Were you in Birmingham on 16th May 1998? |
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Were you in Birmingham on 16th May 1998? |
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An astonishing 70,000 Jubilee 2000 supporters – of all ages and from all walks of life - formed a Human Chain around Birmingham City Centre on Saturday 16th May. It was a day that exceeded all our expectations and put debt firmly on the political map. The sheer numbers, the colour, the speakers, the creativity of participants was inspiring.
We knew on the Friday that at least 35,000 people were coming. On Saturday, by 10am, the city was already buzzing with people arriving off trains and buses. Stewards had to cope with over 400 coaches arriving during the morning at 4 drop-off points around the city. Specially booked trains came from London, Leeds and Nottingham and a vintage train from Scotland. The train from Nottingham had to be booked at the last minute when the train company suddenly realised how many people were going down to Birmingham. Many regional coalitions had to book extra coaches in the last week as people decided to come; other groups talked about getting responses from areas and people who had never been on a political rally before. One example was Judith Gibson from Macclesfield: "I organized 2 coachloads of Macclesfield folks to take part in the chain. Rousing 100 people from such a small, conservative Northern town was little short of miraculous and shows the potential of the debt issue to strike a chord across a variety of organizations. We had Justice and Peace, Oxfam, Christian Aid, Quaker folk +individuals for whom this was their first active contact with world issues."
People also came by unusual means of transport. Dr Jenny Parsons arrived in a coracle; Bill Phelps from Leeds came by a cycle rickshaw, a group from Hertfordshire came up in a flotilla of barges. There were 5 walks over 4 days from all corners of the West Midlands – all together 400 people arrived in Ladywood Community Centre. They were followed by local radio and television shows and papers. As they neared the centre, trains waiting to enter New Street, packed with supporters in red, greeted them.
There were also groups from Germany, Finland, Norway, Sweden, United States, Ghana, India, Tanzania, Spain, Kenya and Japan. Many other nationalities were present – travelling up with British groups.
St Martin’s, Bull Ring
The church was completely packed throughout the morning - over 2000 people were inside and outside in the sunshine the speakers were relayed on public address system to a packed market square. Michael Taylor, chair of the meeting, said it was the first time he had seen a church so full – and that perhaps it had lessons for the churches. All the speakers were received very positively as, in their different ways, they explained, often passionately, why the unpayable debts of the poorest countries mattered to them, why they were unjust and what needed to be done about them. 25 speakers were all given a very careful hearing. They included MPs of all the main political parties, trade union leaders, church leaders, directors of aid and development agencies. Some of the most memorable were strong women and men from Africa and Asia describing the consequences of debt for the people of their countries and the spirited ways in which those same people were joining the Jubilee 2000 campaign. Several speakers referred to the absence of the G8 leaders (and some prominent church leaders!) from Birmingham but there were cheers all round when Ann Pettifor, Director of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, came to tell the meeting that Tony Blair would return in the early evening in order to meet representatives of the coalition. Ann also got an ovation from the crowd for her splendid work and leadership as Director, as did Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development. Her speech was uncharacteristically lacklustre and whilst supporting the campaign (and joining the chain at 3.00pm) her references to government policy did little to persuade the crowd that much was about to change. Indeed Ed Mayo, the coalition’s Chair, said there and then that it was ‘deeply disappointing’. Exchanges followed between the two of them which some felt would have been better kept for another time whilst others appreciated as illustrating just how much more negotiating, lobbying, persuading and campaigning remained to be done. The crowd left for the chain in a sunny but determined mood to the music of Redemption Song sung by the Kingdom Choir. Despite only two short breaks in over 4 hours there were no signs of weariness. Quite the opposite. The crowd had learned much and had been inspired.
St Chad’s
Report from Barbara Crowther (CAFOD): "It was a truly inspiring day - our overseas partners (we had some from Germany, Japan, US as well as Africa) were both impressed and moved by the whole event. Mulima almost broke down at one point as she received a 10 minute standing ovation! We estimate that at least 3500 were at the CAFOD event at St Chad's - we filled the Cathedral twice with 1200 people and had to close the doors to hundreds more. We had about 1000 people listening to a tape of the first session in the car park during the second session."
CAFOD director Julian Filochowski told the crowd they were part of "a jubilee crusade".
"Our presence," he said, "is a witness, a message to our political leaders of the deep-seated, real hope, yearning in our country and beyond for a radical millennium gesture for a generous, meaningful and speedy debt cancellation. We want to give a new start to a billion of the world's poorest people as the new millennium begins.
"They did not listen this time, but they won't be able to ignore it forever," said Julian Filochowski. We'll stick tenaciously with the debt issue all the way to the next G8 meeting in Cologne in 1999 and beyond."
The P8, St Philips
As the G8 leaders met at there countryside hideaway, supporters in Birmingham had the chance to hear from representatives of eight poor indebted countries in an alternative "P8" summit held in St Philips Cathedral in the centre of Birmingham.
The eight Christian Aid overseas partners gave examples from their own experience of how debt was effecting people in their own countries. They spoke of insufficient health care, the lack of educational opportunities and the deep frustration of not being able to provide even the basic needs for young
and struggling populations. Clare Short responded by acknowledging the need for greater and faster relief, but still seemed to fall back on the HIPC initiative as the best that was on offer. The whole event was broadcast outside to a huge crowd in the square.
Workshop on Debt, Burlington Hotel
Joseph Hanlon, Jubilee 2000 Policy Advisor, gave a brief history of debt, tracing the similarities of the current debt crisis to the debts of leaders and countries in the past. He referred to the debts run up by English kings to finance their war campaigns, which they then refused to pay, through to the debts of Germany cancelled by the Allies after the Second World War. The message was "we've been here before", and there are clear precedents for debt cancellation.
John Garrett, Jubilee 2000 Senior Researcher, then gave an introduction to the World Bank, the IMF and the current programme for debt relief, the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries Initiative. He listed the 41 countries involved in the programme, only 8 of which are outside of sub-Saharan Africa. He said that the programme was welcome in that it considered all forms of external debt, but it was far too cautious both in the time scale and the depth of debt relief granted. He then referred to the proposal for an international insolvency clause. Austrian economist Professor Kunibert Raffer argues powerfully that this would be a key step to preventing future debt crises developing.
The workshop started with 10 or so eager students and finished with about 40. Many questions followed, exploring the impact of debt and the lack of money available for health and education spending. Joe Hanlon finished the session by giving an insight into the paltry benefits received by Mozambique under the HIPC programme.
International Debt, St Germain’s Church – Tearfund
Tearfund’s main event was a great success with over 600 people attending – despite its location in Edgbaston. Speakers were very well received and according to Graham Gordon the event recruited many new Tearfund supporters to campaigning. The other two Tearfund events were not so well attended – because they were not adequately advertised and too far out of Birmingham city centre.
Racism and Debt: the legacy of colonialism – National Assembly Against Racism
The meeting was very well attended - by over 400 people – and there was some good discussion. Kumar Murshid and Lee Jasper spoke.
Third World First Action and Participation
Jess Worth: "On Saturday morning at 11:30 we did a press stunt outside St Philip's Cathedral, dressed up as a chain-gang of 20 slaves, manacled by the neck, each representing a different indebted country. The slaves were led, yelled at, whipped and generally abused by three evil western bankers in pin-striped suits and bowler hats, brandishing whips and copies of the Financial Times. We were filmed by at least three camera crews and appeared as the first image on the local BBC news.
Then around 700 students gathered at Aston University, the vast majority dressed as slaves attached by a huge variety of chains - plastic, paper, cardboard, multicoloured, balloon, tin-foil etc - and we all walked to our part of the chain making the most incredible amount of noise (that got on the news too.)
We gathered for the 3pm linking hands bit, and then stuck around making loads of noise and dancing a lot. Then, at about 3:30, loads of police started arriving and trying to clear space for the Japanese President, who wanted to come back to his hotel. A big group of us crowded round the Holiday Inn just as the President arrived with his entourage. We all chanted and danced and banged drums, so I'm sure he got the message – especially as we got on Japanese TV!"
Jewish Shabbat service and participation
Vicky Joseph: "We were a group of 22 Reform and Liberal Jews from London, Manchester, Birmingham, Nottingham, and Kingston including 2 rabbis, the Chairman of Reform Judaism and a number of youth leaders. We met at Birmingham Progressive Synagogue for a Shabbat morning service and then after lunch joined our place in the chain just past the Peace Gardens. We had brought two shofars (the ram's horn that is traditionally blown in synagogue on the new year) which, as well as making a tremendous noise, was the source of much interest amongst our neighbours in the chain.
Whatever the outcome of the talks there was a wonderful atmosphere in Birmingham on Saturday. An unusually good feeling in our dysfunctional world that so many people care enough about an issue that doesn't affect them personally. We were proud as Jews to be a part of it. May we go from strength to strength."
Barbara Crowther (Sector D): " Even the very derelict and uninspiring streets where some of our supporters formed their chain was completely transformed at 3pm. The atmosphere and mood was truly exceptional - we didn't see a police officer all day in our sector!"
John Garrett (Sector F): "There was a fantastic atmosphere. At 3pm, one policeman even joined in by blowing his whistle."
Nick Buxton (Sector A and B): "I ran along the chain for two miles to deliver some banners in different languages to the international section of the chain. I passed gospel choirs, doctors dressed in surgeon outfits, students, dreadlocked crusties and church congregations. There were masses of banners, painted faces, samba drums. From the international part of the chain, you could see a constant thick stream of people all the way down the street, over a long pedestrian bridge and down the other side. At 3pm a wall of sound erupted along the chain forcing out spontaneous noises from cars and coaches on the road. At 3.20pm , our chain dissolved into a spontaneous ceilidh dance led by some kilted Scots."
Bishop John Davies (Sector J): "I got caught up with a group of about 16 Bishops… we walked around about half the chain ending up at St Philip’s Cathedral, where Clare Short received boxes of petitions representing many different countries. This procession was an extraordinary experience. As we walked we were greeted all along with deafening cheering, whistles, drums, rattles, as if we were a winning football team…At Birmingham, thousands of people had caught a straight simple enthusiasm for a straight simple idea: whatever the complications and difficulties, it is intolerable to allow the present arrangements of unpayable debt to continue"
Judith Gibson (Macclesfield Group) "On arrival half of us went off to pre-chain meetings while the other half formed our chain gang, headed by an imposing guy in funereal dress, banging a huge drum with one hand and holding his chain of slaves in the other. The slaves carried and wore placards and did their best to look repressed and miserable, but it was hard with the sun shining and everyone licking lollipops.
We headed for the centre of the city and ended up in the public space with the globe and flesh coloured sculptures, where we attracted a great deal of attention. Indeed I looked round at one point to find our group augmented by a further 1/200 people who evidently thought us some official protest march."
At 2.30pm eight Birmingham schoolchildren left Carrs Lane Church Centre to walk around the chain to the petition handover outside St Philip’s Cathedral, each carrying a box of petitions and representing a G8 country. They were accompanied by a town crier and a host of bishops, and were greeted with huge cheers from everyone spread out along the chain. At 3.15pm they arrived to hand over the petition (a total of 1.5 million signatures) to Clare Short, Secretary of State for International Development, representing the G8 Summit. She spoke of how the Human Chain was about more than debt relief, it was a symbol against the ‘selfishness of the ‘80s and ‘90s’. Ann Pettifor thanked the 70,000 people present, and called this "a day for the people".
A full version of the G8's response to the Jubilee 2000 Petition is available on the G8 Summit site.
MEETING WITH THE PRIME MINISTER
Following an earlier insistence from government that he would not be able to see us or receive the Jubilee 2000 petition, Tony Blair asked at the last minute to meet with Ann Pettifor, the Director of the Jubilee 2000 Coalition, and three colleagues. This 25-minute meeting took place in the Hyatt hotel at 6.10pm on Saturday, after the Prime Minister returned early from his meeting with the other G8 leaders at Weston Park in Staffordshire.
The Prime Minister indicated that discussions with G8 colleagues had gone very well, and that they had made what he called "surprising progress" on the debt issue.
Jubilee 2000 Coalition raised a number of issues to the Prime Minister:
- The shortcomings of the current HIPC Initiative, and concerns about the Chancellor’s "Mauritius Mandate"
- The possibility of a partnership with government in promoting the need for deeper and speedier debt relief within the G8 and other fora
- Disappointment with the HIPC initiative outcomes in both Uganda and Mozambique, where actual debt service payments after the initiative are expected to be much the same as before.
In response to this and concerns that Guyana’s debt service obligations had fallen only marginally after HIPC, the Prime Minister turned to his adviser and said, "this is not meant to happen, surely?" However, the Prime Minister gave a fairly upbeat account of the developments of the day. He felt things had gone well and that there had been less resistance than had been expected.
As he left, Mr. Blair said that for the past three Sundays his vicar had preached on the theme of Jubilee, and that it had therefore been very difficult to avoid becoming aware of the Jubilee 2000 campaign.
THE COMMUNIQUÉ AND POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS
The G8 leaders’ statement on debt in Sunday’s summit communiqué was a disappointment, following Saturday’s extraordinary events. However the detail of the communiqué failed to highlight some significant developments at the G8 Summit.
1.Tony Blair took the issue of debt seriously.
The real achievement was to get Tony Blair to leave his guests, the leaders of the most powerful countries in the world, on Saturday afternoon to discuss the issue of debt with a delegation from Jubilee 2000 Coalition. Up until this week the British Prime Minister had remained very silent on the issue, leaving government policy and pronouncements to Gordon Brown and Clare Short. However, the issue of debt dominated Prime Minister’s question time after the summit, and Tony Blair made some promising statements.He showed that he is personally committed to the principle of debt relief, and sees benefits to the UK in the process as well:
"Our view is that the most persuasive case for more debt relief is that it is only when those countries can escape the burden of their debt that they are able to develop economically. That is not a zero-sum game in which they gain and we lose; on the contrary, it is a game in which we can both win."
He gave a clear indication that progress had been made at the summit, but he admitted some personal disappointment that more had not been achieved:
"the debt relief package…has not been pushed forward as much as it should be, but it has been moved forward. We are not, however, satisfied by those steps. ...I am in no doubt that we must do more."
2. Agreement on debt relief for post-conflict countries.
All eight countries agreed that measures should be taken to improve the debt relief given to post-conflict countries, those that have recently undergone a period of war or civil war. There will be an announcement on this at the September meetings of the World Bank and IMF, and a recent speech by Michel Camdessus, managing director of the IMF, explicitly referred to Congo (Brazzaville) and Angola.3. All eight countries of the G8 have now signed up to the commitments of Gordon Brown’s Mauritius Mandate. This is the speech made at the end of last year which calls for about 20 poor countries to be in the process for receiving debt relief by the year 2000.
In addition to these main developments, there was acceptance of the need to cancel aid related bilateral debts, to ensure that future grant aid was not tied to specific projects and that aid should be used for "productive" purposes only. Investment in education, health and infrastructure would clearly count as productive, spending on consumption, prestige projects or unjustified armaments would not. Finally, the communiqué committed the G8 to replenishing the African Development Bank and the International Development Association (that part of the World Bank that makes concessional loans to the least developed countries).
There do however remain areas for concern:
- The leaders agree to support the extension of debt relief to more countries only "within the terms of the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) initiative". They are unwilling to consider going beyond the HIPC initiative, despite the clear evidence that this excludes too many countries and delivers very little – if anything – in new resources that can be shifted from debt service to education and health. IMF figures show that in Mozambique’s case, the new resources released by HIPC amount to 27 pence per person per year.
- The G8 share responsibility for the build-up of unpayable debt – but in the communiqué they make clear that they will not share responsibility for solving the problem. Instead they insist that debtor countries must "take the policy measures needed to embark on the [HIPC] process as soon as possible". By refusing to take any pro-active measures of their own, they are washing their hands of the problem. The G8 are looking for an excuse to blame developing countries for their failure to escape from debt.
For a full version of the final communiqué, go to the G8 Summit site.
National
"What is needed as Jubilee 2000 advocates is a Big bang of debt repayment comparable to the historic ones of recent history (like post-war Germany and America’s forgiveness of British debt in the 1930s)" Guardian, 15th May 1998
Summit has poverty on lunch menu- News of the World, May 17th 1998
50,000 join hands for world’s poor; People’s power demo steals the G8 show; G8- all mouth and no morals, Meet the Debt Busters – Headlines, Independent on Sunday, 17th May 1998
- "Church bells rang, whistles blew and some 50,000 people clasped hands yesterday in the biggest display of British solidarity with the poorest countries of the world since Live Aid."
- "The dead hand of summitry consensus lies especially heavily on the urgent task of relieving the debts of the developing countries"
50,000 shout for debt to be ended – Headline, Guardian May 18th 1998
G8 fails victims of third world debt – Editorial headline, Independent, May 18th 1998
Rich nations snub pleas of the poor – Headline, Independent, May 18th 1998
Thousands call for end to debt – Headline, Morning Star, 18th May 1998
G8 leaders tackle the debt burden on Third World – Headline, The Telegraph, 18th May 1998
- "The chain succeeded in paralysing Birmingham and drew Tony Blair back early from his retreat with his fellow G8 leaders at a country house 20 miles outside the city"
Forgive them their debts - Editorial, Telegraph, 18th May 1998
- "The approaching millennium does offer the group of leading industrialised countries, all but one of which has a long Christian tradition, the chance of making a dramatic and generous move toward lifting the burden of debt. At Birmingham that opportunity was sadly missed."
Power to the Chain gang – Headline, Birmingham Post, 18th May 1998
- "People power finally proved to be a potent force last weekend, although it would be true to say the idea has been germinating for some time. Band Aid and Live Aid led by Saint Bob in the 1980s was fun and the countryside’s descent in wellies on London earlier this year was literally a walk in the park. But Jubilee 2000 Coalition’s human chain around the centre of Birmingham calling for the cancellation of Third World Debt on Saturday was the real thing."
International
Reports in Thai The Nation – G8 leaders back debt relief for poorer countries, May 18th 1998
- "The (HIPC) initiative falls far short of the demands of an estimated 50,000 protestors form the Jubilee 2000 Coalition who gathered in Birmingham on Saturday to demand the cancellation of all Third World Debt by 2000"
Hong Kong South China Morning Post – British bid to forgive debts of poorest countries falls short, May 18th 1998
- "Despite protests and demonstrations outside the main meeting hall of the G8, and even an 11-kilometre chain signifying their belief in allowing greater debt forgiveness, the G8’s final statement made no mention of a concerted action to ease difficulties"
New Zealand The Dominion – Summit leaders give time to world issues, May 18th 1998
- "Downtown, 50,000 demonstrators ringed the city centre and the leaders’ empty conference centre to demand that the richest countries cancel the debts owed by the poorest countries. Protest organisers complained that they had been told only at the last moment that the leaders would be elsewhere"
New Zealand The Evening Post – G8 leaders push for debt relief, May 18th 1998
- "World leaders ended their annual Group of Eight summit today by announcing agreement in principle to ease the debt burden on some of the planet’s poorest nations and voicing confidence in Asia’s economic recovery. But their pledge to support a "speedy and determined" extension of debt relief for the world’s poorest countries fell short of the sweeping debt forgiveness demanded by tens of thousands of anti-poverty campaigners who had earlier linked hands in a human chain around the conference centre."
New York Times – Rich leaders turn eye to crime and debt, May 17th 1998
- "As the leaders met today in the 17th Century manor at Weston Park ... thousands of protestors encircling the convention center in central Birmingham, that is the Summit meeting’s headquarters, demanding more action by rich nations to relieve the poorest countries of their debts."
Washington Post – G8 leaders debate debt cancellation; demonstrators demand that rich nations let poor countries off the hook, May 17th 1998
- "As 10,000 hands linked in a noisy, high-spirited human chain of demonstrators chanting "Cancel the Debt", the leaders of the world’s major industrial nations grappled here today with a painful anomaly: The world’s poorest countries have to pay millions of dollars each year to the richest. And these payments cover only the interest due on the massive debt run up by the developing world. The total amount owed by Third World Countries has been estimated at more than $2 trillion. The duty to pay falls on governments that frequently can’t find the funds to provide food, housing or healthcare for their citizens. The thousands of demonstrators swarming over Birmingham this weekend ... have reduced this issue to a straightforward demand. Under the banner Jubilee 2000, they call for cancelling all Third World Debt by the millennium. The movement, a coalition of church groups, labor unions and activists, takes its name from the Old Testament custom of forgiving debts and freeing slaves in a "jubilee" every 50 years. It has achieved considerable visibility in Europe but is barely a blip on the screen in the United States"
Agence France Presse – Thousands trumpet their debt relief to G8 leaders, May 16th 1998
- "Tens of thousands of people formed a nine-kilometre chain around the centre of Birmingham on Saturday to press Group of Eight leaders to reduce the debt burden of the world’s poorest countries. Organisers said more than 43,000 people from across Britain and overseas flocked to the English Midland’s city in response to an appeal from several organisations including the Trade Union Congress and Christian Aid , grouped under the umbrella, name Jubilee 2000….In warm sunshine and a festive atmosphere, the demonstrators surrounded the summit city centre carrying banners saying "Break the debt chains" and "Debt steals lives". They banged drums, blew whistles, stamped and chanted for about 6 minutes as the police looked on. None of the eight leaders saw the demonstrations. They were holed up in the retreat at Weston Park stately home southwest of the city. But summit host British Prime Minister Tony Blair issued a statement on behalf of the G8 in response to the demonstration promising to speed up mechanisms to provide debt relief for the world’s poorest. He "welcomed" demonstrators commitment towards the world’s most indebted and told a delegation from its organisers "I can assure you that all leaders fully share your concern over the debt burden faced by many poor countries." But the G8 gesture did not impress demonstrators who protested against the "unbearable burden" still weighing on the world’s poorest."
Transcript of Press Briefing by Mike McCurry, White House Press Office, 16th May 1998
- Q: "Did you see this statement on Jubilee 2000? Is the President going to make any effort to sort of meet with any of these people or acknowledge them directly"
- Mike McCurry: "He’s actually asked that – they have been a visible presence downtown and he has gotten a pretty good readout from some of our folks who followed their argument closely on what the general thrust of their argument was. Part of their concern, of course, is the nature of debt relief and the ways in which debt relief is applied in the developing world – a subject that was part of the discussion today, if I understand correctly – and a subject that the Prime Minister – well, Prime Minister Blair I think was especially sensitive to and incorporated within some of the discussion they had today. So I think he is certainly aware of that. I don’t know if he has seen that particular communiqué, but he had asked to get some information the subject matter of the protest"
- Q: "So he’s not going to meet with any of these Jubilee—
- Mike McCurry: "I’m not aware that he has any plans to meet with them, no"
- Q: "He said they’re feeling snubbed by the fact that these guys were all off in the countryside while they’re here."
- Mike McCurry: "I can’t do anything about that problem. I guess they could have gone to – where were they today, Weston-under-Lizard – and seen rural life up close"
USA: Reports on CNN- very much made out this was mainly a UK concern and not a big story for the US . Also brief mentions of the chain on NBC and FOX TV.
Austria: Good press coverage of the events in Birmingham in Austria. One of the quality papers did half of its "Theme of the day" on the debt issue and the chain. Our press conference of last May 11 - where we announced the events in Birmingham - also was covered extensively
Netherlands: articles in several of the major newspapers
Canada: CBC TV I saw about a 5 second clip of the chain and explanation as part of putting pressure on the G8. 2-3 minute clip on our 24 hr CBC news service Newsworld
Germany - Press coverage on the peoples summit in every German newspaper. On Monday the human chain was on the front page of most of the German big newspapers. They all described Jubilee 2000 and debt reduction. They all said, that Blair wanted much more debt reduction. And they all said that Helmut Kohl blocked it all.
The conservative newspapers said, Kohl was right. In a comment in the Handelsblatt (the German FT) said HIPC is good and adequate if it is closely linked with SAPs and that Kohl was very intelligent to stress that. The liberal-left Frankfurter Rundschau blamed Kohl for blocking a very good reduction-initiative.
The TV-reports on Saturday evening were also very clear: The main news on the first state owned TV-station at 8 o'clock on Saturday evening said, Blair made an initiative, the people marched and Kohl blocked it. A similar message was also given out on the radio news.
In the words of Friedel Hutz Adams of the German Jubilee 2000 Campaign: "After your peoples summit Jubilee 2000 millions in Germany are aware that there is a campaign and that this campaign can mobilise many people."
New Zealand: TV news, radio reports
‘ "He told us that if we wanted his support, we’d have to show a large degree of public backing, says Jubilee 2000 organiser Andrew Simms, who works for the charity Christian Aid. This is our answer." It’s an answer that the world’s leaders can’t miss….Now that this moral cause has proved itself the people’s policy, Tony Blair should find himself able to use the depth of feeling outside to help turn things the British way inside.’Newsweek, 16th May 1998
Jubilee 2000’s website was revamped for Monday 11th with new sections on international campaigns, action pages and frequently asked questions on corruption and future lending. It had a live link to the Guardian Debt Site –with articles, online petition, bulletin boards and a quiz. Over a thousand people signed online during the week. On Saturday, news of the day went immediately online in the evening and headed the front page of the One World Supersite over the whole weekend of the 15th to 17th May. Jubilee 2000 web site was nominated Political Site of the Week by the "Political Resources on the Net".
Should the 1998 Birmingham summit be judged a success, for the poorest people in the world who suffer under the burden of unpayable debt? In formal terms, no. The G8 leaders failed to grasp the hand offered to them by the 70,000 on Birmingham’s streets. They missed the chance to take a leap forward for progress and justice.
However, in another respect, this summit represented a turning point. Debt has never before been discussed by the G8. Three months beforehand it was not even on the agenda. And yet, that weekend, debt was the agenda. The coalition of organisations that make up Jubilee 2000 succeeded in dominating the media and the official agenda, despite the rival claims of other urgent international issues. As a result, the Birmingham summit will be remembered as the Debt Summit.
The effect of this was demonstrated in Tony Blair’s response to the Human Chain. When the Foreign Office revealed that the G8 leaders were fleeing Birmingham on Saturday, heading for the quiet of Weston Park in Staffordshire, there was some concern among many of those coming to join the Human Chain that with the leaders absent, their voices would not be heard. Yet, the chain went ahead. The people stood their ground in the centre of the city. They linked together at three o’clock to call on the leaders to act. And at 5.30, Tony Blair, the chair of the G8, left his colleagues behind in the country and returned to the people.
We now look to the Prime Minister to take a leadership role on this issue. He listened carefully to Jubilee 2000 on Saturday night. At Prime Minister’s Question Time in the week following the Summit, he said "I pay tribute to the Jubilee 2000 campaign and its dignified breaking-the-chain demonstration in Birmingham on Saturday … I share some of the disappointment of Jubilee 2000 on debt restructuring … we would have wished to go further." We will work with him to generate the national and international momentum to go beyond the present, inadequate programme of debt relief.
It is true to say that many of the campaigners felt some disappointment at the G8’s response on that memorable Saturday afternoon in May. However, it should not be forgotten that the message has clearly gone home to the key policy-makers that the current debt relief mechanisms are not satisfactory, and that they must do much more. All the signs are that as the millennium approaches, the campaign is going from strength to strength, and that it is now impossible for politicians to ignore this..
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