OccupyLSX Speaks Out Against G20

OccupyLSX has spoken out against the G20 summit that began in Cannes, France today.

The G20, a group of the world’s most powerful finance ministers and central bank governors is a controversial force, and is met by huge protest every year. The G20, which began in 1999, was set up to “bring together systemically important industrialised and developing economies to discuss key issues in the global economy.” OccupyLSX said it wanted the 7 billion people that make up the world to decide their future, not the G20. The statement was unanimously ratified by 500 people at the St Paul’s camp this week.

Steve Rushton, one of the occupiers responsible for putting the statement together, said the statement was a work in progress since the occupation began. He said it was created using the direct democracy process the camp is founded on and it was collaborated over at the general assemblies. He said the statement  “represents the ethos and the values of the camp. “The G20 is undemocratic, unjust and unsustainable. This statement is about reaching out to other occupy movements. Its about making a coherent alternative to  the current system.” The group was hoping to liaise with other global occupation movements, as well as groups protesting the G20 summit in France. They hoped other groups would build on the statement and it would send a powerful message  to the G20 leaders.

The statement said:

• Our global system is unsustainable. It is undemocratic and unjust, driven by profit in the interest of the few.
• An economic system based on infinite growth, but which relies on finite resources, is leading humanity and the environment to destruction. As long as this system remains in place, people of the world continue to suffer from an increasingly unfair share of income and wealth.
• We seek a global system that is democratic, just and sustainable. The world’s resources must not go to the military or corporate profit, but instead go towards caring for people’s needs: water, food, housing, education, health, community.
•  An international, global collaboration has started, and is working on a statement that will unite the occupy movements across the world in their struggle for an alternative that is focused on and originates from people and their environment.