 JUBILEE 2000 INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE |
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Ando Isamu, sj (Tokyo, Jesuit Social Center)
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 People at first were surprised when the deceased Japanese Prime Minister,
Obuchi Keizo, announced at the beginning of the year that Okinawa was the
official location for the G7 Summit. Okinawa continues to be a thorny issue
for the USA and Japan, both key participants in the Summit. Mori's new
government tried hard to present the rich cultural dimensions of Okinawa
to his foreign guests. On the other hand, the delay of President Clinton
gave clear signs that the G7 Summit was not the top international site. The Kyushu-Okinawa Summit, a political show that cost 80 billion yen, was
just an international fire cracker event. The last official statement talks
about Information Technology (IT) revolution and the continuation of efforts
to re-structure International Financial Institutions. The statement recollects
again the serious issue of poverty in the world, of highly indebted poor
countries and the spread of AIDS.The sending of over 22,000 Japanese police to Okinawa and the tight security
at the time gave Okinawans a sense of what international power politics
mean. |
Three days ahead of the G7 Summit 300 persons representing 40 NGOs, including
delegates of 29 countries from the South, gathered in Naha City for Jubilee
2000 International Conference. Their purpose was to make the voice of the
poor been heard by the G7 heads of state, to urge them to keep the official
promises made at the last Cologne Summit and to press them to cancel the
debt of the most impoverished countries by this year 2000. A conference of this kind was unique in Okinawa because it confronted
the rich G7 political leaders gathered in Naha for the Summit. The wide
publicity given by the media and TV in Okinawa showed that the messages
of the Jubilee 2000 campaign were very important and timely. Even at the
site of the human chain event around the Kadena American Air base by 27,000
persons, the Jubilee campaign, that was one of the more than 100 NGOs present,
caught very prominent attention by the TV cameras and journalists. There
was something new in the cooperation of antiwar protesters and those who
campaign for the basic rights of the poor populations. |
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As Cardinal Shirayanagi, one of the three representatives of Jubilee 2000
Japan, expressed at the opening ceremony, the global solidarity of citizens
in Jubilee 2000 shows that it is the responsibility of citizens, not only
of governments, to build better human environments. The interest for the
needy in the world gives us hope for a brighter future. During the Conference, the reports from several African countries and
international campaigns presented the dark sides of malnutrition of children,
of a substantial lack of basic education and health. In other words, the
enforced payment of accumulated national debts has intensified poverty
in Africa and other countries of the South. The UN has made public that
19,000 children die every day in many poor countries, as a result of having
to pay back debt. The issue could be solved if the G7 world leaders had
the will to put into effect the decisions made at the past Summit. Jubilee
2000 Japan in its press release, 22 July 2000, mentioned that, the amount
spent in the Okinawa Summit ($750 million) could have been used to totally
cancel the servicing of debt for one year of the following 8 countries:
Guyana, Rwanda, Laos, Zambia, Nicaragua, Benin, Cambodia, and Haiti. Nevertheless, the Jubilee Conference was conducted in an atmosphere of
hope. Everybody was convinced that big changes were needed in the whole
global system, and that those changes were possible. Governments will produce
such changes only when they cooperate with citizens. |
Technocrats are not enough to make the needed changes. At a global level,
participation of debtor countries from the South is indispensable. The
issue of international debt is at the core of poverty itself. Thus, the
eradication of poverty has emerged as one of the key problems in the emerging
21 century.
The Jubilee Conference held at the door of the G7 Summit had a specific
purpose: To monitor the action taken by the G7 political leaders after
all their promises in last year's Cologne Summit. Jubilee also sent them
a clear message to drop the debt of poor countries within this year 2000.
The one-page document produced by the Conference, "Call to the G7
Leaders", was offered personally by 4 delegates of Jubilee 2000 to
Japan's Prime Minister Mori, host of the Okinawa Summit, during a 40-minute
meeting. The Jubilee Conference did more than merely hold meetings to exchange
views or prepared documents for further strategic planning. The participants
filled the Catholic Cathedral, one evening, to reflect and pray together
in an ecumenical atmosphere and demonstrated twice, through the streets
of Naha. They also traveled by buses 45 minutes out of Naha, to participate
in the up to now most numerous "human chain demonstration" (27,000
people) around Kadena American Air Base. |
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Thanks to the wide circulation TV and mass media made in Okinawa concerning
the program of Jubilee 2000, people became aware of the seriousness of
the issue. The Japanese government as well as the rest of the Summit political
leaders got the message of dropping the debt, although they tried to avoid
it. In spite of the fact that no single country has yet received any debt
cancellation since Cologne last year, the G7 announced that "progress
has been made". As Kitazawa Yoko, chairperson of the Jubilee 2000 International Conference,
said　at the press conference at the end of the Summit, "We are outraged
that halfway through this Jubilee year the G7 went back on their promise
of debt relief made more than one year ago in Cologne".
Following several years of increased public pressure, the IMF and the
World Bank established in 1996 what is known as HIPC. The most comprehensive
international debt relief program to date is called the Heavily Indebted
Poor Country Initiative. It was a significant step forward. The program
was widely criticized as delivering too little relief over too long a time
period, and being tied to damaging structural adjustment policies. Nevertheless,
the last three G7 Summits have based their decisions about debt relief
on such strategies. In 1998 in response to the criticisms, the World Bank and IMF invited
submissions to an improved HIPC initiative. In September 1999 they announced
an 'enhanced HIPC'. This became the basis for discussions on debt relief
by the G7 leaders gathered in Okinawa. However debt sustainability is still
being determined based on 'costs' to creditors rather than the human development
requirements of debtors. The Initiative still falls far short of what is
needed. Jubilee 2000 in its public 'Call to The G7 Leaders' (July 21st,
2000) rejects the Initiative. |
"The Enhanced HIP Initiative, which was introduced in the name of
'faster, deeper and broader debt relief', turned out, in fact, to be a
tool for delaying debt cancellation. In light of this, we do not accept
either the HIPC Initiative or Enhanced HIPC Initiative accompanied by structural
adjustment programs and other externally imposed conditions as a framework
for resolving the problems of debt and poverty".
There have been various important moves to look for solutions to the crisis
of heavily indebted poor countries, and new terminology is emerging, like
'Poverty Reduction and Growth Facility'. But, in order to eradicate poverty
from our world, the full participation of a broad representation of civil
society, especially from indebted countries, is totally needed. Civil society
must be present in the planning, implementation, monitoring and evaluation
of the debt cancellation process. The Jubilee Okinawa Conference discussed long-term plans directed at the
eradication of poverty, but in the meantime it will use the opportunities
of the next Annual IMF/World Bank Meeting in Prague and the UN Millennium
Summit.
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