LL:ART: S11 -- World TNC jackals gather in Melbourne

[Communist Party of Australia]

The following articles were published in "The Guardian", newspaper
of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday,
July, 12th 2000. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills.
Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au>
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S11 -- World TNC jackals gather in Melbourne

Trade unions, environmental and other community organisations are
planning a range of activities to voice strong opposition to the
World Economic Forum to be held in Melbourne September 11-13.

It was a meeting of the World Trade Organisation in Seattle that
brought thousands onto the streets in protest last year and,
together with the strong opposition of Third World countries,
prevented the WTO from making more decisions to advance the
interests of the transnational corporations (TNCs) which would
inflict more poverty and unemployment on the world's working
people.

The World Economic Forum is bringing 2,000 leading businessmen
and other invitees to Melbourne. It will take place in the
Melbourne Casino and will undoubtedly be protected from the anger
of demonstrators by thousands of police and private security
agents. The World Economic Forum says that its foundation members
were the 1,000 "foremost global companies in the world today,
which are driving the world economy forward".

Those who constitute the Forum "are members of the different
clubs established to bring together individuals committed to
strengthening international cooperation in their particular
fields. <B>Each group is private and admission is limited in
order to preserve their peer character.""

Industry Governors are another part of the forum structure and
are "exclusive groups made up of the chief executives of the most
important companies in key industrial sectors."

Not only does the Forum pay attention to the elite among the
business world of today, it is planning for tomorrow by including
"some 600 men and women, under 45 years of age, who constitute
the new generation of global decision-makers."

Media and cultural figures are not forgotten as they play an
important part.

Media leaders are said to be "those with most influence within
the world's media groups whose inclusion in our activities both
guarantees credibility and impartiality (sic) and adds value for
participants."

The cultural leaders are "100 distinguished figures from the
world of arts" who, so the Forum leaders hope, will prostitute
their art to paint the corporate leaders in rosy colours.

The Forum says that it "is the foremost global partnership of
business, political, intellectual and other leaders of society
committed to improving the state of the world."

Rubbing shoulders at the Melbourne Forum are many of the biggest
of the big Chief Executive Officers of the TNCs and their local
political "collaborators" -- John Howard, Peter Costello,
Alexander Downer, Bob Carr, Richard Alston, John Fahey and Ian
Macfarlane (Governor of the "independent" Reserve Bank of
Australia).

Among the celebrities are numbered Microsoft's Bill Gates who has
been charged with corporate mal-practice by a US Court.

The Forum claims that its strength lies in the strength of its
"communities". The reference to "communities" has nothing to do
with the people who walk the streets, or do the work in offices,
shops and enterprises.

"Communities" means the business communities who have a common
interest in keeping the overwhelming majority in society "in
their place" as meekly compliant wage-labourers to be exploited
and cast aside whenever they can no longer be useful.

Activities

A range of activities are in the course of preparation to voice
opposition to the agenda of the World Economic Forum.

In Melbourne, forums, rallies, vigils, pickets and street
demonstrations are being planned. Various organisations including
the Victorian Trades Hall Council are involved.

In Adelaide the United Trades and Labor Council is planning to
hire buses to carry participants to Melbourne.

Perth has an S11 committee.

In Sydney the Communist Party of Australia is preparing to hire a
bus and it is to be hoped that student organisations will also
participate.

There will be a diversity of interests and organisations, all of
whom have common interests in opposing the anti-people agenda of
the big corporations.

The demands being made by protesting groups include the
cancellation of all IMF and World Bank debt; the democratisation
of these organisations; the reversal of government policies
attacking trade union rights; the imposition of binding
environmental codes on the TNCs; cancellation of laws
discriminating against Third World countries; the implementation
of a democratic and fair trade system which is to the mutual
benefit of all countries; full payment for working people for the
work they do.

Through this Forum, world capitalism, whose image has been
undermined by the universal poverty, unemployment, wars,
environmental devastation its programs have brought about, is
attempting to put a "human face" on its real avaricious and
bestial character.

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