[WSF-Discuss] Contribution to the WSF debate on strategy. WSF International Council in Abuja (Nigeria) 28 March-3 April 2008

[Madhuresh]

| CADTM |
www.cadtm.org/spip.php?article3130


Contribution to the WSF debate on strategy. WSF International Council in 
Abuja (Nigeria) 28 March-3 April 2008

 From Resistance to Alternatives. Historical overview
by Éric Toussaint

22 February 2008


Two large opposing trends are at play in the world today. The dominant 
trend in the past 25 to 30 years has been the pursuit of a neoliberal, 
imperialist, capitalist offensive. Lately, this trend has been marked by 
the growing rate of imperialist wars, notably over petroleum reserves, 
the increased arming of large powers, forced market liberalization on 
dominated countries, a general wave of privatization and the systematic 
attack on salaries and mechanisms of collective solidarity hard earned 
by workers. It is all part of the Washington Consensus, and such 
policies are at play not only in developing countries but in the most 
industrialized countries as well.

A counter trend, clearly still weak on a global scale, began emerging at 
the end of the nineties. This counter trend that started at the end of 
the nineties and is still very timid has its epicenter in Latin America. 
It is noticeable in many ways: the election of presidents seeking to 
break with or at least tame neoliberalism (beginning with Hugo Chavez’s 
election at the end of 1998); Argentina’s default on external public 
debt owed to private creditors from the end of December 2001 to March 
2005; the passing of new democratic constitutions by constituent 
assemblies in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador; stronger civil and 
political liberties and progress in guaranteeing economic, social and 
cultural rights; the beginning of a return to state control of large 
public companies (such as Venezuelan Petroleum - PDVSA |1|), natural 
resources (water, petroleum and natural gas in Bolivia) and essential 
services (the production/distribution of electricity and 
telecommunications in Venezuela); the lessening of Cuba’s isolation; the 
defeat of ALCA (the free trade treaty that Washington attempted to 
impose on the entire North and South America); the emergence of ALBA 
(the Bolivarian Alternative of the Americas) and the development of 
trade and barter agreements between Venezuela, Cuba and Bolivia, etc.; 
the strengthening of Petrocaribe to enable non oil-exporting countries 
of the Caribbean to buy Venezuelan oil at 40% off the world market 
price; Bolivia’s withdrawal from the ICSID (the World Bank’s court of 
investment settlements); the expulsion from Ecuador of the World Bank 
permanent representative; the announcement that Ecuador will close the 
US base in Manta in 2009; the launching of the Bank of the South.

This counter trend would not be possible without powerful popular 
mobilization against the neoliberal offensive beginning in the eighties 
in Latin America (April 1985 in Santo Domingo and February 1989 in 
Caracas), and happening periodically in different places around the 
world ever since. Cuba’s survival in spite of Washington’s blockade and 
aggressions has also contributed to this counter trend because it shows 
that it is possible to stand up to the strongest economic and military 
power on earth.

The resistance facing imperialism in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan 
also plays a fundamental role in Latin America because it is difficult 
for the US to directly intervene militarily there |2| while it must 
maintain a significant fighting force in the Middle East and Central Asia.

——————————————

We are on the threshold of 2015, the deadline for meeting the timid 
Millennium Development Goals (MDG) set by the United Nations in 2000 |3| 
With only a handful of years to go, the picture ahead is very troubling.

Clearly, the living conditions of a significant part of the population 
are deteriorating, as much in highly industrialized countries as in 
other parts of the world. This deterioration affects salaries, 
employment, health, nutrition, the environment, education and access to 
culture. It affects people’s fundamental rights too, whether as 
individuals or communities. The decline is also evident in ecological 
equilibrium and in relationships between States and citizens, with the 
large powers resorting to military aggression. The United States is not 
the only aggressor; it has allies in Europe, where several countries 
participated in the aggressions against Iraq and Afghanistan, and some 
are still actively participating today. And then there is state 
terrorism exercised by the Israeli government against the people of 
Palestine, and the Russian authorities’ intervention against the Chechen 
people.

Signs of barbarity surround us every day

Goods, services and capital flow freely across the globe, but people 
from impoverished countries are blocked from going to wealthy countries. 
It is a form of contemporary barbarity to grant complete free 
circulation to capital and goods and to deny it to human beings.

In Western Europe and in the United States, it is particularly 
deplorable to see how asylum seekers are denied justice.

It is especially disgusting to hear many political leaders, including on 
the left, give credit to the idea that we cannot accommodate all of the 
world’s suffering and therefore it is acceptable for countries of the 
North to massively refuse asylum and to collectively turn away or bar 
entry to anyone not benefiting from this right. This type of barbarity 
leaves asylum seekers stranded at the European Union’s borders. Consider 
the people killed by firearm while trying to climb over EU-erected 
barriers in the Spanish enclaves in Morocco in 2005. Consider the 
thousands of people who lose their lives trying to cross the Strait of 
Gibraltar or attempting to reach the Canary Islands. This situation is 
obviously not limited to Europe. It is also happening along the Rio 
Grande at the southern United States border.

At the same time, the concentration of wealth among a tiny minority of 
the earth’s population has reached a level never seen before in the 
history of humanity. A few thousand American, European, Chinese, Indian 
and African capitalists command a fortune greater that the annual 
revenue of half of the world’s inhabitants. This is also barbarity.

The gap between rich and poor countries is growing steadily. This is 
unacceptable.

These forms of degradation and this lack of justice cannot be resolved 
without a reversal of political course

2015 is the deadline for the millennium goals, which are far too modest 
and do not address the root of the problem: the uneven distribution of 
wealth and the private-profit motive. In many countries, we are not 
getting closer to the millennium goals, we are moving away from them. 
This realization is highly troubling and raises the question of whether 
there are forces out there strong enough to defeat the current 
historical trend.

This historical trend goes back thirty years, equivalent to one 
generation. Pinochet’s military coup in Chile in 1973 created a 
laboratory in which to try out neoliberal policies that gradually spread 
to Western Europe – with Margaret Thatcher in 1979 –, to North America – 
during Ronald Reagan’s presidency from 1981 to 1989 and to the rest of 
the world, for instance with the restoration of capitalism in Russia and 
China.

The advent of historical forces of opposition

Are there historical forces capable of defeating the advancing 
neoliberal stranglehold? The answer is yes. Some people see 1999 as the 
beginning of protest, with the Battle of Seattle against the WTO. 
Several earlier dates should also be considered as milestones on the 
path of resistance to neoliberal globalization. 1989 is important in 
this regard. First it was thought of only as the year the Berlin Wall 
fell, of course a very significant historical event. The fall of the 
wall represented the end of the sad chapter of bureaucratic Stalinist 
socialism, a version which in fact had little to do with socialism, 
itself an emancipating process. But 1989 also represents the popular 
uprising in Venezuela on February 27 against the implementation of an 
adjustment plan concocted by the IMF and the government in power. It is 
only possible to understand the changes taking place in Venezuela in the 
last 10 years by keeping February 1989 in mind. 1989 was also the year 
of the bicentennial of the French Revolution, and the impressive 
mobilization against the Paris G7 which included a call for the 
abolition of third-world debt. |4|

The second large milestone in the resistance movement against neoliberal 
capitalism was 1994. It was the year of three big events: 1 – On January 
1, 1994, the Zapatista rebellion erupted in Chiapas. This group had 
already struggled for centuries against Spanish occupation and the 
oppressive regimes that followed. The Mayas – an indigenous people – 
voiced basic demands. In the universal language of their spokesperson, 
Subcomandante Marcos, they addressed the entire planet. This is not just 
the case of one man and his force of personality. It became the 
expression of a deeper movement and the Chiapas Indians were not alone 
in their struggle: in Ecuador another group had united to form the 
Confederation of Indigenous Nations of Ecuador – CONAIE. And in 2005 Evo 
Morales, an Aymara Indian and political and labor leader, became the 
first indigenous president to take office in Latin America. |5|

1994 thus marked the uprising of native – and minority – people who 
called into question the free trade treaty between the United States, 
Canada and Mexico as well as the counter agrarian reform imposed by 
neoliberal President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. |6| The Zapatista 
National Liberation Army (EZLN) declared a “pacifist” bloodless war on 
the Mexican government. In effect, the EZLN declared: « We have risen up 
and taken up arms, but we do not wish to use them. » This was not the 
final guerilla experiment of the 20th century but rather a new 21st 
century-style guerilla process.

2 – Also in 1994, the World Bank and the International Monetary 
“celebrated” their 50th anniversary. The event was commemorated by a 
huge protest gathering in Madrid. The demonstration, called “The Other 
Voices of the Planet,” later inspired French social movements which, as 
part of the mobilizations against the G7 in Lyon in 1996, formed 
collectives of the same name |7|. The Spanish initiative united NGOs, 
movements such as « 0.7% platform » in which youth called for 0.7% of 
their country’s GDP to be allocated to public development aid, the CADTM 
|8| and also unions, feminist groups and ecologist movements. A whole 
series of movements united at this alternative summit and would later 
come together again in Seattle in 1999, in Porto Alegre in 2001 and so on.

3 – The third powerful event in 1994 was the Tequila crisis, once again 
in Mexico. It should be noted that in 1993-1994, everyone was speaking 
about the Asian miracle, the Mexican miracle and the Czech miracle for 
the countries of Eastern Europe. There was much talk about developing 
countries and their great achievements. The Tequila crisis shook up all 
of Latin America. It was the beginning of a great financial crisis that 
struck one by one Southeast Asia (1997-1998), Russia (1998), Brazil 
(1999), and Argentina and Turkey (2000-2001).

Whereas 1989 marks the beginning of mass, sustained resistance in Latin 
America to neoliberal policies, 1994 is a turning point in terms of new 
forms of resistance, new alliances and crisis besetting the neoliberal 
model, and 1999 reveals to the world in real time that it is possible to 
succeed against the WTO, a global organization symbolizing the 
commoditization of all human relations. These milestones are part of a 
larger set of struggles and social and political reorganization.

New resistance everywhere

During the 1990s, following an initial period dominated by such figures 
as Pinochet, Thatcher and Reagan, new forms of resistance began to 
emerge in different regions of the globe. A number of groups began to 
speak out and the void left by the decline of the traditional workers’ 
movement started to be filled.

The workers’ movement developed and gained strength throughout the 19th 
century, leading the struggle for emancipation on into the 20th century 
in most countries around the world. In Europe, this workers’ movement 
with its strong bastions in the industrial labor class was central to 
the Resistance during World War II, and to the Liberation and ensuing 
conquest and victory against Nazism and Fascism. But weakened by the 
neoliberal offensive in the 1970s and 1980s, the workers’ movement has 
entered into crisis. Almost the entire leadership of organized labor has 
become so bureaucratic and aligned with the capitalist system that it 
essentially serves as a brake on social struggle and radicalization. New 
unions form by breaking away from large traditional unions in order to 
mobilize, but it is difficult for them to take hold because the large 
bureaucracies place huge obstacles in their way. Within the large 
unions, sectors to the left of the central bureaucracy manage to play a 
helpful role. From time to time, salaried workers in the public and 
private sectors manage to mobilize on a large scale in spite of being 
weakened and anesthetized. This is the case in Western Europe where the 
labor movement is known to participate actively in large social 
mobilizations (in Italy, France, Germany, Greece, Portugal, Spain, 
etc.). It happened in autumn 1995 in France: salaried workers mobilized 
and had Prime Minister Alain Juppé removed from office, resulting in 
Lionel Jospin withdrawing France from formerly secret negotiations on 
the Multilateral Agreement on Investments (MAI) and causing an important 
front in the neoliberal offensive to fall. Similar cases are happening 
in several Latin American, Asian, African and North American countries.

In the 1990s, groups that up until then had remained in the background 
began to come forward. Farmers’ movements gained momentum world-wide: 
the Landless People’s movement of Brazil was founded in 1984, Via 
Campesina was created in 1992, José Bové became a symbolic figure 
following Seattle, the coca producers led by Evo Morales mobilized in 
Bolivia, and many farmers’ movements rose up in India, South Korea and 
other regions of the planet.

Who could ever have imagined, living in the most industrialized 
countries in the 1960s, that farmers would play such a key role in the 
new fight for social justice? The movement became an extremely important 
factor in resisting the neoliberal offensive, the commercialization of 
the world and the patenting of life forms. It focused attention on 
needs, particularly regarding public goods: water, land, seeds etc. Such 
needs or values were not new in and of themselves, but what changed was 
the attitude towards them, because traditionally, despite the gains of 
the Liberation and the strengthening of public services, the issue of 
public goods was not seen as an objective. But access to many public 
goods secured in the post World War II period is entirely under assault 
by the neoliberal offensive, and we are discovering the need to defend 
or regain them.

Indigenous movements are also worth mentioning because indigenous people 
are increasingly going on the offensive. In Bolivia, for instance, from 
the 1940s to the 1960s, Indian miners and their unions led the way for 
the Bolivian people. When the mines were closed in the 1980s, Indians, 
particularly coca farmers, formed a movement that was both peasant and 
indigenous. We saw retired or unemployed miners build a common front 
with the farmers’ and indigenous movement: a new alliance was born.

It is also important to mention the women’s movement, revived in 2000 
with the World March of Women, and various youth movements that became 
very active in the 2000s (Peru |9|, Mexico |10|, the United States |11|, 
Italy |12|, Spain |13|, France |14|, Greece |15|, Chili |16| etc.).

A new force has also joined the ranks, the “new proletariat” or newly 
marginalized. The uprisings in the French suburbs (that spilled over 
some into Belgium and Germany) were led by this new proletariat. They 
are not so much exploited workers in an industrial context, although 
some fit that category; but the youth of the suburbs who rose up in 
autumn 2005 are proletariats in the real sense of the term: having no 
ownership of the means of labor, they must hire out their arms and minds 
to support their families. They live in tenuous conditions and are often 
victims of racism.

A challenge : connecting with the rebels

The youth of the suburbs are a type of new proletariat who are seeking 
and finding ways they deem appropriate to make themselves heard. 
Sometimes the form their actions take is regrettable (hundreds if not 
thousands of cars burned) but it is a basic challenge for organized 
citizens’ groups and union movements to be able to interface with this 
form of rebellion. It may not be easy, but in the fragmented 
circumstances in which we are living, it is hard to see how groups 
opposing the neoliberal onslaught can truly succeed without making 
connections. In countries of Western Europe or North America, those 
lucky enough to have job or retirement security and enough energy and 
good health left for the fight (people reaching retirement age 40 or 50 
years ago did not have the same possibilities) must push for a new 
social alliance. If wage earners between the ages of 20 and 60 or 
retirees with benefits are unable to find a way to form a united front 
with the voiceless, the new proletariat, and create a protest movement 
that fundamentally reassesses society, then it will be difficult, in the 
most industrialized countries, to bring about radical change. Indeed, 
any change has always largely depended on the younger generation, 
whether they are in school, unemployed or already part of the workforce. 
In France, the youth let their voices be heard in the movement against 
the CPE (the “First Employment Contract”) in spring 2006, but they are 
also raising their voices in the suburbs.

Many revolutionary tremors have shaken the world since the 18th century

There were large revolutionary upheavals in many places around the world 
in the 18th and 19th centuries. Revolutions in France, the United States 
and Haiti had significant and lasting repercussions, in particular in 
Latin America where wars of independence broke out early in the 19th 
century. In 1848, European countries experienced revolutionary 
uprisings. Three years later it was China’s turn. The Taiping rebellion 
against the Qing dynasty began in 1851. Christopher Bayly wrote: “From 
the early days they proceeded to redistribute land, emancipate women and 
promote communities that some commentators later saw as representing a 
form of local socialism.” |17| A few years later, in 1857, rebellion 
broke out in India against the British occupier. It started with the 
mutiny of the Cipayes, local soldiers in the East India Company’s 
Bengalese Army, and lasted two years, taking very radical forms. 
European governments colluded to repress the revolutionary wave in 
Europe, London crushed the rebellion in India, and London and Washington 
offered their aid to the Chinese rulers to defeat the Taiping revolt. 
Meanwhile, no international organization rose up that was capable of 
recognizing the links between the different struggles by the people and 
giving them support.

Just before spring 1848, which saw a true European revolutionary dynamic 
develop, Karl Marx wrote “a specter is haunting Europe” which talked 
about communism. Along with Friedrich Engels and different political 
groups, he founded the International Workers Association. Four 
Internationals were created between the second half of the 19th century 
and the first half of the 20th. |18|

In the 20th century, revolutions shook Russia in 1905 and 1917, Mexico 
from 1910 to 1917, Germany (1918-1923), Italy (1918-1919), Spain 
(1936-1939), China (1949), Cuba (1959), Algeria (1954-1962), Nicaragua 
(1979), and others. The neoliberal offensive and the restoration of 
capitalism in the former Soviet block and in China severely limited the 
revolutionary perspective. But the fires of resistance to neoliberalism 
and capitalism have not gone out completely. A resistance movement 
emerged in the 1990s and has taken hold internationally.

The World Social Forum process

The new alliance that is forming is expressed in part in the World 
Social Forum (WSF), a novel process compared to the international 
leftist organizations of previous periods in history. It is much less 
radical than the four Internationals that succeeded one another in the 
18th and 19th centuries. This is due to the trauma left over by the 
bureaucratic disaster of certain socialist experiments in the 20th 
century, from gulags to the re-imposition of capitalism in the “real 
socialist” block. It is also due to the sheer force of the capitalist 
offensive that is underway.

The World Social Forum is one element in the formation of a vast, 
evolving international resistance movement. It is a heterogeneous 
movement without an epicenter. It embodies many but not all of the 
components of multifaceted resistance.

The WSF is no miracle

The World Social Forum should not be analyzed only in terms of its 
innovative and positive aspects because it has obvious limitations. 
First, as indicated earlier, it does not represent all elements of the 
global resistance movement. Two examples are the Zapatistas in Mexico, 
who do not take part, and resistance struggles in China not connected to 
the WSF. Furthermore, the notion of alternative strategy is a new one, 
and the old debate between reformers and revolutionaries is still open. 
Should we break with the system or simply rearrange it and introduce 
regulatory mechanisms and a more civilized form of capitalism? This 
debate is ongoing and will certainly grow stronger. It could divide the 
movement, which currently represents an alliance between more or less 
radical movements who share a charter of principles |19| . In general, 
there is a platform of basic demands ranging from the Tobin Tax to the 
abolition of third-world debt, the fight against tax havens, the refusal 
of patriarchy, the desire for peace and disarmament, the right to sexual 
diversity etc. But whereas there is agreement to wage the fight together 
on these points, how can they be achieved and how can even more 
fundamental goals be added? What is this other possible world that we 
proclaim with all our might and wish to create quickly so that younger 
generations will actually experience it (and not just dream and yearn)? 
This point must become the focus of a strategic debate. It is essential 
to discuss alternatives and at the same time the means to implement 
them. No effort must be spared.

A negative trend is currently jeopardizing the WSF’s future. The success 
of the global meetings, which have regularly brought together several 
tens of thousands of participants and delegates (and in some cases more 
than 100’000 such as in Mumbai in 2004 and Porto Alegre in 2005), has 
turned some of those involved into event organizers and fundraisers. 
Their vision of an alternative is largely limited to giving 
globalization a more human face. Social movements and international 
campaigns themselves, beset by debates between radicals and moderates, 
do not bring enough weight to bear on the future of the WSF. The 
mountain runs the risk of giving birth to a mouse and the WSF risks 
sinking into an endless organization of meetings.

What can facilitate change?

Among the forces of change, resistance movements are active in all 
geographic areas of the world, even in China, a country presently very 
much on the margins of the social forum process. This country is 
experiencing an extremely significant social struggle, reminiscent of 
the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries. In response to 
raw capitalism, forms of labor and urban resistance are emerging there 
similar to what we knew in Europe and in the United States a century 
ago. One fundamental difference that may make the revolutionary process 
in China difficult is that socialism and communism were given a bad name 
by the Chinese authorities who led the country up until now. Socialism 
has been severely discredited and there is an obvious lack of reference 
points and a distaste for political risk that could very well last.

But, much yearned for change can come from anywhere on the planet.

Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, protagonists of change

In terms of revolutionary change, the South seems to be more of a 
breeding ground right now than the North. Today, the most innovative and 
sweeping change is seen in Venezuela, Bolivia and more recently Ecuador. 
Of course it is important to keep a critical view and not to idealize. 
Shifts are possible, and the chance of not moving towards a true 
distribution of wealth always lurks when capitalists inside and outside 
resist strongly, and especially when there is strong pressure from 
governments in highly industrialized countries and their regional allies 
(the regimes of Alvaro Uribe in Colombia and Alan Garcia in Peru). These 
three experiences should not be reduced simply to the roles played by 
Hugo Chavez, Evo Morales or Rafael Correa, although these three figures 
are key. They have a positive influence on the process and are part of 
the powerful movements underway in their countries. But Evo Morales 
would not be there without the huge protests against water privatization 
in Cochabamba in April 2000 and the even bigger protests against the 
privatization of natural gas in January and February 2003. Chavez would 
not have become president in 1998 were it not for the enormous anti-IMF 
riots in 1989 and the powerful resistance by the Venezuelan people. 
Rafael Correa would not have been elected without the 10 years of 
struggle that toppled four rightist presidents |20|.

These three countries are showing the way because the movement found a 
channel within the government. All three governments reclaimed the 
initiative regarding public goods: Bolivia regained control of gas and 
water and Venezuela reinstated public control of oil production and 
allowed oil revenues to serve a new social project of regional 
redistribution. Venezuela has signed agreements with non-oil exporting 
countries of the region and sells oil to them at a price lower than the 
global market price. In addition, Cuba, which has sent 20,000 volunteer 
doctors to provide free health care to the Venezuelan population, has 
launched a very interesting cooperative relationship with Venezuela and 
Bolivia. It is a type of bartering arrangement between countries with 
different capacities, backgrounds and political models. Ecuador is in 
the middle of a constitutional reform that could lead to significant 
democratic progress in the country. Furthermore, the Ecuadorian 
president declared on several occasions that he is reconsidering odious 
debt repayment, and he called for an audit of internal and external 
public debt.

What is happening right now in these three Andean countries is very 
significant. Reference to Simón Bolívar’s |21| struggle shows that there 
is a desire to link present circumstances with past revolutionary 
experiences and to view the present in a Latin American context. There 
are also references more and more to the liberation struggles led by 
indigenous people, for instance the rebellions under Tupac Amaru |22| 
and Tupac Katari |23|. The African contribution to the cultural richness 
of countries like Venezuela, Bolivia |24| and Ecuador is also more and 
more apparent.

Steering the course of history towards liberation of the oppressed

What forces will be capable of reversing the last thirty years of 
history? Good examples such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador will 
combine with mobilization in North America, Europe, Africa and Asia. 
This linkage of forces between the old world and the new world could 
produce a veritable turning point in the course of history. Having said 
that, it is not guaranteed. That is why it is important for all of us to 
take part in citizen action.

Moving towards 21st century socialism

It is not necessary to foresee the collapse of capitalism or the triumph 
of some revolutionary project in order to act every day and resist 
abuses of justice. Nothing in history is inevitable. Capitalism will not 
fall on its own. Even if a new grand revolutionary event is not for 
tomorrow, it is reasonable to imagine that we are heading towards new 
socialist models involving liberty and equality. There is by no means 
consensus in the movement or within the World Social Forum, but many 
people consider it necessary to reinvent socialism in the 21st century.

While avoiding the traumatic pitfalls of the 20th century, the 
hideousness of Stalinism or of events in China and in Pol Pot’s 
Cambodia, we must bring back the emancipating socialist project of the 
19th century and the revolutionary values of the 18th century and 
beyond, because struggles to throw off oppression have been stepping 
stones throughout humanity, from Spartacus to Tupac Amaru to the rebel 
afro-descendants led by Zumbi in Brazil to today’s struggles. We must 
take into account new contributions from many fronts as well as new 
demands, and inject all this into 21st century reality. Socialism in the 
21st century is the free association of producers, it is equality 
between women and men, it is an international project, a federation of 
countries and regions in a framework of large continental entities with 
respect for major texts, international pacts such as the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, the Pact of Social, Economic and 
Cultural Rights of 1966, a series of instruments to define rights in an 
international and universal way that have been written and adopted 
during earlier revolutions. Attaining these fundamental rights can only 
come about through creative enactment of a new model of socialism in the 
21st century. The 21st century has more than nine decades to go…
notes articles:

|1| The public company Petroleum of Venezuela SA-PDVSA was created in 
the seventies upon Venezuela Petroleum’s nationalization, and its 
management catered more and more to private interests in Washington 
(declaring much of its profits in the US through PDVSA’s US 
subsidiaries), until the government of Hugo Chavez again took things in 
hand beginning in 2001-2002.

|2| This has not kept Washington and several European governments from 
trying to destabilize the governments of Bolivia, Venezuela and Ecuador 
by backing capitalist sectors in these countries who seek secession of 
wealthy territories: the white middle class in Santa Cruz (Bolivia), 
Guayaquil (Ecuador) and Zulia (Venezuela). It is important to watch this 
strategy of tension closely, because it could spread. Most media tends 
to portray secession attempts by the richest territories as an exercise 
in people’s democratic rights, even though they are led by minority 
groups opposed to social reforms seen as a threat to their sense of 
privilege and their control of power and money.

|3| See 60 Questions and 60 Answers about Debt, the IMF and the World 
Bank, by Damien Millet and Eric Toussaint, for a critique of the MDGs 
(the book will be published in 2008 by VAK in India). .

|4| The mobilizations against the G7 in Paris and in favor of abolishing 
debt were part of the campaign « Enough is Enough » that led to the 
founding of the CADTM.

|5| Evo Morales in fact had a predecessor : Bénito Juarez, who defaulted 
on external debt as Mexico’s president in the 1860s. European armies 
intervened and put Emperor Maximilian of Austria in power.

|6| With support from the World Bank and the IMF, Salinas successfully 
lobbied the Mexican congress to reform the constitution and enact 
privatization of public goods (called « el ejido » in Spanish).

|7| This is what gave the name to the Committee for the Abolition of 
Third World Debt CADTM’s publication Other Voices of the Planet.

|8| See CADTM’s report issued at the counter summit: CADTM-GRESEA, 
Banque mondiale, FMI, Organisation mondiale du Commerce: ça suffit!, 3rd 
trimester 1995, p. 42-74

|9| Student protests in Peru led to the fall of dictator Alberto 
Fujimori in November 2000.

|10| Students went on strike for 10 months at UNAM university in Mexico 
City, beginning April 1999.

|11| Student protests on campuses for societal causes and strong 
participation in antiglobalization and antiwar rallies.

|12| Strong participation by youth in antiglobalization and antiwar 
rallies from 2000-2004.

|13| Strong participation by youth in antiglobalization and antiwar 
rallies from 2000-2004.

|14| Student protests against the first employment contract and various 
university reforms. Youth protests in the suburbs.

|15| Student protests in 2006-2007 against university privatization.

|16| Protests by secondary school students, nicknamed “penguins”, 
against the reform plans of Bachelet’s socialist government in 2006.

|17| Bayly, C.A., (2004), The Birth of the Modern World: 1780-1914 
(Blackwell History of the World). According to Bayly, the Taiping 
rebellion caused 20 million deaths. In 1850, China’s population was 450 
million.

|18| The International Workingmen’s Association (IWA), also known as the 
First International, was founded in 1864 (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen’s_Association ). 
Its best known founding members were Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. The 
IWA brought together the “anti-authoritarian” Collectivists (Mikhail 
Bakunin’s international current), Collectivists (Marxists) and 
Mutualists (supporters of Pierre-Joseph Proudon), among others. 
Activists from political, trade-union and cooperativist organizations 
worked together. The First International collapsed after the failure of 
the Paris Commune of 1871. The IWA’s statutes (written by Marx) 
proclaimed that “the emancipation of the working class must be the act 
of the workers themselves.”The Second International was founded in 1889, 
on the initiative of Friedrich Engels in particular. Initially 
influenced by Marxist ideas, the Second International progressively 
evolved towards moderate positions. The point of no return was reached 
in August 1914 when the parties of the Second International took 
mutually antagonistic positions at the outbreak of the First World War. 
The Second International still exists today under the name of the 
Socialist International, whose members include the main 
social-democratic parties – from the German SDP to the Spanish PSOE – as 
well as the party of Tunisian president Ben Ali (see the official site 
of the Socialist International at 
http://www.socialistinternational.org/maps/english/africa.htm), the 
Labour Party of Israel, the Radical Civic Union (UCR) in Argentina, the 
FSLN in Nicaragua and the French PS. The Third International was founded 
by Lenin in 1919 but progressively became a tool for the foreign policy 
of the Stalinist regime. It was dissolved by Joseph Stalin in 1943 (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comintern). The Fourth International was 
founded in 1938 in France by Leon Trotsky in the wake of the dictatorial 
and bureaucratic degeneration of the Soviet regime and the inability of 
the Third International to wage an effective struggle against fascism 
and Franquism. Active in movements of resistance against capitalist 
globalization, a number of international organizations and currents 
today declare allegiance to the Fourth International (see 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_International and 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reunified_Fourth_International and 
http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/).

|19| See 
http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/main.php?id_menu=4&cd_language=2

|20| Abdalá Bucaram in February 1997, Jamil Mahuad in January 2000, 
Gustavo Noboa in January 2003, and Lucio Gutiérrez in April 2005.

|21| Simón Bolívar (1783-1830) was the first to try to unify Latin 
American countries into a single nation. Following long struggles, he 
succeeded in liberating Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia 
from Spanish rule. He is considered a true hero and many places in Latin 
America have been named after him.

|22| In the 16th century, Tupac Amaru, a Quechua Inca, and his followers 
fought ceaselessly against the Conquistadors. He was captured by the 
Spanish Army and condemned to death. He was dismembered on the main 
square in Cuzco on September 24, 1572.

|23| Tupac Katari, an Aymara Indian (1750-1781) raised an army of 40’000 
that marched on La Paz in 1781. It took the colonial authorities two 
years to defeat the uprising that had gained the support of the 
indigenous population. The Spanish occupiers dismembered him. Before 
dying, he is said to have proclaimed; “a mi solo me mataréis, pero 
mañana volveré y seré millones”(you may kill me but I will reincarnate 
in multitudes). His legacy inspired the recent social uprisings in Bolivia.

|24| See the draft constitution adopted by the constituent assembly in 
December 2007.

infos article
URL: http://www.cadtm.org

Translated by Carol Bonvin (Coorditrad)

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