arch/ive/ief (2000 - 2005)

G8 : interview with Luke (UK)
by lize Saturday May 31, 2003 at 07:39 PM
lize@indymedia.be

“The G8 meet behind closed doors because they are ashamed of what they are doing. By stopping this meeting we are stopping people dying !”

G8 : interview with ...
luke.jpg, image/jpeg, 300x230

What is your message to all these people that look at the television today and tomorrow and don't really understand why people come here to protest ?

I'd like them to understand that the G8 is basically an unelected government of the 8 richest countries in the world and that because they are the richest countries in the world can do whatever they want to all the other people and to all the other countries.
We are here to protest against the kind of policies they want to adopt, which are policies that don't affect only the people in the UK but also in Belgium, such as privatisation, environmental damage, sexism, .. things that affect all ordinary people.

And exactly this time, in the meeting of this year, what are they discussing you think ?


I know that 2 years ago they talked about the debt. But what they are trying to do now is basically increase the debt repayments, which means that you make countries like Argentina poorer, putting them into crisis.
We don't know exactly what they are saying because they meet behind closed doors. They don't allow people to go in and observe their meetings, obviously because they are very ashamed about what they are doing. But what we do know - what they always do when they meet - is that they are dividing the world according to their interests. And these are not our interests ! They are not the interests of the majority ! That's why we have the slogan : "They are 8, but we are millions !"

When for you the actions that you are going to take today and tomorrow will be successful ?

There are several reasons why we are doing this.
Mostly because we want to stop this meeting of taking place, because stopping this meeting means we are stopping people dying.
The second reason is that we want to build a mass protest and bring as many as people together, making sure that our militant message gets across to people, even if we don't manage to actually block the conference itself.
And I think the third reason is that we're bringing people together from all over the world, from all over Europe. I think we're helping people to see that this is not just a problem that relates to Switzerland or to Belgium or to any particular country. The problems that have been created affect us all and we need to all join together in order to get rid of this problem !