wfn.org | United Methodists at G-8 Summit

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (184
notes).

Note 183 by UMNS on June 26, 1997 at 16:41 Eastern (11016 characters).

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          371(10-71B){183}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           June 26, 1997

United Methodists disappointed
by G-8 positions, policies

                 by United Methodist News Service

     United Methodists and members of other religious and civic
nongovernmental organizations tried to raise justice issues as a
part of the G-8 economic summit June 20-22 in Denver. To some
extent they were disappointed.
     "The [summit] meetings were very closed," reported Marti
Zimmerman, director of the Iliff Institute, the United Methodist
seminary's continuing education arm. "It was very ostentatious,
yet very private."
     Zimmerman said she thought even the media were excluded to
the point that they did not pick up on the issues.
     "A lot of people were not at the table," she said. But there
were some alternative "summits." Among them were the people's
summit, the women's summit and The Other Economic Summit (TOES).
     About 350 people attended an ecumenical worship service "to
lift up God's call for justice and care" at Trinity United
Methodist Church, across the street from the Brown Palace Hotel,
where the Clintons stayed, said Zimmerman, who chaired the worship
committee.
     Preaching at the service, the Rev. Teresa Fry Brown charged
the world leaders with being chaplains of the status quo, and said
the world needs people to work for justice and come to God for
help.
     Brown, an Iliff graduate and clergymember of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, is an associate professor at
Candler School of Theology, Emory University -- one of 13
seminaries associated with the United Methodist Church.
     "You can't hear the cries of the poor if your mouth's running
all the time," she said.
     Mark Harrison, a project director with the United Methodist
Board of Church and Society staff in Washington, remarked that the
summit has become "more and more political," devoting increasing
attention to foreign policy and military agendas.
     The United States wants to add three countries to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)and Europe wants to add five,
he said. Either way, he explained, expansion "will have a big
price tag" -- $20-60 billion.
     Prior to the summit, Harrison worked with the Washington
Office on Africa, Bread for the World, Church World Service and
other organizations to produce a report on Africa that was widely
circulated in the Clinton administration.
     Harrison said the report calls for a comprehensive approach
to Africa that includes debt relief, development aid, agriculture
and food security, trade and investment, and conflict resolution.
     This concept was generally accepted by Canada, Japan and the
European members of the summit but without commitment to specific
measures in some of the components like debt relief, he said.
     Harrison noted that the European countries rejected the U.S.
insistence on conditions for joining in the Clinton initiative,
which is titled the United States-Africa Partnership for Growth
and Opportunity.
     "In some ways Clinton's speech was disappointing because he
didn't go beyond the U.S. legislation already introduced in
Congress." Harrison said, adding that the legislation does not
deal with all the issues put forward in the report.
     He faulted a G-8 statement requiring "sound macroeconomic
policies." He said this is a "thinly disguised reference to the
same sort of economic reforms that the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have imposed on indebted nations for
more than a decade" often with "disastrous consequences" for poor
and marginalized groups, particularly women.
     "Once again Africans were not invited to be part of the
conversations," he said, adding that the last time the Europeans
got together to talk about Africa they divided the continent at
the end of the 19th century in Berlin.
     Not only was Africa unrepresented, but women, workers, the
poor and the general public who will be affected by the policies
had no voice.
     Alternative economic policies, how to fight inflation and
unemployment, inequities in trade, global corporations and labor
rights -- "these things were off the table," Harrison said.      
The European Union -- which includes all the European G-8 members
and other European countries -- and environmental groups faulted
the United States for failure to set specific goals in the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, Harrison reported.
     The eight powers did agree to a ban on human cloning. 
     At the summit, two initiatives were launched by the
Washington-based Religious Working Group on the World Bank and the
IMF. Harrison is a part of the coalition, which works for global
economic justice.
     One initiative is Jubilee 2000. This grassroots campaign of
debt relief for impoverished nations had been launched earlier in
other major creditor countries. Its first phase is a petition
campaign for debt forgiveness, an idea found in the Old
Testament.     
     The other, the Moral Imperative, offers a set of criteria for
the design and evaluation of economic reforms. These criteria
stress the value of human beings and the environment as creations
of God to be valued above all systems.
                              #  #  #

Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

Contact:  Joretta Purdue                          371(10-71B){183}
          Washington, D.C.  (202) 546-8722           June 26, 1997

United Methodists disappointed
by G-8 positions, policies

                 by United Methodist News Service

     United Methodists and members of other religious and civic
nongovernmental organizations tried to raise justice issues as a
part of the G-8 economic summit June 20-22 in Denver. To some
extent they were disappointed.
     "The [summit] meetings were very closed," reported Marti
Zimmerman, director of the Iliff Institute, the United Methodist
seminary's continuing education arm. "It was very ostentatious,
yet very private."
     Zimmerman said she thought even the media were excluded to
the point that they did not pick up on the issues.
     "A lot of people were not at the table," she said. But there
were some alternative "summits." Among them were the people's
summit, the women's summit and The Other Economic Summit (TOES).
     About 350 people attended an ecumenical worship service "to
lift up God's call for justice and care" at Trinity United
Methodist Church, across the street from the Brown Palace Hotel,
where the Clintons stayed, said Zimmerman, who chaired the worship
committee.
     Preaching at the service, the Rev. Teresa Fry Brown charged
the world leaders with being chaplains of the status quo, and said
the world needs people to work for justice and come to God for
help.
     Brown, an Iliff graduate and clergymember of the African
Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, is an associate professor at
Candler School of Theology, Emory University -- one of 13
seminaries associated with the United Methodist Church.
     "You can't hear the cries of the poor if your mouth's running
all the time," she said.
     Mark Harrison, a project director with the United Methodist
Board of Church and Society staff in Washington, remarked that the
summit has become "more and more political," devoting increasing
attention to foreign policy and military agendas.
     The United States wants to add three countries to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)and Europe wants to add five,
he said. Either way, he explained, expansion "will have a big
price tag" -- $20-60 billion.
     Prior to the summit, Harrison worked with the Washington
Office on Africa, Bread for the World, Church World Service and
other organizations to produce a report on Africa that was widely
circulated in the Clinton administration.
     Harrison said the report calls for a comprehensive approach
to Africa that includes debt relief, development aid, agriculture
and food security, trade and investment, and conflict resolution.
     This concept was generally accepted by Canada, Japan and the
European members of the summit but without commitment to specific
measures in some of the components like debt relief, he said.
     Harrison noted that the European countries rejected the U.S.
insistence on conditions for joining in the Clinton initiative,
which is titled the United States-Africa Partnership for Growth
and Opportunity.
     "In some ways Clinton's speech was disappointing because he
didn't go beyond the U.S. legislation already introduced in
Congress." Harrison said, adding that the legislation does not
deal with all the issues put forward in the report.
     He faulted a G-8 statement requiring "sound macroeconomic
policies." He said this is a "thinly disguised reference to the
same sort of economic reforms that the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund have imposed on indebted nations for
more than a decade" often with "disastrous consequences" for poor
and marginalized groups, particularly women.
     "Once again Africans were not invited to be part of the
conversations," he said, adding that the last time the Europeans
got together to talk about Africa they divided the continent at
the end of the 19th century in Berlin.
     Not only was Africa unrepresented, but women, workers, the
poor and the general public who will be affected by the policies
had no voice.
     Alternative economic policies, how to fight inflation and
unemployment, inequities in trade, global corporations and labor
rights -- "these things were off the table," Harrison said.      
The European Union -- which includes all the European G-8 members
and other European countries -- and environmental groups faulted
the United States for failure to set specific goals in the
reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, Harrison reported.
     The eight powers did agree to a ban on human cloning. 
     At the summit, two initiatives were launched by the
Washington-based Religious Working Group on the World Bank and the
IMF. Harrison is a part of the coalition, which works for global
economic justice.
     One initiative is Jubilee 2000. This grassroots campaign of
debt relief for impoverished nations had been launched earlier in
other major creditor countries. Its first phase is a petition
campaign for debt forgiveness, an idea found in the Old
Testament.     
     The other, the Moral Imperative, offers a set of criteria for
the design and evaluation of economic reforms. These criteria
stress the value of human beings and the environment as creations
of God to be valued above all systems.
                              #  #  #

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