There will be major protests and a march on Saturday at the Earth Summit in Johannesburg, South Africa. The following activists are available for comment:
ANTONIA JUHASZ
Juhasz is a project director for the International Forum on Globalization, which represents over 60 organizations in 25 countries. She said today: “The absence of President Bush should not be mistaken for a lack of U.S. commitment to the outcome of the summit. On the contrary, the administration has set an aggressive agenda for the summit which it has been pursuing — halting any progress on the commitments made by the president’s father in the 1992 Earth Summit and enacting policies that benefit multinational corporations at the expense of people and the environment.”
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MOHAU PHEKO
Pheko is coordinator of the Gender and Trade Network in Africa.
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ANURADHA MITTAL
RAJ PATEL
Food First co-director Anuradha Mittal, in Johannesburg, said today: “Addressing a U.S. delegation-sponsored NGO meeting at the summit, U.S. officials have praised the U.S. farm bill and U.S. farm policy in general, as something which ‘promotes development in the Third World.’ That’s an outrageous claim; the farm bill entrenches dominance of U.S. corporate agriculture, which is heavily subsidized through corporate welfare, and spells doom for the family farmer both in the U.S. and the Third World. The farm bill endangers food security for poor people around the world.” Patel is a policy analyst with Food First.
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JOSHUA KARLINER
Karliner is the executive director of CorpWatch and coauthor of EarthSummit.biz: The Corporate Takeover of Sustainable Development.
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NJOKI NJOROGE NJEHU
Director of the 50 Years Is Enough Network, Njehu said today: “There is remarkable unity between the social movements and the landless movements, both of which will march together tomorrow. The South African government has decided to respect the constitution of South Africa. The people marching tomorrow will be united against privatization efforts, against the erosion of rights of people. The marchers realize that the interests of corporations clash with rights of people. There is a huge presence of corporations here and their representatives are saying nice things, but that doesn’t mean very much when they are pursuing destructive policies.” Njehu will participate in a news conference organized by the Mobilization For Global Justice in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, Sept. 3, which will look ahead to the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings at the end of September in Washington and planned protests at that time.
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167
