Introduction by Richard Fidler
The Summit of the Group of
77 plus China, marking the alliance’s 50th anniversary,
closed in Santa Cruz, Bolivia, on June 15 with the adoption of a Declaration containing 242
articles, entitled “For a New World Order for Living Well.”
The Summit set a record for
high-level participation, with the presence of 13 presidents, 4 prime
ministers, 5 vice-presidents and 8 foreign ministers among the delegates of the
104 countries in attendance out of the 133 of the global South that now make up
the Group of 77 plus China (also known as G77+China). The Plurinational State
of Bolivia is chairing the alliance this year, and its president Evo Morales
hosted the Summit.
The choice of Santa Cruz as
the venue had particular significance in Bolivia. In 2008, this eastern lowland
city, with a population of predominantly European origin, was in violent
rebellion against the Morales government and Bolivia’s new constitution, which
for the first time in the country’s history had recognized the 34 distinct
languages and the national rights of Bolivia’s indigenous peoples who make up a
majority of the population. Sharing the platform with Morales at the Summit’s
opening ceremony this month were leaders of that separatist uprising — a
striking manifestation of the degree to which the Bolivian government, led by
Morales’ Movement Toward Socialism, has since then established its hegemony
throughout the country.
There are two different but
complementary dimensions to the adopted Declaration, writes Katu
Arkonada, a Bolivian of Basque origin, in Rebelión. The
first, focused on reform of institutions, sets out sustainable development
objectives to replace the United Nations’ Millenium Goals. It points to the
need for an approach integrating economic, social and environmental strategies
that promote sovereign control of natural resources in harmony with nature and
“Mother Earth.” The document’s proposals for confronting the challenge of
climate change are particularly notable — not least because they would, if
implemented, mark a significant departure from current international practices,
including by many G77 member states.
The second dimension of the
Declaration is addressed to the construction of “that other possible world, a
world of sovereignty for the global South, free of all forms of colonialism and
imperialism.” It calls for a radical reconfiguration of international political
and financial institutions to correspond to the geopolitical realities of an
emerging multipolar world “based on the principles of respect for sovereignty,
independence, equality, unconditionality, non-interference in the internal
affairs of states and mutual benefit.”
The Group of 77 plus China
is a very heterogeneous group of countries and governments. While many were
once colonized and all are to varying degrees subject to domination by
imperialism as a system still hegemonized by the United States, they have mixed
records (to say the least) when it comes to confronting imperialism. The group
even includes now some emerging imperialist states such as China (and soon
Russia if it accepts the Summit invitation to join). A few, such as Brazil,
have been characterized by some analysts as “sub-imperialist,” although that
concept is the subject of varied interpretations.[1] Bolivia itself has not
hesitated to participate with other G77 members in the military occupation of
Haiti following the 2004 overthrow of the progressive government of
Jean-Bertrand Aristide by France, the USA and Canada.[2]
However, the radical
anti-imperialist and ecological content of the Declaration, as well as many
speeches at the Santa Cruz Summit, reflected the input of Evo Morales and his
government, who have played a leadership role in drawing international
attention to the mortal danger to the global environment posed by capitalism
and the imperialist plunder of renewable and non-renewable natural resources.
Morales set the tone in his remarkable opening speech to the Summit, published
below — a clarion call to the peoples and governments of the world for a
coordinated anti-capitalist response to the combined threats of economic,
social and environmental catastrophe now looming as never before.
The Summit was preceded by
a mass meeting of Bolivian social movements with the presidents of some Latin
American countries, among them Raúl Castro (Cuba), Nicolás Maduro (Venezuela),
Rafael Correa (Ecuador) and Salvador Sánchez Cerén (the new president of El
Salvador), as well as personalities such as Guatemalan indigenous leader
Rigoberta Menchu and UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Evo Morales told the huge
crowd that if the imperialist aggression against the Bolivarian revolution in
Venezuela were to continue, Venezuela and Latin America could become a “second
Vietnam for the United States.”
I have edited slightly the
official and hastily issued English translation of Morales’ Summit address to
correspond more closely to the original Spanish transcription. The Spanish
phrase Vivir Bien (Living Well), which recurs throughout Morales’
address, refers to the Andean concept of living in harmony with the community
and nature, ensuring the sufficient means to live well without always seeking
more and thereby depleting the resources of the planet.
– Richard
Fidler
* * *
For a Global
Brotherhood Among the Peoples
Evo Morales
Ayma
President of
the Plurinational State of Bolivia and pro-tempore President of the Group of 77
plus China
Fifty years ago, great
leaders raised the flags of the anticolonial struggle and decided to join with
their peoples in a march along the path of sovereignty and independence.
The world superpowers and
transnationals were competing for control of territories and natural resources
in order to continue expanding at the cost of impoverishing the peoples of the
South.
In that context, on June
15, 1964, at the conclusion of an UNCTAD[3] meeting, 77 countries from
the South (we are now 133 plus China) met to enhance their trade bargaining
capacities, by acting in a bloc to advance their collective interests while
respecting their individual sovereign decisions.
During the past 50 years,
these countries went beyond their statements and promoted resolutions at the
United Nations and joint action in favor of development underpinned by
South-South cooperation, a new world economic order, a responsible approach to
climate change, and economic relations based on preferential treatment.
In this journey the
struggle for decolonization as well as for the peoples’ self-determination and
sovereignty over their natural resources must be highlighted.
Notwithstanding these
efforts and struggles for equality and justice for the world’s peoples, the
hierarchies and inequalities in the world have increased.
Today, 10 countries in the
world control 40% of the world’s total wealth and 15 transnational corporations
control 50% of global output.
Today, as 100 years ago,
acting in the name of the free market and democracy, a handful of imperial
powers invades countries, blocks trade, imposes prices on the rest of the
world, chokes national economies, plots against progressive governments and
resorts to espionage against the inhabitants of this planet.
A tiny elite of countries
and transnational corporations controls, in an authoritarian fashion, the
destinies of the world, its economies and its natural resources.
The economic and social
inequality between regions, between countries, between social classes and
between individuals has grown outrageously.
About 0.1% of the world’s
population owns 20% of humanity’s assets. In 1920, a business manager in the
United States made 20 times the wage of a worker, but today he is paid 331
times that wage.
This unfair concentration
of wealth and predatory destruction of nature are also generating a structural
crisis that is becoming unsustainable over time.
It is indeed a structural
crisis. It impacts every component of capitalist development. In other words,
it is a mutually reinforcing crisis affecting international finance, energy,
climate, water, food, institutions and values. It is a crisis inherent to
capitalist civilization.
The financial crisis was
prompted by the greedy pursuit of profits from financial capital that led to
profound international financial speculation, a practice that favored certain
groups, transnational corporations or power centers that amassed great wealth.
The financial bubbles that
generate speculative gains eventually burst, and in the process they plunged
into poverty the workers who had received cheap credit, the middle-class
savings-account holders who had trusted their deposits to greedy speculators.
The latter overnight went bankrupt or took their capital to other countries,
thus leading entire nations into bankruptcy.
We are also faced with an
energy crisis that is driven by excessive consumption in developed countries,
pollution from energy sources and the energy hoarding practices of the
transnational corporations.
Parallel with this, we
witness a global reduction in reserves and high costs of oil and gas
development, while productive capacity drops due to the gradual depletion of
fossil fuels and global climate change.
The climate crisis is
caused by the anarchy of capitalist production, with consumption levels and
unharnessed industrialization that have resulted in excessive emissions of polluting
gases that in turn have led to global warming and natural disasters affecting
the entire world.
For more than 15,000 years
prior to the era of capitalist industrialization, greenhouse gases did not
amount to more than 250 parts per million molecules in the atmosphere.
Since the 19th century, and
in particular in the 20th and 21st centuries, thanks to the actions of
predatory capitalism, this count has risen to 400 ppm, and global warming has
become an irreversible process along with weather disasters the primary impacts
of which are felt in the poorest and most vulnerable countries of the South,
and in particular the island nations, as a result of the thawing of the
glaciers.
In turn, global warming is
generating a water supply crisis that is compounded by privatization, depletion
of sources and commercialization of fresh water. As a consequence, the number
of people without access to potable water is growing apace.
The water shortage in many
parts of the planet is leading to armed conflicts and wars that further
aggravate the lack of availability of this non-renewable resource.
The world population is
growing while food production is dropping, and these trends are leading to a
food crisis.
Add to these issues the
reduction of food-producing lands, the imbalances between urban and rural
areas, the monopoly exercised by transnational corporations over the marketing
of seeds and agricultural inputs, and the speculation in food prices.
The imperial model of
concentration and speculation has also caused an institutional crisis that is
characterized by an unequal and unjust distribution of power in the world in
particular within the UN system, the International Monetary Fund and the World
Trade Organization.
As a result of all these
developments, peoples’ social rights are endangered. The promise of equality
and justice for the whole world becomes more and more remote and nature itself
is threatened with extinction.
We have reached a limit,
and global action is urgently needed to save society, humanity and Mother
Earth.
Bolivia has started to take
steps to address these issues. Up to 2005, Bolivia applied a neoliberal policy
that resulted in concentration of wealth, social inequality and poverty,
increasing marginalization, discrimination and social exclusion.
In Bolivia, the historic
struggles waged by social movements, in particular the indigenous peasant
movement, have allowed us to initiate a Democratic and Cultural Revolution,
through the ballot box and without the use of violence. This revolution is rooting
out exclusion, exploitation, hunger and hatred, and it is rebuilding the path
of balance, complementarity, and consensus with its own identity, Vivir Bien.
Beginning in 2006, the
Bolivian government introduced a new economic and social policy, enshrined in a
new community-based socioeconomic and productive model, the pillars of which
are nationalization of natural resources, recovery of the economic surplus for
the benefit of all Bolivians, redistribution of the wealth, and active
participation of the State in the economy.
In 2006, the Bolivian
government and people made their most significant political, economic and
social decision: nationalization of the country’s hydrocarbons, the central
axis of our revolution. The state thereby participates in and controls the
ownership of our hydrocarbons and processes our natural gas.
Contrary to the neoliberal
prescription that economic growth ought to be based on external market demand
(“export or die”), our new model has relied on a combination of exports with a
domestic market growth that is primarily driven by income-redistribution
policies, successive increases in the national minimum wage, annual salary
increases in excess of the inflation rate, cross subsidies and conditional cash
transfers to the neediest.
As a consequence, the
Bolivian GDP has increased from $9.0 billion to over $30.0 billion over the
past eight years.
Our nationalized
hydrocarbons, economic growth and cost austerity policy have helped the country
generate budget surpluses for eight years in a row, in sharp contrast with the
recurrent budget deficits experienced by Bolivia for more than 66 years.
When we took over the
country’s administration, the ratio between the wealthiest and poorest
Bolivians was 128 fold. This ratio has been cut down to 46 fold. Bolivia now is
one of the top six countries in our region with the best income distribution.
It has been shown that the
peoples have options and that we can overcome the fate imposed by colonialism
and neoliberalism.
These achievements produced
in such a short span are attributable to the social and political awareness of
the Bolivian people.
We have recovered our
nation for all of us. Ours was a nation that had been alienated by the
neoliberal model, a nation that lived under the old and evil system of
political parties, a nation that was ruled from abroad, as if we were a colony.
We are no longer an
unviable country as we were described by the international financial
institutions. We are no longer an ungovernable country as the US empire would
have us believe.
Today, the Bolivian people
have recovered their dignity and pride, and we believe in our strength, our
destiny and ourselves.
I want to tell the entire
world in the most humble terms that the only wise architects who can change
their future are the peoples themselves.
Therefore, we intend to
build another world, and several tasks have been designed to establish the
society of Vivir Bien.
First: We must
move from sustainable development to comprehensive development [desarrollo
integral] so that we can live well and in harmony and balance with Mother
Earth.
We need to construct a
vision that is different from the western capitalist development model. We must
move from the sustainable development paradigm to the Bien Vivir
comprehensive development approach that seeks not only a balance among human
beings, but also a balance and harmony with our Mother Earth.
No development model can be
sustainable if production destroys Mother Earth as a source of life and our own
existence. No economy can be long lasting if it generates inequalities and
exclusions.
No progress is just and
desirable if the well-being of some is at the expense of the exploitation and
impoverishment of others.
Vivir Bien Comprehensive Development means providing well-being
for everyone, without exclusions. It means respect for the diversity of
economies of our societies. It means respect for local knowledges. It means
respect for Mother Earth and its biodiversity as a source of nurture for future
generations.
Vivir Bien Comprehensive Development also means production to
satisfy actual needs, and not to expand profits infinitely.
It means distributing
wealth and healing the wounds caused by inequality, rather than widening
injustice.
It means combining modern
science with the age-old technological wisdom held by the indigenous, native
and peasant peoples who interact respectfully with nature.
It means listening to the
people, rather than the financial markets.
It means placing Nature at
the core of life and regarding the human being as just another creature of
Nature.
The Vivir Bien
Comprehensive Development model of respect for Mother Earth is not an ecologist
economy for poor countries alone, while the rich nations expand inequality and
destroy Nature.
Comprehensive development
is only viable if applied worldwide, if the states, in conjunction with their
respective peoples, exercise control over all of their energy resources.
We need technologies,
investments, production and credits, as well as companies and markets, but we
shall not subordinate them to the dictatorship of profits and luxury. Instead,
we must place them at the service of the peoples to satisfy their needs and to
expand our common goods and services.
Second:
Sovereignty exercised over natural resources and strategic areas.
Countries that have raw
materials should and can take sovereign control over production and processing
of those materials.
Nationalization of
strategic companies and areas can help the state take over the management of
production, exercise sovereign control over its wealth, embark on a planning
process that leads to the processing of raw materials, and distribute the
profit among its people.
Exercising sovereignty over
natural resources and strategic areas does not mean isolation from global
markets; rather, it means connecting to those markets for the benefit of our
countries, and not for the benefit of a few private owners. Sovereignty over
natural resources and strategic areas does not mean preventing foreign capital
and technologies from participating. It means subordinating these investments
and technologies to the needs of each country.
Third: Well-being
for everyone and the provision of basic services as a human right
The worst tyranny faced by
humankind is allowing basic services to be under the control of transnational
corporations. This practice subjugates humanity to the specific interests and
commercial aims of a minority who become rich and powerful at the expense of
the life and security of other persons.
This is why we claim that
basic services are inherent to the human condition. How can a human being live
without potable water, electrical energy or communications? If human rights are
to make us all equal, this equality can only be realized through universal
access to basic services. Our need for water, like our need for light and
communications, makes us all equal.
The resolution of social
inequities requires that both international law and the national legislation of
each country define basic services (such as water, power supply, communications
and basic health care) as a fundamental human right of every individual.
This means that states have
a legal obligation to secure the universal provision of basic services,
irrespective of costs or profits.
Fourth:
Emancipation from the existing international financial system and construction
of a new financial architecture
We propose that we free
ourselves from the international financial yoke by building a new financial
system that prioritizes the requirements of the productive operations in the
countries of the South, within the context of comprehensive development.
We must incorporate and
enhance banks of the South that support industrial development projects,
reinforce regional and domestic markets, and promote trade among our countries,
but on the basis of complementarity and solidarity.
We also need to promote
sovereign regulation over the global financial transactions that threaten the
stability of our national economies.
We must design an
international mechanism for restructuring our debts, which serve to reinforce
the dependence of the peoples of the South and strangle their development
possibilities.
We must replace
international financial institutions such as the IMF with other entities that
provide for a better and broader participation of the countries of the South in
their decision-making structures that are currently in the grip of imperial
powers.
We also need to define
limits to gains from speculation and to excessive accumulation of wealth.
Fifth: Build a
major economic, scientific, technological and cultural partnership among the
members of the Group of 77 plus China
After centuries under
colonial rule, transfers of wealth to imperial metropolises and impoverishment
of our economies, the countries of the South have begun to regain decisive
importance in the performance of the world economy.
Asia, Africa and Latin
America are not only home to 77% of the world’s population, but they also
account for nearly 43% of the world economy. And this importance is on the
rise. The peoples of the South are the future of the world.
Immediate actions must be
taken to reinforce and plan this inescapable global trend.
We need to expand trade
among the countries of the South. We also need to gear our productive
operations to the requirements of other economies in the South on the basis of
complementarity of needs and capacities.
We need to implement
technology transfer programs among the countries of the South. Not every
country acting on its own can achieve the technological sovereignty and
leadership that are critical for a new global economy based on justice.
Science must be an asset of
humanity as a whole. Science must be placed at the service of everyone’s
well-being, without exclusions or hegemonies. A decent future for all the
peoples around the world will require integration for liberation, rather than
cooperation for domination.
To discharge these worthy
tasks to the benefit of the peoples of the world, we have invited Russia and
other foreign countries that are our brothers in needs and commitments to join
the Group of 77.
Our Group of 77 alliance
does not have an institution of its own to give effect to the approaches,
statements and action plans of our countries. For this reason, Bolivia proposes
that an Institute For Decolonization and South-South Co-operation be
established.
This institute will be
charged with provision of technical assistance to the countries of the South,
as well as further implementation of the proposals made by the Group of 77 plus
China.
The institute will also
supply technical and capacity-building assistance for development and
self-determination, and it will help conduct research projects. We propose that
this institute be headquartered in Bolivia.
Sixth:
Eradicate hunger among the world’s peoples
It is imperative that
hunger be eradicated and that the human right to food be fully exercised and
enforced.
Food production must be
prioritized with the involvement of small growers and indigenous peasant
communities that hold age-old knowledge in regard to this activity.
To be successful in hunger
eradication, the countries of the South must lay down the conditions for
democratic and equitable access to land ownership, so that monopolies over this
resource are not allowed to persist in the form of latifundia. However,
fragmentation into small and unproductive plots must not be encouraged either.
Food sovereignty and
security must be enhanced through access to healthy foods for the benefit of
the people.
The monopoly held by
transnational corporations over the supply of farm inputs must be eliminated as
a way to foster food security and sovereignty.
Each country must make sure
that the supply of the basic food staples consumed by its people is secured by
enhancing productive, cultural and environmental practices, and by promoting
people-to-people exchanges on the basis of solidarity. Governments have an obligation
to ensure the supply of power, the availability of road connections and access
to water and organic fertilizers.
Seventh:
Strengthen the sovereignty of states free from foreign interference,
intervention and/or espionage
Within the framework of the
United Nations, a new institutional structure must be promoted in support of a
New World Order for Vivir Bien.
The institutions that
emerged after World War II, including the United Nations, are in need of a
thorough reform today.
International agencies that
promote peace, eliminate global hegemonism and advance equality among states
are required.
For this reason, the UN
Security Council must be abolished. Rather than fostering peace among nations,
this body has promoted wars and invasions by imperial powers in their quest for
the natural resources available in the invaded countries. Instead of a Security
Council, today we have an insecurity council of imperial wars.
No country, no institution
and no interest can justify the invasion of one country by another. The
sovereignty of states and the internal resolution of the conflicts that exist
in any country are the foundation of peace and of the United Nations.
I stand here to denounce
the unjust economic blockade imposed on Cuba and the aggressive and illegal
policies pursued by the US government against Venezuela, including a
legislative initiative offered at the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee
designed to apply sanctions to that country to the detriment of its sovereignty
and political independence, a clear breach of the principles and purposes of
the UN Charter.
These forms of persecution
and internationally driven coups are the traits of modern colonialism, the
colonial practices of our era.
These are our times, the
times of the South. We must be able to overcome and heal the wounds caused by
fratricidal wars stirred by foreign capitalist interests. We must strengthen
our integration schemes in support of our peaceful coexistence, our development
and our faith in shared values, such as justice.
Only by standing together
will we be able to give decent lives to our peoples.
Eighth:
Democratic renewal of our states
The era of empires,
colonial hierarchies and financial oligarchies is coming to an end. Everywhere
we look, we see peoples around the world calling for their right to play their
leading role in history.
The 21st century must be
the century of the peoples, the workers, the farmers, the indigenous
communities, the youth and the women. In other words, it must be the century of
the oppressed.
The realization of the
peoples’ leading role requires that democracy be renewed and strengthened. We
must supplement electoral democracy with participatory and community-based
democracy.
We must move away from
limited parliamentary and party-based governance and into the social governance
of democracy.
This means that the
decision-making process in any state must take into consideration its
parliamentary deliberations, but also the deliberations by the social movements
that incorporate the life-giving energy of our peoples.
The renovation of democracy
in this century also requires that political action represents a full and
permanent service to life. This service constitutes an ethical, humane and
moral commitment to our peoples, to the humblest masses.
For this purpose, we must
reinstate the codes of our ancestors: no robar, no mentir, no ser flujo y no
ser adulón [do not steal, do not lie, do not be weak and do not flatter].
Democracy also means distribution
of wealth and expansion of the common goods shared by society.
Democracy means
subordination of rulers to the decisions of the ruled.
Democracy is not a personal
benefit vested in the rulers, nor is it abuse of power. Democracy means serving
the people with love and self-sacrifice. Democracy means dedication of time,
knowledge, effort and even life itself in the pursuit of the well-being of the
peoples and humanity.
Ninth: A new
world rising from the south for the whole of humanity
The time has come for the
nations of the South.
In the past, we were
colonized and enslaved. Our stolen labour built empires in the North.
Today, with every step we
take for our liberation, the empires grow decadent and begin to crumble.
However, our liberation is
not only the emancipation of the peoples of the South. Our liberation is also
for the whole of humanity. We are not fighting to dominate anyone. We are
fighting to ensure that no one becomes dominated.
Only we can save the source
of life and society: Mother Earth. Our planet is under a death threat from the
greed of predatory and insane capitalism.
Today, another world is not
only possible, it is indispensable.
Today, another world is
indispensable because, otherwise, no world will be possible.
And that other world of
equality, complementarity and organic coexistence with Mother Earth can only
emerge from the thousands of languages, colours and cultures existing in
brotherhood and sisterhood among the Peoples of the South.
Santa Cruz, 14
June 2014
Republished from Life on the Left
[1] For a recent discussion of this concept, see Raúl Zibechi, Brasil Potencia,
now available in English.
[2] A common error of G77 members is to equate anti-imperialist
solidarity with political support of member governments. A glaring example was
provided by Bolivia’s parliament immediately after the Summit, when it awarded a human
rights medal to the President of Sri Lanka, whose government is
notorious for waging a genocidal war against the country’s minority Tamil
nation — strange conduct indeed by Bolivia’s “Plurinational Legislative
Assembly.”
[3] United Nations Conference on Trade and Development.
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