Ninety-Nine magazine - February 2021 (issue 19)

Challenging the power of the

Issue 19 - February 2021

The People's Vaccine Why we need to break the Covid-19 patents

Also in this issue Indian farmers refuse to move Climate injustice in Mozambique The pandemic debt crisis

ISSUE 19: February 2021 03 Campaign news 06 Global news 08 Vaccine inequality 10 The history of patents

2021 can be a turning point, despite everything

13 Global Justice Now supporters 14 Debt and Covid-19 16 Indian farmers protests 18 Climate injustice in Mozambique 19 Reviews

Ninety-Nine is published three times a year by Global Justice Now Global Justice Now campaigns for a world where resources are controlled by the many, not the few.

We champion social movements and propose democratic alternatives to the rule of the 1%. Our activists and groups in towns and cities around the UK work in solidarity with those at the sharp end of poverty and injustice.

Ninety-Nine magazine, Global Justice Now 66 Offley Road, London SW9 0LS 020 7820 4900 • offleyroad@globaljustice.org.uk • globaljustice.org.uk Editor: Jonathan Stevenson Graphic Design: Matt Bonner www.revoltdesign.org Cover image: A protester wears a Spanish-language mask that reads “La Vacuna Del Puebla/The People's Vaccine” in Washington, DC, in November. Image: Graeme Sloan/Sipa USA Printed on 100% recycled paper.

Get Ninety-Nine delivered to your door three times a year when you become a member of Global Justice Now. Go to globaljustice.org.uk/join

@GlobalJusticeUK Global Justice Now Global Justice Now

2 Ninety-Nine 2021

Nick Dearden Director Many of us have been cut off from friends and family for many months now, and it’s easy to lose heart. Global Justice Now has always believed in collective action. Community should be at the heart of our campaigning, generating our energy, ideas and, perhaps most of all, hope. Motivating ourselves in lockdown, with political and economic crises spiralling in the outside world, can be a challenge.

Well, if you’re struggling, I really hope this edition of Ninety-Nine helps you.

Because, in spite of everything, there is so much to draw strength from.

Who would have thought, just 18 months ago, that the inequities of the global medicine system would be front page news? Or that governments in the global south would take the struggle for a fairer system into the heart of the World Trade Organisation, demanding the suspension of trade rules which hand Big Pharma control of medicines which should by rights be public goods?

Over recent months we’ve helped build a formidable coalition, including not just campaigners but southern governments, doctors and scientists, with even the Pope supporting our demands. It’s the kind of coalition which has made big changes in the past, and can do again this time.

This year, as Britain hosts the G7 and COP26, we have major opportunities to build the momentum for big change.

What’s more the lessons we’ve learnt during this pandemic apply to the even bigger problems of climate change and global inequality. This year, as Britain hosts the G7 and UN climate change conference (COP26), we have major opportunities to build the momentum for big change. As we show in this issue, we’re already scoring victories, from a government promise to end fossil fuel support, to Joe Biden’s early acts as US president.

If we could choose a starting point for change, it surely wouldn’t look like this. But that’s the nature of our work; we can’t choose where we start, but we can begin to map out what sort of future we want. And if we’re successful, this very difficult situation will one day be seen as a turning point for something better.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Big Pharma cashes in on vaccine inequality As Covid-19 vaccines are rolled out in the UK, many countries in the global south are being left with little or no vaccine supplies thanks to a combination of corporate greed and shortsighted nationalism (see pages 8-9). Global Justice Now has been campaigning to raise awareness about the stark inequality in vaccine access through our collaboration with the global People’s Vaccine alliance. In December we found that 9 out of 10 people in the poorest countries are set to miss out on a vaccine in 2021, while rich countries have bought enough doses to vaccinate their populations almost three times over. These figures were widely reported in print and broadcast media around the world.

We have also turned the heat up on pharmaceutical corporations for artificially restricting vaccine supply by fiercely protecting their patents. In December, together with our campaigning allies we launched a global day of action to demand that Pfizer, BioNTech, AstraZeneca and Moderna join the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool which can facilitate the ramping up of production so that there are enough doses for all. Activists from across the UK, US, Ireland, Germany, Spain and South Africa joined in to unleash hundreds of phone calls and thousands of social media posts and emails to the companies, which reported that they were inundated with calls on the day. It was great to send a very clear public message to Big Pharma to take the steps needed to help all countries access vaccines.

To add further pressure on the industry, we also launched our new report, The Horrible History of Big Pharma, in December. The report exposes the long track record of an industry that has put profits above patient access and warns that the industry should not be in the driving seat in our pandemic response.

Join the campaign at: globaljustice.org.uk/pharma Read the report: globaljustice.org.uk/pharma-history

2021 Ninety-Nine 3

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Trade threat remains despite Trump’s defeat The battle lines for the trade campaign have been redrawn in recent months after Donald Trump’s defeat in the US presidential election, as well as the UK and EU reaching a trade continuity agreement. Yet the threat to everything from food standards to medicine prices remains substantial.

Talks with the EU revolved around the idea of Britain retaining the right to ‘diverge’ from EU standards in future. But we know that when this government says ‘diverge’ they mean deregulate – and future trade deals will be a key part of this.

Global Justice Now organised a socially distanced day of action with allies in the run-up to the US election. From farmers who mowed messages into their fields, to projections on shipping containers, pantomime cows in Parliament Square, and hundreds of people organising events and photo actions, the message was clear: stop the US trade deal! While President Biden’s intentions remain to be seen, Corporate America will still be lobbying hard for a trade deal in their interests.

In December we had a win in our campaign for more democratic control of trade, when an amendment was passed to the Trade Bill in the House of Lords that would give parliament a vote on trade deals. Unfortunately that wasn’t the end. As Ninety-Nine goes to press, the government is trying to reverse the change in the bill’s final stage. This will make it even more important to oppose the corporate trade agenda outside parliament.

Find out more at: globaljustice.org.uk/trade

Hormone-treated beef is just one of the threats from American agribusiness in a US trade deal. © Kristian Buus

4 Ninety-Nine 2021

Handing in the joint petition to Downing Street in early December.

CAMPAIGN NEWS

Freedom of movement The restrictions on freedom of movement introduced during the pandemic have given many of us in the UK a tiny insight into what it must be like to face ongoing separation from your family and friends – not temporarily to try and stop a deadly disease, but permanently, because of the unfairness of our deadly border system.

That’s why, on International Migrants Day in December, Global Justice Now released a new pamphlet: Freedom of Movement: Why we need open borders, summarising the case for global free movement as a long-term demand in the fight for global justice. It cannot be right that the place you are born dictates whether you will live a life of poverty or plenty, of freedom or imprisonment.

Nor can it be right that while the richest, at least in normal times, move around with ease, the poorest are imprisoned in geographical poverty.

When we bear in mind that many of those seeking a better life are leaving behind poverty and conflict which Britain and other rich countries have fuelled through arms sales, toxic trade deals, dodgy debts, land grabs and climate change, the situation becomes even more shameful.

Freedom of Movement is our small contribution to injecting hope and energy into a debate which often sees those championing migrants rights pushed onto the back foot. It is only by freeing our imaginations that we can begin to really see how things could be otherwise. The pandemic has shown us that more than ever.

Read the report at globaljustice.org.uk/free-movement

Dirty development dumped December saw the long-awaited announcement that the UK government will stop investing public money in fossil fuels overseas. As well as covering investments by UK Export Finance, the announcement includes a commitment to stop using UK aid money to fund dirty development projects. This is a huge win for Global Justice Now's campaign and for all the frontline communities and activists that have opposed this for years.

But we can’t stop campaigning just yet. Boris Johnson’s speech at the Climate Ambition Summit told us that the policy would be implemented “as soon as possible” and that there would be some exceptions (ie. loopholes) to the rule. This leaves open a huge amount of wriggle room for the government and the possibility that at least 17 projects, including the huge East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline in Uganda and Tanzania, could still receive UK funding this year (see also page 18).

A government consultation on how the ban should be implemented closed earlier in February – thank you to all of our supporters who submitted responses. For the latest news and actions on the campaign, see: globaljustice.org.uk/climate 2021 Ninety-Nine 5

GLOBAL NEWS MOVEMENT NEWS

Peru’s farmers fight back against low pay

© Paolo Aguilar/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock

Farmers block the Panamericana Sur highway at the town of Pisco in the Ica region in December.

Five days of demonstrations in early December brought Peru’s agro-export industry to a halt as farmers blockaded the Pan-American Highway in protest against low pay and poor working conditions. Peru is a major exporter of blueberries, avocados and asparagus and agricultural exports have become increasingly important to the economy

in recent years.

The demonstrations were successful in forcing the Peruvian Congress to repeal an agricultural law that workers argued put the rights of corporations over their own. However, Congress failed to agree a replacement law that would guarantee higher wages, and protests restarted in the La

Libertad region in late December, during which two demonstrators were killed. President Sagasti, who has only been in power since November after social movements rejected the ‘parliamentary coup’ that installed Manuel Merino as President for only six days, has condemned the police violence and vowed to take action.

Nigerians rise up against police brutality Tens of thousands of Nigerians took part in protests against police brutality that swept the country in October, sparked by a viral video apparently showing officers of the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) shooting a man dead.

The #EndSARS protests attracted support from across the Nigerian diaspora and beyond, with solidarity

6 Ninety-Nine 2021

events in many cities including London and numerous public figures helping the protests trend on social media. While the Nigerian government soon announced that the unit would be disbanded, the protests continued, morphing into calls for wider police reform and better governance in the country.

“Part of the reason African leaders get away with atrocities on African

soil is because they know the world will turn a blind eye to them,” wrote Nigerian novelist Chibundu Onuzo, saying the protests were “another iteration of the Black Lives Matter movement”. Meanwhile the UK government was condemned when it admitted it had provided training and equipment to the SARS units between 2016 and last March.

GLOBAL MOVEMENT GLOBAL NEWS

NEWS SHORTS Tunisian youth protest lack of progress

Young people across Tunisia took to the streets in January after the government imposed a strict lockdown around the 10th anniversary of the overthrow of former dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Hundreds were arrested as people expressed their frustration at continuing economic hardship which has been deepened by the pandemic.

Invasion Day protests in Australia despite Covid-19

Youth activists project message against inequality onto empty Davos On 23 January the Fight Inequality Alliance kicked off a global week of action by projecting a video message from four young activists onto the empty conference centre in Davos, Switzerland, where the World Economic Forum usually meets.

As the global 1% prepared to begin their first post-Covid gathering online on the theme of ‘the Great Reset of Capitalism’, the activists from Kenya, the UK, Mexico and the Philippines demanded a set of measures to ensure

the recovery from Covid-19 supercharges the fight against global inequality, including a People’s Vaccine, debt cancellation and a global green new deal funded by taxes on billionaires.

“The pandemic has forced the biggest rise in inequality since records began,” they said. “Yet the 1% are celebrating their spiralling wealth at the expense of all of us, our democracy and all we hold dear. This can't go on. Davos – the great festival of greed – is the old era.”

‘It’s law!’ Argentina legalises abortion

Thousands of people across Australia took part in Invasion Day protests on 26 January, assembling in separate groups of 100 to comply with local Covid-19 restrictions.

The day, officially known as Australia Day, marks the arrival of British colonisers in 1788. Every year thousands use the day to protest against the mistreatment of First Nations people in the country.

© Natacha Pisarenko/AP/Shutterstock

City of London to remove statues over slavery links

Activists celebrate in Buenos Aires after the vote in December.

The City of London Corporation announced in January that it would remove statues of two politicians with links to the transatlantic slave trade, William Beckford and Sir John Cass. The review followed the popular toppling of a statue of slave trader Edward Colston in Bristol during the Black Lives Matter protests last summer.

Argentina’s women’s movement celebrated a landmark victory on 30 December, when the senate voted to legalise abortion. It is only the fourth country in Latin America (after Cuba, Guyana and Uruguay), and by far the biggest, to do so. Although limited to the first 14 weeks of pregnancy, it will be provided for free, and for any reason (in contrast to the UK).

Argentina has seen a huge popular movement for abortion rights in recent years, emerging initially from protests against gender-based violence. Street

protests ahead of the last attempt to legalise abortion in 2018 were enormous, and demonstrated a generational shift in attitudes. It paved the way for new president Alberto Fernández to reintroduce the bill following the 2019 elections.

The green bandana, which was adopted as a symbol by the movement, has been picked up by women’s movements around the continent who are hoping this victory can be a turning point in a region historically associated with machismo and religious conservatism on gender issues.

2021 Ninety-Nine 7

PHARMACEUTICALS

Vaccine inequality The incredible speed with which Covid-19 vaccines have been developed has been a scientific triumph. Yet the way corporations and governments are distributing them is an international scandal, writes HEIDI CHOW. Right: "The world is on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure – and the price of this failure will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world's poorest countries," said Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, directorgeneral of the World Health Organization, in January.

8 Ninety-Nine 2021

The vaccine breakthroughs at the end of last year provided the world with the first glimmer of hope that Covid-19 can be beaten. These vaccines are a massive game-changer and will play a big role in saving lives and helping end the cycles of lockdowns and social restrictions that have crippled economies and societies. They are such a crucial tool in the fight against the pandemic that they should be global public goods – produced in mass quantities to meet global demand, affordable to all countries and free to the public.

And yet, we are nowhere near this. In spite of the vast amounts of public funds that have been put towards research, development and manufacturing, the vaccines that have been approved in the UK are privately-owned assets of a profit-driven industry that has been more than willing to sell most of their stock to the highest bidders. How has it come to this?

ARTIFICIAL SCARCITY Over the past year wealthy countries like the UK, US and members of the EU have been racing ahead to place advance orders for the most promising vaccine candidates. Between them, rich countries have secured enough doses to vaccinate their entire populations nearly three times over by the end of 2021. Meanwhile, nearly 70 low-income countries will only be able to vaccinate one in ten people against Covid-19 this year. Some studies suggest that low-income countries could even be waiting until 2024 before they achieve mass vaccination.

We are in this situation because there are fears that there are not enough supplies of vaccine. And in the face of scarcity, it’s those with the deepest pockets that get to hoard. But the real question

PHARMACEUTICALS

we need to ask is why are we facing scarcity for a product that the world so desperately needs?

Pharmaceutical companies can patent their products which means only they can sell their vaccine or treatment. This is enforced through global trade rules and prevents competition for at least 20 years. They also defend their monopolies through keeping their technological knowhow under wraps – only they know the recipe for how to make their vaccines.

Keeping out the competition is great for bumper profits but is devastating for human lives. At a time when the global death toll from Covid-19 has already passed the two million mark, how can this ever be acceptable?

Ensuring there are enough vaccines for everyone, everywhere is crucial to prevent even higher death rates from Covid-19. Academic research has shown that we could avert 61% of deaths globally if vaccines are distributed fairly, compared to 33% if rich countries hoard vaccines. Ultimately, hoarding is self-defeating – leaving the virus to spread unabated in large parts of the world allows it to mutate, potentially rendering the effective vaccines of today, useless tomorrow. No one is safe until everyone is safe.

HOW TO MAKE ENOUGH So what can be done? No one company can satisfy global demand.

If getting actual physical stocks is the problem, then pharmaceutical companies must share their technological know-how and the rights to make their vaccines with others. Mobilising every available manufacturer will increase global supply so that more people can access a vaccine.

Yet although the World Health Organization launched a mechanism last year – the Covid-19 Technology Access Pool – to facilitate the sharing of know-how and intellectual property, it has yet to receive a single

© WHO/Christop her

contribution, with pharmaceutical companies effectively boycotting the body that Pfizer’s CEO dismissed as “nonsense”.

The industry’s desire to protect commercial secrets would be more understandable if the vaccines that have been approved hadn’t all benefited from billions of pounds in public funding. Yet the fact is that they have - and so it shouldn’t be controversial to demand they are produced in sufficient quantities to meet global demand in this health emergency. In fact, it is scandalous that publicly funded vaccines have become privately owned commodities for profiteering.

Ultimately, doing the right thing in the face of a global pandemic shouldn’t be optional. That’s why the governments of India and South Africa have put a proposal on the table of the World Trade Organization to suspend the rules on patents that prop up Big

Black

Pharma monopolies until widespread vaccination is in place. If approved, it would allow as many suppliers as possible to maximise global supply.

Countries in the global south have welcomed the proposal, while just a handful of rich countries are actively opposing it, including the UK. If there is ever a time to re-orientate the global pharmaceutical system to prioritise public health over corporate profits, surely it is now? The desperation to see the end of this pandemic is felt not just in this country but in every country affected. Every country deserves to have access to the vaccines and treatments to combat this virus. And this can only happen if governments back these systemic changes to save lives and help end this pandemic for everyone.

Heidi Chow is senior campaigns and policy manager on pharmaceuticals at Global Justice Now.

2021 Ninety-Nine 9

PHARMACEUTICALS

Patent injustice For more than two decades global trade rules have been used to put big pharma’s profits ahead of people’s urgent need for medical treatment. With Covid-19, this is clearer than ever, writes K.M. GOPAKUMAR. On 1 October 2020, four countries – Eswatini, Kenya, South Africa and India – approached the World Trade Organization’s TRIPS Council to seek a waiver from certain obligations on the protection and enforcement of patents, trade secrets, copyrights, and industrial design. The waiver would enable WTO member states to provide policy space in the area of ‘intellectual property’ for the prevention, containment, and treatment of Covid-19. Though it did not make front page news, the proposal has the potential to be a turning point in this pandemic.

No specific duration is mentioned, but the proposal states that the waiver should “continue until widespread vaccination is in place globally, and the majority of the world’s population has developed immunity”. The idea is to address the huge global shortage of various medical products required for the Covid-19 response – vaccines in particular – by scaling up production, using multiple manufacturers (including ‘local production’, which is located and owned in developing countries). Yet so far, countries with big pharmaceutical industries like the UK are blocking it.

A GLOBAL SHORTAGE In the pre-Covid-19 world, the trade of medical products was concentrated in a few countries. According to a WTO study, 49% of medical product exports emanate from five countries – Germany, the United States, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Belgium. Further, China, Germany, and the US control 40% of the global supply of

10 Ninety-Nine 2021

personal protective equipment (PPE), while in 2019 these three countries supplied 50% of global mask requirements. Singapore, the Netherlands, China, and the US kr 9 9/Fl ic c ke r19 © B ehalf account for more than of the exports of ventilators and respirators.

According to the WHO, five multinational corporations control 80% of global vaccines sales for all diseases. Further, a small number of countries are able to afford the latest more expensive vaccines, such as the pneumococcal vaccine (PCV), while most countries ine.o rg eva c c can only © Freeth afford cheaper products. Highincome countries which buy 5% of the world’s vaccine doses account for 50% of global vaccine spending, while the two most populous countries, China and India, buy 52% of global vaccines but only account for 20% of vaccine spending.

There is further concentration when it comes to medical products needed for the treatment or prevention of Covid-19 such as vaccines and medicines.

The surge in demand for medical products during

©

© National Maritime Museum, London

PHARMACEUTICALS

© Ro shan Jo

© Juliu s Cruickshank/ Wiki

seph

med ia

the pandemic has benefited wealthy countries. By the end © Eraldo Peres/AP/S hutte rstoc k of 2020, developed countries where 13% of the global population live had bought up 52% of the From left to right: A available vaccine doses for 2021. An even vaccine access protest higher percentage of the two vaccines at King's College London; Protesters shout and with the highest claimed efficacy rate – hold the message Pfizer (80%) and Moderna (78%) – have "Vaccinate now!" outside the presidential palace been booked by developed countries. At in Brasilia, Brazil; Activists the end of January, UN secretary-general from the Delhi Network of Positive People visit the António Guterres drew attention to the fact embassies of countries, that just 20,000 out of 70 million vaccine including the UK, which doses administered so far had been on the are blocking a waiver on Covid-19 patents at the African continent. “A global immunity gap World Trade Organisation puts everyone at risk,” he said. “We need a on 2 February. global vaccination campaign that reaches everyone, everywhere.”

Addressing this inequality can be achieved only through scaling up production via multiple producers around the world. There are many barriers to local production such as access to relevant technologies, capital, human resources, etc, but the most significant is the global ‘intellectual property’ (IP) regime, which legally prevents the production of patented technologies without the permission of the IP holder. Since these technologies are not available in the market at any

price, the only option is to emulate these technologies without the permission of the IP holder – ‘reverse engineering’. Yet as we’ve seen in past health crises, the IP holder can legally block these efforts to prevent the local scaling up of production.

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS The rights of the IP holder work as a monopoly in effect by preventing all competitors from using or producing the IP protected technologies or products. All too often, this monopoly is misused by the IP holders, who charge exorbitant prices which prevent people and governments from accessing those products. This IP regime is enforced globally by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), which came into force in 1995. It obligates all World Trade Organization member states except least developed countries to provide a minimum level of protection and enforcement of IP rights.

We have seen in the AIDS crisis the effect of this on access to medicines.

Though anti-retroviral (ARV) treatments for HIV/AIDS were available in developed

2021 Ninety-Nine 11

PHARMACEUTICALS

countries in the early 1990s, the vast majority of people living with HIV/AIDS in developing countries could not access these lifesaving medicines.

Pharmaceutical companies powered with patents charged $10,000-$12,000 per person per year for ARVs. It was not until the introduction of generic ARVs in 2001 by Indian generic pharmaceutical companies, reducing the price to $350, that universal access to ARV treatment started to become a reality.

It’s not just in the global south that this is a problem – patent © Money Sharma/EPA/Shutte rstock monopolies also deny access to medicines in developed countries. In many European countries, Sofosbuvir, a around the world is possible only after medicine to treat hepatitis C, is rationed the issuance of CLs in a critical mass due to the high price, while it is available of countries. Yet past political pressure to hepatitis C patients in many developing exerted by developed countries has countries due to the availability of produced a ‘chill effect’ on the use of CL affordable generics. In the UK, the among developing countries, making it regulator NICE has refused to approve very rare. What’s more, there is no concept Sorafenib, a drug that can extend the life of CL in the context of trade secrets, which of a liver cancer patient by six months, are important for emulating vaccine citing the inadequate benefit compared technology. to the high price ($5,000 per month). Yet That’s why the proposed temporary the same medicine is available in India waiver of TRIPS obligations is so important. at $450-$650 for six months from generic A waiver of these obligations for a short manufacturers. duration would enable countries to Anticipating the threat of patents on facilitate access to IP-protected medical access, a few WTO member states such products at an affordable price. The waiver as Canada, Colombia, Chile, Ecuador, does not mean that all countries would France, Germany and Hungary initiated suspend IP protection for all Covid-19 steps to amend patent laws to make the medical products, but provide an option issuance of compulsory licences (CL) for governments to do so if required. As easier. A CL allows the use of patented a result, countries like the UK which are technologies or products without the opposing the waiver proposal are denying permission of the patent holder in a health an option for other countries who require emergency. Israel and Russia have issued it. The current global shortage of Covid-19 compulsory licences on two medicines medical products underlines the urgent used experimentally to treat Covid-19, need to revamp the global IP regime to lopinavir/ritonavir and remdesivir. However, allow governments to address the health the use of CLs is product and country needs of their people. specific. As a result, free global availability K.M. GOPAKUMAR is a senior researcher with the of medical products and easy movement Third World Network.

12 Ninety-Nine 2021

Above: Activists from the Indian Network For People with HIV/AIDS protest against Swiss pharma giant Novartis in 2007, after the company tried to stop India producing generic versions of patented medicines.

Global Justice Now Supporters Youth network grows new roots Global Justice Now’s network specifically for the under 30s was established in late 2016, but in 2020 it grew new roots. Over the last few months, we added new groups in Northampton, Nottingham, Southampton, Cambridge and Stirling.

online workshops. Thirty youth activists from Stirling to Brighton took part in the December action targeting big pharma. Four activists of colour from across the network spoke on racism and climate justice at a very popular online network event in November.

The network also grew in confidence – the We’ve found that London group devised holding meetings online and ran tens of has actually helped Active Anti-Racism to grow the network. workshops, especially Although it still makes for Extinction Rebellion sense to organise groups. They fundraised geographically into £5,000 for migrants' groups, being able to rights organisations by drop into any interesting combining live music, meeting you fancy food and workshops creates opportunities at two different events for people interested in early 2020. At our in starting new groups US trade deal day of to dip their toe into the action in October they London branch, Our Future Now, the youth network's water. unfurled a banner off last February.

Westminster Bridge. They In 2021 we’re going to even organised an online try and make the most fundraiser dating event for young lefties, Swipe Left, of having to meet online to link individual groups in December! up more so they can learn from and collaborate The Cambridge group, based at Anglia Ruskin Uni, have also been really active, holding a wellattended protest against the US trade deal on our day of action and getting local media coverage for it too. They’re also holding regular political discussions. In Leeds a regular reading group has featured among their activities.

with each other directly. With luck, once we can hold meetings in real life again, we’ll have a network of global justice youth activists who will not just be taking up important campaigns today, but will help ensure a generational renewal of the organisation and our wider movement well into the future.

Across the country, groups attended Black Lives Matter demos and held over twenty-five

Find out more about the network at: globaljustice.org.uk/youth

Stand for Global Justice Now’s Council Over the next few months, Global Justice Now will be running elections for the 12 places on our council. While our annual general meeting is the ultimate decision-making body, our council is essential for making strategic and governance decisions throughout the year – and any member can stand for election.

If you’re interested in standing, further information is included as an insert for all members in the posted version of Ninety-Nine, along with the details of this year’s AGM. Don’t hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions, or see: globaljustice.org.uk/elections-2021

DEBT

Holding the global south to ransom Despite the economic crisis caused by Covid-19, private banks including HSBC and Blackrock are demanding extortionate debt payments from lower-income countries, writes DANIEL WILLIS. In our highly connected and unequal global economy, the spectre of a debt crisis is never far away. At times of international instability, as we have seen in the past year, recessions and a fall in commodity prices can push dozens of countries in the global south close to bankruptcy and debt default (a failure to make payments on time). This has reawakened conversations about the need

© Thom Flint/CAFOD

14 Ninety-Nine 2021

to cancel many unfair debts – often a legacy of colonialism – so that governments can instead use their financial resources to tackle the pandemic and support public health.

World leaders have not been blind to this conversation, with the G20 agreeing a six month debt suspension initiative last April, which has since been extended to a year.

Despite this, however, the economic crisis has

Below: Taking our message to the Treasury ahead of the G20 in October.

DEBT continued in many countries, including and tackle climate change. At the Zambia, which last November became start of the pandemic, the Jubilee the first African country to go into debt Debt Campaign calculated that 64 countries were already spending more default since the pandemic began. on debt payments than their entire Even Kenya, which initially declined annual health budget. An estimated to apply for debt relief under the G20 27% of debts in the lowest income scheme, asked the Paris Club group countries are owed to private banks, of countries in January for six month’s but some debt relief. Why countries are are so many Any money saved particularly at countries in from the G20 debt risk, with 69% of such difficulties?

Zambia’s debt A big part of suspension is going owed to private the problem straight back out creditors. Ghana, is that private which last year lenders, of the door to big spent four times including banks, rather than more on debt Blackrock, HSBC than healthcare, and Goldman supporting crucial owes 59% of its Sachs who are public healthcare. debt to private owed large creditors. amounts of Suspension of these debts is debt by governments in the global therefore an entirely reasonable south, are not included in the G20’s response during a public health and initiative. These major financial economic crisis. With new variants of institutions charge higher rates of interest than governments, so for many Covid-19 emerging around the world, it is clearer than ever that no one is countries any money saved from safe until everyone is safe. That is why, debt relief is going straight back out along with our allies around the world of the door to big banks, rather than and in the UK, Global Justice Now is supporting crucial public healthcare. pushing for private sector debts to also It’s time for the G20 and others to force private creditors to suspend, and be suspended, whilst also aiming to reignite a public conversation about ultimately cancel, these debts. debt cancellation and reforms to the ALL IN THIS TOGETHER? international debt system.

The idea that big banks should THE UK’S ROLE suspend their debts is not particularly radical. The president of the World With the UK hosting both the G7 and Bank, David Malpass, has publicly stated his frustration that private creditors continue to “take very large payments from the poorest countries”.

Kristalina Georgieva, managing director of the IMF, has also lamented the lack of participation by the private sector in debt relief.

Suspending private sector debts could play a huge role in freeing up more financial resources for governments to respond to the pandemic, rebuild their economies, © Michael Vi/Shutterstock

COP26 climate talks this year, we need to put these private profiteers in the spotlight and make the argument that debt cancellation is an essential component both of the Covid-19 response and international efforts to tackle climate change. We need to build as much public pressure on private creditors as possible and shame them into action.

As well as our regular campaign action, that means reaching out to banking customers, journalists and politicians, making sure they are asking the right questions and holding these financial institutions to account. And crucially, we know that there are ways that rich governments – particularly the US and UK as the home to major financial centres – can force private creditors to reduce their debts, including passing law to prevent banks suing southern countries for defaulted debts right here in London. We need to make sure they do it.

That’s where we need your help. As ever, this means using all of our people power to fight back against corporate influence and our unfair economic system. When the debt cancellation movement won big victories in the late 1990s and again in the 2000s, this popular support was absolutely crucial.

Covid-19 is an extraordinary crisis but also an opportunity for extraordinary change. We’ve shown that we can win before and we can win again.

Daniel Willis is campaign and policy manager on aid and climate at Global Justice Now.

TAKE ACTION Tell HSBC and Blackrock to cancel the debt of lower-income countries in the wake of Covid-19: globaljustice.org.uk/debt

2020 Ninety-Nine 15

IN PICTURES

Indian farmers rise up Three new laws which will subject millions of Indian farmers to global market forces have provoked mass protests lasting several months.

As many as two millions farmers from across India have been mobilising for months against the country’s new farming laws. The government of Narendra Modi has met them with criticism and brutal policing, and has even tried to dismiss them as terrorists, but farmers have been camped outside the capital Delhi since November.

Farmers are demanding the repeal of three laws introduced in September which together allow for the liberalisation of Indian agriculture for the benefit of big business.

According to Focus on the Global South, they “seek to make India an agricultural export hub, linking farmers’ livelihoods to global trade as they have never been linked before.”

In a country where 60% of the population depends on agriculture, and tens of thousands of farmers already commit suicide, often in the face of debts caused by privatised seeds and low prices, the protests have attracted widespread support.

After more than a dozen rounds of talks with the government, the most that has been offered is an 18-month pause on the laws. But farmers groups are holding firm in their demand for them to be scrapped.

16 Ninety-Nine 2020

1

2 3

IN PICTURES 1. A tractor rally at Ghaziabad, on the outskirts of New Delhi, on 7 January. Farmers converged on the capital from across the country.

Altaf Qadri/AP/ Shutterstock 2. A burning copy of the agriculture laws at a protest on the Ghazipur border on 13 January.

Pradeep Gaur/SOPA Images/Shutterstock

4 5

3. A march in support of the protests in Kolkata in December.

Bikas Das/AP/ Shutterstock 4. A police officer uses a baton on a farmer in New Delhi on 26 January, India’s Republic Day. Millions watched farmers storm the Red Fort, a symbol of Indian independence, on news channels around the world.

Reuters/Adnan Abidi TPX 5. Farmers at a support protest in Mumbai in January. Women have provided the backbone of the ongoing blockades.

“I have never been in a protest before, but I would happily die for my land and for my future generation,” said Manjeet Kaur, 60.

“We will fight for our rights.”

Divykant Solanki/EPAEFE/Shutterstock

2020 Ninety-Nine 17

CLIMATE

The UK is funding climate injustice in Mozambique Despite pledges to stop financing fossil fuels overseas, the UK is putting $1 billion towards a major gas project, write ILHAM RAWOOT and ANABELA LEMOS. It is more than a decade since 75 trillion cubic feet of gas was discovered off the coast of northern Mozambique. Today the country is home to Africa’s three largest liquid natural gas projects: the Mozambique LNG Project, Coral LNG and Rovuma LNG, all led by foreign energy corporations – ExxonMobil, Total and Eni. Mozambique LNG, led by France’s Total, has benefited from $20 billion of fossil finance – the biggest loan in Mozambique’s history. The US Export-Import Bank, under Trump’s watch, loaned $5 billion, while UK Export Finance, part of the UK’s Department for International Trade, announced in July that it has contributed around $1 billion of support.

have provided more money to the government specifically to deploy more soldiers in Cabo Delgado, and industry players have also hired their own private security companies.

The government is notorious for corruption – in the last few years there has been an elite illegal debt scandal, which the UK banking system played a role in – and when the UK, US and other developed countries invest in fossil fuels, it’s rewarding this corruption and enabling impunity.

People are extremely poor in the region where all of these gas projects are located, the province of Cabo Delgado, in northern Mozambique.

Yet they are suffering from the ‘textbook’ issues that history has repeatedly shown us always come © Justiça Ambiental with the extractives industry: losing The beach near Milamba village, from where many fishing and farming families their homes and their livelihoods. Over have been displaced. Many are now relying on food parcels from Total.

550 fishing and farming families have Mozambique is already suffering from the been displaced and left without livelihoods effects of climate change and these gas projects – they were promised jobs in the gas industry, will only make that worse. Climate injustice but have only received short-term unskilled jobs and human rights are interlinked. If they really like cleaners, guards and basic labour on the want to invest in development, in bettering the construction sites. They have been moved far lives of Mozambicans, this money should go from the ocean and their farming lands, and are into education, into housing, into renewable, now relying on food parcels from Total. just energy systems for people – working with Meanwhile, the area has become increasingly communities to understand their needs. militarised, as the Mozambican military and mercenaries try to protect the interests of the industry from insurgents. ExxonMobil and Total

18 Ninety-Nine 2020

Ilham Rawoot and Anabela Lemos are with Justiça Ambiental (Friends of the Earth Mozambique).

REVIEWS

Reviews THIS LAND IS OUR LAND: AN IMMIGRANT’S MANIFESTO Suketu Mehta Jonathan Cape, 2019

HOW TO CHANGE IT: MAKE A DIFFERENCE Joshua Virasami Merky Books, 2020 Part of a series curated by Stormzy for a new generation of voices, I found this pocket-sized book a thoroughly interesting and inspiring read. Divided into three sections: educate, organise and agitate, it manages to pack in everything you need to know to make change happen.

Within each section is a dynamic mix of personal history and anecdotes from Virasami’s own life and experience as an organiser; wisdom and know-how from past and current campaigns, political movements and radical thinkers; and useful practical advice. And all interspersed with text boxes giving definitions of key terms, important things to note, practical exercises and top tips.

Whether you’re new to activism or an old hand, there’s loads to learn or be reminded of in this little book. In fact, I’m going to stick my neck out and say that if you’re only going to read one book on activism then this should be it.

Liz Murray

This is an evocative and informative read intertwining the personal story of the author’s migration from India to America with the historical, geographical and economic factors that cause a quarter of a billion people to currently live in a country other than where they were born.

the global playground for the rich white elite.

Slicing through the false narratives that are all too pervasive, Mehta offers us the real reasons for migration and the true stories behind the headlines and scapegoating – from the devastating effects of western-driven climate change to the colonial imposition of borders and their legacy of passport control for brown skins and tickets to

This Land is Our Land is a good reminder ‘that we are here because you were there’ – if we could accept the truths offered in this book we could be a more compassionate nation. Read it not so much to learn about open borders but open hearts.

Effie Jordan

SANTIAGO RISING Nick MacWilliam Alborada Films, 2021 This new documentary from Alborada Films charts a year of social upheaval in Chile.

Between the mass metro protest led by students in Santiago in October 2019 and the October 2020 plebiscite, when a majority of the electorate voted for a new constitution, MacWilliam depicts a city caught between the carnival atmosphere of mass social resistance and the brutal reality of police repression.

While Chile has officially undergone a transition to democracy in the postPinochet era, the neoliberal economy has remained largely intact while the state continues to use violence to stifle dissent. Through moving

interviews and shocking live footage of demonstrations, MacWilliam carefully highlights how multiple movements, from feminist organisers to high school students and Mapuche communities, have co-operated in Chile’s ‘social explosion’. The film acts as an excellent explainer of recent events in Chile to an English-speaking audience, demonstrating how, as Salvador Allende once said, history is made by the people.

Daniel Willis

YOU CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE TOMORROW Leave the future to a voice you can trust to shout loudly for what you believe in Yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Alongside people like you, we’re standing up to injustice and fighting for a more just world. Where we all have access to the food, healthcare and education we deserve. Where people’s lives count for more than corporate profits.

Here at Global Justice Now we are unafraid to demand what you believe in and hold the powerful to account. For decades we’ve done hard-hitting research to expose injustice, and pushed for change with communities around the world. And we promise to keep doing so long after you’re gone. You can make this possible.

In 1970 a vibrant net wor k of activist groups tackling inequality came togethe set up Global Justice Now r to (then called the World Dev elopment Movement).

More than two thirds of our income comes from people like you, keeping our campaigns fierce and our voice unrestrained. By leaving a gift in your will to Global Justice Now you can make sure we’ll continue to fight for your values after you’re gone. A gift from you can make the difference of winning a campaign for generations to come.

“ for continuing to fight Now supporters are er Global Justice rch.

Ma me lco We Half a century lat s the Refugee , pictured here at a more just world

I am leaving Global Justice Now a gift in my will because the work they do is of the greatest importance. It is a long, hard battle we are embarked on – not just for ourselves, but for our children and grandchildren.

”

M Chamberlain, Global Justice Now member and legacy pledger

For more information about including Global Justice Now in your will email Polly at polly.moreton@globaljustice.org.uk or Freephone her using 0800 328 2153. Alternatively go to globaljustice.org.uk/leave-gift-your-will Global Justice Now: company no 2098198, Global Justice Now Trust: registered charity no 1064066, company no 3188734.