Speech of the President CAD/Mali - Jubilé 2000

 Mr. Traditional Authorities of Kita,
 Mr. Mayor of Kita,
 Honourable parliamentarians of the region of Kayes,
 Mr Prefect of Kita,
 Ladies and gentlemen of the local organisation committee of the Forum,
 Ladies and gentlemen, guests and participants

On behalf of the coalition of African Alternatives Debt and Development (CAD-Mali/Jubilé 2000) and on my own, I say welcome to the African Delegations and to those from other continents who accepted this invitation to participate in the People’s Forum in this historical city of Kita in Mali. This Peoples’ Forum is part and parcel of the African Social Forum and the World Social Forum. Its main characteristics is to be held every year on the fringe of the Summit of G 8 (the summit of the heads of states of the most industrialised countries in the world).

After the first and second editions held in the village of Siby in the deep Mandé in 2002 and 2003, this current meeting of working masses is being organised in Kita, the big Railroad City.

Why the Peoples’ Forum ?

Because the Peoples of Africa and other parts of the world are experiencing the spectacular phenomenon of impoverishment and social inequalities inspite of an economic growth and fallacious promises through some uses of words such as :

 sustainable and fair growth ;
 development ;
 health and Aids Control ...

This situation is intolerable and unacceptable. We need a real sustainable development centred on man not a development which is making victims in Africa and in developing countries :

 More than 10 million children die every year from curable diseases.
 More than 500 000 women die during pregnancy or when delivering.
 42 million people live with HIV-Aids, among whom 70 % in sub-Saharan Africa.
 115 millions children (in developing countries) do not attend primary school and 876 millions adults are illiterate.
 More than one billion people (in developing countries) that is one out of five persons do not have access to pure water.
 2,4 billion don’t have ameliorated sanitary facilities.
 More than 2 billion people get less than two dollars that is less than a thousand CFA per day
 More than 300 millions Africans live on 0,64 dollars per day that is 320 CFA per day.
 141 African children out of 100.000 die before the age of 5.
 13 million children of sub-Saharan African countries have become orphans because of AIDS.
 Life expectancy today in Africa has dropped to 48,9 years.

Ladies and Gentlemen

The situation in Mali is not different :

 Mother death-rate is 113.4 per 100 000.
 Morbidity rate due to malaria which was 31,64 % in 1996 has reached 58,3 %.
 The percentage of people affected by tuberculosis which was 173 % has grown to 26,76 % in 2001.
 Malnutrition rate of children under 5 that was 30,1 % in 1996 has reached 38.2 % in 2001.
 All these indicators show the failure of different policies planned by those rich and powerful technocrats of G8.

Who are some of the victims ?

We can name :

 Our male and female working peasants, growing cereals, cotton, coffee, tea, banana our craftsmen... Whose future is linked to the rules of the world trade organisation, the Cotonou Agreement and the Regulations of AGOA.
 Our workmen, our civil servants, victims of unjustified liberalisation and privatisation imposed by the World Bank and the IMF.
 Our wives, children and husbands, because of the obligations of cuts in the budget and privatisation of the sectors of health, education, water, electricity, transport, etc.

After more than forty years of political independence in Africa, got after panafricanist militantism and more than twenty years of assistance through different structural adjustment programs imposed by great powers, the G8 and their international financial institutions, the world Bank and the IMF, what can we notice today ?

AN AFRICA IN RUINS BY THE VIOLATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS : USELESS WARS AND THE MAKING OF INFANT SOLDIERS, AN ODIOUS AND ILLEGAL DEBT ; THE FRAUDULOUS FLIGHT OF CAPITALS ; AN UNFAIR INTERNATIONAL TRADE ; THE LACK OF SUPPORT TO AGRICULTURAL PRICES ; THE RECRUDESCENCE OF SUCH DISEASES AS : MALARIA, TYPHOID FEVER ,CHOLERA,TUBERCULOSIS ; THE SPREADING OF HIV/AIDS AND THE DISMANTLING OF OUR STATES, ETC...

Honourable guests and participants

Africa will get developed only in peace. Social and armed conflicts under the direction of war leaders and their allies, drugs and arms traders represent one of the key factors of destabilisation and plundering of the wealth of our continent.

They are more and more frequent and diverse like the cases in Côte d’Ivoire, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Casamance, Nigeria, Rwanda, Congo-Kinshasa, Burundi, Uganda.

The foreign debt is the main handicap for our communities who are on the edge of absolute poverty. According to the World Bank, the foreign debt of sub-Saharan Africa has been multiplied by more than 3 % between 1980 and 2001. Thus, it has grown from 60 to 210 billion dollars at a moment when this subcontinent has disbursed, in terms of service of debt, 240 billion dollars. It is to say that sub-Saharan African which has reimbursed four times its debt since 1980 is still three times more indebted.

In the case of Mali G8 claim the payment of about 1.800 billion CFA as a foreign debt from which the Malian population is suffering. According to statistics, although the governments have decided to reduce poverty from 63,8 % to 47,5 % from 2001 to 2006, the percentage of poor still varies between 64 and 68 %.
It is unacceptable that the Malian government continue to give away 60 billion CFA every year for an illegal and unfair debt to the detriment of social needs.

Today, this G8 is imposing us globalisation and mondialisation whose main objective is to question the place of Africa if we consider the multiple sufferings imposed on our peoples. Should Africa make do with the place of “wagon” offered by mondializers. Has not the dean Joseph Ki Zerbo answered this question in these terms ? : “Even if the engine (the Mondializers) speeds up that will change nothing in the status of the wagon (Mondialized).

Honourable guests and participants,
Face to mondializers and their local intermediaries in Africa, popular social movements will have to work out a critical and alternative look at the dominant speech on poverty control.

We must ask ourselves why the protagonists of this speech never talk about the fair redistribution of the profit of growth between the impoverished and their exploiters, and why they never talk about economic and social justice.

We must have the same critical and alternative look at the macro-economic policies (NEPAD) of African Heads of States, the AGOA of the US, the Cotonou Agreement of EU and the PSRP of the Financial Institutions of Bretton Woods, shown in our days as solutions to the underdevelopment of Africa and the proclaimed poverty control - otherwise there is a risk that the same causes produce the same effects !

People of Kita and dear participants,
The Peoples’ Forum is the alternative opportunity for social movements to think about how Africa must face mondialisation. It is also a collective occasion to say No to the neo-liberal projects of the heads of states of the G8, their logic of market liberalisation, of selling off of our public companies and enterprises, of exploiting peasants and craftsmen, of exploitation of our natural resources and their plans to maintain us in the spiral of debt, purchase of weapons.

THE CURRENT EDITION OF THE PEOPLES’ FORUM WILL EMPHASIZE THE ISSUES OF FOOD SOVEREIGNTY AND OF THE DESTRUCTION OF AFRICAN PEASANTS’AGRICULTURES ; OF HUMAN RIGHTS, AND THE MOBILIZATION OF COLLECTIVE ACTORS (LOCAL, NATIONAL, REGIONAL, AFRICAN AND INTERNATIONAL LEVELS.)

During four days, we, men, women, youngsters, and old people, are going to exchange about our local realities, make analysis and local proposals for the attention of African leaders and their allies of the rich countries so that a few decision makers do not compromise our future.

We must commit ourselves to build our own Africa instead of an Africa initiated by the G.8.

I wish a good stay and a good participation to all the delegations here in Kita. May this Forum consolidate the alternatives for the development of the continent. May this Forum be that of the victory over the orders imposed by the international capital. May Kita help us feel at peace with ourselves by tolling the bell of the unfair international economic system led by unfair organisms.

So, I declare open the activities of the 3rd Peoples’ Forum in Kita. I thank you.