BY JAMES VASSILOPOULOS
Anti-corporate protesters are planning huge protests when heads of government of the Group of Eight (G8) leading industrial powers come to the Italian port city of Genoa on July 20. The peaceful civil disobedience actions, mass rallies and ambitious counter-conference are organised through the Genoa Social Forum. Which comprises 700 organisations.
The official G8 summit will discuss issues of trade, Third World debt, the environment and conflict resolution. The G8 communiques are likely to include promises to cancel a little of the Third World's debt to the rich countries, to reduce the limitations on the entry of Third World products into rich countries. Few protesters, however, believe that anything will be changed in any major way.
At the G8 Cologne summit in June 1999, debt relief of up to 90% was announced for some of the poorest countries. One year later at the Okinawa summit, the Committee for the Abolition of the Third World Debt calculated that only about US$2.5 billion worth of debt was cancelled, 1.2% of the poorest countries' debts and 0.12% of the Third World debt.
In an attempt to regain some of the credibility the rich countries have lost, Italian foreign minister and former World Trade Organisation head Renato Ruggiero has invited a number of Third World leaders to attend the G8 summit. These include Sheik Hasina from Bangladesh and spokesperson for the Non-Aligned Movement and Rigoberta Menchu, the Guatemalan human rights campaigner.
The Italian authorities plan to blockade Genoa from July 18 in order to stop thousands of people from attending the anti-G8 protests. Twenty thousand troops and police officers will be mobilised for the summit and 200 body bags have been ordered.
Parts of the city will be divided into a red zone, where all but those invited to the summit (plus troops and police) are forbidden to enter, and a yellow zone where the right to protest will be severely curtailed.
In order to justify a potential crackdown, the Italian and international press spread lies about the protests. They suggest that demonstrators are planning to use remote-controlled aircraft to drop chemicals and balloons carrying infected blood on the summit attendees. Organisers have immediately denied such claims. The GSF has repeatedly made it clear that the protests will be peaceful and non-violent.
Preparations for the Genoa-G8 protests are moving full-steam ahead. The GSF will meet from July 16-22 and hold a huge teach-in.
This will take up themes such as the fight against poverty, this world is not for sale, alternatives to globalisation, and work and globalisation. Speakers include authors Susan George and Walden Bello, plus representatives from a range of campaigning organisations like the Brazilian Movement of Landless Rural Workers (MST) and the Paris-based ATTAC (Action for a Tobin Tax to Assist the Citizen) group, which campaigns for a tax on speculative financial transactions.
Trade unions representatives will also be present, including from the four-million-member Italian General Confederation of Labour (CGIL).
The protests will kick off on July 15 with a march for women's rights. On July 19, more than 15,000 people are expected to participate in an "international march of the immigrants", protesting the racist immigration laws of the G8 countries. Also on this day a number of Italian trade unions are planning to stage a national strike and rallies in Genoa.
Peaceful civil disobedience actions will occur on July 20, encircling the summit venue and the red zone.
In the afternoon of July 21 a march and rally will be organised, with 100,000 people expected to attend. The march will travel close to the red zone and will defy the laws prohibiting protests in the yellow zone. The march will end at the Marassi stadium. "Cancel the debt now!" will be one of the key demands.
Thirty leading Italian film directors have thrown their support behind the G8 protests. A video documentary is being coordinated by Francesco Maselli which is expected to screen on television and in cinemas.
Film director Luigi Magni told the Italian newspaper L'Unita: "They have to realise that the world cannot be destroyed for profit, to take account of the conditions of life in Africa and Asia, of hunger, drought... What are we going to do with the world? That's the real question."
Activists have persuaded the Genoa city council to open up schools and gymnasiums to accommodate the tens of thousands of activists expected.
Creative protests like a cycling cavalcade and a flotilla of sailing vessels are underway.
Organisations with differing political views are mobilising for the Genoa protests. Among them are the Italian anti-racist organisation ARCI and the British Drop the Debt campaign, which is calling on the G8 to force the IMF and World Bank to cancel 100% of the debts that Third World countries owe them. Ya Basta, an Italian group inspired by the Mexican Zapatistas, also known as the "White Overalls", will carry out acts of civil disobedience aimed at disrupting the G8 summit.
There will be contingents from the Italian Party of Communist Refoundation (PRC), the French Revolutionary Communist League (LCR) and the Socialist Workers Party of Britain as well as from radical Christians, gay and lesbian rights groups, anarchists and many campus anti-globalisation groups.