Commonwealth Heads Of Government Meeting
The
security for the CHOGM is tight for
the
opening day which activists have declared to it shut down on the
opening
day the 6th of October 2001.In the initial reports, 2000 Federal
and state
police and 1600 soldiers will be deployed . Queenslands state
Labour
Government said the police will NOT carry guns (in response to
killing
of an activist in Genoa, Italy ) but
the soldiers will . About
10,000
ten thousands activists from Australia and around the world are
expected
to join the great event. Further report will be coming soon.
All 44
foreign leaders including the Queen of
UK will bring their own
security
guards plus Interpol , CIA , Commonwealth Intelligence .( Not
surprisingly,
They will be allowed to carry weapons!!! )
Protesting or blockading at CHOGM?
Progressive
activists have been told since May 1 that stopping CHOGM is
next.
There are two strongly competing views about how to protest at CHOGM -
shut it
down, or make it a forum for protest. There are many reasons put up
for
protesting at CHOGM, using either tactic. Already, some activists have
Started
to switch off CHOGM.
I also
argue that the call to blockade and shut down CHOGM has come from
Just a
few organizations, not by consultation, but by declaration. This is
not the
way to develop the dynamic of popular protest that made such an
impact
at S11 against the World Economic Forum. It is likely to demobilise
and reduce
the numbers that will be involved at CHOGM.
What
are the politics and crucial issues behind this rather bewildering
barrage
of arguments and demands around CHOGM?
CHOGM
is a meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government. The Commonwealth
is a body
of 54 nations, all but one from the former British Empire, but
also
including since 1995 Mozambique, a former Portuguese African colony,
because
of its historic ties with the anti-apartheid struggle. Commonwealth
countries
have a population of 1.7 billion, or 30% of the world
population.
The
Commonwealth is the latest evolution of what was the British Empire. It
started
as the British Commonwealth of Nations after the Imperial Conference
of
Westminster in 1926. After national liberation movements successfully
fought
for de-colonisation, which started in India in 1947, the gBritishh
was
dropped in 1949 and republics like India welcomed. In 1971, the
Singapore
Declaration spelt out the Commonwealth commitment to improving
human
rights and seeking racial and economic justice. In 1991, the Harare
Declaration
spelt out more clearly that democracy and human rights are the
basis
for Commonwealth membership. However, it was in the Harare Declaration
that
the language of the neo-liberal TNC agenda started to emerge in the
Commonwealth,
in parallel with other international institutions influenced
by
Thatcherism and Reaganism (the Washington Consensus).
The
Commonwealth is best understood as something like the United Nations on
a
smaller scale. It has broad, even amorphous goals, works on the principle
of
consultation and consensus, and has open processes with non-government
organization
involvement. The Commonwealth has no military force, or
coercive
power apart from suspension and expulsion.
The
Commonwealth stays together because Britain wants to maintain its
economic,
political and cultural influence in a post-Empire context, and
because
the non-Anglo member nations want the economic support they can
obtain
from Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Commonwealth is
a
north-south dialogue in motion - hence its continual name changes and the
continuing
review of its relevance at every CHOGM. Because it is a
north-south
dialogue where the northern member nations want it to
continue,
the southern member states have bargaining power. This is a
major
reason why the issues of human rights, democracy and development
dominate
its activities.
The
Commonwealth suspends or expels nations which have military coups and
non-democratic
forms of government. Cases in point are Apartheid South
Africa,
Ian Smith Rhodesia, Nigeria under the generals, Fiji after its
coups
and currently, and Pakistan after its recent military coup. Robert
Mugabefs
Zimbabwe is now a focus of Commonwealth concern.
This is
in sharp contrast to the World Economic Forum, which is an
Organization
of the top 1000 transnationals corporations (TNCs); or the WTO,
which
is an organization of governments focused on neo-liberal free trade
and
investment; or the IMF which as an international finance agency
dominated
by the US Treasury Department to impose TNC interests on
vulnerable
states; or the World Bank, which is a loan agency for
infrastructure
projects, run by the US Treasury Department also to promote
TNC objectives;
or the G8, which is the heads of government of the eight
richest
nations who meet to coordinate economic policy in the interests of
the
TNCs of their nations. The WEF, the WTO, the IMF, the World Bank and the
G8 promote
the interests of TNCs in expanding profits, and pay no attention
to
human rights or democracy. The CHOGM Business Forum is a meeting of TNCs,
much
like the WEF, and is a proper target for concerted anti-corporate
globalisation
protests.
The stop
CHOGM case
Those
arguing to blockade the Brisbane CHOGM meeting rest their case on two
points:
a)
CHOGM is the British Empire in another name, and we must repudiate its
legacy
of dispossession of indigenous people in Australia and all over the
world.
It is illegitimate and must be shut down.
b)
CHOGM is the same as the WEF, WTO, IMF / World Bank or the G8. It is
there
to promote the neo-liberal free trade and investment agenda against
human
rights, democracy and genuine development. At the Brisbane CHOGM,
there
will be a caucus of governments to force nations to vote for expansion
of the
General Agreement on Trade in Services at the WTO November
Ministerial
Meeting in Qatar, and to vote for a new general negotiating
round -
the development Round - with an expanded agenda compared to the
Uruguay
Round completed in 1994. Therefore it must be shut down.
Protest
but no blockade
On the
first point, CHOGM is far removed from the British Empire, and only
exists
because the former colonies see a value in it. Yes, it is a vestige
of the
British Empire, but so is the Australian Constitution and the
Constitutions
of all the Australian state governments. But the people
proposing
to shut down CHOGM for this reason - the British Empire connection
- do not
propose to shut down the Queensland Parliament or any parliament in
Australia.
Why not? Because it is manifest today that these parliaments are
based
on a democratic vote. The Commonwealth applies the same democratic
test to
its member states. Indigenous rights are abused in Australia, and in
many of
the Commonwealth member states - and the CHOGM is the perfect place
to
protest about these abuses. So why shut it down and deny this
international
forum as a place to communicate this legitimate protest?
It is
only in democratic forums that arguments for human rights and genuine
development
have got any chance to be advanced. TNCs do not support
democratic
forums which may regulate or constrain their freedom for the
broader
social and environmental good. But we should.
On the
second point, CHOGM has no standing in the WTO, the WEF, or the IMF /
World
Bank or the G8. Britain and Canada are the only two Commonwealth
members
that are members of the G8. Decisions made at CHOGM have no direct
bearing
on these other forums. Nations which may vote for a resolution on a
corporate
globalisation issue at CHOGM cannot be bound to vote the same way
at
Qatar. It is highly unlikely that CHOGM will go to the detail of GATS.
However,
the general corporate globalisation case will be pushed by the
desperate
pro-TNC forces at CHOGM. That is a good reason to protest against
corporate
globalisation at CHOGM and to support those member nations which
want to
maintain their opposition to a new round in the WTO, and extended
agendas
for GATS, the Agreement on Agriculture, and the Agreement on
Intellectual
Property Rights. But to try to shut down CHOGM would be to try
to
suppress this vital debate.
It would
be much better to raise these issues forcefully in protests in
Brisbane
during CHOGM to support the member nations which also oppose any
further
power going to the TNCs. Any clear division of opinion (no
consensus)
on these corporate globalisation issues at CHOGM will be a
victory
for people everywhere, and we should do our best to make it possible
for
opposition to the neo-liberal agenda to be expressed. Therefore, the
shut it
down approach is self-defeating.
There
are other reasons to object to the call to shut it down. The
broader
progressive movement and beyond us, the public, have had no chance
to
discuss together the best approach to CHOGM, and so the shut it down
approach
is going to divide the protest movement, and tend to isolate the
shut it
down group who will look like a self-appointed vanguard. It
worked
at S11; it worked to a lesser extent at M1 - another corporate
target,
but it is not likely to work at CHOGM - not a corporate target.
There
are important issues to raise at CHOGM that will be on the agenda -
democracy
in Fiji after the Speight coup. The Commonwealth needs to be much
more
forceful in its support for a return to the Constitution in Fiji, and
protests
outside about this issue should be supported.
Nigeria
is back in the fold at the Commonwealth, but human rights abuses in
the
Ogoni country and elsewhere in the oil fields continue. Protests about
this
issue should be made at CHOGM.
In
Zimbabwe, President Mugabe is waging a war against his own people to hold
onto
power. Opposition democratic forces, known as the Movement for
Democratic
Change, want to raise their issues at CHOGM, and should be
assisted
to do so. The Commonwealth has been very slow to criticise Mugabe
until
now.
In Papua
New Guinea, the police recently shot students protesting against
the IMF
/ World Bank program to privatise everything and to open up custom
land
for sale. The Howard government strongly supports that program. This
issue
must be raised on the streets at CHOGM.
John
Howard claims there are no human rights abuses in Australia, despite
the
local and international criticism of mandatory sentencing, his denial of
the
Stolen Generations, his Wik amendments to Native Title, his cuts to
funding
for Aboriginal programs, his abuse of the human rights of asylum
seekers,
his coddling of One Nation. The Howard government should be exposed
before
the whole world at CHOGM. This opportunity would be denied by the
shut it
down tactic.
All
these arguments are about the politics of the competing approaches to
protests
at CHOGM. They may be answered by claims that both the shut it
down
and the protest approaches can go ahead together. This may be
what
happens, but if so, it will be because of a lack of genuine dialogue
among
the protesters, and it will undo the movements which want to protest
at
CHOGM but not deny the heads of government the right to meet.
Firstly,
this will happen because the mainstream media, dominated by
neo-liberal
interests, will focus on the division among the protesters and
work to
advance their ideological campaign against the global protest
movement.
In the CHOGM case, they will have plenty of poor country
representatives
saying that they want to meet and that their right is being
denied,
thus echoing George Bush, Peter Costello and others who say the
protesters
are selfish people denying the benefits of globalisation to the
poor of
the world.
Second,
the security deployed at CHOGM to stop a blockade will also stop any
protests
in the vicinity of the CHOGM events at South Brisbane. This will
make
headlines, no doubt, but not about the central issues. Nor will it win
the
sympathy of the public and grow the broad movement against the TNC
agenda.
Peter
Murphy
SEARCH
Foundation, Sydney
July
25, 2001
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