BY SARAH PEART
MELBOURNE — Demands to cancel Third World debt and abolish multilateral institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organisation will feature prominently in M1 Alliance publicity for the May 1 blockade of the city's stock exchange.
M1 Alliance activist and Resistance member Federico Fuentes believes the decision, made at an alliance meeting attended by 45 activists on February 28, is "crucial for the movement to popularise the anti-corporate agenda".
He points out that the United Nations Development Program's Human Development Report 2000 estimates that the Third World's debt reached US$2 trillion in 1998, and that the IMF and World Bank make both future loans and debt relief dependent on the implementation of "structural adjustment programs" that exacerbate poverty and inequality be enforcing privatisation, cuts to social spending and other neo-liberal measures.
"We can only reverse this situation by demanding the immediate cancellation of all Third World debt", he argued.
The three other demands on the alliance's poster will be "Open the borders, close the detention centres, free the refugees"; "People and planet — not profit" and "Abolish anti-union laws — defend the right to organise".
Fuentes also backs the alliance's decision to make pro-refugee demands prominent, saying "The movement needs to make the point that while corporate tyranny and neo-liberal policies are global, the movement of people is increasingly restricted as First World governments tighten their immigration controls to keep out the millions of people desperately fleeing condidions of poverty, exploitation and war — the very conditions forced upon them by these same governments."
Felicity Martin, a member of the Democratic Socialist Party and part of the M1 Alliance's trade union liasion group said the alliance will be highlighted pro-union demands so as to "make sure that at M1 the anti-worker record of corporate bullies such as Rio Tinto and BHP will be exposed across the country. Similarly we will be highlighting the blatant disregard these corporate heavies have for the environment and the rights of indigenous people."