de développement, sur la base de processus de planifications participatives et souveraines. Le FCV ne doit pas directement canaliser ces ressources par le biais d'investisseurs et entreprises multinationales ou par des intermédiaires financiers, ce qui serait incompatible avec cet objectif.

Nous appelons les membres du Comité de transition à ne pas créer un dispositif autonome pour le secteur privé, ni à fournir des financements ou des incitations directement au secteur privé. Une telle action poserait des risques sérieux pour que ce processus soit réellement impulsé par les pays. La participation du secteur privé devrait être décidée, gérée, réglementée et incitée à l'échelon national, dans le contexte d'une stratégie nationale.

La proposition d'un dispositif spécifique au secteur privé dans le FVC rappelle avec anxiété la Société financière internationale (IFC) de la Banque Mondiale, qui fonctionne mal au regard de la mission de la Banque de réduire la pauvreté et promouvoir le développement durable. Près des deux tiers des investissements de la SFI dans les pays à faible revenu vont à des entreprises basées dans les pays les plus riches. En 2010, le propre Groupe indépendant d'évaluation (GIE) de la Banque Mondiale a révélé que moins de la moitié des projets de l'IFC qu'il a examinés ont été conçus pour obtenir des résultats de réduction de la pauvreté.

En outre, le modèle de l'IFC met l'accent sur l'utilisation des intermédiaires financiers pour servir de levier aux financements du secteur privé. Ce qui est un obstacle important pour garantir la transparence et la responsabilité. L'IFC ne garantit pas que les sous-projets et entreprises financées à travers les intermédiaires financiers soient accomplies avec les garanties, ou qu'ils suivent les objectifs politiques impulsés par les pays. Par exemple, en 2009, plus de la moitié des investissements dans le secteur financier de la SFI sont allés sur des projets avec un risque moyen ou élevé de provoquer des impacts sociaux et environnementaux néfastes. Le FVC ne devrait pas débourser de l'argent à travers des intermédiaires financiers.

Enfin, le Comité de transition devrait exclure explicitement l'utilisation d'instruments spéculatifs ou d'autre nature pour lever des capitaux sur les marchés financiers. Par exemple, le morcellement des obligations dans les produits dérivés et les placements sur les marchés du carbone, sont excessivement risqués du point de vue financier et environnemental. La volatilité que nous observons actuellement sur les marchés boursiers du monde entier constitue un rappel clair, s'il en fallait encore un, que de tels outils ne sont guère une base pour une stratégie de financement stable et soutenable que le FCV nécessite pour atteindre ses objectifs.

Nous vous appelons à assurer un changement décisif, au-delà du business as usual, et à vous engager sur une voie de transformation pour le developpement soutenable et al resilience des communautés.

Cordialement,

RESEAUX INTERNATIONAL ET REGIONAUX
ActionAid International
Africa Jubilee South
Alternatives Asia
Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA)
Campaña Mesoamericana de Justicia Climática
Christian Aid
European Network on Debt and Development (EURODAD)
Focus on the Global South
Friends of the Earth International
Gender and Climate Change (GenderCC)
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
International Rivers
Jubilee South
Jubilee South- Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)
Jubileo Sur-Américas
Pan-Africa Climate Justice Alliance (PACJA)
Plataforma Interamericana de Derechos Humanos, Democracia y Desarrollo (PIDHDD)
Red Observatorio de la Sostenibilidad LatinoAmerica (SUSWATCH)
South Asia Alliance for Poverty Eradication (SAAPE)
Third World Network (TWN)

AMERIQUE DU NORD
Council of Canadians, Canada
Center for Biological Diversity, USA
Center of Concern (COC), USA
Center for Food Safety, USA
Columban Center for Advocacy and Outreach, USA
Community Action for Justice in the Americas, Africa, Asia, USA
EcoEquity, USA
Gender Action, USA
groundWork, USA
Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters-JPIC, USA
Human Nature, USA
Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, USA
International Forum on Globalization, USA
Information Services Latin America (ISLA), USA
Jubilee Montana Network, USA
Labor Network for Sustainability, USA
Little Village Environmental Justice Organization, USA
Marianists International, USA
New Rules for Global Finance Coalition, USA
Pax Christi, USA
Rainforest Action Center, USA
Sisters of the Holy Cross - Congregation Justice Committee Notre Dame, USA
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas-Institute Justice Team, USA
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA
Voices for Progress, USA

EUROPE
11.11.11- Coalition of the Flemish North-South Movement, Belgium
CDM Watch, Belgium
Corporate Europe Observatory, Belgium
Association Internationale de Techniciens, Experts et Chercheurs (AITEC), France
HELIO International, France
Les Amis de la Terre/Friends of the Earth, France
LIFE e.V., Germany
Campagna per la Riforma della Banca Mondiale (CRBM), Italy
Fair, Italy
Both ENDS, Netherlands
Transnational Institute (TNI), Netherlands
Forum for Environment and Development (ForUM), Norway
Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia
Carbon Trade Watch, Spain
Ecologistas en Accion, Spain
Soldepaz Pachakuti, Spain
Xarxa de l'Observatori del Deute en la Globalitzación ,Spain
Diakonia, Sweden
The Swiss Coalition of Development Organizations, Switzerland
CAFOD, UK
EcoNexus, UK
The Corner House, UK
World Development Movement, UK

ASIE ET LE PACIFIQUE
Bangladesh Krishok Federation, Bangladesh
EquityBd, Bangladesh
SUPRO, Bangladesh
VOICE, Bangladesh
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India
Kerala Independent Fishworkers Federation, India
National Forum of Forest People & Forest Workers, India
NGO Task Force on ADB, India
River Basin Friends and Rural Volunteers Centre, India
Koalisi Anti-Utang (KAU), Indonesia
KRUHA (People's Coalition for the Right to Water), Indonesia
Solidaritas Perempuan (SP), Indonesia
WALHI (Friends of the Earth), Indonesia
Monitoring Sustainability of Globalization (MSN), Malaysia
All Nepal Peasants Federation (ANPFa), Nepal
GEFONT, Nepal
Human Rights Alliance, Nepal
Jagaran, Nepal
Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), Pakistan
Aksyon Klima (AK), Philippines
Alyansa Tigil Mina (ATM), Philippines
Aniban ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura ,Philippines
Assalam Bangsamoro People's Association, Philippines
Farmers Forum-South Cotabato, Philippines
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Philippines
FDC - SocSKSarGen, Philippines
FDC –Western Mindanao , Philippines
Gen. Santos City-Water Consumer’s Network, Philippines
Kalimudan Culture and Arts-Mindanao, Philippines
IBON Foundation, Philippines
People’s Movement on Climate Change, Philippines
Philippine Movement for Climate Justice (PMCJ), Philippines
Sagip Sierra Madre Environmental Society, Philippines
SANLAKAS Philippines
Sarilaya, Philippines
SocSKSarGen Climate Action Now! (SCAN), Philippines
Tambuyog Development Center, Philippines
ATTAC, Japan
Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition (PIPEC), Aotearoa/New Zealand
Sustainable Population, Australia

AMERIQUE LATINE ET LE CARAIBE
Bolivian Climate Change Platform, Bolivia
Fórum Mudanças Climáticas e Justiça Social, Brazil
Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais,Brazil
Caravana Ahimsa por la Tierra, Chile.
Fundacion Luis Felipe Velez, Colombia
National Union of Salvadoran Ecologists, El Salvador
La Mesa Nacional de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Indigena de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico del Mundo Maya,Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de las Verapaces de Cambio Climatico, Guatemala
Mesa Departamental de Cambio Climatico de Huehuetenango, Guatemala
Mesa Regional de Occidente , Guatemala
Plateforme Haïtienne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif (PAPDA), Haiti
Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos (AMAP),Mexico
Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC) , México
Mexican Center for Environmental Law, Mexico
Colectivo Voces Ecológicas (COVEC), Panama
Bishop (ret.) Aldo M. Etchegoyen, Argentina
Amalia Beatriz Molinari, Argentina
Ing. Ricardo Canese, Paraguay

AFRIQUE
Forum National sur la Dette et la Pauvreté (FNDP), Côte d'Ivoire
Daughters of Mumbi Global Resource Center, Kenya
Coalition des Alternatives Africaines Dette et Développement (CAD), Mali
MAUDESCO (Friends of the Earth), Mauritius
African Network for Environment & Economic Justice (ANEEJ), Nigeria
Association des Femmes Africaines pour la Recherche et le Développement (AAWORD/AFARD), Senegal
Forum for African Alternatives, Senegal
Centre for Civil Society Climate Justice Project, University of KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
groundWork, South Africa
Jubilee South Africa, South Africa
Groupe d'Action et de Recherche en Environnement et Développement (GARED), Togo
National Association of Environmentalists (NAPE), Uganda

PROGRAM - Alternative Forum on Climate Change

2011-08-20T19:09:00.001-03:00

Alternative Forum on Climate Change

Univeristy of Panama, Panama City
Campus Central Octavio Méndez Pereira

Paraninfo – School of Humanities
Vía Transismica and Avenida Ricardo J. Alfaro

Saturday, October 1

8:00-9:00 am. Registration

9:00-9:15 Mother Earth ritual

9:15-9:30 Inauguration

9:30-10:00 The Climate Change Crisis: Origins, impacts, and future scenarios. Dr. Justo Medrano, Vice-rector for Academic Affairs, University of Panama

10:00-10:30 Climate Reality in Panama: The Change that is being Imposed. Arch. Raisa Banfield, Panama Sustainable (PASOS).

10:30-11:00 Climate Change and debt: Deepening the instruments of control and domination over the peoples of the global South. Dr. Juan Jovane, Faculty of Economics, University of Panama.

11:00-11:30 Climate Change: the Response of Power and Alternatives from Social Movements. Lic. Carolina Amaya, National Union of Salvadoran Ecologists (UNES) – El Salvador.

11:30-12:30 Workshops

· Economic aspects of Climate Change

· Political aspects of Climate Change

· Cultural aspects and Indigenous Cosmovisions

· Food Sovereignty

12:30-2:00 Lunch and conviviality

2:00 to 3:30 pm Continuation of working groups and preparation of presentations.

3:30 to 5:00 pm Plenary for presentation and discussion of workshop results.

5:00 to 8:00 pm. Cultural act

Sunday October 2

8:00 to 9:30 am. Discussion of draft final Resolution

9:30 to 1:00 pm. Climate Justice and Socio-environmental Conflicts in Panama

11:00 to 12:00 pm. Final Plenary

12:00 to 1:00 pm. Lunch

2:00 to 5:00 pm Walk for Climate Justice

Contact us!

Telephones (507) 6655-4716 - (507) 836-6453

justiciaclimaticamesoamerica@gmail.com
www.nofalsassoluciones.org - www.jubileesouth.org

Movements demand participation and action from new South American Council of Economy and Finance

2011-08-12T10:28:00.001-03:00

Buenos Aires, 12.8.11 - As finance ministers and Central Bank Governors of the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR) met behind closed doors at the Alvear Palace Hotel , a hundred Latin American and Caribbean movements and networks presented them with a petition containing various concerns and proposals with regard to the challenge of achieving a regional integration that serve the rights of the people and of Mother Earth and that effectively contributes to the protection of the region's patrimony and wealth from the predatory, speculative, and plundering action driven from the center of the political-economic system.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel regretted that the new institutions being created by UNASUR are finding it very difficult to open themselves to citizen participation. He further mentioned that among the proposals that movements in the region have been demanding for some time now is the effective operationalization of the South Bank and the undertaking of coordinated and comprehensive audits of the debts still being claimed, and collected, from our countries. "It is imperative to overcome the delay in the creation of the Bank, and ensure that it has a different operating logic than that of the World Bank, the IDB, the Andean Development Corporation (CAF) and other international bodies that have been functional to the development of the current food, environmental, energy, and economic crisis", further expressed the Nobel Peace Laureate.

"A comprehensive audit of debt claims, as has already been done in some countries of the region, is also necessary to put an end to the crimes and impunity of the financial power that is now rattling countries in the North but which over four decades has been determining the life and death of peoples throughout the South," added Beverly Keene. Both Keene and Pérez Esquivel are members of Dialogue 2000 Argentina and the Jubilee South network, both among proponents of the petition presented to the new South American Economy and Finance Council.

Nora Cortinas and Mirta Baravalle,.Mothers of Plaza de Mayo Founders' Line, among the supporters of the petition, underscored that the action sought to strengthen support for some of the initiatives already on the negotiating table of the new South American Economy Council, including a coordinated control of speculative capital movements, the creation of a regional system of reserves, and the protection of people's economic and social rights as the focus of regional productive and commercial integration.

"It is time that the region move forward in a profound transformation of the economic system, based on an integration by, and for, people and nature," said Nora Cortinas. "Here in Argentina, among other things this means asking why our government insists on prioritizing, for example, payment of an illegitimate debt to the Paris Club, when you'it is not willing to guarantee the constitutional 82% mobile to retirees and pensioners. It is necessary to change the axis of economic logic, to really be of service to those most in need."

In addition to the Jubilee South/Americas network, the initiative was supported by CadtmAYNA , the Hemispheric Social Alliance, Lutheran World Federation's Program on Illegitimate Debt, the Trade Union Confederation of the Americas, the Our Americas Trade Union Gathering, Friends of the Earth Latin America/Caribbean, the Convergence of Popular Movements in America, and the Worldwide Women's March/Americas as well as numerous other regional and national organizations.

The full text and list of signers of the petition can be found here, in Spanish.

Movimientos reclaman participación y acción al Consejo Económico de la UNASUR

2011-08-12T10:27:00.005-03:00

Petitorio a los Señores Ministros de Finanzas

y Presidentes de Bancos Centrales de los países de la UNASUR

En ocasión del primer encuentro del

Consejo Suramericano de Economía y Finanzas

Buenos Aires, 12 de Agosto de 2011

Nos dirigimos a los señores Ministros de Finanzas y Presidentes de Bancos Centrales de los países de la UNASUR, en ocasión de este primer encuentro del Consejo Suramericano de Economía y Finanzas, como organizaciones y movimientos populares, instituciones, legisladores y personas de la región, comprometidos en la promoción de la vida y la justicia social. Desde por lo menos la primera Cumbre de la entonces Comunidad de Naciones del Sur, celebrada en Bolivia, en diciembre de 2006, venimos impulsando campañas y acciones en pos de la creación y fortalecimiento de alternativas de financiamiento soberano y solidario, en un marco de integración desde los pueblos y en defensa de los derechos humanos, los derechos de los pueblos y los derechos de la Madre Tierra.

Consideramos importante la reunión extraordinaria de las y los Presidentes y Jefes de Estado de UNASUR y la reunión técnica que los Ministros de Economía acaban de realizar, ambas en Lima, con la finalidad de adoptar medidas conjuntas para evitar mayores consecuencias para los pueblos de nuestros países, como efecto de la crisis que se sigue propagando desde el centro del sistema económico-financiero capitalista en Estados Unidos y Europa.

La agudización de esta crisis acrecienta la necesidad y las expectativas en la articulación económica regional. Es la oportunidad para pensar más allá de la lógica del capital, ya que esa “racionalidad” lleva hoy el sello del ajuste fiscal suscripto por demócratas y republicanos en EEUU, o el desmantelamiento del remanente Estado benefactor en Europa. El resultado es el deterioro de las condiciones de vida y trabajo de la mayoría de la población.

Es en ese espíritu y en la convicción que nos une de la necesidad, la urgencia y la clara posibilidad de una mayor participación democrática para avanzar y profundizar la integración regional como camino hacia el buen vivir de los pueblos, que saludamos la creación de este Consejo como espacio permanente para avanzar en estos temas y ofrecemos las siguientes consideraciones y propuestas:

Entendemos la necesidad de dar prioridad a la integración regional ya no sólo como cumplimiento de un largo sueño de complementación, sino en particular por la imperiosa necesidad de generar respuestas comunes ante un marco económico y financiero internacional altamente inestable e incierto y la exigencia de una transformación profunda del actual modelo de producción y consumo. La crisis económica internacional claramente no ha cesado, aumentando los riesgos para la región y poniendo de manifiesto la urgencia de avanzar en transformaciones de fondo. La existencia simultánea de un marco circunstancial favorable, en la mayor parte de los países de la UNASUR, acentúa el potencial de nuestras sociedades y torna imprescindible aprovechar el momento para lograr los cambios estructurales que posibilitarían una distribución equitativa de los beneficios y los costos de los procesos económicos junto con la restauración del equilibrio con la naturaleza.
Alertamos sobre el peligro que los Estados involucrados intenten avanzar en la integración regional sin consolidar mecanismos permanentes de participación de la sociedad y sus organizaciones. Es precisa la más amplia participación democrática y transparencia y, que ello se haga en relación al diagnóstico de los problemas como en el diseño, ejecución y control de las políticas y programas que desde el espacio de la UNASUR puedan impulsarse de manera conjunta y en cada uno de los países. Reclamamos una política consecuente con el fomento y concreción de dicha participación en todos los ámbitos y niveles de consideración, incluyendo al Consejo Suramericano de Economía y Finanzas.
Observamos con enorme preocupación la demora en poner en marcha una nueva arquitectura financiera regional, que contribuya a evitar que la región sea golpeada por las crisis externas y afirme que los recursos de ahorro sean canalizados hacia necesidades prioritarias de inversión social y productiva como son garantizar la soberanía y complementación alimentaria, energética y de atención a la salud, la educación, la vivienda, el trabajo, la seguridad social y demás derechos económicos, sociales y culturales. Al respecto, esperamos que el interés en avanzar en este sentido, manifestado en los últimos días por las máximas autoridades de la UNASUR, redunde en la concreción de las iniciativas que desde hace tiempo, languidecen en la agenda regional.
Entre ellas, entendemos impostergable la puesta en marcha de un Banco del Sur solidario con una transición justa hacia un nuevo modelo productivo equitativo, menos contaminante, determinado regionalmente y afín a estas necesidades y derechos. Tal Banco pueda además contribuir con el financiamiento necesario para hacer frente al cambio climático, canalizando los recursos del pago de la deuda ecológica y climática del Norte para que sean administrados desde la región y no a través del Banco Mundial, el BID, la CAF u otras entidades similares.
Otras iniciativas cuya adopción seguimos reclamado, y que puedan contribuir a los fines señalados y proteger a nuestra región de los eventuales nuevos embates de la crisis desatada en EE.UU. y Europa, incluyen la concreción de un Fondo de Reservas del Sur, el control cambiario común y la creación de mecanismos de intercambio, como podría ser una unidad de cuenta regional, que reemplacen la dependencia actual del dólar estadounidense.
Reconociendo la preocupación manifestada por los señores Ministros y Presidentes de Bancos Centrales, por la carestía y las condicionalidades del crédito planteadas históricamente por los mercados internacionales y organismos/entidades financieras, apoyamos la decisión de abocarse a medidas comunes para favorecer la inversión y uso más eficaz de los capitales que se generan en la región. Llamamos en especial a que se avance con el establecimiento de mecanismos de regulación financiera regional, incluyendo entre otras posibilidades, controles coordinados sobre los flujos de capitales, la implementación de sistemas equitativos de tributación y el cierre de los paraísos fiscales. Es urgente protegernos de la volatilidad especulativa de los flujos de capitales, que afecta a la economía en su conjunto, y avanzar en la adopción de impuestos a las transacciones financieras en favor de la región.
Asimismo, llamamos con particular urgencia a que se realicen auditorías integrales y participativas de los reclamos de deuda que enfrentan nuestros países, de manera coordinada regionalmente, para avanzar además en la concreción de estrategias de acción colectiva para poner fin a las presiones, los cobros y la impunidad de quienes, incluyendo a los fondos buitres, se proclamen acreedores con reclamos ilegítimos e injustos. Sobre esa base es necesario además, iniciar caminos de restitución y de reparaciones. Esta auditoría y control público y parlamentario sobre los movimientos de capitales y los procesos de endeudamiento debería extenderse también hacia el presente y futuro, abarcando las deudas sociales, históricas y ambientales relacionadas.
Expresamos nuestra profunda preocupación ante el avance continuo de los megaproyectos de infraestructura y el apoyo a las agroindustrias y proyectos extractivistas altamente contaminantes social y ambientalmente. Llamamos a los Ministros de Finanzas y Presidentes de Bancos Centrales a establecer una moratoria sobre estas inversiones y al Consejo Suramericano de Economía y Finanzas a iniciar un proceso de estudio estratégico en torno a las alternativas necesarias.
Llamamos a los señores Ministros y Presidentes de Bancos Centrales a coordinar acciones en los diversos organismos e instituciones internacionales tanto financieros como comerciales y de otro índole, que tienen un impacto notorio en las condiciones político-económicas que enfrentan los países de la región, y a coordinarse solidariamente con los derechos y necesidades de los demás pueblos y estados del Sur. Resulta imprescindible avanzar, en común, por ejemplo, en el camino ya abierto por países miembros de la UNASUR, hacia una moratoria en la firma de nuevos acuerdos y la denuncia de los tratados y regímenes de libre comercio e inversión, así como también de la cesión de jurisdicción en caso de conflictos. En especial, es necesario que los países de la región abandonen su participación en el CIADI, organismo anti-democrático y dependiente del Banco Mundial. Debemos seguir pensando en el fortalecimiento y la construcción de mecanismos soberanos o eventualmente regionales o internacionales, no parcializados hacia la inversión y las transnacionales.
Entendemos que también es urgente, vista la recurrente experiencia histórica, que los países de la región introduzcan inmediatamente, antes que sea demasiado tarde, firmes medidas comunes contra la burbuja especulativa en los mercados de productos primarios como así también contra la ampliación de los nuevos mercados de clima y biodiversidad, teniendo presente que los crímenes del hambre y del saqueo y colonización ecológica son prevenibles y deben ser sancionados a todos niveles. Llamamos a poner coto a las diversas corrientes especulativas y de vaciamiento que conllevan, hoy, a revaluaciones monetarias y una mayor inflación que golpea, en particular, a los sectores más desprotegidos, y que de no revertirse la tendencia, pueden devenir en corridas cambiarias, dilapidación de reservas, ajustes regresivos y vaciamiento de ahorros regionales con consecuencias irreversibles para los pueblos y el planeta.
Resaltamos la importancia de que la integración regional abra para todos los pueblos de la región y, en especial para las mujeres, los pueblos originarios, los y las afrodescendientes y otras poblaciones históricamente oprimidas, un horizonte de dignidad e igualdad, superando las dominaciones y la explotación y revirtiendo las asimetrías construidas entre países y pueblos. En ese mismo sentido, llamamos a este Consejo Suramericano de Economía y Finanzas y al conjunto de la UNASUR, a obrar decididamente a favor de la consolidación de nuevas relaciones de solidaridad y cooperación entre todos los países del Sur, manteniendo como eje de las políticas adoptadas la plena vigencia de los derechos humanos y de la naturaleza, la soberanía y la autodeterminación de los pueblos. En especial, y ante el enorme drama del pueblo hermano de Haití y la notoria mora de la prometida cooperación internacional luego del terremoto de enero de 2010, llamamos a los países de UNASUR a que elaboren un programa más enérgico de cooperación común, revirtiendo la larga e inexplicable ocupación militar y concentrando el apoyo en la reconstrucción productiva y social y la defensa irrestricta de los derechos humanos, ponderando las enormes potencialidades de integración y la complementación regional.

Con la sincera expectativa que estas opiniones y propuestas sean consideradas positivamente, hacemos propicia la oportunidad para saludar a Uds. muy atentamente.

PRIMERAS FIRMAS:

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Premio Nobel de la Paz - Nora Cortiñas y Mirta Baravalle, Madres de Plaza de Mayo Línea Fundadora

Regionales: Jubileo Sur/Américas - Alianza Social Continental ASC - Amigos de la Tierra América Latina y el Caribe ATALC – Cadtm/AYNA – Confederación Sindical de las Américas CSA - Encuentro Sindical Nuestra América ESNA - Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas COMPA - Federación Luterana Mundial/Programa de Deuda Ilegítima - Observatorio Latinoamericano de Conflictos Ambientales - Servicio Paz y Justicia en América Latina – Marcha Mundial de las Mujeres/ Américas - Comisión de Justicia y Paz Misioneros Claretianos (Argentina - Chile - Paraguay – Uruguay, Fernando Guzmán, Coordinador Regional) - Latindadd - GRAIN - Grupo de Estudios sobre América Latina y el Caribe GEAL

Argentina: Diálogo 2000/Jubileo Sur - Central de Trabajadores de la Argentina CTA - ATTAC - Asamblea Permanente de los Derechos Humanos APDH - Fundación Servicio Paz y Justicia SERPAJ - Movimiento Libres del Sur – Federación Judicial Argentina FJA - Espacio Ecuménico - Movimiento Ecuménico de Derechos Humanos MEDH - Al Dorso Programa Radial sobre la Deuda – Asociación de DDHH de Cañada de Gómez, Pcia. Santa Fe - Programa Argentina Sustentable – Comisión Política de la Iglesia Dimensión de Fe – Instituto de Relaciones Ecuménicas - Iglesia Metodista y Pastoral Popular Bolivia: Fundación ARAKUAARENDA Brasil: Rede Jubileu Sul Brasil - Rede Brasil sobre Instituições Financeiras Multilaterais -Instituto Políticas Alternativas para el Cono Sur (PACS) - Rede Social de Justiça e Direitos Humanos - Instituto Mais Democracia - Associação Central do Brasil (Lausanne, Suiza) – Rede Brasil por la Integración de los Pueblos REBRIP - Movimento dos Trabalhadores Desempregados Chile: Capítulo Chile de la Alianza Social Continental - Colectivo Viento Sur - Programa Chile Sustentable – Ecoceanos – Fundación Terram – CEH ANoVio (Gonzalo González Ibáñez, Co-Director) - Asamblea Ciudadana Autoconvocados Colombia: "En Deuda con los Derechos" - Centro de Estudios e Investigaciones Sociales Afrocolombianas (CEISAFROCOL) - Comité por la Anulación de la Deuda del Tercer Mundo "CADTM” capítulo Colombia - Corporación Mujeres y Economía - Federación Nacional de Empleados Bancarios, Aseguradoras y empresas afines de Colombia "FENASIBANCOL" - Marcha Mundial de Mujeres Colombia - Unión Nacional de Empleados Bancarios "UNEB" Ecuador: Grupo Nacional de Deuda – Jubileo 2000 Red Guayaquil - Pueblo Montubio del Ecuador Oswaldo Mosquera Zambrano, Presidente Nacional Paraguay: Cordinadora Nacional por la Integracion y la Soberania Energetica, CONISE Venezuela: Acción Ecuménica de Venezuela - Red Venezolana Contra la Deuda - Movimiento Unido Socialista Haitiano Venezolano por el ALBA (MOUSHVA) El Salvador: Red de Acción Ciudadana frente al Libre Comercio e Inversiones Sinti Techán – Unión Nacional de Ecologistas Salvadoreños UNES – Campaña Mesoamericana de Justicia Climática Haití: Plateforme Haitiënne de Plaidoyer pour un Développement Alternatif PAPDA Honduras: Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras, COPINH - Organización Fraternal Negra Hondureña, OFRANEH – Movimiento Insurreccional Autónomo - Comité de Familiares de Desaparecidos de Honduras, COFADEH (Berta Oliva, Presidenta) - México: Jubileo Sur México - Marea Creciente México - Movimiento Mexicano de Afectados por las Represas (Mapder) – Otros Mundos AC/Chiapas - Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC) - Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería (REMA) - Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos AMAP - Grupo Cultural Floricanto, Eduardo Lucio Molina y Vedia Nicaragua: Movimiento Social Nicaragüense Panamá: Colectivo Voces Ecológicas Trinidad y Tobago: Federacion de Sindicatos y ONGs Independientes (FITUN)

Rte:

Diálogo 2000 / Jubileo Sur

Piedras 730 (1070) Buenos Aires

Tel. +5411-43071867 / +54911-55690140

dialogo2000@gmail.com

jubileosur@gmail.com
www.jubileosuramericas.org
www.dialogo2000.blogspot.com

Semaine mondiale d'action sur la Dette et les IFI, Octobre 8-15

2011-08-10T14:34:00.003-03:00

10.08.11 Jubilé Sud, Eurodad, Cadtm et le Réseau Jubilé USA se sont réunis aujourd'hui pour lancer les préparatifs de la Semaine mondiale d'Action sur la dette et les Institutions financières internationales, tenu annuellement le 8 au 15 Octobre. En tant que membres de l'équipe internationale de facilitation de la Campagne Sud-Nord sur la dette illégitime, ces réseaux ont convenu que dans le contexte de détresse économique mondiale en cours, où le pouvoir de concentration des intérêts financiers est évident dans le Nord ainsi que dans le Sud, pour sa capacité et l'impunité de faire des ravages sur la vie des peuples et la planète, la mobilisation de cette année doit être plus forte que jamais. Proponons un accent sur l'illégitimité de créances, le droit des peuples et des Etats de répudier ou cesser les paiements sur les dettes illégitimes et injustes, l'appel à entreprendre des audits intégrals de la dette et à soutenir ses stratégies pour obtenir des réparations pour les paiements injustes. Invitons a tous les organisations que s' intéresse à se joindre à la Semaine d'action de cette année à communiquer votre appuie et de propositions sur des campagnes spécifiques pour être souligné. Pour savoir plus de la Semaine d'action pendant des années passés

Semana de Acción Global sobre la Deuda y las IFIs, del 8 al 15 de octubre

2011-08-10T14:30:00.002-03:00

10/08/11 Jubileo Sur, Eurodad, Cadtm y la Red Jubileo EE.UU. se reunieron hoy para poner en marcha los preparativos para la Semana Mundial de Acción contra la Deuda y las Instituciones Financieras Internacionales, que se realiza anualmente del 8 al 15 de octubre. Como miembros del Equipo Internacional de Facilitación de la Campaña Sur-Norte sobre Deuda Ilegítima, las redes acordaron que en el contexto de las actuales dificultades económicas mundiales, donde el poder de los intereses financieros concentrados hace gala en el Norte como en el Sur, de su capacidad e impunidad para causar estragos en la vida de los pueblos y del planeta, la movilización de este año tiene que ser más fuerte que nunca. Proponen además que se ponga especial atención en la ilegitimidad de las deudas, el derecho de los pueblos y los estados para repudiar o dejar de pagar las deudas ilegítimas e injustas, la llamada para llevar a cabo auditorias integrales de la deuda y para apoyar las estrategias encaminadas a asegurar la reparación de las deudas injustamente pagadas. Se invita a quienes estén interesados en sumarse este año a la Semana de Acción a comunicar su apoyo y propuestas de campañas específicas para ser apoyadas. Lea más acerca de la Semana en los últimos años