Raised Voices

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I’m the chief of the Boa Esperança village. I will keep talking now about G8 and indigenous people. And I also want to say to our people that fight for its rights, for its dignity, that is seeking its right as a human being. We understand that the G8 wants to destroy the dignity, the richness… it wants to destroy the people, who are human beings just like them. They want to destroy that. They want the indigenous people, suffering people, to be in their hands but we don’t want that. We never thought of being in the hands of those powerful people. But only God is powerful. We don’t want to be no longer massacred by this economic power for we are capable of running, of making a different world. It’s not in those powerful hands to do that. They can only do it through money, not because they have built the life of a person. That economic group has only power to destroy. Not to get life to human beings. That’s why we think the G8 will only destroy the human being even more and also will confuse more the people that seek their right to be a human being. We do not agree with that economic group they are organizing, that G8 project. We don’t agree with that.

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This year people are focusing their attention on Africa. We've had the Blair Africa Commission. We've had all this attention from the Geldofs of the world on Africa. People look at organisations like Oxfams, Boxfams, Doxfams, all these charitable organisations, people like Comic Relief etc. and they put a great deal of attention on Africa. But actually is this the kind of attention that we want?

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We want to live, we want to live. We want to live in our land, in our environment. We didn't want countries to come, rich countries came and conquered us. They have to listen to what the tribal people need, tribal people are thinking. And they have to respect and they have to listen to what they want and what they really want.

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The G8 world mockery and Lula’s ecological mockery… the landless Indians, being expelled of their lands. An useless Ministry of the Environment… And the people at loose in this wind storm of things that don’t happen. Just for one side, right? I think that Lula, in this environmental issue, is only favouring the companies. Because the environmental issue is being left… first is development, currencies, exportations, the big companies.

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I come from West Papua, I live in the UK, in Oxford now. I just want to say what is happening with women in West Papua. Before we had leaders of women groups, or something. But then missionaries they went there and said, “Oh you have to be part of men, and you can not talk, and you can not stand up and talk a lot. And you have to stay at home, only that. But you can not stand up and become leader and talking, you can not.

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I live in Espírito Santo state, Brazil. I work with the people that suffer impacts from the large scale monocultures whose raw material supplies the first world. To talk about G8… first of all, I have very few informations about it. I know very little about what G8 means. What I know is when it hits us. The information that gets here is that it is G8 that determines world economic policies. Consequently, it determines all social, environmental, and cultural life of the other countries. So here in Espírito Santo we suffer the consequences of G8, of the political decisions taken at the G8. I think that the Brazilian government would have a key role in giving G8 a new direction. Why? Because Lula presents himself at world conferences as a representative of the third world countries. However, what I understand is that leaders of third world countries that we live in easily let themselves being carried by external policies than internal policies. So I think that Lula, with his social and politics background – he was a person from the bottom, of this country’s union leadership, that knew all the problems – should be sensitive in order to clarify the true reality of third world countries. And more than that, to influence, be a protagonist of third world countries, of the leaders of third world countries. And in this way to influence the policies of this big group to build a healthy policy and not a destroying one, of the Latin-American people, of the third world people, that are who suffers the most the consequences of these decisions taken by the first world.

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My name is Abdul Raufu Mustafa. I'm from Nigeria and I live in Cowley in England. The issue that Nigeria really is bothered about in the conduct of the G8 countries is essentially debt. In the 70s Nigeria borrowed something in the region of 17 billion dollars. Not all of this money got to Nigeria because of collusion between corrupt Nigerian officials and corrupt bankers. But since then Nigeria has paid over 30 billion dollars and still owes another 34 billion dollars in back interest and penalties and the lot. And that has become a major problem for the country because a lot of resources are being diverted just to service the debt. And this is happening in the situation where 7 million Nigerian kids are not having the most basic of primary education. The health system in the country is in dire condition, the universities, the roads, virtually all public infrastructure. That is a situation which is partly contributed to by internal problems but also no doubt by the debt burden. This is an unsustainable debt. And absolutely something has to be done about it at the level of the G8 so that ordinary people in Nigeria can get a look in to the issues of life.

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My name is Paulo. I’m in the leadership of the Coira Velho community, and a coordinator of the Chief Commission. We are articulated to get back our lands since the February 19th Assembly when it was decided by unanimity that we were going to fight for our 11 thousand hectares of our land. So we are preparing with other governmental entities, civil entities, for us to start the struggle. And we are not going to slow down because we know that the land is our right, the land is our mother. And without the land we will not survive. Neither us or our generation. That’s why we decided to fight for our right. We are counting on the governmental support at the national level, and at the international. The power is helping us, is reinforcing our struggle. We will thank for everybody’s support.

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As a woman I have no country. And not so many people are interested in my political or economical opinion. Never mind that. I think the G8 influence on Polish situation and Polish policy is very trouble-making. Our troops are still in Iraq, nobody knows why. Our troops did not invade Chechnya until now, but nobody knows how far the solidarity of politicians will go. We have a very bad economical situation. 25% unemployment. Single parents are deprived of any means for living. About 60% of people are living under poverty conditions. So as far as my message for the G8 is that I would like this institution to shut down, immediately, as soon as possible. Therefore all my solidarity is with the protest and I hope to see you and meet you all there.

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And I’m indignant when eight of the most rich countries of the world discuss hidden in a cupola the great decisions, most part of the population doesn’t participate at all. And the whole world is taken by these great decisions that the World Bank, IMF, G8 discuss and define by themselves. And the world’s population – I can speak for the Brazilians – suffer great impacts coming from those decisions.

And don’t have the chance to participate, and we have a lot to say. There are many impacts directly affecting the world’s population. We don’t want them to decide, that small groups, small cupolas decide on our behalf. We can say what we want.

We have a lot to say. And we don’t want to have to accept those definitions. Experts say what we have to do in relation to the world’s climate, to the environment, to society… And what we have seen is that it has got worse, and worse, and worse.

So we have to create opportunities and to accept that many more people have a saying all over the world. Eight countries defining what we have to do. And there’s no use in calling our president Lula, he can’t do it. He can’t handle it. He can’t handle this reality here. He hasn’t solved our problems that are huge, huge… Social impacts, social problems, inequalities… Enough of social inequalities! We want justice!