PUT PEOPLE FIRST, NOT FINANCES (Mobilize for the G8 and the G20 in France in 2011)

PUT PEOPLE FIRST, NOT FINANCES

Call from Dakar to Mobilize for the G8 and the G20 in France in 2011

Confronting the G8, May 21st and 22nd, 2011 in Deauville

Confronting the G20, from October 31st to November 5th, 2011 in Cannes

Gathered at the Action against the G8/G20 Convergence Assembly at the World Social Forum in Dakar, we - social movements, trade unions, international solidarity associations, women and men from all continents - call for massive popular mobilizations during the G8 summit on May 26th and 27th in Deauville and the G20 summit on November 3rd and 4th in Cannes. Here in Dakar, we have debated about the way to address the social, ecological, economic and geopolitical crises that together constitute a true crisis of civilization.

The G20 was formed by 20 of the richest countries in the world, in disregard of all the rest. Though it proclaimed itself to be the guarantor of world economic and financial stability immediately after the financial storm hit in 2008, it has done nothing to protect the people from this major crisis. On the contrary, the G20 upheld the dictatorship of the financial sector, which continues to exert its power over all aspects of our existence: housing, employment, education, agriculture, climate, retirement pensions, knowledge, biodiversity... Through its actions, the G20 reinforces the actors and mechanisms at the origin of the crisis, while making citizens pay the price.

We know responses to the global crisis that are truly democratic and built in solidarity will not come from the leaders of the world's richest countries, but rather from the peoples themselves. We refuse to give the powerful the right to impose their solutions for the crises they themselves have generated.

This is why we are calling on everyone to turn the G8 and the G20 in France into moments where all struggles converge: struggles against financial opacity and deregulation, the illegitimate debt in the North and the South, against austerity policies and in defence of public services, against false solutions to climate change and in favour of production and consumption models that preserve the planet, against job instability and for decent work, against speculation on raw materials and for food sovereignty, against dictatorships, militarization and colonialism and for the democratic rights of the peoples...

Through our practices and proposals, our movements demonstrate that alternatives do exist. Universal access to fundamental human rights and the protection of our planet can only be achieved through a just distribution of wealth, the adoption of other modes of development and democratic management of the common goods.

We call all movements, networks and organizations to unite at the G8 and G20 summits in France. We count on the resistance movement's diversity and the complementary nature of our various ways of thinking and modes of action to give rise to the diverse range of initiatives needed to build a broad international mobilization.

Next steps:

- Meeting for information sharing and coordination: March 26-27 in Paris and again, in May on the eve of the G8 mobilization.

For more information and contacts:

g8g20@altermob.org

www.altermob.org