Workers Solidarity Movement

In July 2008, heads of the states that monopolize two thirds of earth’s
wealth will gather at Toya Lake in Hokkaido Japan. Although the
so-called Group of Eight does not have any legitimate right for deciding
planetary affairs, they have self-appointed themselves world rulers. Thus
the G8 has driven neo-liberal globalization at the same time as
spreading poverty, violence, hatred, segregation, and environmental
destruction.

At a very critical moment of world capitalism during the 1970s, the G8
was established to form a consensus among the imperialist nation-states.
Ever since it has become the cornerstone of the neo-liberalist
globalization that we are confronting. The ‘consensus’ signifies nothing
short of finding out the most convenient means of driving global
financialization, privatization, commercialization, and militarization
and camouflaging these processes as if they were for the public well-being.

In the past the G8 has expressed concerns about human rights and
poverty. German Chancellor Angela Merkel stressed the need for a
human-faced globalization. But then, who is it that violates human
rights on the pretext of the “fight against terrorism”? Who is it that
is eliminating public education the world over? Who is it that
privatizes almost all the resources left for humanity -- land, water,
and food -- and preys on the increasing global poverty? Who is it that
produces and exports more than 90% of the world’s weaponry? At the 2007
summit in Heiligendamm, one of the main themes was the poverty in
Africa, but what they proposed as a measure to combat it was,
shockingly, the deregulation of investment in Africa. From its behavior
we have learned that for the G8, even human rights and poverty are just
another opportunity for capitalists’ expropriation.

At the Toya Lake summit in 2008, the main theme will be environmental
problems. What a deceit! It is the G8 that ravages the natural resources
of the world--even resorting to arms--and discharges more than 40% of
the planetary carbon dioxide, hence instigating the climate changes.
Shinzo Abe, the prime minister of Japan hosting the 2008 summit, has
invented a vain slogan: “Invitation to the Beautiful Stars,” which
proposes in substance the exportation of nuclear power plants to
developing countries--nothing that counters capitalist interests and
works for true enduring development.

We are no longer silent. Neither do we intend to make a petition for a
better G8 through conversation. By way of direct action, we will demand
the termination of 2008 Toya Lake Summit and the decomposition of G8.

Also we will demand the immediate liquidation of the Abe administration
of Japan, the sole participant in the G8 from Asia. The Abe
Administration is in the midst of pushing for neo-liberalist reforms and
the fortification of the security-state in Japan, while persisting in
sending troops to Iraq as a simple-minded follower of the US strategy
for its global military rule. At the same time, its main objective is to
amend Japan’s constitution in order to complete the long-lasting
ambitions of imperialist Japan. Thus, to thwart the ambitions of the Abe
administration is no longer a concern of Japan alone, but a must for the
struggle against the neo-liberalist expansion and militarization in the
entire Asian region. Our objective to terminate G8 is inseparable from
these regional tasks.

We appeal to you, all the people struggling in different regions of the
world, to join No! G8 Japan in July 2008 in Toya Lake, Hokkaido Japan.
We consider our project as a continuation of the planetary anti-G8
struggles, especially those coordinated by Dissent network. We seek to
add a new phase of it in the Far East. Let us organize together the
widest possible global network and create an unimaginably varied, rich,
and powerful spectacle of struggle. By so doing let G8 know that a world
that is totally different from the one driven by the capitalist
principles, a world that is based upon the principles of autonomy,
mutual aid, and bottom-up decision-making, is possible.