* Sao Paulo Forum
Facing the future
Declaration of the 9th meeting of the Sao Paulo forum (extracts)
A t the dawn of the 21st century and the third millennium of our era, a decade after the creation of the Sao Paulo Forum, the aggravation of the political, economic, social and cultural crisis which humanity is experiencing has borne out the motives (both real and apparent) which lay behind the convocation of the "Meeting of parties and organizations of the left in Latin America and the Caribbean" in Brazil in July 1990.
The founding nucleus of what is today the Forum attended this meeting in Sao Paulo to allow an exchange of views on the impact that the end of the bipolarity resulting from the end of the Second World War would have on the struggle of the parties and movements of the left in Latin America and the Caribbean.
### Convergence
The Sao Paulo meeting had the merit of resulting, for the first time in Latin-American history, in the convergence of parties and movements across the whole spectrum of the left.
These latter, who had their origins in the most diverse forms of struggle noted together that the dramatic problems affecting the peoples of the world, particularly those of Latin America and the Caribbean, would not disappear with the end of the Cold War, but would only be eliminated with the end of oppression, domination, exploitation and racism.
In their plurality and their diversity, the movements and parties who were members of the Forum of Sao Paulo came together in the struggle against imperialism, which in the two last decades of the 20th century has adopted the form of neoliberal capitalism.
The 10 years since the creation of the Forum have only served to confirm our initial analyses. Just as in July 1990, we reject categorically the idea that neoliberalism can constitute a project of development, which after a period of adjustment, will pour out wealth to all the inhabitants of the 20 International Viewpoint #320 April 2000 land. We reject the illusion according to which the liberal doctrine responds to supposed inexorable laws of economic, scientific and technical development.
The reality of the last decade has particularly demonstrated the limits of the neoliberal model and its incapacity to resolve the problems of humanity. The failure of the Seattle meeting in December 1999 is the symbolic expression of the strength of the international anti-neoliberal resistance.
The neoliberal doctrine in reality represents the economic and political interests of those who are ready to sacrifice and exterminate the majority of humanity to pursue the diabolical and dizzying accumulation of wealth, in practically unimaginable proportions.
The world economy has entered a phase of depredation. The "key words" which describe the world today are concentration, polarization and colonial domination: concentration of wealth, property and production; political, economic and social polarization, with its associated poverty, exclusion and marginalisation.
This polarization and this inequality expresses itself at the world level by the small proportion of the population which consumes the major part of the product and benefits from the services available.
It is expressed also by the concentration of wealth in the hand of less than 300 families, by the millions of other human beings deprived of the access to work, health, food, a dignified dwelling place, education, elementary rights, subsistence, reproduction and development conquered by the human race over generations.
### US aggression
To this is added the effects of the unilateral military aggression of the United States and its criminal determination to violate the post-war international legal order, clearly expressed by the genocide of the people of Yugoslavia under the auspices of the UN and NATO, reformed for these purposes.
The only way to save humanity from a programmed self-destruction is to establish the satisfaction of human needs as the fundamental priority of the future society - not individual gain or profit. The solution to the world's problems will involve the eradication, through struggle, of the fundamental class contradictions which are closely linked with the most diverse forms of oppression, discrimination and exploitation, notably those based on gender, ethnicity, race, culture, religion, age, and so on.
### Colonial vestiges
The peoples of the world cannot aspire to strengthen their liberty, nor conquer their right to self-determination and their total sovereignty so long as all the vestiges of colonialism (like that which oppresses the peoples of Puerto Rico, Martinique, Guadeloupe, French Guyana, Dutch Antilles and in a certain sense the Malvinas) have not been wiped away.
The left in the 21st century can take into account experiences of elaboration of propositions, conquest of spaces and power, construction of alternative models, all stemming from the study of the social reality that we hope to transform. It must also consider the necessity of envisaging profound changes of structure which can reverse the process of destruction of the forests, combat international financial speculation, redistribute wealth, democratize and socialize the elaboration of the budget, promote social participation and political and economic decentralization.
It will also face the task of transforming the state, to put it at the service of development and the deepening of a new integral democracy: social, political, cultural and of gender. The peace accords in Guatemala can be identified with this type of process. Other significant political processes have taken place or are taking place in Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama, El Salvador or Colombia.
We must also note the presence of the indigenous peoples of America, who resist the assaults of neoliberalism and the transnationals.
Their rebellions and mobilizations have served to highlight the necessity of profound transformations in our national states to guarantee the preservation of biodiversity and the ecosystem, as well as ethnic plurality and the recognition of their identity, rights and self-determination.
Ten years after the foundation of the Sao Paulo Forum, the Latin American left reaffirms its traditions of democracy and resistance. *