On July 23, 2001, the G-8 will hold it’s Summit in Geneva, Italy, where in the heart of unified Europe’s walls, barriers have been constructed to impede protests against neoliberal globalization.  The heads of state of these countries will distance themselves from protest by going far into the ocean on a yacht.

Even though the G-8 is the motor of globalization, protests of dissent are occurring throughout neoliberalism’s circuits (see other documents on globalization at www.ciepac.org).  We will present a chronology of some of this dissent.  This is the active government/corporate agenda, as well as the reactive agenda of society worldwide against the diverse levels of neoliberal circuitry.

1.                   January 1^st, 1994.  MÉXICO.  First day of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in México.  In Chiapas, the Zapatista army (EZLN) led an uprising that same day against the economic model that has exacerbated the misery and economic, political, social, and cultural marginalization of indigenous peoples.  NAFTA would increase this misery, from the alterations in Article 27 of the Mexican constitution and other reforms.  This movement pierced the consciousness of México and, through the use of the Internet, produced a worldwide movement of solidarity and resistance.  Despite the fact that many countries sustained fights of an international nature against the same neoliberal model, Zapatismo remained the focus of international attention for five years and the focal point for international resistance.  Ironically, it was in this year that the concept of “globalization” first appeared.  It is also during this year that the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development appeared in the public eye.

2.                   November 30^th, 1999.  UNITED STATES.  Third Ministerial Summit of the WTO meeting Seattle.  More than 50,000 people in all political and social sectors of many countries took to the streets and interrupted more 5,000 delegates of more than 130 heads of state who were attempting to accelerate the process of liberalizing world markets.  The organization, the magnitude and the overall success of this protest affected the whole world and marked the beginning of a new phase in the global fights against the current economic model.  The fundamental means of organization were through affinity groups with autonomy in their tactical actions, a coordinated decentralization and peaceful civil resistance.  With the motto, “Think Global; Act Local,” the protest was a cultural and democratic party.  Music, dance, and puppet shows among other actions were those that would come to characterize future mobilizations against globalization.  In this way, the party in Seattle erupted in the world political scene, spawning hope and consciousness about the workings of globalization throughout world societies.  Seattle became an important reference point for the struggles for justice around the world.  

3.                   January 30^th, 2000.  SWITZERLAND.  World Economic Forum in Davos.  More than 1,000 of the wealthiest transnational corporations in the world meet every year in Davos, together with heads of states, to agree on a world economic agenda.  This Forum was inaugurated in 1971.  An imposing military presence protected the meeting of corporations and governments (there was no dialogue between governments and civil society) from more than one thousand demonstrators from diverse countries who destroyed a McDonald’s and succeeded in breaking a police barricade.  At this meeting, former president of México, Ernesto Zedillo gave the name “global-phobics” to the thousands in the world who protest against the current economic model. 

4.                   February 13^th, 2000.  THAILAND.  Tenth United National Conference on Commerce and Development in Bangkok.  More than 3,000 government delegates from 190 member nations met on the day that Michel Camdessus left the presidency of the International Monetary Fund (IMF).  Camdessus also got “pied” in the face with a yell of “Happy Birthday!” that same day.  Hundreds of demonstrators demanded that Camdessus be taken to court as responsible for the international economic policies and the external debt under which poor nations suffer.

5.                   April 16^th and 17^th, 2000.  UNITED STATES.  Meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, DC.  As the International Monetary Committee and the IMF met, a formidable mobilization of thousands of people provoked a state of siege in the buildings of the IMF and the World Bank, forming a human chain and blocking all exits.  They accused those organizations of impoverishing nations; imposing Programs of Structural Adjustment; spreading poverty throughout the world; degrading the environment; eliminating national sovereignty and human rights; and destroying communities and cultures.  Despite this great mobilization, the repression was even greater than what occurred in Seattle.

6.                   September 6^th, 2000.  UNITED STATES.  Millennium Summit of the United Nations and Fifth World Economic Forum in New York.  Demonstrators encountered the police when they were marching in front of the seat of the United Nations to manifest their rejection of globalization.  Meanwhile, kings, prime ministers, generals and corporations promised to “alleviate poverty” throughout the world.

7.                   September 11^th to 13^th, 2000.  AUSTRALIA.  Asia-Pacific World Economic Forum in Melbourne.  More than two thousand riot police suppressed demonstrators in a battle that lasted three days while governments and corporations had preliminary meetings about the Olympic Games in Australia.  Despite this repression the president of the World Economic Forum, Klaus Schwab, said “we demonstrate that we are in favor of globalization, but with a human dimension and with a social and environmental responsibility.”

8.                   September 26^th to 29^th, 2000.  CZECH REPUBLIC.  The 55th Summit of the IMF-World Bank in Prague.  The number of demonstrators reached more than 15,000, despite the blockades at borders to impede the entry of Italians and demonstrators from other nations.  The Czech government augmented the repression.  Hundreds were newly incarcerated.  In the protests, demonstrators became increasingly violent in response to police repression.  In an interview with James Wolfesohn, president of the World Bank, published in El País on September 25, 2000, he affirmed that in Prague: “What is clear is that we underestimated their capacity to organize meetings and mount protests.  None of this would have been possible without the Internet.  But it is difficult to talk to them.  We have attempted to create a permanent forum with all the organizations.  But it is difficult.  If one accepts, the others accuse it of selling out.  Who has a better idea?  I don’t know what else to do… It’s tough for me because these people, like the rest of the world, want to feel loved… I agree with you that if the World Bank is the cause of all bad things, public opinion will swing against us.”

9.                    December 7^th to 10^th, 2000.  FRANCE.  Summit of the European Union in Nice.  While the fifteen governments of the European Union met, more than 60,000 union members, peasants, activists, human rights advocates, etc., took to the streets and confronted the police that protected government delegates from the cry of democracy that demands a global society that respects and complies with human rights and labor rights and that governments adopt such social policies.  Finally, one of the dilemmas of globalization reared its ugly head: to what extent does the State have a role in driving and regulating the economy, human rights, the environment and national interests?

10.               February 25^th to 27^th, 2001.  MÉXICO.  World Economic Forum in Cancún.  The economic and political elites of the world met to continue spreading the neoliberal model, neatly justifying it with concern about the poverty that system has created and with creating the best opportunities for employment and development even as they spread misery.  Meanwhile, in the streets, the police brutality against hundreds of demonstrators reached a level so great that it seized the attention of international media.

11.               April 6^th and 7^th, 2001.  ARGENTINA.  Meeting of the Vice Ministers of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) in Buenos Aires.  As governments prepared the draft that would be presented in Quebec in the Third Summit of the Americas to sign the Agreement of the FTAA, thousands of demonstrators protested against this undemocratic process that was negotiated behind the back of civil society and demanded that the documents be made public.  Once again, the government response was repression and jail for those who sought inclusion and democracy.

12.               April 20^th to 22^nd, 2001.  CANADA.  Third Summit of the Americas in Quebec.  With millions of dollars spent on thousands of heavily armed riot police, the presidents of the American continent locked themselves in behind a four kilometer barrier while they negotiated the sale of the sovereignty of nations to the massive transnational corporations of the United States.  The FTAA is the symbol of the most terrible and dangerous agreement that exists to date in the world, which unites the most undemocratic aspects of commercial treaties that benefit transnational productive capital.  Facing this, more than 60,000 people from all sectors and nations of the continent protested in the street with music, dance, puppet shows and discussion groups.  Affinity groups were again subjected to government-backed violence, this time with teargas, streams of water, and rubber bullets over a three-day period.

13.               June 25^th to 27^th, 2001.  CATALONIA.  Third Conference on Economy and Development of the World Bank in Barcelona.  Due to the organization of thousands of European protesters, this conference was canceled.

After Seattle, governments no longer wanted to host the World Trade Organization.  Due to this, the next summit at the end of 2001 will be held in Doha, the capital of Qatar, which is a country governed by an emirate and which suffered a coup in 1996.  In this small Arabian Peninsula of more than 11,000 square kilometers of desert surrounded by the Persian Gulf, governments will seek respite from the world, from the poverty created by their own actions.  They will be protected by a repressive regime that will not restrain its forces in halting protests.  Moreover, how could an activist successfully link this desert country, where the language is Arabic, the religion is Islam, and there is no civil organization, to the struggles of the rest of the world against globalization?  How is it possible that supposedly democratic nations could agree to meet in a country without democracy, where human rights violations reign?  This is no more than a reflection of the anti-democratic nature of the World Trade Organization.  The next venue for any element of the neoliberal circuit could be the Russian space station or simply staged via the Internet.

There were also less publicized protests, such as the meeting of the Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum in 1999; and the June 2000 reunion of the Organization of American States (OAS) in Canada, the Evaluation of the Summit of the United Nations on Social Development in Geneva, and in Calgary the World Petroleum Congress.  And in October of this year, there was the Europe-Asia Meeting in Seoul, Korea.  There were also many other moments where society continued to protest the globalization agenda throughout the world.

From the FTAA’s declaration of war against society and indigenous peoples, and of the Zapatista’s against the system, we enter into dialogue, negotiation and the democratic channels that the Zapatistas bet on in Chiapas, as well as the strengthening of the social and organizing fabric.  Years have passed waiting for an answer and a dialogue that would include the poor in development.  In Seattle, there was a transition to peaceful resistance, which led to a major confrontation in Prague that marked a new era in the struggles against corporate globalization.

The gap between governments and society is becoming wider still, as political space for dialogue is decreasing and responses on both sides are becoming increasingly violent.  Meanwhile, the diverse levels of the neoliberal globalization circuit appropriate the discourse and social demands.  They talk of democracy, of discussion, of transparency, of a new relationship between government and society.  In February 2000, the then Executive Director of the IMF, Michel Camdessus, said, “our institutions are the best friends of the poor, and this has been well demonstrated and documented, while the opinion that we are the true threat and that we provoke poverty, would be very difficult to show.”

These institutions feign interest in the environment and the poor and attempt to justify how their politics benefit the least protected groups in the world, alleviating the poverty that they themselves provoke.  At the same time, they refine their strategies to control demonstrators’ attendance or increase prisoners of conscience who are now “global prisoners.”  Using public funds to control the public, they invest millions of dollars in arms, security and police who bestow necessary security while they meet all over the globe.  Once again, the military becomes rich.  And it is the spread of neoliberalism that necessarily accompanies the military and arms race for at least four reasons: 1) the laws of free trade also include the military industry; 2) the extent to which governments lose credibility and social consent of the majority determines the necessity for repression of discontent; 3) investments require and demand public security of governments, especially in terms of strategic resources (petroleum, electric energy, water, biodiversity, means of communication, etc.); 4) military services will be opened up to the market, to be privatized such as in the case of the United States with the Plan Colombia, where they will increase contracting with private military companies to give training, consulting, arms sales, intelligence services and direct actions.  These reasons, among others, explain the rise in military expenditures in the third world.

Protests against globalization have succeeded in raising consciousness of the elements of the neoliberal circuit, compounding its legitimacy crisis.  The decrease in credibility of the supposed benefits that the neoliberal model offers has led to an increase in government repression.  The agendas of the battles shine a light on various inter-related struggles: the need to cancel external debts for poor countries and eliminate structural adjustment, to respect human rights, women’s rights labor rights, economic, social, political and cultural rights, to protect the environment, and to protest commercial opening, genetically modified organisms, privatizations and megaprojects.  As such, each demonstration is increasingly multi-national, multi-generational, multi-racial, multi-thematic, and multi-class, as this struggle multiplies throughout the world.

Those who seek change deliberate amongst themselves whether it is worth continuing the fight against the global agendas of political and financial power or whether they should seek to create their own global social agenda.  Do we fight the effects, or change the neoliberal politics of transnational institutions to feel less the exacerbation of human misery?  There are also those who want fixed and permanent centers of convergence and those who deny any institution modeled after the current world structure; those who want coordinated programs of action and those who want actions to be made at will.  There are extremes: decentralization/centralization, violent/non-violent, structure/anarchy, negotiations with power/no negotiations; etc.  It seems fairly easy to come to the same conclusions about the evils of neoliberal globalization, but not about the means to combat it, neutralize it, or move towards an alternative economic model.

This challenge is so great that it is difficult to imagine the possibility of a new world, of a new economic model for all, one that is inclusive and just.  History tells us that no economic model has lasted forever; neoliberalism will not last one hundred years, nor will the people endure it.  History also tells us, unfortunately, that the transition from one model to another has not occurred in peace but with violence and spilled blood, absurd wars, anti-democratic governments who refuse to abdicate power and communities that refuse to be trampled on.  This should help us understand that the fight against globalization will not be without violence between those who created globalization and those who reject it.  We neither must fall into Puritanism nor naivety.  Given the levels of institutionalized violence, both direct and structural that kill thousands of children by starvation, global society does not need any further justification for any level of violence.

The fundamental question is not if neoliberalism will have an end, but towards what new economic model are we headed?  This will depend on all the initiatives, proposals and struggles that are being created now.  This global social agenda is one that we will discuss in another bulletin (252). 

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