Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

 I- Introduction

The world Assembly of the CADTM international network held in Liège (Belgium) in 2008 decided to transfer the hosting of the International Secretariat from Liège to a country of the South. ATTAC CADTM Morocco applied for it at the World Assembly held in Liège in November 2010. The Assembly entrusted ATTAC CADTM Morocco and CADTM Belgium, in close coordination with CADTM Africa, with the task of facilitating the transfer process of the international secretariat within a reasonable period of time, at least three years from that date. An external expert, Françoise Mulfinger, quite knowledgeable in education and development, was appointed to monitor the process and produce a report on the transfer’s feasibility which was submitted to the next World Assembly in 2013.

On the basis of this report over three years, the World Assembly held in Bouznika (Morocco) from 19 to 22 May 2013 decided to create a twin-hub International Secretariat shared between CADTM Belgium and ATTAC CADTM Morocco. The mandate, which would come into force by the end of 2014, was for a period of 4 years with the possibility of a mid-term review in 2016 at the next World Assembly. http://www.cadtm.org/Motions,9189

A mid-term assessment of the tasks performed by ATTAC CADTM Morocco in the international Secretariat was presented at the World Assembly held in Tunis from 27 to 30 April 2016. It was complemented by Françoise Mulfinger’s evaluation report about the transfer. Delegates unanimously approved and voted a renewal of its mandate until the next Assembly, to be held in Dakar in November 2021, which then, approved its renewal for another five years, until 2026.

Table of the distribution of tasks within the CADTM international Secretariat

 II- ATTAC CADTM Morocco’s modus operandi

ATTAC CADTM MOROCCO held its sixth national conference in May 2017 and elected a national secretariat (the association’s executive body that meets every alternate month) consisting of 9 members including three women. Fatima Zahra El Belghiti is the general secretary. The conference is held every three years. The Covid-19 pandemic has not allowed holding the seventh conference yet (November 2021).

The work of ATTAC CADTM Morocco is based on the association’s local groups that meet in a national council (decisional instance after the national conference) every four months. There are currently ten local groups. They are present in all major areas of Morocco.
Four national committees have been set up: information, women, ecology and training.

 III- Issues around which ATTAC CADTM Morocco works and mobilizes

The international tasks assigned to ATTAC CADTM Morocco within the international secretariat dovetail with its national tasks of making an impact on the activist and political life of the country.

The issues on which ATTAC CADTM Morocco works and mobilizes are the following:

• Cancellation of illegitimate public debt;
• Cancellation of illegitimate private debt (microcredit);
• Against free-trade agreements, which are colonial agreements against people;
• Construction of resistances and the development of alternatives to counter the climate and environmental crisis;
• Food sovereignty in Morocco;
• Radical feminist commitment;
• Migration issue;
• Against political despotism and for popular sovereignty;
• Participation in the global dynamics of social movements and the CADTM International network (tasks within the Secretariat).

In 2020, ATTAC CADTM Morocco celebrated its 20^th anniversary. It organized several webinars on national, regional and international levels to present and share Share A unit of ownership interest in a corporation or financial asset, representing one part of the total capital stock. Its owner (a shareholder) is entitled to receive an equal distribution of any profits distributed (a dividend) and to attend shareholder meetings. its achievements in the various fields listed above: general achievement of ATTAC CADTM Morocco (28 January 2021), feminist commitment (7 March 2021), struggle against private and public debt (22 March 2021), against free-trade agreements (5 April 2021), for food sovereignty (29 May).

It also published books on its website https://attacMorocco.org/ and on that of the CADTM in Arabic http://arabic.cadtm.org/. See below the list of books with links.

You can read our report: ATTAC CADTM Morocco: 20 years of struggle for another possible Morocco – one of social and environmental justice, of dignity and freedom with the following links:

• In French: https://attacMorocco.org/fr/2020/12/01/attac-cadtm-Morocco-20-ans-de-lutte-pour-un-autre-Morocco-possible-un-Morocco-de-justice-sociale-et-environnementale-de-dignite-et-de-liberte/
• In English: https://www.cadtm.org/ATTAC-CADTM-Morocco-20-years-of-struggle-for-another-possible-Morocco-one-of
• In Arabic: https://bit.ly/3wimPnm

 IV- Assessments of the tasks assigned to ATTAC CADTM Morocco within the international secretariat 2016-2021

Apart from political statements and press releases involving the international CADTM network, ATTAC CADTM Morocco has contributed to international training sessions on issues of public and private debt, international financial institutions, alternatives to the crisis of patriarchal and productivist capitalism.

A) Synergies with international networks

The World Social Forum (WSF)

The CADTM World Assembly held in Tunis in April 2016 unanimously voted a motion on our participation in the World Social Forum: we will significantly reduce our involvement and the CADTM network will judge on a case-by-case basis what this will mean in practice. The International Council of the CADTM will decide each time on the attitude to take for each session of the World Social Forum.

Indeed since its 14^th edition in Tunisia in 2015, the process of the world social forums has not been able to bring together resistances and initiatives on a global scale.
ATTAC CADTM Morocco participated in its 15^th edition in Montreal in 2016. Its 16^th edition took place in Brazil (Salvador de Bahia) in March 2018.

A virtual edition of the World Social Forum was organized in January 2021. ATTAC CADTM Morocco participated in two seminars: one on feminist struggles and the other on environment.

As a response to the crisis of the WSF, an initiative called the International Peoples’ Assembly was launched in Venezuela in 2016. It aimed to infuse new energy into a process of international coordination to invigorate mass struggles against imperialism. Continental and regional meetings were organized in 2017 to prepare for this international Assembly. ATTAC CADTM Morocco participated in the meeting of popular organizations in the Arab region in Tunis in April 2017 and in the 2^nd Pan African Conference in Tunis in July 2017 http://www.cadtm.org/2eme-Conference-Panafricanisme (in French). The International Assembly of Peoples took place in Venezuela in 2018, but ATTAC CADTM Morocco decided not to engage in this process anymore.

GlobAttac

Global Attac hardly functions as an international network and has no secretariat to ensure follow-up. It occasionally meets on the occasion of large international activist conferences. It set up an international list for internal information.

In May 2019, ATTAC-Québec initiated a statement of support from GlobAttac to the political prisoners belonging to the Hirak in the Rif (popular protest movement in the Rif area in Morocco): https://www.quebec.attac.org/?soutien-de-groupes-attac-aux (English version on the same page below).

GlobAttac was invited to participate in mobilizations against the G7 summit meeting in Biarritz from 24 to 26 August 2019. ATTAC CADTM Morocco could not participate.

World March of Women

In March 2018, the National Coordination of the World March of Women (WMW) was constituted in Morocco. Through its committee on women, ATTAC CADTM Morocco participates in the various meetings and activities of this initiative. It consolidates its collaboration, through, among other actions,

• the distribution, within our CADTM network and in Morocco, of analyses, comments and statements from the WMW, including the translation into Arabic of both its fundamental texts and its occasional statements,
• its participation in world days of action promoted by the WMW, in the context of alliances and joint work with other organizations at the local, national and regional levels.

International campaign against the impunity of multinational corporations

ATTAC CADTM MOROCCO joined the international campaign for a Treaty of peoples to dismantle the power of corporations and put an end to their impunity https://www.stopcorporateimpunity.org/end-corporate-impunity-coming/. It currently includes some 300 organizations in Latin and North America, Africa and Asia. It initiated the setting up, within the UN Human Rights Committee, of a working group for a binding treaty on business and human rights, which had its third meeting in October 2017 (see https://www.business-humanrights.org/en/big-issues/binding-treaty/ and https://www.cadtm.org/Pour-demanteler-le-pouvoir-des, in French). It is also very active in exposing violations of rights by transnational corporations and in solidarity campaigns. It plans to create a centre of peoples and ATTAC CADTM Morocco was proposed as a referent for North Africa to report violations by transnational corporations of human, political, economic, social and environmental rights, as well as to relay information and solidarity campaigns with struggles to be fought in this regard.

La Vía Campesina (LVC)

After seventeen years of struggle, LVC won a significant victory. On 17 December 2018, in New York, the seventy-third session of the UN General Assembly voted the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other People Working in Rural Areas. This declaration is an international legal instrument, and La Via Campesina (LVC) and its allies have mobilized to support its implementation at a regional and national level: https://viacampesina.org/en/finally-un-general-assembly-adopts-peasant-rights-declaration-now-focus-is-on-its-implementation/

The book on the Declaration on the Rights of Peasants was published by the Foundation Centre Europe – Tiers Monde (CETIM): https://www.cetim.ch/product/e-book-the-un-declaration-on-the-rights-of-peasants/.

Through the North African network for food sovereignty which it initiated along with other organizations in Tunis in July 2017, ATTAC CADTM Morocco has developed synergies with three components of La Via Campesina in the MENA area: the Union of farm work committees in Palestine, the association called “un million de femmes” in Tunisia, and the Federation of the farming sector in Morocco (FNSA/UMT).

The North African network for food sovereignty joined the African Alliance for food sovereignty in Africa (AFSA) https://afsafrica.org/ with a majority of member organizations that are also members of La Via Campesina (LVC).

La Via Campesina has been active in Africa since 2004 and has 18 member associations in 17 African countries, see list https://viacampesina.org/fr/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2018/03/List-of-members.pdf.
Since 2013 LVC’s international operating Secretariat has been hosted by the Forum of small agroecological farmers (ZIMSOFF) in Zimbabwe. In 2022, it will be hosted in France.

B) International activist meet
Next to the universities organized by CADTM Belgium, ATTAC CADTM Morocco participated in several international activist meets and actions: European universities of social movements, international eco-socialist encounters, etc.

ATTAC CADTM Morocco joined the Glasgow Agreement, a platform of global social movements and organizations for climate justice to prepare the COP 26 counter-summit in Glasgow from 1^st to 12 November 2021.

C) Reinforcing and increasing the scope of the CADTM in Africa

1)North Africa and the Middle East/Arab region
Public debt, microcredit, free-trade agreements and food sovereignty

The various regional activities organized by ATTAC CADTM Morocco since the 2016 World Assembly have focused on debt, microcredit, free-trade agreements and food sovereignty. It organized major events such as:

• an international seminar on free-trade agreements in Casablanca in October 2016 http://www.cadtm.org/Declaration-finale-de-la (in French),
• international conference on climate justice in Safi in December 2016 as a contribution to the Marrakesh COP22 counter-summit http://www.cadtm.org/Declaration-de-Safi
• Meeting of activist associations against the debt system in the Arab region in Tunis in December 2016 http://www.cadtm.org/Renforcement-et-elargissement-du
• Maghreb seminar on free-trade agreements and food sovereignty in Agadir in December 2017 http://www.cadtm.org/Final-declaration-of-the-Maghreb.

Those events made it possible to develop activist synergies with several actors in the social mobilizations stirring in the MENA Arab region. They resulted in the creation of the Egyptian network for the Abolition of Debt and the Right to Equitable Development (ENADED) in 2018 http://www.cadtm.org/The-Egyptian-Network-for-the-Abolition-of-Debt-and-the-Right-to-Equitable.

In Tunisia, RAID ATTAC CADTM Tunisia succeeded in putting the bill relating to the audit of the public debt back on the agenda of the Finance Committee (at their meeting on 26 July 2018) within the Assembly of People’s representatives (Tunisian Parliament). See http://www.cadtm.org/Fathi-Chamkhi-Tunisia-Cancel-all and https://www.leconomistemaghrebin.com/2018/02/28/fathi-chamkhi-audit-dette/ (in French).

RAID ATTAC CADTM Tunisia published a book in Arabic on microcredit.

The pandemic crisis that started in March 2020 stopped the second wave of the revolutionary process in the MENA/Arab region, a process that had been triggered in Sudan (December 2018), in Lebanon and in Iraq (October and November 2019), and also in Algeria, in parallel with the commemoration of the first anniversary of the beginning of the Hirak (February 2019). As everywhere in the world, the various regimes and governments in the region took measures to help banks and corporations. The working class, small producers and the poorer sections of the population have had to bear the burden of the economic and health crisis. For the IFIs and the ruling classes in our countries, debt is still the main lever for such neo-liberal policies, which go along with harsher repression, criminalization of social struggles, violation of public liberties and harassment of opponents, as with Omar Radi, an activist of ATTAC CADTM Morocco, arrested on 29 July 2020 and sentenced to six years in prison. https://www.cadtm.org/We-are-not-fools-Solidarity-with-Omar-Radi-Freedom

With other organizations in the region, ATTAC CADTM Morocco launched a call for the cancellation of debt and the dropping of “free-trade” agreements https://www.cadtm.org/Call-of-peoples-organizations-movements-and-networks-in-North-Africa-and-the. To face the Coronavirus pandemic and its serious consequences on the people of North African and the Middle East / Arab region, we have to break away from those two instruments of imperialist domination, namely debt and “free-trade” agreements.

The call launched on 28 April 2020 and translated into 10 languages was signed by over 120 associations, organizations and networks in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Sudan, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. It was also supported by over 100 associations, organizations and networks in Africa, Asia, Europe and Latin America.

An internal newsletter to all signatory organizations was set up.

A first webinar was organized on 25 June 2020 to present the results of the campaign and the next stages of the initiative. The debt situation in the Arab region was introduced by Omar Aziki of ATTAC CADTM Morocco as well as the demand for a debt audit in order to cancel part of it. The second contribution was from Imane Louati, of the Tunisian Observatory of the economy, on free-trade agreements, their objectives and the state of negotiations in some countries of the region (Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA) for Tunisia and Morocco). The webinar was a great success and was relayed on various media websites in the region.

In the context of the world week of action for debt cancellation (10-17 October 2020), another webinar was organized on 17 October 2020 on the debt situation in the MENA region and alternatives, with contributors from Morocco, Tunisia and Lebanon.
This action against debt in the MENA region is one among several initiatives in Africa and at an international level.

Microcredit

The Coronavirus pandemic and the lockdown conditions have worsened the situation of the victims of the debt system and of microcredit. Microfinance institutions incessantly harass victims, attempting to force new loans upon them to reschedule their debt. Victims live in stress and anguish as in most cases they have lost all income. From the end of March 2020, ATTAC CADTM Morocco organized an awareness campaign to demand a postponement of the payment of microcredit instalments for a minimum period of 6 months, renewable, with exemption from all late payment interest Interest An amount paid in remuneration of an investment or received by a lender. Interest is calculated on the amount of the capital invested or borrowed, the duration of the operation and the rate that has been set. charges https://bit.ly/35519PW.

ATTAC CADTM Morocco tries, through its educational and militant effort and its commitment to solidarity, to strengthen the confidence of victims in their collective capacity to fight against microcredit if they organize in a national structure.

Food sovereignty

North African network for food sovereignty

The North-African network for food sovereignty was launched in Tunis in July 2017 by ATTAC CADTM Morocco and organizations in Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria and Morocco. Another general assembly of the network was held in Agadir (Morocco) on 7,8 and 9 December 2018 http://www.cadtm.org/Final-statement-of-the-first-assembly-of-the-North-African-Network-for-Food

ATTAC CADTM Morocco is a member of the regional secretariat of the network, which meets every other month.

The network has a website in three languages (Arabic, French and English): https://siyada.org/ (Siyada means sovereignty in Arabic). It also publishes a magazine Siyada. It initiated studies on food sovereignty in Tunisia, Morocco and Egypt, now published on its website. It organized face-to-face regional events (December 2019) and webinars during the pandemic: on the Corona pandemic and the need to struggle for food and resource sovereignty on 21 April 2020 and on the Corona pandemic and the predicament of small sea fishermen in the MENA region and in Palestine on 30 May 2020.

The network is preparing a General Assembly to be held face-to-face in Tunis in December 2021.

A member of the Alliance for Food Sovereignty in Africa (AFSA), the network also requested to become a member of the CADTM network, which was accepted at the 2021 World Assembly.

Popular University for political education on issues of social and environmental justice

In partnership with the Tunisian Observatory of Economy, ATTAC CADTM Morocco is contributing to the project ‘Popular University for political education on issues of social and environmental justice,’ which consists in coaching young generations in the MENA region providing the necessary training on the main issues in their countries such as debt, free-trade agreements, extractivism, the condition of women, etc. and in informing their perspectives on alternatives.

The University’s first session was held in Tunis from 18 to 28 July 2019. About 34 participants benefited from this training, a majority of them young representatives of truly militant social movements, from Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Egypt.

Among the issues discussed were neocolonial policies in the Arab region, the debt system, extractivism, food sovereignty, feminist struggles, the revolutionary process in the Arab region. Debates were rich and diversified, and the general assessment of the event was quite positive.

The second 2021 edition of the university was organized online.

Training session 1: 21 March 2021, on the issue of capitalism and the pandemic.
Session 2: 10 April 2021, assessment of ten years of popular uprisings in the region.
Session 3: 27 June 2021, debt and free-trade agreements.

Fourteen (14) participants from Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Mauritania and Egypt, with half of them young women, benefited from this training. All are young activists involved in trade unions, associations, coordination of struggles against privatization of education, and young researchers working on the issues of social and environmental justice.

Educational and popularizing videos are being produced.

Youth summer camp for the Maghreb

A youth summer camp was organized by ATTAC CADTM Morocco in Agadir from 24 to 30 August 2019 to strengthen the connections and share experiences. Among the participants, we had a young Palestinian from the peasants’ organization Union of Agricultural Work Committees UAWC and a young Algerian activist from the Socialist Party of Workers.

Synergy with other networks in the MENA region

Besides La Via Campesina/MENA, ATTAC CADTM Morocco has developed synergies with other thematic networks in the region such as the Arab Forum for the right to water and the Arab Network for the right to land and to housing.

2) Sub-Saharan Africa

ATTAC CADTM Morocco is a member of the African Coordination of the CADTM network. It has contributed to various activities and to the successful completion of the CADTM Africa action programme (2018-2021) which outlined training sessions for the organizations of the CADTM network on the African continent and their allies on illegitimate debt and its impact, and on alternatives.

• 2^nd University of the CADTM Africa in Niger in October 2016 https://www.cadtm.org/Declaration-du-CADTM-Afrique-a-l (in French)
• Peoples’ Forum in Mali in January 2017 https://attacMaroc.org/fr/2017/01/09/declaration-des-mouvements-sociaux-a-la-12emeedition-du-forum-des-peuples-du-mali-sommet-alternatif-citoyen-au-27eme-sommet-afrique-france/ (in French)
• RNDD training in Niamey in July 2017.
• Preparation for the seminar on women and microcredit in Bamako in October 2017.
• Women’s seminar on debt and microcredit in Bamako in November 2017 https://www.cadtm.org/Final-declaration-of-the-Bamako-Women-Debt-and-Microcredit-seminar
• Training seminar on illegitimate debt in Guinea Conakry in November 2018, in Ouagadougou (Burkina Faso) in March 2019 https://www.cadtm.org/Guinee-Conakry-Declaration-a-l-issue-du-seminaire-de-formation-sur-les-dettes({in French)
• The third University of the CADTM Africa Network in Kinshasa (DRC) in November 2021 https://www.cadtm.org/La-troisieme-Universite-du-Reseau-CADTM-Afrique (in French)

3) East Africa

The CADTM’s Shared International Secretariat (Fatima Zahra El Belghiti and Jawad Moustakbal of ATTAC CADTM Morocco) and Sushovan Dhar from India in coordination with comrades of the Kenyan Peasants League organized the third training session on debt and audit in Nairobi (Kenya) from 7 to 9 February 2020. Activists from Kenya, Tanzania, and Uganda were among the participants https://www.cadtm.org/Mobilisation-contre-les-dettes-illegitimes-en-Afrique-de-l-Est (in French).

On 13 January 2021, a meeting was organized by the Kenya Debt Abolition Network, a social movement of Kenyan individuals and organizations aiming at the abolition of illegal, illegitimate and odious debts in Kenya; this occurred in the context of the increase of Kenyan sovereign debt Sovereign debt Government debts or debts guaranteed by the government. , which has now reached a critical level and is simply unsustainable. https://www.cadtm.org/Kenyan-activists-raise-questions-about-debt

4) South Africa

On the occasion of a BRICS meeting (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), several organizations, including CADTM International, jointly organized an alternative meeting entitled “BRICS from below.” See Éric Toussaint’s reports on the CADTM international mission in South Africa from 31 March to 12 April 2019:

• From the BRICS countries to the townships: racial and social segregation continues
• South Africa: Resistance and Research for Alternatives to Illegitimate Debt and for Ecosocialism

Synergy with Womin

Since 2020 CADTM Africa has developed a promising activist synergy with Womin, a collective of women that aims to build a feminist movement against extractivism and for an Africa where all women can have total control over their bodies and on their development choices. Womin is present in 13 African countries notably in Southern Africa. https://womin.africa/

In February 2021, CADTM Africa, IS-ATTAC CADTM Morocco and Womin actively collaborated on a call for the cancellation of public and private debt in Africa: http://www.cadtm.org/Stand-with-Africans-to-Cancel-the-debt. They also collaborated on the need to develop a new more radical pan-Africanism.

 V- Managing the two websites arabic.cadtm.org and attacMaroc.org and their respective Facebook pages

The dissemination of the CADTM’s analyses in Arabic is very important both for the development of its network in the MENA/Arab region, but also for the participation and sharing of reflection and experiences on the construction of alternatives to capitalism.

The two websites and their Facebook pages have become a point of reference in Morocco and the whole Arab region, with an average of 500 visits per day from 5 November 2020 to 5 November 2021. ATTAC CADTM Morocco also has a website in French.

On 31 May 2018 in Paris, in the context of a training session organized by Orient XXI, Éric Toussaint gave a lecture on alternatives to neoliberal policies to journalists of 7 different media in the Arab region, Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. We regularly send them publications from our websites.

 VI- Publications (books)

 VII- Funding

ATTAC CADTM Morocco’s accepts funding without compromising its positions, objectives and functioning. The funds are obtained from any state or suspect organisation. The main donors of ATTAC CADTM Morocco are international non-governmental organisations that fight against neoliberalism and defend activist projects.

ATTAC CADTM Morocco’s funding is also made up of memberships and subscriptions from its local groups, which helps to preserve the values of individual commitment and voluntary work.

ATTAC CADTM Morocco has no permanent staff since April 2020.

Shared International Secretariat - ATTAC CADTM Morocco
14 November 2021