THE INTER-CONTINENTAL CARAVAN
Several hundred activists from all over the world will come to Europe in May-June 1999, to participate in non-violent actions against the most important centres of power of the continent (like headquarters of TNCs, banks, institutions, corporate lobby groups, parliaments, etc), and meet groups from different countries.
The timing of their visit will coincide with two major political events: the summit of heads of state of the European Union and the summit of heads of state of the G8 (USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Canada, Italy and Russia). The G8 meeting, which marks the end of the visit, will be the highest point of the ICC, and will coincide with other initiatives going on at the same time, such as non-violent actions in financial centres all over the world.
Since this project was originally conceived in India (by KRRS, the biggest farmers' movement of that country), a large share of the activists coming will be Indian farmers, but the programme is open foractivists from all over the world and different social sectors to join it. It is anticipated that there will be about 500 activists from India, and about 100 from other countries.
The ICC is a project initiated and co-ordinated through the PGA (Peoples Global Action against "free" trade and WTO) -network, which was set up at a conference in February 1998 In Geneva, Switzerland, andco-ordinated actions against the WTO Ministerial Conference in May 1998 In Geneva, also. The political position of the ICC is based on the PGA philosophy on non-violence, non-hierarcical strugtures, and will maintain a confrontational attitude and practicnon-violent civil disobedience and direct action as tools for political change rather than lobbying. For more information about the PGA, see Homepage:
The name Inter Continental Caravan shares it's initials (ICC) with the large corporate lobby group, the International Chamber of Commerce, which was instrumental in drafting the MAI. We would like to apologise for any inconvenience this may cause the International Chamber of Commerce!
CONTACT:
European Co-ordination office c/o PO BOX 2228, 2301 CE
Leiden, Holland Tel/fax: 00 31 71 517 3094, e-mail: caravan@stad.dsl.nl , http://stad.dsl.nl/~caravan/
PGA Secretariat: pga@agp.org