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28-30April 04 European Economic Summit Warsaw
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INFO
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17-11-2003 22:23
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After the World Economic Forum (WEF) meets in Davos Switzerland (21 -25 January 2004), the WEF comes to Warsaw Poland for its European Economic Summit form the 28 to the 30April 2004 !
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When the WEF comes anything can happen !
Platform of Action against the World Economic Forum (WEF)
In view of the World Economic Forum in Davos that will be held again in 2004, and looking back on this year’s determined mass demonstration against the WEF in Davos, we – the Anti-WTO Coordination of Switzerland – turn to you. We are seeking contact to groups that like us are involved in developing resistance against the inhumane and environmentally disastrous neoliberal and global capitalism.
Based on the three following points, we want to join forces with other groups (from Switzerland as well as other countries) in an actions coalition through which we can support each other in a variety of forms of action in resistance against the WEF.
1. We reject all forms and systems of domination and discrimination.
Because in our daily lives we struggle against capitalism, racism, patriarchy, authoritarianism, nationalism, homophobia and anti-Semitism, we are mobilising today against the WEF.
We are aware that we are also a part of the existing contradictions. Therefore, we strive not to accept this oppression and discrimination in any form in our daily surroundings. We are convinced that patriarchy, racism, and anti-Semitism must be themes of on-going discussion.
2. We clearly reject the WEF and deny it any legitimacy whatsoever.
The WEF is, with its organised meeting of Global Leaders, one of the driving forces behind the development and consolidation of the New World Order. For this reason we want to abolish the WEF.
3. We take a confrontational position to the WEF, which excludes both dialogue, and any form of lobbying.
We do not want to offer the WEF any opportunity to pose in the limelight of the media, with their superficial "willingness for dialogue with the civil society”, as open-minded patrons of peace. Such dialogue, as dictated by those in power, serves only to silence criticism. We are of the opinion that it is necessary, on this point, to develop a broad grassroots mobilisation. Against omnipresent neoliberal thinking we want to, once again, make other social possibilities both imaginable and realisable.
Resistance against the World Economic Forum
In 1994, people from the Chiapas Solidarity Movement and activists from the radical-left and feminist contexts took the initiative for a first demonstration against the WEF, while Kurdish and Turkish groups held a rally in Davos.
In 1998 the Actions Alliance "Freedom for Patricio Ortiz" built up on the 1994 demonstration and mobilised for a second demonstration in Davos, together with anti-racist and anti-sexist groups, the Kurdistan Centre and the Anti-WTO Coordination. In the following five years demos were held again, organised by the Anti-WTO Coordination. Each demonstration was preceded by a variety of campaigns aimed at informing a broad public about the dealings and the significance of the WEF.
In 2000 the "Bernese Declaration”, together with other NGO’s, launched "Public Eye on Davos”: a project demanding greater transparency of the WEF, and demanding more participation of the voices of NGO’s who are critical of the policies of the WEF. For next year they organise a counter summit in Davos during the WEF conference.
With last years mobilisation we succeeded in dragging the WEF into the view of a critical public, and in unmasking the allegedly amiable Spirit of Davos. This development was strengthened by the emergence of a worldwide network of grassroots resistance movements and political groups. This movement found its expression in, among other actions, the world-wide protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference in Geneva in May ’98, against the World Economic Summit in Cologne in ’99, and in actions against the WTO Ministerial Conference in Seattle.
The World Economic Forum (WEF)
The WEF is shouldered decisively by the economic and political elites of the North.
It is sponsored and sustained by the largest Trans-National Corporations world-wide, such as IBM, BP Amoco, Coca-Cola, ABB, Nestle, Du Pont, America Online, Deutsche Bank, etc. With their concept for a world economy they are directly or indirectly responsible for war, misery, dispossession and hunger. Their economic concepts are based substantially on the unwaged and lowest-wage labour of the unscrupulously exploited people of the South, the immigrants here with us, and of women worldwide.
This concept leads to the systematic impoverishment of vast sectors of the population, and to the destruction of still functioning social structures. Forced into invisibility, ever more people are paying the price for the white male managing elites’ game of capital and power – with malnutrition, deprivation of the most basic rights, illegalization, declining health and inadequate access to education.
Besides the summits and meetings of the ministers and their functionaries within the framework of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank, the WEF serves as an informal rendezvous of the economic lobby and the political management.
There, these self-proclaimed "Global Leaders" forge plans for the future of the planet and secure far-reaching deals above the heads of those affected by their schemes. What is staged for the media as the "Spirit of Davos”, consists in reality of political and economic arrangements and billion-dollar mega-deals. For example, the Uruguay Round of the GATT, which later led to the creation of the WTO, and the North American Free Trade Agreement NAFTA, were both launched from Davos.
In addition to the annual meeting of the WEF in Davos, different regional annual summits are held, such as the Southern Africa Economic Summit in Durban, the Central and Eastern European Economic Summit which was usualy in Salzburg, the Asia Pacific Summit in Melbourne, the India Economic Summit in New Delhi, as well as the Middle East/North Africa Economic Summit.
Perspective
We see our resistance in Davos as a part of the world-wide resistance against the devastating economic system, and all of the institutions of the WTO, the IMF and the World Bank that represent and further develop it. Everywhere around the world an increasing number of people refuse to put up with living conditions aggravated through these economic policies, and join in the resistance against them. Because of this, the summits and the "Economic and Political Managers” must be accompanied by massive police and military operations. This repression is the answer to the critical voices that refuse both to be integrated and to serve the public relations strategies of those in power.
With this paper we are seeking a discussion that should lead to a balanced unification of our strengths, and through which we can realise a variety of forms of resistance. The aim is for individuals and groups to be strengthened through this process and for a continuity of resistance to be developed.
Anti-WTO Co-ordination, Switzerland
People from different cities in Switzerland formed the Anti-WTO Co-ordination in 1998.
The aim of the group is to denounce, through diverse activities, the violent anti-social consequences of WTO policies on the daily lives of millions of people in all regions of the world, and to further develop, as part of an autonomous movement, our resistance against this.
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infos on protests against the wef in Switzerland:
 http://www.bermuda.ch/reitschule/anti-wto/english/index.shtml
or
http://www.formosa.ch/you-know-what/wef/
Protest against the wef in New York:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/wef/davos2002.htm
Protests against the wef in Mexico:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/mexico/picswef.htm
Protests against the wef in Irleand:
http://www.freewebs.com/o2o/
Protest against the wef in Australia:
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/s11/0911delegates.htm
Protest against the wef in Austria:
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2003/08/275286.html
or
http://www.nadir.org/nadir/initiativ/agp/free/wef/wefsalzburg2002.htm
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