SUDAFRICA

 

Date: Sun, 14 Mar 1999 10:33:02 +0000

Subject: Solidarity from South Africa

Greetings,

Several of my comrades in the Jubilee2000 South Africa movement are anxious to learn whether if next Sunday - a day we consider Human Rights Day because it was the day nearly 30 years ago of the famous Sharpeville Massacre of, many dozen black people who gathered near Johannesburg to burn their "pass books" - we could send you a message of solidarity. We are having a South-South working group of Jubilee members (including from Nicaragua, and from Asia) that day, and it would be appropriate to remind ourselves of your inspiring struggle for humanity and against global neoliberalism.

What is the best approach for that? We have no Mexicans amongst us, although several of us have been to Chiapas, and we all are admirers of the Zapatista movement.

Some of our members are leading progressive luminaries (churchpeople, intellectuals, activists, even some politicians). Do let us know how you think some message of solidarity (which we would translate to our own media) might best be sent.

Yours,

Jubilee 2000 SA national executive

 

Sudáfrica

Urgent Message of Support for 21 March

To our sisters and brothers in Chiapas and across Mexico,

On your day of national consultation, 21 March 1999

Like you, this weekend we also gather to reflect on democracy, development and the achievement of full racial and cultural equality. In our case, we are representatives from the Southern African region who are affiliated to the Jubilee 2000 movement, which demands the cancellation of the foreign debt of our region, including "apartheid-caused debt," and other odious debts, in the same spirit you have also raised the global consciousness, for humanity, against neo-liberalism. In Southern Africa, the main transmission belt since colonial times for our economic, social and ecological problems has been neo-liberal policy advice and conditionality from the international financial system amplified by excruciating repayment of debt, much of it taken under "odious" conditions as a result of apartheid borrowing and our region's defence against apartheid destabilisation.

We know that just north of your border lies a similarly repressive government, whose military support for your oppressive government has been witnessed in your very heartland of south east Mexico. In the spirit that your oppressive government received more than $100-billion in loans from foreign banks to be repaid through the sweat, blood and suffering of your countrywomen, men and children, we are in solidarity. These ties of debt are central chains in our universal oppression and must be broken, along with international financial, trade, investment and ideological chains that tie Washington to our governments.

George Dor (Jubilee 2000 South Africa Publicity Officer)

On behalf of the delegates from the Southern African countries at the Southern African debt Summit, held in Gauteng from 18 – 21 March 1999.