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Porto Alegre Call for Mobilisation
Social forces from around the world have gathered here
at the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre. Unions and NGOs, movements
and organizations, intellectuals and artists, together we are building
a great alliance to create a new society, different from the dominant
logic wherein the free-market and money are considered the only measure
of worth. Davos represents the concentration of wealth, the globalization
of poverty and the destruction of our earth. Porto Alegre represents the
hope that a new world is possible, where human beings and nature are the
center of our concern.
We are part of a movement which has grown since Seattle.
We challenge the elite and their undemocratic processes, symbolised by
the World Economic Forum in Davos. We came to share our experiences, build
our solidarity, and demonstrate our total rejection of the neoliberal
policies of globalisation.
We are women and men, farmers, workers, unemployed,
professionals, students, blacks and indigenous peoples, coming from the
South and from the North, committed to struggle for peoples’ rights, freedom,
security, employment and education. We are fighting against the hegemony
of finance, the destruction of our cultures, the monopolization of knowledge,
mass media, and communication, the degradation of nature, and the destruction
of the quality of life by multinational corporations and anti-democratic
policies. Participative democratic experiences -- like that of Porto Alegre
-- show us that a concrete alternative is possible. We reaffirm the supremacy
of human, ecological and social rights over the demands of finance and
investors.
At the same time that we strengthen our movements, we
resist the global elite and work for equity, social justice, democracy
and security for everyone, without distinction. Our methodology and alternatives
stand in stark contrast to the destructive policies of neo-liberalism.
Globalisation reinforces a sexist and patriarchal system.
It increases the feminisation of poverty and exacerbates all forms of
violence against women. Equality between women and men is central to our
struggle. Without this, another world will never be possible.
Neoliberal globalization increases racism, continuing
the veritable genocide of centuries of slavery and colonialism which destroyed
the bases of black African civilizations. We call on all movements to
be in solidarity with African peoples in the continent and outside, in
defense of their rights to land, citizenship, freedom, peace, and equality,
through the reparation of historical and social debts. Slave trade and
slavery are crimes against humanity.
We express our special recognition and solidarity with
indigenous peoples in their historic struggle against genocide and ethnocide
and in defense of their rights, natural resources, culture, autonomy,
land, and territory.
Neoliberal globalisation destroys the environment, health
and people’s living environment. Air, water, land and peoples have become
commodities. Life and health must be recognized as fundamental rights
which must not be subordinated to economic policies.
The external debt of the countries of the South has been repaid several
times over. Illegitimate, unjust and fraudulent, it functions as an instrument
of domination, depriving people of their fundamental human rights with
the sole aim of increasing international usury. We demand its unconditional
cancellation and the reparation of historical, social, and ecological
debts, as immediate steps toward a definitive resolution of the crisis
this Debt provokes.
Financial markets extract resources and wealth from
communities and nations, and subject national economies to the whims of
speculators. We call for the closure of tax havens and the introduction
of taxes on financial transactions.
Privatisation is a mechanism for transferring public wealth and natural
resources to the private sector. We oppose all forms of privatisation
of natural resources and public services. We call for the protection of
access to resources and public goods necessary for a decent life.
Multinational corporations organise global production
with massive unemployment, low wages and unqualified labour and by refusing
to recognise the fundamental worker’s rights as defined by the ILO. We
demand the genuine recognition of the right to organise and negotiate
for unions, and new rights for workers to face the globalisation strategy.
While goods and money are free to cross borders, the restrictions on the
movement of people exacerbate exploitation and repression. We demand an
end to such restrictions.
We call for a trading system which guarantees full employment,
food security, fair terms of trade and local prosperity. Free trade is
anything but free. Global trade rules ensure the accelerated accummulation
of wealth and power by multinational corporations and the further marginalisation
and impoverishment of small farmers, workers and local enterprises. We
demand that governments respect their obligations to the international
human rights instruments and multilateral environmental agreements. We
call on people everywhere to support the mobilizations against the creation
of the Free Trade Area in the Americas, an initiative which means the
recolonization of Latin America and the destruction of fundamental social,
economic, cultural and environmental human rights.
The IMF, the World Bank and regional banks, the WTO,
NATO and other military alliances are some of the multilateral agents
of neoliberal globalisation. We call for an end to their interference
in national policy. These institutions have no legitimacy in the eyes
of the people and we will continue to protest against their measures.
Neoliberal globalization has led to the concentration
of land ownership and favored corporate agricultural systems which are
environmentally and socially destructive. It is based on export oriented
growth backed by large-scale infrastructure development, such as dams,
which displaces people from their land and destroys their livelihoods.
Their loss must be restored. We call for a democratic agrarian reform.
Land, water and seeds must be in the hands of the peasants. We promote
sustainable agricultural processes. Seeds and genetic stocks are the heritage
of humanity. We demand that the use of transgenics and the patenting of
life be abolished.
Militarism and corporate globalisation reinforce each
other to undermine democracy and peace. We totally refuse war as a way
to solve conflicts and we oppose the arms race and the arms trade. We
call for an end to the repression and criminalisation of social protest.
We condemn foreign military intervention in the internal affairs of our
countries. We demand the lifting of embargoes and sanctions used as instruments
of aggression, and express our solidarity with those who suffer their
consequences. We reject US military intervention in Latin America through
the Plan Colombia.
We call for a strenghtening of alliances, and the implementation
of common actions, on these principal concerns. We will continue to mobilize
on them until the next Forum. We recognize that we are now in a better
position to undertake the struggle for a different world, a world without
misery, hunger, discrimination and violence, with quality of life, equity,
respect and peace.
We commit ourselves to support all the struggles of
our common agenda to mobilise opposition to neoliberalism. Among our priorities
for the coming months, we will mobilize globally against the:
· World Economic Forum, Cancun, Mexico, 26 and 27 February
· Free Trade Area of the Americas, Buenos Aires, Argentina,
6-7 April and Quebec City, Canada, 17-22 April
· Asian Development Bank, Honolulu, May
· G8 Summit, Genova, Italy, 15-22 July
· IMF and World Bank Annual Meeting, Washington DC,
USA, 28 September - 4 October
· World Trade Organisation, 5-9 November (Qatar)
On April 17, we will support the international day of
struggle against the importation of cheap agricultural products which
create economic and social dumping, and the feminist mobilization against
globalization in Genova. We support the call for a world day of action
against debt, to take place this year on July 20 and the mobilization
for the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia
and Related Intolerance (Durban, South Africa -- 31 August-7 September
2001).
The proposals formulated are part of the alternatives
being elaborated by social movements around the world. They are based
on the principle that human beings and life are not commodities, and in
the commitment to the welfare and human rights of all.
Our involvement in the World Social Forum has enriched
understanding of each of our struggles and we have been strengthened.
We call on all peoples around the world to join in this struggle to build
a better future. The World Social Forum of Porto Alegre is a way to achieve
peoples’ sovereignty and a just world.
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More
than 5,000 people – parliamentarians, trade unionists, leaders from agricultural
labourers’ and peasants’ organisations, green movements and other new social
movements and NGOs and noted intellectuals – from all over the world gathered
at the World Social Forum held in the Brazilian town of Porto Alegre from 25-30
January, 2001. About 30,000 people attended the “March for Life” organised in
connection with this international meet. Porto Alegre, which hosted the meet,
is ruled by the PT, the Brazilian Workers’ Party, a major left-wing political
party of the country. The meet was conceived as a counter to the World Economic
Forum which holds its annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland at about the same
time every year. Bernard Cassen, the director of Le Monde Diplomatique and president
of ATTAC (Action for the Taxation of Financial Transactions in Favour of Citizens)
in France, the Brazilian Association of Non-Government Organisations (ABONG),
ATTAC Brazil, the Brazilian Commission for Justice and Peace