Global Policy Forum

Mali Stages 'Poor Man's G8'

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By Joan Baxter

BBC
June 26, 2002


Leaders of the world's most industrialised nations meeting at the G8 summit in Kananaskis, Canada, promise to put Africa high on their agenda.

But in Mali, there is a different kind of summit going on in the village of Siby. Unlike the heavy barricades and police presence around the G8 leaders meeting in the snow-capped Rocky Mountains, in the village of Siby, it is all very relaxed and wide open.

Everyone is welcome as participants from seven countries in West Africa meet without fanfare and without luxury to come up with African solutions to African problems. They are calling it the Poor People's Kananaskis.

Serious business

Here in the village of Siby, about 50 kilometres (35 miles) from the Malian capital, Bamako, there are no policemen, no barricades and there is certainly no luxury. Even without running water, electric lights or telephones, the people of Siby make it all feel like a very festive occasion.

For the 200 participants at this counter-summit in Siby, however, it is serious business for the next three days. They have come from all walks of life - farmers, students, religious leaders or just citizens who fear that policies being discussed in Canada will increase poverty and suffering in Africa.

Barry Aminata Toure heads the debt relief and anti-globalisation movement Jubilee 2000 in Mali, which organised the Siby meeting.

Speaking of the Canadian summit, she says: "Isolated from the rest of the world, the leaders of the world's eight richest countries will decide the destinies of millions of people on all continents, to serve the interests of multinationals, industrial countries and corrupt governments in the south."

She is not impressed by the new development initiative for Africa - or Nepad - to be discussed at the G8 summit in Canada.

Shoestring budget

Ms Toure says Nepad was poorly conceived and does not represent the needs or the wishes of most Africans. She says it was developed by only four African presidents - Nigerian, Senegalese, Algerian and South African - who did not consult their people.

She says the Siby summit is being held on a shoestring budget. Ms Toure was able to get the Canadian Embassy in Mali to help finance it, but other embassies of the G8 countries refused, saying it was not in their interests.

Malian sociologist Aminata Dramane Traore goes further. She believes that Nepad and the G8 summit are anti-democratic.

Organisers say their choice of Siby for the counter summit is symbolic.

Nearly 800 years ago in this same village, Emperor Soundjata Keita held an historic summit and drew up the very first constitution for the tremendously wealthy Mali Empire that covered much of West Africa.

That was at a time when several of those now wealthy G8 countries were still in the Dark Ages.


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FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Policy Forum distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.