PA- BUSH

(Platform Against Bush Politics)

Towards a Parallel Peoples’Forum Against AGOA Conditions 13 January 2003

1. We oppose all the overt and hidden conditionalities1 in the Africa Growth and Opportunity Act which lead directly to increased poverty and social inequality and which undermine social and economic human rights of our people; the AGOA also represents a direct threat to Mauritian sovereignty, and is a constant external undemocratic control on Mauritian foreign policy; and we denounce the Mauritian Government for bowing down before these conditions. We condemn the AGOA for offering US trade advantages to African busi- nessmen on such conditions.
2. We maintain our belief in the “Indian Ocean Zone of Peace” initiative, and we accordingly call for the immediate demilitarization of Diego Garcia, reparations for the people of Chagos, and the closing of the base, and the re-unification of Mauritius.
3. We oppose US policy on the bombardment of Iraq, a policy that thinly disguises the US businessmen’s thirst for oil-control in the Middle East.
4. We abhor the USA continuing to finance and arm the State of Israel, its gendarme which continues to defy UN Resolutions.
5. We denounce the USA for its failure to adhere to the UN Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and its failure to sign up to being monitored under the UN Covenant on Political and Civil Rights. We also denounce the USA for its failure to ratify most of the ILO Conventions. We also denounce it for its failure to ratify the UN Declaration on the Rights of the Child. We condemn the US for refusal to sign the International Criminal Court, and for its sabotaging of this tribunal against war crimes, by its forcing countries into bilateral treaties not to hand over US military personnel wanted on charges of war crimes. We note that the US is the only country in the world found guilty of “terrorism”; this was for its acts of terror in Nicaragua. We strongly condemn the US for its recourse to the death penalty, and in particular to the unacceptable practice of killing people found guilty of offenses committed when they were minors, and of executing the mentally ill. We also call for the release of the innocent journalist, on death row, Mr. Abu Jamal Mumia.
6. We oppose the US for its leading role in imposing globalization world-wide, in part through its own military force and in part through the Washington-based international institutions, the IMF and World Bank, and its domination of the WTO, which it runs to suit its own business interests.
7. We oppose the US for its sabotage of the UN Conference Against Racism in 2001 in Durban, and for its refusal to negotiate to pay reparations for slavery.
8. We are both alarmed and angry at the US, whose companies produce one quarter of the world’s “hot house” gases, for its refusal to sign the Kyoto Agreement on slowing down carbon emissions and Global Warming.
9. We oppose the US for its constant work to erode the sovereignty of other states.
10. We oppose the US for its constant work to erode democracy of any political content, not only in the US itself, but world-wide.

Platform set up on 14th November 2002. Founder organizations

General Workers’ Federation; Féderation des Syndicats de Corps Constuées; Planteurs du Nord; Muvman Liberasyon Fam; Lalit; Amis de Chamarel; Ledikasyon pu Travayer; Arts Jonction; Féderation des Travailleurs Unis; Federation of Preschool Playgroups; Muvman Lakaz; Nouvo Lizour; Centre Diocesain du Monde Ouvriere; Association contre le ‘Mind Control’ et la Pensée Unique; ABAIM; Rodrigues Government Employees’ Association; Comité pour l’Amerioration de Santé; Ligue Ouvriere d’Action Catholique

{Open to adherence to any other organisations sharing in general the Platform and convinced of the necessity of a Parallel People’s Forum and a united March)

(Footnotes)

1 Reference can be made to the list of these specific conditions and conditionalities, drawn up in our one-day seminar on 24th October 2002