JUBILEE 2000

Okinawa and Kofi Annan’s Millennium Programme

 Bill Peters

 We had reasonably high hopes for the G8 meeting in Okinawa.   A number of factors, which had seemed likely to prevent movement towards more generous cancellation looked ready for change.  Jubilee 2000’s campaign to hammer at the IMF and G8 for putting every possible obstacle in the way of fulfilment of the Cologne commitments seemed to be having some effect, while our pamphlets on “The Island Mentality” ridiculing the Okinawa Summit arrangements, with the $500 million new complex for the Summit at Nyushu at the North end of the island contrasted with the miserly results from Cologne, got under the Japanese skin, possibly arousing ideas about compensatory payments.

My own activities had been in five areas, first, and most importantly, with the Japanese.  This began in earnest at a meeting in the House of Lords on 22nd March this year.  At this, the platform group consisted of Shribbi Vadera from the Treasury, Hiroshi Enomata, Economic Councillor at the Japanese Embassy, Ann Pettifor and Yoho Kibzawa, Director of Jubilee 2000 Japan. Lord Jaffe took the Chair.  Apart from Shribbi and Yoho, the platform party made little impression.  Ann Pettifor, characteristically, took the Japanese councillor head on, and he replied in kind. Afterwards from the floor I engaged Enomata; should the Japanese not be thinking of using their chairmanship to giving a direction to the summit’s discussions; should they meekly take the customary direction from the World Bank and IMF, rather than calling them to order for their patent failure to manage the debt process effectively over 18 years.  Lord Jaffe told me privately he thought my line was helpful.

 The outcome was unexpected; a call from the Japanese Embassy said that Mr Motokatsu Watanabe, Head of Loan Aid in the Economic Co-operation Bureau of the MFA in Tokyo, would like to meet me and would come to London for the purpose.  We met on May 11, shortly after the Jubilee 2000 meeting in Tokyo, with his Prime Minister, Keigo Ulruchi, followed immediately by his heart attack and then his death; the Japanese government press release announcing 100% cancellation of HIPC debt to Japan seemed a good augury.  Watanabe was eager to clear up misunderstandings about their policy towards Malawi and Ghana, linking those countries’ consideration of HIPC status and Japanese loans.  But he also clearly had heard of the idea that Japan could enhance her global reputation by taking a positive lead at Okinawa, while being at pains to explain the domestic implication this might cause, because of the very large level of small loans across the whole Japanese population.  He departed to clear up issues with Malawi and Ghana on the spot in Lilongwe and Accra.

 My second area of activity was at the United Nations on First Avenue in New York.  Here in May Kofi Annan had arranged a Millennium Forum for all NGOs and similar organisations concerned with development, welfare and justice at international levels.  Starting early in 2000, particularly in the UK consultation for the forum, I had made it my business to ensure that debt cancellation appeared high on the agenda for the forum.  The Secretary General in March issued a splendid report for the Millennium Summit Assembly which stated: “without a convincing programme of debt relief to start the new millennium, our objective of halving world poverty by 2015 will be only a pipe dream” and he appealed to donor countries “to write off their books all official debts of the HIPCs in return for demonstrable commitments to poverty reduction”.  That message was reinforced by Juan Sumarvé, the Chilean PG of the ILO & Maj-Britt Theorin, Swedish Chair of the Council of Parliamentarians for Global Action.  We worked hard in drafting sessions at the Forum to prepare papers to be sent on to the Heads of Government for the Millennium Summit Assembly, fixed for 6-8^th September.  Such topics as linkages between debt cancellation and environment protection (I had a useful talk with Brian Rockerfeller, who leads environmental lobbies in the States about possible offsets); and the extension of the scope of the International Court in Rome, to cover hearing cases of economic crimes and the human rights of their people by state leaders.  Trusts against AIDS and such diseases as malaria were also discussed.

 Washington was the locutor for the third phase.  Here gridlock had descended on Congress, as the Republican majority was marshalled to block a bill before Congress to provide funds to fulfil Bill Clinton’s instruction in November 1999 to his official, to proceed with cancellation of 100% of debt owed to the US by Heavily Indebted Poor Countries.  Phil Gramm, the Republican leader of those blocking the funds passed me to his respected Economic Adviser, Dr John Sibra.  I said I had news of interesting developments and asked if he was aware the Japanese might be shifting their position on cancellation?  He was not, but was very interested!  That could lead to the US being left as the main, possibly sole, obstacle to more generous cancellation.  Worrying, but even so the fact remained that cancellation would not release funds to be of benefit to the HIPCs.  Hadn’t he heard, I asked, of the growth of civil society in Africa as in other continents.  No he had not.  I pointed him to the enormous directory for Africa compiled by the UN in the Office of the Special Co-ordinator to Africa.  Hadn’t he heard of the demands by NGOs cropping up all over Africa for referenda in future before large loans would be taken on?  Could this not be a real democratic check settling into the African structures? The same again with Dick Amery’s staff – he’s the Republican leader on this issue in Congress – and many other Congressmen.  In the event, a little more money was voted through Congress, but not enough.

 Next, I went again to UN in New York for the Fourth Round. Patrick Hayford, returned from being Ghanaian Ambassador in South Africa, and now a friendly right hand for Kofi Anan, listened to my account of the recent developments.  I had to repeat it to Kofi’s confidential staff, including Ed Mortimer, formerly of the Financial Times, then dictate it; and this became an element in the letter Kofi sent to seven Heads of Government before Okinawa, with a special one for the Japanese.  The Japanese say it was a good letter.

 Finally, of course, I went to Okinawa itself where David Tani, Bishop of Okinawa, asked me to be his guest.  The Christians in Japan are only about 2% of the population, but they were certainly well to the fore in the run-up to the G8 Summit, with David Tani taking a leading role.  The Jubilee 2000 Conference opened under the Presidency of the RC Cardinal, down from Tokyo; he was supported by a leading Buddhist and active inter-faith devotees.  The third night brought a magnificent service in Okinawa’s RC Cathedral; this was an inter-faith event including a bit of the  “Merchant of Venice” (Quality of Mercy), put in by a Leeds group that cycled all the way via Alaska and the US to Okinawa; it included two priests and one baby.  There were also a few ballads sung in the original language of the southern islands. That service finished with a relaxed torchlight procession through Naha City, the route was thickly lined by Japanese onlookers, who thus got a good insight into Jubilee 2000 and what we are for.  David Tani thinks all the activity linked to Jubilee 2000 has strengthened the Christian position in Southern Japan & possibly the whole of the country.

 Our Conference worked out and sent to the G8 Summit a strongly worded petition.  From our number four were selected by the Director of Jubilee 2000 Japan, Yoko Kitazawa, and the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs to go to meet the Prime Minister, Yoshiro Mori.  One was a Ugandan woman, another a French speaking Professor of Political Economy from Haiti University; then Yoko and I completed the group.  We had about 20 minutes in which to present the case for cancellation.  Yoshiro Mori gave a classic politician’s response: “All your points have been carefully noted and will be fully taken into consideration during the G8’s discussions.”   Of course they weren’t and there was no further cancellation of debt.  The palliatives announced for combating AIDS and malaria, and to supply developing markets with Japanese computer equipment presaged more benefit for US pharmaceuticals and Japanese cyber-related industry than for the poor of HIPCs.  A sad and inglorious outcome.  The poor asked for bread; they got a stone.

 But, before the G8 Summit began all the G8 countries had confirmed that they were cancelling 100% of bilateral debt owed to them by any HIPCs.  Actually the Japanese still haven’t agreed to cancel ECGD type loans due to them, but are working on the legal problems involved.  The  other positive development is that , for the first time, representatives of debtor countries (Mbeki of South Africa, Obasanjo of Nigeria, Burbeflika of Algeria and the Thai Prime Minister) had meetings with some G8 leaders.

 Motokatsu Watanabe called me at Narita Airport on my way back to the Central Island from Okinawa.  He was rather subdued, though the outcome of the G8 Summit was not yet public.  But he gave me a clear hint that debt cancellation was not going to be advanced at Nyushu.  He thought our best hope was now the Millennium Summit Assembly in New York, 6-8 September.  This was also my view.  So we are concentrating on the Assembly.  But it will be preceded by the World Peace Summit for Religious and Spiritual Leaders, to which I have been invited by its co-ordinator, Bawa Jain.  The Dalai Lama is expected to be there as also, perhaps, another close friend, Ma Yoga Shokti, the only female head of an Indian religious organisation.  So there will be plenty of known faces at the conference table. My aim is to galvanise the Peace Summit to send a strong message urging the Millennium Summit Assembly to exercise its power to demand debt write-offs.  That may be quite exciting, 185 Heads of Government assembled to mark the passage into the new millennium are not negligible.

 Jubilee 2000 also plans to be present in strength when the World Bank and IMF Boards have their autumn meeting in September in Prague.  We very much hope that the demonstrations will follow the patterns of Birmingham/Cologne rather than those of Seattle, Washington and London, marked by violence and some inappropriate action against some monuments.  Other occasions will be used during the last three months of the year.  The objective remains, without qualification, to seek the comprehensive cancellation by 31 December 2000 of the unpayable debt of 52 Heavily Indebted Poor Countries on a case by case basis and thus to provide a glimmer of hope as we enter the new millennium for the millions of poverty-stricken, near starving people, who now live in abject poverty.  We shall need the prayers and moral support of you all.