Maryhill SSP

MARYHILL SSP

WHY WE DEMONSTRATE AGAINST THE G8

The leaders of the 8 richest countries known as the G8 met at Gleneagles in Scotland in the first week in July 2005. As usual those leaders just pay lip service to tackling the causes of poverty. Third world countries are crippled by the interest on loans from the world banks. Many people have the impression that poor countries just receive hand outs from the rich countries without realising that most of these poor countries have already repaid their debt several times over through interest which benefits the investors of the rich countries. So in fact the rich countries are the ones who are financially benefiting from the poor countries. On top of this, leaders of rich countries try to make deals with leaders in any country they can to tap that country’s resources as cheaply as they can. Africa and Asia are rich in minerals yet the local people do not benefit from their resources in the way that they should.

Middle Eastern countries are rich in oil and the leaders of countries like Saudi Arabia sell off their oil cheaply to western oil companies while letting their ordinary citizens live in poverty. Other countries such as Iraq which have refused to make such deals are simply invaded by western powers who will obtain their resources, by hook or by crook, whether a deal has been made or not. The political and military leaders of the richest countries, notably the US give the pretext that they are ridding the invaded country of a tyrant yet they never bother to invade and remove the tyrants of countries whose resources they are not interested in.

The Scottish Socialist party abhors such hypocrisy and like many people, disgusted with the G8 leaders’ pretence at addressing the problems of world poverty, organised for and turned out at the various protest activities during the week of the G8 conference in Scotland to make their dissatisfaction known to the world leaders.

Photos of the demonstration at Gleneagles on 6 July 2005