Date: Sun, 1 Mar 1998 17:11:11 -0800 (PST)
From: Tom Condit <tomcondit-AT-igc.apc.org>
Subject: M-NEWS: India: Conference on colonialism


From: <WALTER-AT-isid.unv.ernet.in>
Organization:  Indian Social Institute, New Delhi


Dear Friends

Please find below the statement of International Conference "Colonialism to
Globalization: Five Centuries After Vasco da Gama," held at Indian Social
Institute, February 2 to 6. It was attended by 95 persons from 26 countries,
all except three from Africa and Asia. Much follow up is required and the
participants were clear that we were not beginning another network but would
like to join exisitng networks in its follow up. Among the participants were
Dr Samir Amin, Dr Gamani Corea (former Secretary General of UNCTAD), Prof.
Fatima Meer, Prof. Xabier Gorostiaga (President of the Nicaraguan Planning
Commission under the Sandinista regime and a negotiator on the Panamanian side
in the Panama Canal Treaty, and till recently Rector of Central American
University), and a host of others.

We would like to work with you and other networks in the follow up. The
papers are available with several persons in India and abroad. Unfortunately
we do not have extra copies to share. I can send you the names of addresses of
persons in your area who have the papers. A 120 page summary of the papers and
issues raised will be brought out by mid-May. After that we shall publish the
revised versions of the papers in three or four volumes. But we cannot remain
at that. The follow up is important. With best wishes


                                                 Walter Fernandes
           Indian Social Institute, New Delhi
=======================================================================STATEMENT OF THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE,  COLONIALISM  TO  GLOBALIZA TION:
FIVE CENTURIES AFTER VASCO DA GAMA, HELD AT INDIAN SOCIAL  INSTI
                  TUTE, NEW DELHI, FEBRUARY 2-6, 1998

We the 95 participants from 26 countries  mainly  of  Africa  and Asia, came
together for five days, to mark the fifth centenary of  the beginning of
colonialism in our continents, symbolised by the  arrival of Vasco da Gama in
Calicut in May 1498, and the beginning of its end, symbolised by the 50th year
of independence of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka and freedom won by other
Asian and African nations.

During these five days, we  reflected  on  the  linkages  between colonialism
and the present form of  globalisation  and  examined  its consequences on the
global South in  general  and  the  poor  and  the underprivileged in our
countries in particular. In  this  analysis  we perceived globalisation as the
 present  form  of  colonialism  though qualitatively different from that of
the last  500  years.  We,  there fore, tried to understand it, in  order to
search  for  alternatives relevant to our times.

There was consensus among us that though elements  such  as  tech nology and
communications, perceived by some as  linked  to  globalisa tion, can solve
many  problems  including  poverty  and  ignorance  if guided in the right
direction, in reality the means of production  are in the hands of a few who
have a vested interest  in  a  system  which perpetuates and intensifies
poverty, exploitation and domination as  a permanent structuralpractice. With
profit the sole motive, they ignore the good of the majority. The economic
policies of most of  the South are determined by a few countries of the North
known as G-7 and by the international organisations like the IMF, the World
Bank and WTO  that they control.

Closely linked to the international forces  is  the  local  elite that gets
most benefits and ignores the powerless  classes.  As  a  re sult, poverty has
intensified within Asia and Africa. Unemployment has increased even as GNP has
grown. This growth of joblessness too  is  a systemic feature of
globalisation.  Unemployment  affects  the  youth, particularly women, more
than others. Authoritarian  measures  to  control the growing frustration and
unrest among them, were reported from some countries. Hence, far from being a
uniting factor, globalisation results in polarisation both between rich and
poor nations and  within each country.

Foreign debt stood out as a major source of  marginalisation  and
impoverishment. It is equal to or more than the annual GDP of  several
countries particulary in Sub-Saharan Africa. Imports for middle  class
consumption and the low price of raw materials these countries export, are at
its basis. These countries  sacrifice  social  components like education and
health in order to repay their debt. The  discussion on the intellectual
property rights and the World Bank forestry programme showed us the damage
done to the environment by  these  schemes.  They deprive the local
communities of the biodiversity owning countries of the South, of their
traditional knowledge systems in the name of IPRs. Food security is another
major issue. Religion has played  a  role  in legitimising colonialism in the
past and continues to divert attention from impoverishment through a
fundamentalist revival today.

We believe that national and international changes are needed  to counteract
this situation. Bodies like the IMF, the World Bank and WTO have to be made
more representative by involving developing  countries in their
decision-making process. World trade has to  be  made  equitable. The
North-South and South-South dialogue has to  be  revived  for this purpose. To
be meaningful to the powerless, reforms in the  international bodies have to
be accompanied  by  changes  in  the  internal policies of our countries in
order to remove economic disparities  and reverse impoverishment. Alternatives
to globalisation have to be found within each country and region, not merely
at the global level.

These changes can be achieved only if there is adequate  pressure on the
national governments and international bodies, from  the  civil society such
as NGOs, human rights and religious groups, trade unions, people's movements
and the working class that is committed to the  marginalised. Local, national
and regional networking among these  bodies can be one such pressure mechanism
aimed at reversing the  process  of impoverishment and marginalisation and in
the search for viable  alternatives. Constant information sharing on these
issues is an  essential step in this search.

With such networking in view, the three regional groups  of  dele gates viz.
Africa,  South  Asia  and  South-east,  East  Asia-Oceania, identified several
NGO, trade union, people's  movement  and  academic networks in their regions.
They decided to contact the  networks  that were not represented at this
Conference, and open discussion with them immediately in order to coordinate
action with  them.  Delegates from Europe too reflected on the role they can
play. Based on  this  reflec tion, we undertake the following.

1. We will join other institutions and networks  in  our  regions,  to assess
the impact of globalisation in our countries and  regions,  and use it to make
the people, particularly the impoverished, aware of the factors that are
marginalising them. We shall join the above  networks in a search for locally
viable alternatives.

2. We shall make a serious analysis of the present state  of  the  for eign
debt and the processes that perpetuate it. The  existing  informa tion points
to the social and economic impact  on  the  poor  and  the colonial background
of the debt trap. We, therefore, will join all the existing "freedom from debt
alliances"  and  the  rest  of  the  civil society in the South and the North,
to demand an end to  foreign debt as compensation for centuries of colonial
impoverishment of the South. This initiative will be coordinated by the
African delegates.

3. We undertake to join other networks to evolve  an  IPRs  regime  ac
ceptable to the communities of the poor in our countries. It  will  be based
on the right of the local communities to control  their  natural resources.
While doing it, we shall also fight against the World  Bank sponsored forestry
and ecodevelopment projects that  deprive  millions of forest dwellers of
their livelihood and are a threat to  biodiversi ty. This initiative will be
coordinated by the South Asian delegates.

4. We shall keep exchanging information on the consequences of  global
isation in our continents and on the middle class consumption patterns in our
countries. Since food security is a  major  concern,  we  shall keep track of
this problem  as  well  as  self-sustaining  initiatives being attempted in
many countries, particularly of Africa. Other areas of information sharing
will be research being done  on  these  issues, the ongoing suffering of many
communities as a result  of  these  policies and their resistance to  them.
This  initiative  on  information sharing will be coordinated by the delegates
of East Asia and Oceania.

5. The Afro-Asian Forum for Spirituality will coordinate reflection on the
role of Christianity in the colonial age in legitimising  colonialism and of
Hindu, Muslim, Buddhist and other  religio- cultural funadamentalist revival
in recent  times  in  justifying  globalisation and diverting attention from
the impoverishment it causes.

6. The delegates from Europe  will  bring  together  institutions  and human
rights and religious bodies in that continent, that can  support the
initiatives in Africa and Asia, and join others in order to create opinion in
favour of the demands of the South.

7. The organisers of this International Conference  will  function  as the
focal point in information sharing around these  initiatives.  But all
coordination will be done within these regions.

New Delhi, Indian Social Institute
10th February 1998

                                              Dr Walter Fernandes
                                            Conference Coordinator
                                     On behalf of the Participants