21 June 2000
The South African Communist Party writes this open letter to the World Trade Organisation and the World Economic Forum on the occasion of the conference convened by the World Economic Forum starting today in Durban, South Africa.
The World Economic Forum should be a forum for addressing the needs and interests of developing economies and their people. Instead, the World Economic Forum is best known for its annual tribute to the forces of global capitalism in Davos, Switzerland, the very forces that make life for the billions of people in the South increasingly desperate. The promoters of global capitalism have targeted the South, and Africa, the most impoverished continent, for more of their destructive attention and programmes.
According to a report released yesterday by the International Labour Organisation (ILO World Labour Report - Income Security and Social Protection in a Changing World), globalisation has led to job losses and increasing poverty for people in developing cou ntries. The report also states the following:
On the occasion of the Durban conference, we therefore denounce an economic system that continues to shift opportunities, resources, and power away from those most in need. We reject the policies of structural adjustment and trade liberalisation which the WTO, World Bank, and International Monetary Fund coerce most of the world's countries into adopting. We call for the reversal of these policies and the introduction of humane policies which place people before profits and which rejects the "race to the bot tom" which animates the process of corporate globalisation.
To place the challenge of the continent as that of privatisation and fitting to the agenda of global capitalism is really to set up the continent for sale, to be plundered by transnational corporations at the direct expense of the poor. As the SACP we are writing this letter to this conference to say, Africa is not for sale. Transforming Africa’s economies must be through state-led infra-structural growth, development and poverty eradication and not through deregulation and economic liberalisation.
We oppose the continuing pressure on impoverished countries to accept the imposition of "intellectual property rights". This will deny developing countries access to basic and necessary commodities for a tolerable life and their advancement. An example of this is the continued denial of developing countries access to affordable medicines because of “intellectual property rights”, which in reality are protection for drug companies and their massive profits.
We call for the cancellation of the burden of debt currently imposed on the countries of the South.
The World Economic Forum meeting in Durban can either be an occasion for genuine engagement with the issues that matter to the South or for another round of bland assertions, in contradiction of evidence available directly outside the meeting site, that gl obalisation will benefit the South.
We believe that if the Durban meeting fails to consider the points raised in this letter and the demands being made by the increasingly strong global movement for economic and social justice, it will be a lost opportunity.
For socialism!
BLADE NZIMANDE
GENERAL SECRETARY SOUTH AFRICAN COMMUNIST PARTY
CONTACT
Mazibuko K. Jara (surname Jara)
Department of Media,Information & Publicity, SA Communist Party
Tel: 27 11 339-3621/2
Fax: 27 11 339-4244
Cell: 083 651 0271
Email: sacp1@wn.apc.org
or
Smiso Nkwanyana
SACP Provincial Secretary KwaZulu Natal, Durban
Tel: 27 31 301 3806
Cell: 082 468 7184