Committee for the Abolition of Illegitimate Debt

Motion proposing the creation of an International Secretariat dividing the tasks between the different members of the CADTM Worldwide network

Taking account of the report on the feasibility of transferring the International Secretariat (IS) offices from Belgium to Morocco, the Global Assembly considers that it is not possible to make this transfer.

The Global Assembly decides to create a twin hub International Secretariat (twin hub IS) jointly managed by CADTM Belgium and ATTAC-CADTM Morocco.

The administrative term, which will commence before the end of 2014, will be for a period of four years and may be revised at the mid-term in 2016 at the next Global Assembly.

Among the tasks to be managed and carried out with close collaboration between the two hubs of the IS will be the political position statements, the press releases and interviews that involve the position of the CADTM movement internationally.

It is important for the two hubs to be in permanent contact so to present a common position concerning events that require a formal stance from the CADTM, such as a reaction to a G20 G20 The Group of Twenty (G20 or G-20) is a group made up of nineteen countries and the European Union whose ministers, central-bank directors and heads of state meet regularly. It was created in 1999 after the series of financial crises in the 1990s. Its aim is to encourage international consultation on the principle of broadening dialogue in keeping with the growing economic importance of a certain number of countries. Its members are Argentina, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, Italy, India, Indonesia, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, South Korea, Turkey, USA, UK and the European Union (represented by the presidents of the Council and of the European Central Bank). declaration or to repression of members of the CADTM network, or concerning the popular movement in countries where CADTM is present and/or has partners.

ATTAC-CADTM Morocco and CADTM Belgium must jointly agree on the positions they take. In case of urgency, due to difficulties in communication, one of the two organizations may have to express itself independently. This must only be done in exceptional circumstances.

Concerning events in specific countries, the first organization to react must be the one in that country, followed by the CADTM continental co-ordination concerned, and finally the twin hub International Secretariat in a spirit of thorough dialogue at all levels.

The two component organizations of the IS will be jointly responsible for the production of the internal bulletin of the international network.

The methods of joint collaboration between the two components of the IS are to be precisely established, and the network will be duly informed of the details.

Tasks to be specifically handled by the ATTAC-CADTM Morocco IS hub:

• liaisoning with the World Social Forum, the World assembly of Social Movements, and the different partners throughout the world, including ATTAC international, Jubilee South, and the World Water Forum. CADTM Belgium will also collaborate.
• creating synergies with the Via Campesina [1] and WMW [2] structures that are themselves in a process of transfer of their IS. CADTM Belgium may collaborate and particularly maintain its contacts with WMW;
• working closely with the CADTM Africa coordination, of which ATTAC-CADTM Morocco is a member, the coordinations of CADTM Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia;
• developing and supporting CADTM activities in Africa, and in particular those in North Africa and the Middle East;
• CADTM international website in Arabic (maintenance, development, visibility and eventually the distribution of an electronic newsletter);
• organizing international training seminars on the debt problem, international institutions, and alternatives to the crisis of patriarchal and over-productive capitalism (in collaboration with CADTM Belgium);
• raising funds to finance the IS Morocco hub’s network activities for the IS, running an effective accountancy system of this financing and the costs involved due to this IS activity (making progress reports, safe keeping of all archives whether administrative or accountancy). CADTM Belgium will provide technical assistance to ATTAC-CADTM Morocco in view of passing over the full responsibilities.
• relaunching the association’s Arab language magazine along with articles that enhance analysis, the production and distribution of works on precise subjects in the Arab language, and the production and distribution of articles translated to and from Arabic and French.

Tasks to be specifically handled by the CADTM Belgium IS hub:

• coordinating research for synergies in Europe, particularly coordinating the CADTM Europe group, of which CADTM Belgium is a member, as well as working with the coordination units in Africa, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia;
• managing the CADTM website, www.cadtm.org in French, Spanish, English and Portuguese;
• producing the CADTM magazine in French and the e-newsletters in French, Spanish and English;
• publications in French, Spanish and English;
• running international training seminaries on the debt problem, international institutions, and alternatives to the crisis of patriarchal and over-productive capitalism (in collaboration with ATTAC-CADTM Morocco);
• organizing the next two Global Assemblies in close collaboration with ATTAC-CADTM Morocco;
• raising funds to finance the IS Belgium hub’s network activities for the IS, running an effective accountancy system of this financing and the costs involved due to this IS activity (making progress reports, safe keeping of all archives whether administrative or accountancy) ;
• CADTM Belgium will provide technical and methodological assistance to ATTAC-CADTM Morocco.

ATTAC-CADTM Morocco and CADTM Belgium must clarify the matter of international remittance transfers necessary for the smooth running of a twin hub IS system.

Motion for an International Council
CADTM Global Assembly from 19-22 May

The CADTM Global Assembly meeting in Bouznika (Morocco) from 19 to 22 May 2013, decides to create an International Council which will enable better co-ordination between members of the CADTM International Network.

For this purpose, the International Council takes on the following tasks:

• coordinating the continent-wide structures of the network according to the changing regional and international political context;
• improving the collaboration between the network’s continental structures on the basis of the programs that have already been initiated;
• stimulating the main activities of the CADTM network according to the changing regional and international political context ;
• monitoring the work of the twin hub International Secretariat;
• organising the Global Assemblies;
• following up on the decisions taken at the Global Assemblies.

The International Council is not an international management structure. The Global Assembly is the body which determines the political direction to be taken by the Network.

The International council will meet at least once a year for at least three days, and if the available financial means permit it will meet twice a year. The International Council sets its own meeting dates and the meetings are prepared by the twin hub International Secretariat. The International Council must apply the principal of gender equality.

The International council will be made up of two members (one woman, one man) from each of the following continents: Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Asia
One or two substitutes (one woman, one man) per continent will be called upon to take part in the International Council meeting in the case of the announced absence of one or both of the usual representatives of each continent. In order to ensure the transmission and continuity of tasks, it is recommended that the permanent council members rotate with their substitutes

Each continental group will designate its four members (two members and two subsitute members), who will represent the continent, by a process of their own convenience, and will respect the principal of gender equality.
International Council members are chosen for three years.

The twin hub International Secretariat (represented by a maximum of four persons from each of the hubs, in respect of the principal of gender equality) will take a non voting part in the meetings of the International Council.
The members of the twin hub International Secretariat present at the meetings will respect the principal of gender equality in the number of their representatives.

In consequence of this decision, the Global Assembly modifies the Technical Charter.

Motion on Mali
CADTM Global Assembly from 19-22 May

We, the members of the CADTM international network, that met in Bouznika on the 20, 21, and 22 of May 2013 protest the refusal to issue Schengen visas to several Malian activists and figures. Particularly to Aminata Dramane Traoré, Omar Mariko, and Master Amadou Diara, because of their opinions on the role of the French military intervention in Mali. These acts, which infringe on their rights and liberties, are contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948.
We also protest against the decisions of certain of lenders to Mali who have conditioned their financial support on the restriction of the sovereignty of Malians. The elections were held in difficult conditions, whilst the situation remains uncertain in Kidal and insecurity reigns along the northern border with Algeria.
CADTM international stands by the people of Mali for the total restoration of peace throughout the territory, which is that much more urgent due to Mali’s strategic situation in the Saharan and West African regions. We hereby denounce all Imperialist and neocolonial manoeuvrings being conducted in Mali.

The CADTM international network

Translation Mike Krolikowski

Motion on the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
CADTM Global Assembly from 19-22 May

Gathered together at the Global Assembly in Bouznika, Morocco, we the members of the CADTM international network wish to express our deep concern on the rising numbers of violent murders jeopardizing the security and social and economic status of people living in the DRC.

The DRC has been devastated for years by the capitalist economic and political system, and is currently facing a catastrophic situation in terms of security: war has resumed near Goma, and conflicts have been reported nearly everywhere in the eastern part of the country (particularly in Beni).

In the social and economic sectors, various reports demonstrate how grave the situation has become: one by Kofi Annan’s commission on the plundering of ore, another on maternal health, a report by the EITI, another on the human development index, and even government seminars on the pilferage of tax revenues in the DRC.

It was in this horrible setting that the UN Secretary General visited the Congo accompanied by the president of 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.

. These 2 institutions were supposed to ensure peace and development in the DRC, instead the situation is only getting worse partly because of their very presence. For example, the UN has had 20,000 soldiers stationed in the DRC for more than 10 years, and 3000 more are set to arrive. As for the World Bank, in addition to the damage caused by the structural adjustment Structural Adjustment Economic policies imposed by the IMF in exchange of new loans or the rescheduling of old loans.

Structural Adjustments policies were enforced in the early 1980 to qualify countries for new loans or for debt rescheduling by the IMF and the World Bank. The requested kind of adjustment aims at ensuring that the country can again service its external debt. Structural adjustment usually combines the following elements : devaluation of the national currency (in order to bring down the prices of exported goods and attract strong currencies), rise in interest rates (in order to attract international capital), reduction of public expenditure (’streamlining’ of public services staff, reduction of budgets devoted to education and the health sector, etc.), massive privatisations, reduction of public subsidies to some companies or products, freezing of salaries (to avoid inflation as a consequence of deflation). These SAPs have not only substantially contributed to higher and higher levels of indebtedness in the affected countries ; they have simultaneously led to higher prices (because of a high VAT rate and of the free market prices) and to a dramatic fall in the income of local populations (as a consequence of rising unemployment and of the dismantling of public services, among other factors).

IMF : http://www.worldbank.org/ plans, the HIPC Heavily Indebted Poor Countries
HIPC In 1996 the IMF and the World Bank launched an initiative aimed at reducing the debt burden for some 41 heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC), whose total debts amount to about 10% of the Third World Debt. The list includes 33 countries in Sub-Saharan Africa.

The idea at the back of the initiative is as follows: a country on the HIPC list can start an SAP programme of twice three years. At the end of the first stage (first three years) IMF experts assess the ’sustainability’ of the country’s debt (from medium term projections of the country’s balance of payments and of the net present value (NPV) of debt to exports ratio.
If the country’s debt is considered “unsustainable”, it is eligible for a second stage of reforms at the end of which its debt is made ’sustainable’ (that it it is given the financial means necessary to pay back the amounts due). Three years after the beginning of the initiative, only four countries had been deemed eligible for a very slight debt relief (Uganda, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, and Mozambique). Confronted with such poor results and with the Jubilee 2000 campaign (which brought in a petition with over 17 million signatures to the G7 meeting in Cologne in June 1999), the G7 (group of 7 most industrialised countries) and international financial institutions launched an enhanced initiative: “sustainability” criteria have been revised (for instance the value of the debt must only amount to 150% of export revenues instead of 200-250% as was the case before), the second stage in the reforms is not fixed any more: an assiduous pupil can anticipate and be granted debt relief earlier, and thirdly some interim relief can be granted after the first three years of reform.

Simultaneously the IMF and the World Bank change their vocabulary : their loans, which so far had been called, “enhanced structural adjustment facilities” (ESAF), are now called “Growth and Poverty Reduction Facilities” (GPRF) while “Structural Adjustment Policies” are now called “Poverty Reduction Strategy Paper”. This paper is drafted by the country requesting assistance with the help of the IMF and the World Bank and the participation of representatives from the civil society.
This enhanced initiative has been largely publicised: the international media announced a 90%, even a 100% cancellation after the Euro-African summit in Cairo (April 2000). Yet on closer examination the HIPC initiative turns out to be yet another delusive manoeuvre which suggests but in no way implements a cancellation of the debt.

List of the 42 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries: Angola, Benin, Bolivia, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoro Islands, Congo, Ivory Coast, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Guyana, Honduras, Kenya, Laos, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mozambique, Myanmar, Nicaragua, Niger, Rwanda, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Togo, Uganda, Vietnam, Zambia. initiative (Heavily Indebted Poor Countries) has not provided any solutions to the problems facing the DRC.

The CADTM holds that this visit by the UN Secretary General accompanied by the president of the World Bank offers substantial evidence that the war in the DRC is a matter of unlawfully grabbing resources, particularly ore, as all the reports on war in this country have demonstrated.

It is our duty to denounce the thirst of the multilateral creditors, research consultancies, and others who gathered recently in Paris to discuss the question of INGA, a huge hydroelectric dam, which cost an estimated 80 billion dollars, while the Congolese are being killed by bullets and bombs and dying from famine and deadly epidemics.

In light of this inhuman behaviour of the financial powers, the CADTM would like to express its deep concern and call on all those involved in this conflict to immediately restore peace and establish who is responsible for the plundering of resources, the rape of women, and the other atrocities that have been committed in the DRC.

Bouznika, 22 May 2013

Motion of solidarity with the people of Haïti
CADTM Global Assembly from 19-22 May

We the delegates at the CADTM network’s Global Assembly meeting at Bouznika, Morocco 19 to 22 May 2013

Considering that

1. The CADTM network is a social organisation for the advancement of freedom, peace, justice, and the dignity of all the people of the World.

2. Since the 1 June 2004, the United Nations have , applied a programme called MINUSTAH in Haiti involving police and military forces from several countries, including Latin American countries (Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay among others) under the pretext of “stabilising” Haiti.

3. The Haitian people see this presence as an occupation and a form of interference in their country’s internal affairs.

4. The Haitian people have been subjected to Human Rights violations by these forces.

SO DECLARE

Their opposition to all interference in the country through any programme that in the name of aid, help, assistance, stabilisation, and contribution to peace, violates human rights

AND DEMAND

The immediate departure of police and military forces from Haiti.

Translation Mike Krolikowski and Charles La Via