Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

This year’s Summer University was held as the systemic crisis of global capitalism in its complex dimensions continues, especially its environmental dimension, which has taken catastrophic proportions, threatening to undermine the material foundations of life on the planet. Despite all the optimistic forecasts issued by the global capitalist institutions (IMF IMF
International Monetary Fund Along with the World Bank, the IMF was founded on the day the Bretton Woods Agreements were signed. Its first mission was to support the new system of standard exchange rates.

When the Bretton Wood fixed rates system came to an end in 1971, the main function of the IMF became that of being both policeman and fireman for global capital: it acts as policeman when it enforces its Structural Adjustment Policies and as fireman when it steps in to help out governments in risk of defaulting on debt repayments.

As for the World Bank, a weighted voting system operates: depending on the amount paid as contribution by each member state. 85% of the votes is required to modify the IMF Charter (which means that the USA with 17,68% % of the votes has a de facto veto on any change).

The institution is dominated by five countries: the United States (16,74%), Japan (6,23%), Germany (5,81%), France (4,29%) and the UK (4,29%).
The other 183 member countries are divided into groups led by one country. The most important one (6,57% of the votes) is led by Belgium. The least important group of countries (1,55% of the votes) is led by Gabon and brings together African countries.

http://imf.org and World Bank World Bank
WB The World Bank was founded as part of the new international monetary system set up at Bretton Woods in 1944. Its capital is provided by member states’ contributions and loans on the international money markets. It financed public and private projects in Third World and East European countries.

It consists of several closely associated institutions, among which :

1. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD, 189 members in 2017), which provides loans in productive sectors such as farming or energy ;

2. The International Development Association (IDA, 159 members in 1997), which provides less advanced countries with long-term loans (35-40 years) at very low interest (1%) ;

3. The International Finance Corporation (IFC), which provides both loan and equity finance for business ventures in developing countries.

As Third World Debt gets worse, the World Bank (along with the IMF) tends to adopt a macro-economic perspective. For instance, it enforces adjustment policies that are intended to balance heavily indebted countries’ payments. The World Bank advises those countries that have to undergo the IMF’s therapy on such matters as how to reduce budget deficits, round up savings, enduce foreign investors to settle within their borders, or free prices and exchange rates.

) about the recovery of the global economy, the signs of recession triggered by the 2008-2009 crisis, deepened later on by the Covid-19 pandemic, and the escalation of conflicts and wars resulting from the intensity of imperialist competition for spheres of influence, energy resources, raw materials, and markets.

This complex crisis of global capitalism (political, economic, social, environmental, environmental, food, migration, etc.) has regional and local consequences:

Firstly, at the regional level: over 14 years since the popular uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East, the counter-revolution sponsored by imperialist-backed authoritarian regimes continues to imprison and repress their peoples. And pursues the same economic and social choices that led to the outbreak of those uprisings in the first place. Saddled with debt that drains the region’s wealth and transfers it to creditors in the North (banks and states) and multinational corporations, leaving environmental destruction in its wake, the region’s economies are still dependent on responding to the demands of the economies of the imperialist centers. At the same time, the people (the actual producers of wealth, workers and small food producers) suffer from poverty, unemployment, underemployment, denial of public and social services that have been commodified on a large scale, and increased migration, especially among the youth.

The regimes continue to oppress their peoples and have entered into a process of broad normalization with the Zionist entity, which, under the direct auspices of US imperialism and the colonialist West, and with the collaboration of the Russian and Chinese imperialisms, continues to exterminate the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and deny them self-determination in the West Bank and the entirety of historic Palestine.

Secondly, at the local level: The Moroccan state manages to control the explosive social situation through a series of measures that combine targeting the poorest groups (the majority of the population) with a limited subsidy policy that creates illusions of possible improvement. Using repression to curb waves of labour and popular struggles and targeting activists with prosecutions and arrests.

Enacted in the absence of democracy and its dependence on international financial institutions, state policies have led to the deepening of the economic crisis, which is being patched up with ever-increasing indebtedness.

By presenting Morocco as a safe platform for launching foreign investments in Africa, the regime wants to adapt to the global crisis by exploiting its consequences for the benefit of large domestic and foreign capital. Public funds are being drained to finance a massive infrastructure aimed at attracting foreign direct investment and enticing them with a favorable investment climate (flexible labor law, anti-unionism, and a lenient tax policy). This policy threatens to ignite a new debt crisis, followed by austerity and cuts in social spending.

These are the general features of the global, regional and national context in which ATTAC organized its 2024 Summer University. The Palestinian question and the Zio-imperialist aggression occupied a large part of its program, and the workshops were divided into socio-economic policy issues and popular and labor reactions against them.

In addition to ATTAC Maroc members, many activists from various social movements attended this event. Such as the Figuig movement, the recent education movement, health workers, agricultural workers, coastal fishermen, the Moroccan Commission for Human Rights (Instance Marocaine des Droits Humains), and the Agadir branch of the Moroccan Association for Human Rights (l’AMDH), with a powerful attendance and participation of youth and women.

The seminars were moderated by Amer Abdallah Abu Nidal, Secretary General of the Global Network in Support of the Palestinian Cause, Dalia Abdallah of the Women’s Department of the Palestinian Workers’ Struggle Union, Lebanese academic and researcher Gilbert Achcar, Moataz Salem, an activist in the Student Palestine Solidarity Dynamics in Washington, D.C., Mohamed Ghafri of the Moroccan Front in Support of Palestine and Against Normalization, and Sion ASSIDON, Salma OUAMAR, and Soumaya BOUABDALLAH, of BDS Maroc.

The Summer University concluded its work on ways to connect the current struggles, resulting in several positions and recommendations:

1. Regarding the Palestinian issue and the Zionist-imperialist genocidal war:
● We condemn the genocidal war committed by the Zionist entity against the Palestinian people in Gaza, the policies of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Palestine, the direct military and political support of US imperialism and the colonialist West and all Zionist allies, and the complicity of international institutions and their inability to stop the genocide and aggression, compounded by the deafening silence of the ruling regimes in the region.
● We salute the steadfastness of the Palestinian people and their resistance to Zionist arrogance. We support popular solidarity campaigns around the world, including those in Morocco.
● We consider the ruling regimes in the region to be complicit in the genocidal war and aggression. We condemn the continuation and expansion of normalization relations across all diplomatic, economic, academic, cultural, and sports fields. Furthermore, we denounce the escalation of these normalization efforts into a military alliance, which serves to ease the burden of the war on the Zionist entity through measures such as the establishment of a land bridge and the docking of military ships.

On a national level:
● We condemn the repression of the Moroccan people’s solidarity movements with the Palestinian people, the arrest of activists, and the refusal to respond to the demands to stop all normalization.
● We reaffirm the demand to end all normalization and stop all agreements, especially the military alliance, and to expand all forms of protest and struggle to respond immediately to this popular demand.
● We call for intensifying pressure and boycotts against the Zionist entity, companies, institutions and parties that are complicit in the Zionist project and benefit from it in all fields, and working to isolate it and impose sanctions on it.
● We salute all forms of popular boycotts and solidarity initiatives, including the student and academic movement seeking to overturn the memorandum of understanding between the Moroccan Ministry of Higher Education and the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of the Zionist entity, and all the resulting agreements and student and academic exchange programs.
● We stress the need to monitor all forms of Zionist infiltration in Morocco and expose its false justifications and attempts to legitimize it in the official narrative.
● We consider anti-Zionism to be not only a support for the grievances and legitimate rights of the Palestinian people but also a defense of the resources of the region’s peoples and their right to liberation.

Regarding neoliberal policies in Morocco:
● We demand a break with the policies of the international financial institutions (World Bank and IMF) and the World Trade Organization that deepen indebtedness and austerity, and dismantle public services (as is happening today in education, health, drinking water and electricity distribution…) and expand poverty and unemployment, especially among young people and women.
● We strongly condemn and reject the so-called policies of delegated management of social services, which are nothing but the privatization of common public property, and the dismantling of the traditions of democratic and environmentally conscious collective management that local communities have practiced for generations, as demonstrated most notably by the Figuig Movement.
–  The accelerated dismantling of public services by the state, particularly in health and education, involves a widespread privatization of these services through tax incentives and subsidies. This transformation turns public services into commodities Commodities The goods exchanged on the commodities market, traditionally raw materials such as metals and fuels, and cereals. tied to one’s ability to pay, depriving most poor Moroccans of access to education, treatment, and medicine. This dismantling also encompasses the erosion of labor rights and gains in the public sector, the proliferation of fixed-term contracts, and the adoption of a capitalist business logic centered on over-exploitation.
–  The skyrocketing prices of basic consumer goods, exacerbated by the dismantling of social subsidies, the focus on export-oriented production, and the privatization of public services, are occurring at a time when incomes are falling and poverty is expanding among the population. The severity of this situation is evident in the deterioration of public health and the rise in deaths from treatable diseases. This is particularly concerning given that the state has abolished the medical assistance system and replaced it with compulsory sickness insurance, which remains difficult for the majority most of the population to access.
–  State measures aimed at undermining the gains of the working class, especially the right to strike, the pension system, the destruction of job stability, and the generalization of non-consistent “flexible” contracts through the amendment of the labor Law.
–  Policies of repression and detention. We demand the release of all political detainees in Morocco.

● We salute the ongoing social and popular movements in our country, including:
–  Figuig movement, especially the women, who demonstrated a high level of struggle, and must be made an example for the upcoming popular mobilizations, in which women will be at the forefront, as they are the first to bear the consequences of the destructive austerity policies that the state is spreading.
–  The education movement against the dismantling of public education and the defense of the gains and rights of educational workers.
–  The ongoing struggles of medical students and health workers for better quality of trainings, a better and free public health service, and the defense of public employment in the health sector.

In the end, the participants emphasized:
–  Working to develop an alternative grassroot media to introduce the local and national social and popular protests and disseminate their lessons regarding forms of mobilization and organization, and to counter the attacks that want to distort the struggles, sow division, and criminalize activists.
–  Conceptualizing ways to develop plans for a collective scientific and political study of the various social and popular struggles and movements, to document them for future generations and draw lessons to create new ways to build a collective mindset of struggle.
–  Strengthening mechanisms for connecting social struggles for a unitary dynamic, and rejecting the factionalism enshrined by the state apparatus in the various sectors covered by the state’s attack.
–  Activating mechanisms of connecting social struggles and popular movements to break the isolation that the state perpetuates and intensifying all forms of solidarity support (solidarity visits, financial support...) which is a valuable support for those involved in social mobilizations.
–  Uniting social and popular struggles against the Zionist-imperialist war and against austerity policies.
–  Encouraging grassroots popular workers’ front to bring together and unite those affected among workers, small producers and popular groups for common demands and mobilizations: For free public education and health...

Agadir, July 21^st, 2024