Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

This report principally contains practical information, some of which are of technical nature. Political evaluations were already formulated in the five press releases issued by CADTM between 18-29 January 2007.

We begin by saying that the meetings of the CADTM international network (in brief, henceforth I shall simply say “CADTM”) were the best that could be organised during any WSF till date. Just two dampeners in terms of absence of certain members of the network: for financial reasons and due to problems of translation, it was not possible for Venezuelan, Ecuadorian and Colombian members of the network to be present; moreover, AGAS of Syria had decided not to send delegates.

 Some figures on the delegation of the CADTM international network

The presence was (about forty in all)- African delegates: Angola (1 delegate), Benin (1), RD Congo (3), Congo Brazzaville (3), Ivory Coast (2), Mali (4), Morocco (2), Niger (1), Senegal (1), Tunisia (1), Haiti (1 - 3); from South Asia: India (2) and Pakistan (6); from Europe: Belgium (7, one of them is staying in Mombasa for 2 years), France (3), Switzerland (1, already counted for Congo Brazzaville). It is to be noted that there was practically an equal number of men and women among CADTM’s participants. As for age, 8 delegates were less than 35 years old; two were more than 55 years old.

It is also to be noted that CADTM Belgium had taken care Care Le concept de « care work » (travail de soin) fait référence à un ensemble de pratiques matérielles et psychologiques destinées à apporter une réponse concrète aux besoins des autres et d’une communauté (dont des écosystèmes). On préfère le concept de care à celui de travail « domestique » ou de « reproduction » car il intègre les dimensions émotionnelles et psychologiques (charge mentale, affection, soutien), et il ne se limite pas aux aspects « privés » et gratuit en englobant également les activités rémunérées nécessaires à la reproduction de la vie humaine. of one air ticket for each country from the developing countries, excepting Pakistan where the organisation took care of their own delegates.

The comparatively strong Belgian delegation was due to the need of assuring numerous logistical tasks.

It is to be equally noted that half of the delegates from Belgium took complete or partial care of their outstation expenses in order to leave funds free for the participation of the delegates from the South.

In the final review meeting of the network, done on the 25^th January, there were additional delegates from Kenya (3 from People’s Parliament), from South Africa (1 from Jubilee South Africa) and from Japan (2, one from Jubilee Japan and the other from ATTAC Japan) and from Catalonia / Argentina (1 from the “Who owes whom” campaign, Barcelona).

The members of the network held 7 meetings during the WSF: the first one, on the 19^th January (from 3-7 pm), the second, on the 20^th (from 9 am-1 pm), the third, on the 21^st (from 6.30-7.30 am), the fourth, on the 22^nd (from 7.30 - 9am), the fifth, on the 23^rd (from 7-8 am), the sixth, on the 24^th (from 7.30- 8 30 am) and the seventh, on 25^th January (from 9.30am- 1pm). Total 16 hours. These meetings allowed everybody to speak and to participate in the collective review of the activities which had taken place the previous day, as well as in the collective preparation of activities envisaged the same day and afterwards.

  The public activities in which the members of CADTM participated as speakers.

There were at least 19 activities in which CADTM was directly involved, 7 of whom were directly organized by the CADTM. 13 of them had some link with debt; at least 6 others carried on other topics such as women’s struggles, The Françafrique [1], coordination among the movements of South Asia, the alternatives, uranium extraction in Niger, food sovereignty. In all, our speakers spoke in front of more than 4,000 people even if half of the said activities attracted only about fifty people on an average. Among these activities, 3 were organised by CADTM itself. Still it is necessary to add that great care had been taken to include other organisations in the CADTM panels. To sum up, as regards public conferences, CADTM systematically depended on synergies and convergences among movements to reinforce elaboration and common action.

 Media coverage

Coverage in the news of RTBF (Belgian Radio Television) on Saturday, 20^th January (between 7.30-8 pm).

Coverage in the programme of France Inter called “Over there, if I am there” on 21^st January.

Coverage in France Culture on 22^nd January

Coverage on Radio France International on 22^nd January.

Three mentions in the Africa programme of the Voice of America (Voice of America, radio channel of the US government targeting the foreigner in several languages, much listened to in French-speaking Africa) on 23^rd, 25^th and 26^th January.

A direct interview on the Algerian Radio on 24^th January.

An interview for the news programme of Telesur on 23^rd January (TV programmes broadcast by cable in entire Latin America and elsewhere via Internet).

Printed and online media

Interview for the daily paper Le Soir (Belg .) on Saturday, 20^th January.

Interview for the weekly Politis (Fr .) from middle to end of January.

Interview for the daily paper Courrier de Genève (Switzerland).

Interview for the French weekly Marianne (issued online on 20^th January).

Interview for the German weekly Soz.

Interview for the US weekly Socialist Worker.

Electronic newsletters

Grain de Sable, electronic newsletter of ATTAC broadcast in French to 55,000 subscribers, published 2 reprints of the articles of CADTM during the WSF.

CADTM published 5 press releases before, during and after (18^th, 21^st, 23^rd, 25^th and 29^th January) among which the first and the last were translated into Spanish and into English.

 Public and non-public meetings of coordination among the “debt” campaigns

CADTM participated in 3 meetings for working out a statement and a common charter of all the “debt” campaigns present in Nairobi. These meetings took place in the evenings of 20^th, 22^nd and 23^rd January. Besides CADTM, the Jubilee South Coordination (which has organisations in 3 continents), Kendren from Kenya, Eurodad, Jubilee Debt Campaign from Great Britain, Jubilee US, SPEDCA from Ecuador, Jubilee Czech Republic, Jubilee Ireland, ODG from Barcelona, ATTAC Germany, Blue 21 Germany & the Norwegian campaign had participated in these meetings. All these represent the present international and national organisations in more than 80 countries.

This statement and common charter (refer to the annexure) were then introduced, amended and adopted in a public meeting on 24^th January morning with the cooperation of more than 300 delegates. At the end of this assembly, they collected the signatures of more than 50 organisations endorsing the statement and the charter.

A permanent committee for facilitation and coordination was set up. It is composed of Jubilee South, CADTM, Eurodad, and Jubilee US.

All of that is very encouraging and was only possible thanks to the resolute action by the campaigns, which have been meeting with a huge progress since the 5^th WSF held in January 2005 in Porto Alegre. The Havana assembly in September 2005, the June 2006 meeting in Nairobi, the common global action of mid-September 2006 on the occasion of the annual meeting of the 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 the 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.

in Singapore and the seminar of South-North social movements at the end of September 2006 in Brussels confirmed this progress. The search for unity in diversity has therefore been rewarded.

 Meetings for coordinating the social movements

Let’s recall that at the end of the seminar of social movements in Brussels, a committee of facilitation had been set up. It was composed of the Continental Social Alliance of the Americas, CADTM (Committee for the Cancellation of the Debt of Third World), COMPA-Amériques, Focus on the Global South-Asia, Grassroots Global Justice-United States, Jubilee South, World March of Women and Via Campesina.

This committee convened an internal meeting of social movements, which was held on 20^th January from 6-10 pm. Though it had been announced late, more than 150 delegates assembled.

In the evening of 21^st January, the social movements met again in a closed circle (about 80 delegates including numerous Africans).

22^nd January, from 12 noon to 2pm, meeting of a small committee of the social movements followed by a new meeting from 4-5.30 pm to prepare for the assembly.

An assembly of social movements took place between 8-11am on the 24^th January: 250 delegates participated. Together they prepared for the final meeting of the afternoon. This united more than 2,000 people (from a distance, the largest assembly of the entire forum) and was chaired by Trevor Ngwame of South Africa and Wahu Kaara of Kenya. Since the first meeting of Saturday, 20^th January till the general meeting of the 24^th, there was a very close coordination among World March of Women, CADTM, Focus on the Global South and the South African and Kenyan social movements (mostly People’s Parliament).

CADTM led the first meeting of the 20^th, Focus led the second. World March of Women coordinated the delegation to the organisers in the 23^rd evening. South African and Kenyan social movements led the meetings of the 24^th morning and afternoon.

 Other activities in which delegates of the CADTM participated

On 20^th January, two delegates of CADTM (Morocco and Benin) attended the meeting of ATTAC global. Two others went to the meeting of ATTAC which reviewed WSF in the 25^th evening. A CADTM delegate (Benin) participated in several meetings of the World March of Women from Saturday, 20^th January. 5 or 6 delegates of the CADTM made to the assembly of Jubilee South on 21^st January evening. About fifteen delegates of the CADTM went to the Jeevanjee Park where the open session of People’s Parliament took place for three days. 6 or 7 of them also had a programme to meet this movement after the conclusion of WSF (notably with a common meet of the campaign).

A deputation of CADTM went to attend the meeting of CRID France in the evening of 20^th January (more than 300 persons were present).

 Distribution of books and other publications of CADTM

Throughout the WSF CADTM shared a stall with Jubilee South. We also sold and distributed publications during a dozen conferences on debt. We sold publications by applying a positive discrimination, at cost price, in favour of the persons from South who paid half of the price charged to the delegates from North. The booklet called “Let’s Launch an Enquiry into the Debt - A Manual on How to Organise Audits on Third World Debts” was freely distributed. More than 80 copies of the Indian edition of the book “The World Bank - A never ending coup d’état” were sold during the WSF. We would have been able to sell more copies had our Indian friends been able to bring a larger quantity.

 Financial aspects

The general budget estimated for the activities of CADTM in Nairobi had just slightly exceeded, for the following reasons: the delegates from South tried to find air tickets at very reasonable prices (though on an average, this constitutes twice the price paid to go from Brussels, from Mumbai or from Paris to Nairobi); some bookings from the North were at rock bottom prices (less than 600 Euros); the hotel was reserved in June, 2006 at a cost of 10 - 15 Euro per head, which is at least 1/3^rd or even 1/5^th of the price paid by the majority of the foreign delegations in other hotels. This shows that there were means of decent lodging without spending colossal sums. Finally, several delegates from North took care of all their own expenses (trip and stay).

 Various concrete perspectives after the Forum

1. Junko, from Jubilee Japan is going to translate the book “The World Bank - A never ending coup d’état” in Japanese. (She has already translated the book “50 questions/50 answers”)

2. CADTM has proposed to Jubilee Japan to be a part of the international network of CADTM. It is to be seen...

3. As planned, Jeanne Semin (France) has immensely taken shot of the CADTM’s focal activities, of the Forum in general and of the Kenyan movements such as the People’s Parliament in particular. She is staying back till 9^th February and so is Jérôme Ollier. On her part, she will make an editing which will be prepared in a DVD by CADTM by June 2007. It is to be noted that Jeanne has already done a video reporting on the activities of CADTM in the 6^th WSF held in Caracas in January 2006 (this will be included in the same DVD).

4. In future, CADTM will actively participate in the committee for coordination of the debt movements with Jubilee South, Jubilee US and Eurodad.

5. CADTM is reinforcing its bonds with the debt campaign in Kenya coordinated by Kendren, which is embarking on an audit of Kenya’s debt as a step towards its repudiation. The same can be said about the campaign that has been initiated in Ethiopia.

6. The CADTM distributed more than 250 copies of the booklet in English called “Let’s Launch an Enquiry into the Debt - A Manual on How to Organise Audits on Third World Debts” mainly to the following organisations: Kendren and People’s Parliament in Kenya, the “debt” campaign in Ethiopia and Tanzania, Jubilee South Africa, VAK in India, LPP in Pakistan, the “debt” campaign of Sri Lanka, the coalition Jubilee South, Jubilee US and Jubilee U.K. Spanish versions were given to SPEDCA Ecuador and Jubilee Brazil. The French copies of these booklets were given on the spot to various organisations that were members of the network.

7.CADTM had benefited from the presence of the South African lawyer Charles Abrahams for reinforcing legal methods regarding the Republic of Congo.

8 Regional Workshops of the CADTM network.

During the meeting of the CADTM international network, the subgroups met for preparing

8.(a) The regional workshop of Central Africa (RDC, Congo Brazzaville, Angola) which would take place in end-October or early November 2007.

8.(b) The regional workshop of West Africa which would take place in November or December 2007, in Ivory Coast.

8.(c) In addition, we have advanced in the preparation of a South Asia workshop. A preparatory meeting would take place in March 2007 in Kerala (India) with the participation of VAK India, Farooq Tariq of Pakistan, Linus of Sri Lanka and the CADTM Belgium. There is also the issue of developing collaborations between South Asia and the new contacts of East Africa (there is indeed the common language of English, a common pre-colonial history which continued during the British colonisation). Nairobi is only 6 hours by flight, directly from Mumbai. It is easily possible to send CADTM publications published in English in India or Pakistan to East Africa.

8. (d) Finally, ATTAC & CADTM Morocco proposes to organise A regional CADTM workshop for the Arab world at Casablanca in April 2007. It should be agreeable to Raid Tunisia and AGAS Syria.

9. The members of the CADTM network in Africa are unitedly trying to bring out common printed publications (these are the results of the network’s meeting in October 2006 in Liege).

10. Electronic bulletins of CADTM : one in French has been distributed to more than 10,000 subscribers in the evening of 29^th January with a complete folder on the WSF. We will distribute the same in English and Spanish in the days to come.

11. CADTM Journal “The other voices of the planet”: the journal appearing in March 2007 will carry an article on the WSF.

12. On the occasion of the WSF the CADTM held talks with Eurodad regarding the reinforcement of the International Debt Observatory (IDO). It is highly promising: this will be discussed in Belgium in the coming weeks.

13. CADTM has strengthened the contacts it made at Madagascar, because many Madagascan delegates were present at the Forum. Possibly a CADTM unit will soon be opened in Madagascar.

14. A group of filmmakers based in California (see their website http://www.cinemalibrestudio.com) interviewed Eric Toussaint at length. They are making a documentary (of a big budget) on the origin of poverty in the world. Eric’s interview should result in two things: first, a 5 minutes’ slot in the said documentary along with the likes of Susan George, John Perkins, the director of UNDP UNDP
United Nations Development Programme The UNDP, founded in 1965 and based in New York, is the UN’s main agency of technical assistance. It helps the DC, without any political restrictions, to set up basic administrative and technical services, trains managerial staff, tries to respond to some of the essential needs of populations, takes the initiative in regional co-operation programmes and co-ordinates, theoretically at least, the local activities of all the UN operations. The UNDP generally relies on Western expertise and techniques, but a third of its contingent of experts come from the Third World. The UNDP publishes an annual Human Development Report which, among other things, classifies countries by their Human Development Rating (HDR).

, a high-profile banker and many testimonies from the South. Secondly, a TV emission of around fifty minutes starts with the sole talk by Eric Toussaint. The interview related primarily to the capitalist globalisation from the 15^th to the 20^th century.

 Conclusion

As indicated in the beginning, this is a provisional assessment that the members of the CADTM network have been asked to carry out. All comments are to be sent to myriam AT cadtm.org

NB: It remains to be said that during the WSF, the CADTM was able to issue a press release and a study on Lebanon’s debt at the time of the conference of the “Donors” held in Paris on the 23^rd and 24^th January. The Agence France Presse (AFP), the daily newspapers Le Monde and Les Echos as well as Lebanese dailies reflected the standpoint of CADTM. This shows that while being present in force in Nairobi the CADTM is capable of reacting to events taking place at other corners of our planet.

Eric Toussaint
international AT cadtm.org
CADTM
345, Avenue de l’Observatoire
4000 LIEGE
Belgique
www.cadtm.org