Militants hold protest march vs G-20 summit

MANILA, Philippines - Militants took to the streets of Manila Saturday to denounce the formal opening of the G-20 summit called by US President George Bush Jr. in Washington D.C to address the global financial crisis. The Freedom from Debt Coalition said Saturday's action was part of the Global Day of Action against summit, which it branded as an "elite jamboree." "Sadly, the G-20 Summit is not only elite-centered, inequitable and dominated by US interest, moreover, the solutions that it would be promoting is more or less the same under an unchanged and archaic economic system which for the longest time has been proven to be crisis-endemic, debt-generating and poverty-creating," FDC President Walden Bello said in an article on the FDC Web site (www.fdc.ph). A report on Q-11 television said the marchers tried to proceed to the US Embassy but police blocked their path. They proceed to T.M. Kalaw Street instead. The protesting groups led by the Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC), Focus on the Global South, Jubilee South and the Global Call to Action Against Poverty (GCAP) said while they support moves for different nations to come together in order to develop sustainable and viable solutions to the crisis, they believe the process to come up with the necessary solutions should not only be more open and participatory. Groups joining the protest included Akbayan, Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD), Youth For Nationalism and Democracy (YND), Makabayan, Kilusang Mangingisda (KM), Alab-Katipunan (AK) and Youth Against Debt (YAD). They underscored the culpability of the Bush administration in the global economic meltdown. Bello said social movements as early as the late 1970s already warned that the policies of aggressive loan pushing, financial and trade liberalization would only result in more poverty and social inequalities. "Neoliberalism, as we have already said so many times has only facilitated the further disconnection of economic activities to the real needs and activities of the people. This has happened time and time again, and we are now witnessing the end-result of how immense wealth-creation is juxtaposed with growing social inequality amid the widening gap between the financial and the real economy," Bello said. Focus on the Global South campaigner Joseph Puruganan added G-20 is more about rescuing a flawed system rather than resolving the root causes of the crisis. "On international trade, they will prescribe a more open and deregulated trading system when clearly, it is this regime of liberalization that's partly to blame for the crisis," Puruganan said. GCAP Philippine Coordinator Joel Saracho said G-20 leaders should prioritize the needs of people living in poverty especially during the economic downturn. "Surely, even in a time of an economic crisis, the priority should not be the bailout of banks and big corporations but the social bailout of the people," Saracho said. The protesting groups also said the G-20 summit is no more than a "private clinic" of the global elite to prescribe another escape route for the system to run away from the crisis. "The G-20 Summit can take two options to address the crisis. It can either push for the continuation if not the completion of the neoliberal framework of less and less government intervention in the market and trading or return to a "regulated-type of capitalism such as the Bretton Woods system under the Roosevelt era," Bello said. Lidy Nacpil, regional coordinator of Jubilee South-Asia Pacific Movement for Debt and Development, reiterated a global call signed by 209 international, regional and national networks, made demands to address the crisis. These include: * New structures and institutions based on new principles based on economic democracy and equity, ecological sustainability and environmental justice, gender, racial, ethnic and international justice and equality, and self-determination and sovereignty of peoples and nations. * End market fundamentalism and the "one size fits all" formula. * End the power of the IMF, World Bank. * Regulate the global economy effectively. - GMANews.TV