FOR AN EGALITARIAN AND SELF-RELIANT COEXISTENCE
AT PEACE WITH THE PLANET
Madrid, October 1, 1994
SUMMARY
PREAMBLE
50 YEARS OF BRETTON WOODS:
FROM STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT TO ECONOMIC GENOCIDE
l. THE IMF-WORLD BANK POLICIES CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL POVERTY, ENVIRONMENTAL
DESTRUCTION AND CIVIL WAR
2. AUTONOMY AND FREEDOM FOR ALL WOMEN
3. END THE MARKET ECONOMY GROWTH
4. PROTECT PEOPLES AND COMMUNITIES FROM ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL
GLOBALISATION
5. FACE THE WORLDWIDE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS USING AUTONOMY AND LOCAL
RESPONSIBILITY
6. CANCEL FOREIGN DEBT
7. RETHINK INTERNATIONAL AID
8. ABOLISH THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
PREAMBLE
We, men and women from all over the world, have come here to defend an
equitable and autonomous coexistence at peace with the planet, and we want
to declare our firm conviction that it is necessary to construct a
different language and reality. We already know some words. We know that
by naming this Forum "The Other Voices of the Planet" we are saying that
hundreds of thousands of men and women living on this earth have chosen to
speak up. We know that when we speak the name of men and women of the
world, we bear in mind the demand for a system of freedom which allows
both genders to know each other. We know that every time we speak about
self-sufficiency, equity, or self-reliant communities, we are defending
the possibility to live, of being just and happy. And every time we point
to the right to cultural diversity, we proclaim our trust in the wisdom of
all men and women who have chosen to watch, to listen and to wonder,
encouraged by their respect for the earth surrounding them. From here and
now, we declare our willingness to prevent this wisdom from being
destroyed, so that it might be, on the contrary, the ground for any
action. There is a world to come, a world that we name with other words.
We are not willing to leave to anybody the responsibility of these words
being thought. That is why we have spoken at this Alternative Forum, and
today we have a few proposals to make. That is why we will unmask the old
discourse of exploitation and greed, and we will fight it.
50 YEARS OF BRETTON WOODS:
FROM STRUCTURAL ADJUSTMENT TO ECONOMIC GENOCIDE
l. THE IMF-WORLD BANK POLICIES CONTRIBUTE TO GLOBAL POVERTY, ENVIRONMENTAL
DESTRUCTION AND CIVIL WAR
There is little to rejoice as the international community commemorates the
fiftieth anniversary of the Bretton Woods agreement which led to the
founding of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the
GATT. The "structural adjustment programme" imposed by the Bretton Woods
institutions has led to famine and the brutal impoverishment of the
developing World while contributing to the "thirdworldisation" of the
countries of the former Eastern block.
Contrary to the spirit of the Bretton Woods Agreement which was predicated
on "economic reconstruction" and the stability of major exchange rates,
the "structural adjustment programme" has largely contributed to
destabilising national economies, ruining the environment and destroying
civil society. In this context, the Bretton Woods institutions are also
responsible for distorting the root causes of the economic crisis as well
as the falsification of social and economic indicators. While the World
Bank's mandate consists in "combating poverty" and protecting the
environment, its actions have contributed to the dismantling of health and
education programmes. Its support to large-scale hydroelectric and
agro-industrial projects has speeded up the process of deforestation and
destruction of the natural environment, leading to the forced displacement
and eviction of several million people. In the South and the East,
hundreds of millions of undernourished children are denied the fundamental
right to primary education. In several regions of the world, the brutal
compression of social expenditures combined with the collapse of
purchasing power, has led to a resurgence of infectious diseases including
tuberculosis, malaria and cholera. The recent outbreak of bubonic and
pneumonic plague in India is the direct consequence of a worsening urban
sanitation and public health infrastructure which accornpanied the
compression of national and municipal budgets under the 1991 IMF/World
Bank sponsored "structural adjustment programme".
Trade liberalization imposed under World Bank loan agreements has been
conducive to the destruction of domestic agriculture and manufacturing. In
Sub-Saharan Africa, famines have erupted as a result of the disintegration
of the entire agricultural system: earnings from cash crops for export
have fallen below the farmers' costs of production as a result of periodic
devaluation and plummeting world commodity prices. Concurrently, food
production for the domestic market is destroyed as a result of the dumping
of subsidized food surpluses by the European Union and North America.
The destruction of all forms of economic livelihood (based on both
internal and external markets) combined with the dismantling of public
services and the freeze on public investment (under the World Bank's
"Public Investment Programme") create conditions favourable to the
outbreak of civil strife ethnic conflicts and the criminalization of
economic activity.
In Rwanda, the deterioration of the economic environment following the
collapse of the international coffee market in 1987-89 and the imposition
of sweeping macro-economic reforms by the Bretton Woods institutions
served to exacerbate simmering ethnic tensions and accelerate the process
of political collapse.
In Somalia, the IMF/World Bank programme was conducive to the demise of
the livestock export economy while also contributing to the destruction of
small farmers through the influx of US grain surpluses into local markets.
Throughout Asia and Latin America, World Bank programmes since the "Green
Revolution" have contributed to the destruction of biodiversity and the
encroachment of farmers' rights. The World Bank's recent attempt to take
over all seed collections in the international gene banks further derogate
farmers' rights.
Moreover, the recent GATT agreement signed at Marrakech further violates
fundamental peoples' rights, particularly in the areas of biodiversity and
intellectual property rights. Several clauses of the "structural
adjustment programme"are now permanently entrenched in the articles of the
new World Trade Organisation (WTO). The WTO's mandate consists in
regulating world, trade to the benefit of the international banks and
transnational corporations as well as "supervising" (in close
collaboration with the IMF and the World Bank) the enforcement of national
trade policies.
In the developed countries of the North, similar socially oppressive
economic policies are now being applied by national governments. The
consequences are unemployment, low wages, and the marginalization of large
sectors of the population. Social expenditures are curtailed and many of
the achievements of the Welfare State are repealed. State policies have
also encouraged the destruction of small and medium sized enterprises.
In the South, the East and the North, a privileged social minority has
accumulated vast amounts of wealth at the expense of the large majority of
the population. This new international financial order feeds on human
poverty and the destruction of the natural environment. It generates
social apartheid, encourages racism and ethnic strife, undermines the
rights of women and often precipitates countries into destructive
confrontations between nationalities.
The Madrid Declaration of citizens' groups and non-governmental
organisations forcefully denounces the policies of economic genocide
implemented by the IMF and the World Bank. The participating organisations
of the Madrid Forum reassert the rights of people to livelihood, national
economics over eighty, sustainable and democratic development and social
justice.
The Madrid Forum denounces this destructive "economic model" and calls for
the cancellation of all debts. It also calls for an end to the
interference of the Bretton Wood institutions in the internal affairs of
sovereign countries.
The Madrid Forum also calls upon national parliaments and people's
organisations around the world to oppose in the months ahead the
ratification of the GATT agreement and the proposed establishment of the
World Trade Organisation.
FOR AN EGALITARIAN AND SELF-RELIANT COEXISTENCE AT PEACE WITH THE PLANET
2. AUTONOMY AND FREEDOM FOR WOMEN
The concept of economic progress, even more so the global dominant
occidental vision of "economy" is based on the hierarchization of the
processes of production and reproduction. This vision of the economy
conceals the conditions and the quantity of work that women must undertake
in order to ensure their survival and that of their families, which is
mainly their responsibility. This contributes to the devaluation of the
social and financial compensation received by working women, who are
expected to simultaneously tend to both productive and reproductive tasks.
The recent economic cycle, its crisis and subsequent processes of
restructuring, have exposed the extreme vulnerability of women. In all
societies, but principally in the most destitute ones, the
feminization of poverty is already in evidence.
Trade regulated by GATT and Structural Adjustment Policies are
managing to reduce food resources" increase dependency on transnational
companies, and cut: social spending in health and education. Women are
the primary victims of these policies. They are prevented from gaining
access to property and financial systems. It is even worse for those
displaced through the impact of the World Bank megaprojects. Millions have
been forced to migrate to cities or to other countries, where they
struggle to survive, having to accept the most marginalized jobs. There
are attempts to resolve the problem of limited global resources by
imposing population control at the cost of the reproduction rights of each
and every woman.
The combination of responsibility for the family and social and economical
subordination is supported through social, cultural and ideological
structures, and through many forms of violence (sexual, corporal,
reproductive...). But meanwhile, the international discourse on individual
humanrights continues to ignore these issues or dares not to expose them
due tc a systematic manipulation of the right to cultural specificity
brandished by many religious and political elites to perpetuate their
power.
The World Bank and IMF employ policies that appeal to the rights of women
and that they take their part in "progress", maintaining and strengthening
the framework of existing inequality. Economic and social policies should
eliminate the inequalities that serve as pretext for many of the ruling
elites to maintain the dominant patriarchal structures.
Consequently, to overcome the present inequality we must achieve an
equitative and autonomous co-existence. This is a precondition. The
international solidarity organisations must make this their main
objective, supporting women in every cultural aspect in their struggle for
freedom and autonomy.
3. END THE MARKET ECONOMY GROWTH
The unlimited growth of the monetary economy, the continued expansion of
consumption on the part of the privileged from all over the world, and the
continuation of neo-colonial exploitation are the main causes of the
worsening in the rift between peoples and social classes, of growing
poverty, and in the deterioration of the natural resources. The
possibility to achieve, through technological advancement and economic
restructuring, a new model of unlimited growth of the monetary economy,
socially equitable without eroding the basis of natural resources, is but
a myth without empirical evidence, and refuted by experience. This being
the only way to overcome poverty, solve the problem of labour, and prevent
the destruction of Nature is a proven falsehood. These types of false
alternatives, usually proposed by the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund, only benefit the powerful, and the privileged sectors that
are defended and represented by both institutions.
Hence, as a starting point to overcome social, environmental and economic
imbalances, the growth of the monetary economy must be stopped. In order
to overcome poverty and marginalization, it is necessary to redistribute
present wealth, intensify social resistance to the commodification of
people's lives, and implement fair, solidary and respectful alternatives
in relation to Nature.
4. PROTECT PEOPLES AND COMMUNITIES FROM ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL
GLOBALIZATION
The "globalization of the economy" is the current stage of a centuries-old
expansion process of the capitalist system. It implies the commodification
of people's productive and creative capacities and their natural and
socio-cultural resources, at a higher rate than ever before. This
facilitates their connection with the global economic spheres, which are
dominated by transnational corporations and the international financial
system. Economic globalization results in cultural devastation and leads,
sooner or later, to worsening living conditions. The process of
globalization is unsustainable from an ecological point of
view, as it causes an exponential growth in transport and the consumption
of non-renewable energies. The demands of world market competitiveness
force the nonsustainable use of natural resources , displacing traditional
uses, which have been adapted to local natural conditions.
The internationalization of the financial system is closely linked to that
process of globalization. After the processes of liberalisation and
deregulation, and the massive incorporation of technological resources, it
is the financial system that have now become a giant instrument to
globally manipulate savings, prices, currencies, and the wealth of the
world's peoples, in favour of a few privileged. The wide majority of
financial transactions have become merely speculative, with no links
whatsoever to physical, productive or territorial values. Actions
considered as illegal and liable for prosecution are undertaken on a large
scale, and with total impunity. Meanwhile, there is a proliferation of tax
havens and shelters for every kind of financial flow., camouflaged by
so-called "banking secrecy". The ideological, political and technical
intervention of the Bretton Woods Institutions-- created to guarantee
international financial stability--has been determinant in achieving this
chaotic situation, in which the risk of a world-wide financial
catastrophe, with unpredictable results for international peace, becomes
more and more evident every day.
An unfair system of international trade is still growing, controlled by
transnational companies and the governments of Northern countries and
organized for the exclusive benefit of the privileged classes of the whole
world. International trade is no longer a means to address real needs that
can not be met locally,. Rather, it has become a big business, exchanging
more and more superfluous goods from the Northern countries for less and
less goods needed by the Southern countries. This is the result of the
GATT policies. The World Trade Organisation seeks to extend these policies
to areas that are of great social and cultural importance, such as
intellectual property and genetic resources. Fair trade, which is aimed at
the preservation of the socio-cultural and ecological balances of those
communities involved, can only be developed amongst nations with similar
productive and technological skills, or amongst groups and communities
living in solidarity.
As a consequence, to insure the survival and facilitate the recovery of
self-dependent structures, based on self-sufficiency and proximity, the
process of globalization of the capitalist economy must be stopped.
New ways of social control upon the international flows of capital must be
imposed. They are a compulsory linking of financial transfers and the
exchange of goods or services, the closing of "tax havens", the
elimination of banking secrecy and the international prosecution of fraud,
and monetary and financial offences. International trade must be included
in a new institutional frame which does not regard the growth in trade as
a goal in itself. It should favour trade amongst Southern nations, and
allow peoples to freely protect their resources, their lifestyles and
their cultural identity, without being exposed to pressure nor
retaliation. Peoples from all over the world must mobilize to prevent the
ratification of the World Trade Organization.
5. FACE THE WORLD-WIDE ECOLOGICAL CRISIS WITH AUTONOMY AND LOCAL
RESPONSIBILITY.
Global ecology cannot be uncoupled from local ecological problems. The
global administration of the ecological crisis, as established at the Rio
Summit, is unable to solve environmental problems. This has led to the
gradual set-up of world-wide "ecocracy" that manages natural resources in
the name of economic globalization by reproducing and aggravating
ecological conflicts. The Bretton Woods Institutions, and especially the
World Bank, have become the main defenders of these destructive
environmental policy and at the same time claiming for themselves the lead
role in it's management. Thus, the economical globalization and the
ecological globalization stand out as two inseparable sides of the new
shape of the capitalist system. The latter intends to adapt itself to a
serious deterioration of the natural conditions of production at the local
and global levels. Should this model of ecological and economical control
and management, co-ordinated from above, be imposed, we shall witness
immense destruction of Nature, and an even greater deterioration of the
living conditions for the weakest communities and social groups of the
world.
Consequently, it is necessary to oppose this process. The communities and
peoples of the world in their full capacity must decide for themselves on
the responsible use of their natural resources. The administration of
ecological problems must be taken away from a technocratic framework and
restored to a political one, from which it should have never been taken
away. Those problems, which go beyond the local level, must be address
bottom up, through the collaboration and consent of the affected
communities, in an open and democratic forum.
6. CANCEL THE FOREIGN DEBT
Without a definitive solution to the foreign debt problem, there is no
possibility of achieving fairer international relations. The immediate
cancellation of the so-called "Southern countries debt is the
indispensable first step in moving towards a solution. A great deal of the
loans, which make up the foreign debt were acquired under doubtful
political legitimacy of the lending institutions and borrower governments.
Huge sums have already been paid back as a consequence of the debt that
governments acquired from the financial institutions of the rich
countries, through payment of interests, repayment of principal, capital
flight and in the terms and conditions of purchase of Northern products.
Many analysts estimate that capital and interest payment overexceed the
amount of the outstanding debt. Northern countries have a debt still to be
paid to Southern countries; due to the continued supply of raw materials
by the latter at cheap prices - which have been downpriced by Northern
corporations. On the whole, the available facts suggest that what really
exists is a giant economic debt from North to South, aside from other
social and ecological debts. The unconditional cancellation of the whole
foreign debt with equal treatment for all categories of debt is an urgent
first essential step in achieving equitable international relationships.
7. RETHINK INTERNATIONAL AID
Given the seriousness of social, economic and ecological imbalances
accumulated in the last decades all over the world, solidarity today is
more necessary than ever. Official aid has contributed, in many ways, in
aggravating the problem instead of solving it. Many companies from rich
countries have been able to make big business deals and to receive large
camouflaged funds under the guise of aid, with active support of their
governments. Regularly despicable operations, like arms supply and even
advisory or direct collaboration with political and social repression have
often been presented as aid. Aid is often lost, on both sides, through
labyrinth-like corruption and incompetence. The debt burden has increased
to the detriment of the most vulnerable groups, such as minorities,
indigenous communities, women and children. The Bretton Wood Institutions,
and particularly the World Bank, have failed in their projected objectives
of reducing poverty. They are only able to articulate top-down aid and
cooperation programmes which ignore the voices and the needs of local
groups.
The Alternative Forum "The Other Voices of the Planet" urges the necessity
of deeply revising not only in conjunction with intervention, which is
undertaken within the framework of official aid, but also the whole
concept of "Aid". The Forum urges the organizations targeting these
problems to study them in depth and develop alternatives. They should
stress autonomy, focus on avoiding dependency and preventing the effects
of adjustment policies from being concealed, and self-management by the
communities concerned. Aid cannot be an opportunity for business deals for
donor countries or institutions.
8. FOR THE ABOLISHMENT OF INTERNATIONAL, ECONOMIC INSTITUTIONS
For a growing number of people all over the world, the social, cultural,
and ecological aspects must again take priority over the economic one. For
them, the Bretton Woods Institutions--and their twin partner GATT/WTO--
are definitely outdated. The internal structure of the WB and the IMF, in
which decision-making power is proportional to the money contributions by
each member country, is a paradigm of capitalist ideology, that gives
priority to economic variables over human, social and ecological values.
The consequences of their interventions can be summarised in the
ecological, social and political crisis prevailing in many parts of the
world. This crisis is dominated by increasing inequality and poverty.
Nothing else can be expected from such bureaucratic systems which are not
subjected to any kind of democratic control.
It is now time to put an end to the existence of these types of
institutions. The only thing that now needs to be discussed is the
schedule and social control in dismantling the Bretton Woods Institutions.
This process must be initiated with the immediate reduction in their
funding. It is urgent to refuse every demand to enlarge IDA-11. These
programs currently administered by the World Bank group, must be put under
the immediate control of other institutions, to facilitate a rapid
reorientation of their management.
In the threshold of the turn of century, the distressing history of the
Bretton Wood Institutions should merely be an unpleasant memory, a lesson
not to be forgotten in the future.