Dear all,

The G8 Development Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo will be held as part of some Ministerial meetings planned before the G8 Summit in Tokyo on April 5-6. Their discussion will be focused on African development from a neoliberal point of view. They will discuss how they should increase private investment to aid Africa to promote African economic growth.

We, at Stop G8! Solidarity March in the South and the North Coalition will stage a demonstration against the G8 Development Ministerial Meeting.

In addition, we also plan a demonstration against Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) IV planned in Yokohama around the end of May.
http://www.mofa.go.jp/region/africa...

Please sing on our action.
Please send your endorsement to us:

kuroudog hotmail.co.jp

or

nag00562 nifty.ne.jp

Thank you.

Yoko Akimoto

Secretariat, ATTAC Japan

Call to support for our action against the G8 Development Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo: Stop G8! Solidarity March in the South and the North

The Japanese government will host some Ministerial meetings before the G8 summit in Toyako in July. As a part of the meetings, the G8 Development Ministerial Meeting is planned in Tokyo on 5-6 April. Those kinds of Meetings had been held around the same time as the IMF and the World Bank’s annual meetings before 2002. This shows that the Meeting has been strongly influenced by major powers and big businesses.

G8 countries and transnational companies promoted ‘development’ in poor countries, but it causes various problems everywhere such as abuse of human rights, illegitimate debts, and global warming. Nonetheless, the Japanese government the host country does not think seriously about the past failures.

Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda set three agendas on ‘development’ - healthcare, water, and education - for key critical issues in World Economic Forum in Davos this January, but he never referred to the IMF and the WB’s Structural Adjustment Policies which force developing countries to cut their public services including healthcare, water, and education. Also, he ignored debt problems which have led to further poverty in developing countries.

Fukuda officially announced that the government would help African countries to set up infrastructure of roads, power networks or the like .to facilitate private investment. The announcement clearly shows that the Japanese government and G8 countries aim to end the poverty THROUGH ECONOMIC GROWTH WITH INCREASED PRIVATE INVESTMENT..

This traditional way of development is based on neo-liberalism. It results in violating human rights for many people such as workers, farmers, or women, massively destroying environment, producing huge profits for multinational companies, and finally triggering large protests against major powers and big corporations all over the world.

African development and climate change are presented as key agenda of the G8 Summit by the Japanese government, which is the same with Tokyo International Conference on African Development (TICAD) IV planned in Yokohama around the end of May. Issues on African development will be discussed as a top agenda at TICAD IV. The councils have already been set up as a forum for discussion between the government and multinational corporations like trading or construction companies

We organize a March against the Development Ministerial Meeting in Tokyo on 5 April to express our voices, ‘Enough is Enough!’, which will also serve as a good opportunity to think about issues of the dominance of the North over the South again. This is part of our activities against the G8 summit in Toyako in July. We ask all of you to support our action for ‘another world’ without poverty, violence, exploitation, and environmental devastation.

Signed