For the first time Africa welcomes the WSF in BAMAKO Mali. We consider that it is an event of great importance for this continent battered by the worst things humanity has produced.
The SOCIAL MOVEMENTS GENERAL ASSEMBLY denounces the consequences of the neoliberal and neo colonial policies driven in Africa like everywhere else by the globalization of trade under the auspices of the most powerful countries and international organizations such as the WTO, the World Bank, the IMF and its avatar NEPAD .
This includes :
– Development of poverty, precarity and the lack of health, education, and basic needs (water, food, energy, housing, etc..), the absence of the most basic social, civic and economic rights.
We commit ourselves to support the development of social movements, for the access to, the defence of and the reclaiming of the rights for all the peoples of Africa.
– Armed conflicts and wars, maintained by neoliberal interests and arms trade on a global scale.
We defend the globalization of peace, banning the arms trade and the reallocation of military expenses towards social welfare.
We demand an end to the daily barbarism and the natural resources looting imposed on the people of the South by the powers of the North, we demand the dismantling of the imperialist military bases set on African ground.
– We also denounce the debt that continues to be a key problem of Africa, nothing more than an instrument of modern slavery and imperial domination. We reject the debt cancellation program proposed by the G8 which does nothing to resolve the real problems and perpetuates conditionalities, with dire consequences like the large scale privatisation of public services.
We demand a unconditional cancellation of Third World countries debt and the restitution to the people of the profits stolen by governing elites and a stop blow to corruption.
– The question of migrations has taken on new dimensions with the appalling treatment by the European Union with the collaboration of the “frontier” African countries. This perpetuates a climate of racism and a stigmatization of migrants by most European governments such as Italy and France. This situation initiates the criminalisation and exploitation of migrants.
We demand the right to freedom of movement of people.
– The women, on the front-line when it’s about working for their community’s survival, dress the wounds of conflict’s victims, the women standing against sexist violence, patriarchal habits and its corollary of injustice and barbary (shotgun wedding, female genital mutilation..).
We acknowledge and support all the fights conducted by African women.
– The deep imbalances initiated by agricultural subsidy policies from rich countries and their direct consequences on the impoverishment of rural Africa.
We bid for a real equity of agricultural trade relation between north and south, we claim food sovereignty for the people of Africa.
– We denounce the free trade rules imposed by the WTO and their consequences on the people and the environment.
We call for new exchange rules between people.
The SOCIAL MOVEMENTS GENERAL ASSEMBLY calls for unmasking the real motivations and the real impacts of the decisions of the powerful of the planet, for the broad dissemination of a readable information among peoples and social movements around the world.
The SOCIAL MOVEMENTS GENERAL ASSEMBLY calls to strengthen the development of social movements fights by popularizing the struggles, the victories, and by sharing experiences, to offer a real future to all peoples and allow their youth to take part in the construction of a fair world.
Agenda :
1 WSF polycentric event of Karachi-Pakistan, 24 th- 29th March 2006.
2 Athens ESF, 4 th-7th may 2006.
3 G8 in St Petersburg, Russia, july 2006
4 Maghreb Social Forum, january 2007
5 WSF in Kenya, january 2007 where the assembly will consolidate its action