Joint Statement on the 34th G8 Summit in Toyako, Hokkaido, Japan
MANILA, Philippines
-- This year’s G8 summit in Japan, gathering the world’s most advanced industrial economies is happening amidst a global crisis on oil, food, poverty, and environment – a problem unequaled since the first G8 summit in 1973 concerning the oil crisis and the subsequent global recession.
However, aside from the worldwide multiple crises G8 is trying to address, the exclusive group is also facing a crisis of legitimacy and credibility. It’s "leadership" over the world’s affairs and the flawed neo-liberal development paradigm it imposed on poor nations are again in question if not totally being rejected.
Thus, we from different social movements in the Philippines add our voice in calling for an end to G8’s domination over the rest of the world. G8's impositions on the systems of international finance and trade, their quest for carbon-based industrialization, and the intervention of their transnational and multinational corporations on the affairs of the developing nations only brought unmitigated suffering to the poorest among us.
G8 has not only failed for the last three decades in effecting economic development, redistributing wealth and global governance, it is also widely seen as one of the main culprits in imposing grave international transgressions such as the following:
On the Debt Trap, Illegitimate Debts, and Crisis-inducing Conditionalities.