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G8 Demo Planned for New York, June 26, 2002

NEW YORK CITY DIRECT ACTION NETWORK /

ANOTHER WORLD IS POSSIBLE

JOIN THE FIGHT AGAINST THE G8 IN NEW YORK!

Wednesday, June 26, 5 p.m., at the International Monetary Fund offices, E45th Street and Second Avenue

Solidarity with activists gathering around the world in opposition to the summit of the world's chief terrorists!

On June 26 and 27, the Group of 8 -- the so-called leaders of the industrialized world -- will gather under massive security in the secluded Canadian ski resort of Kananaskis for their annual meeting.

They can run, but they can't hide.

Last year in Genoa and the year before that in Prague, George W. Bush, Tony Blair, Vladimir Putin, and their fraternity brothers were greeted by massive direct-action protests. Not just in those cities but in others all over the world, outrage at the rapacious, corporate-dictated agenda being hatched by our political "leaders" spilled over in rallies, marches, occupations, and festivals that brought hundreds of thousands of people together. This despite an escalation of state violence that reached its height when Carlo Giuliani, a young Italian activist, was gunned down by police in Genoa.

This year, the Kananaskis gathering of the G8 will once again be the focal point of global protests. And once again, New York City activists will be gathering in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Canada and around the world, sending an unmistakable message that we reject the G8 and its plans for our future.

We are calling for all New York activists on behalf of global justice to rally on Wednesday, June 26, for an end to the agenda of corporate globalization and state repression and violence. We are calling for a colorful, festive, and creative event that draws on every facet of New York's own proud culture of resistance.

Rally, march, form affinity groups, and bring your own distinctive form of protest! Our focal point will be a 5 p.m. march from the International Monetary Fund offices at 828 Second Avenue to the Consulate General of Italy at 690 Park Avenue.

Join us for a 5 p.m. march from the IMF offices at 828 Second Avenue to the Consulate General of Italy at 690 Park Avenue on Wednesday, June 26!

For more information, keep checking our Website at www.anotherworldispossible.com

Why march? Why the G8?

Much has changed since the last G8 Summit. The world leaders gathering in Kananaskis are now partners in a "war on terrorism" that threatens a semi-permanent campaign of repression against indigenous peoples from Palestine and Iraq to Chechnya, Tibet, China, and the Philippines. This summit of the world's warlords can only advance a global strategy that began with the "retaliatory" campaign in Afghanistan last fall and has since broadened into a post-Cold War remilitarization of the planet.

* We'll be in the streets to expose the responsibility of the G8 leaders themselves for terrorism, through their rigid opposition to the rights of peoples in the developing nations it exploits to decide their own future.

The G8 is about trade as well as terror -- the corporate-led trade agenda that is crushing indigenous communities, workers' rights, and economic self-determination around the planet. The IMF, the World Bank, the World Trade Organization -- all take their marching orders from the ministers gathered at the G8 Summit. And each year, the G8 attempts to dress up its economic demolition project with pathetically inadequate, token efforts at "debt relief" and "development initiatives" for developing countries. This year the focus will be on Africa, with the so-called "New Partnership for Africa's Development."

* We'll be in the streets to expose this travesty, which is built on the same failed economic strategies that have kept Africa impoverished all along.

G8 leaders have declared democracy dead by forging a policy of zero tolerance for mass dissent against their schemes. Since the anti-WTO actions in Seattle three years ago, that policy has escalated into an undeclared war on activists who dare to bring their message directly to the G8. Carlo Giuliani's death was only one of many that the global justice movement has suffered -- over 30 died in anti-IMF actions in Argentina last December, for example. But Carlo's death, and the shocking failure of the Italian authorities to enforce any accountability for this crime, underscore the fact that the life of an activist is considered less important than the ability of the G8 heads of state to drink their cocktails in quiet.

* We'll be in the streets to show that Carlo's death has not been forgotten, and demand an end to repression against activists.

The G8 has served above all to cement the global overlordship of the United States. By endorsing Bush's phony "war on terrorism" without consulting their own people in any way, the leaders of these "democracies" have cleared up any illusion that their people have the right to self-determination. By cutting deals giving the U.S. the latitude to invade Iraq in exchange for free rein in his genocidal war on Chechnya, Russian President Putin has created a new partnership for repression that the U.S. has already extended to client states like Turkey, Israeli, and the Philippines. With it, the people of these countries lose their ability to choose any but the future of corporate takeover and financial servitude that Washington has prescribed for the rest of the world.

* We'll be in the streets to demand an end to the imperial America the G8 is so eager to endorse.

Show your resistance to the G8's politics of war and economic repression! Show your solidarity with the many thousands of others around the planet who will be in the streets to take back their lives and their futures!