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People's summit declaration
Southern African People's Solidarity Network (SAPSN)
August 20, 2008

More than four hundred representatives of Social Movements, labor organizations, economic justice networks , faith and community based and youth organizations, developmental, health environmental, human Rights and other NGOs that work closely with them gathered in Gauteng South Africa to discuss our common concerns and present our Demands and alternatives to the governments of SADC meeting here at this time.

This is the fourth annual SAPSN Summit and it takes place in a period of deepening political tensions within SADC and deteriorating social and economic situations for the majority of our peoples. In this context our discussions focused on our concerns, proposals and demands on the following:

Democracy and human rights abuses disrupting and destabilizing our region, with particular emphasis on the gross denial of democratic and human rights in Zimbabwe and Swaziland but also (to other degrees) throughout SADC, especially DRC and Angola. In this context we repeat our demand on all SADC governments to ensure the implementation of full democratic principles and all human rights (including women's, labor, all NGOs to carry out their work with their people). We demand that SADC governments rapidly ensure that:

• all the people of Zimbabwe themselves are enabled to create the means and find the solutions to the crisis in their country, and SADC must terminate Mbeki's role as mediator since he is about to become the SADC Chair;
• apply targeted sanctions on the Swazi royal family, and do not confirm Swaziland's Chairship of the SADC Organ on Peace and Security until a full democratic regime is established in that country by the people of Swaziland.

Poverty and Unemployment continues to devastate our people caused by the neo-liberal market- driven policies of SADC governments and their tolerance and promotion of self-serving corrupt practices in their own ranks. Of the many counter actions that must be undertaken, We demand that SADC:

• must create regional economic development and diversification strategies to combat poverty and prioritize the creation of decent employment and the right to work.
• must develop such policies with the active and full participation of the unemployed youth, women, small traders, fisher people and so on.

Food Insecurity and Hunger is the other compelling evidence of the growth of poverty in large sectors of our populations and the undermining of secure rural livelihoods. Of the many measure required, we demand that SADC governments:

• must develop a regional agricultural strategy to secure equitable access to necessary agricultural resources for rural populations especially for women as they are the main producers.
• must deal with the skewed patterns of land ownership especially against women, and including extensive privatization of land and foreign appropriation.
• must create, in consultation with rural producers, full governmental support for sustainable and organic (not GMOs) food production for family food security and regional food sovereignty.

Health crisis and social insecurity are central aspects of the poverty and increasing suffering of large numbers of our people especially the disproportionate numbers of women affected by HIV and AIDS personally and as nurturers of their families and the growing numbers of orphans. This requires free ARVs and special grant and food support. But we also demand that SADC governments:

• must create a regional strategy for universal access to free quality health care as a right for all, especially for the most vulnerable sectors of our people such as those who are differently abled;
• must stop the practice of government leaders using public funds for health treatment overseas;
• must ensure the training/retraining of health personnel and their just working conditions and remuneration.

Privatization of services, above all health, water and other social services removes these from the people, especially for women and children, and undermines the services provisions that are necessary for national and regional development (such as in public transport and affordable, secure public housing).

In this context, we commit ourselves to further mass campaigns to reverse this privatization, corporatization and commercialization (cost-recovery) policies, and we will pressure SADC governments to create national and regional programmes to ensure free accessible and accountable public services including public housing and free education for all, that are essential for our people's well-being and human-based development;

Debt burdens and aid dependency continue to contradict the obligations of our governments and their responsiveness to our needs, because they are under the control of creditor banks and financial institutions, above all the IMF and World Bank, and donor governments. These constrain or dictate what policies governments can or should follow. Thus we demand that SADC governments:

• create a combined regional response, in collaboration with civil society, to audit the sources, nature (especially illegitimate and odious debts), scale and their effects on our people especially the most vulnerable sectors such as women;
• reject externally imposed IMF/WB SAP-type conditionalities for ''debt relief'' or aid; and instead base their criteria on full consultations with their own people;
• put an end to the continual outflow of financial resources through debt payments, and instead demand reparations for these debt payments and the colonial and neo-colonial plunder of African people and resources.

Trade deficits and capital outflows are the other forms of financial drainage from our countries. These are created and reinforced by the trade and financial liberalization policies of SADC governments. These counter-developmental policies will be reinforced if SADC governments continue down the road of negotiating so-called Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) with the European Union. Thus we demand that SADC governments:

• must reunite as a region and, together, firmly resist the EU's recolonising EPAs; instead of maneuvering separately to get EU trade and "aid support" which is splitting SADC apart;
• must recognize that the free trade area they are creating within SADC will further serve to create an open integrated market for EU exporters, investors and service corporations under policies of eternal trade and investment liberalization;
• must recognize that such a SADC free trade area will also serve the expansionist aims and interests of South African companies, not the equitable and more balanced trade development that enables cross-border trade, especially by small women traders;
• must stop the vast financial outflows from our countries and region through international financial speculation (gambling), "legal" investors transfers , and huge transfers overseas of public money through embezzlement by government leaders.

Climate Change Dangers and Energy Crises are partly the result of global factors and forces but also result from the policies of our governments colluding with colonial and neo-colonial forces and allowing uncontrolled exploitation of our mineral and other resources. Industrialized countries are responsible for the historical and current global climate change crisis, therefore we demand that SADC governments:

• ensure that those responsible assume the proportionate burden, on the "polluter pays principle", and provide our countries with all the necessary resources towards a low carbon society;
• institutes strong regulations to reduce carbon emissions and pursue sustainable production and consumption patterns, including a regional strategy to ensure universal access to clean and renewable energy which is a social justice issue;
• Impose environmental responsibility on industries operating our region, and end to dumping of damaging toxic waste affecting our people and workers;
• stop the diversion of land and agricultural production to produce agro-fuels to feed the auto industries and rich countries to the detriment of food production;
• must develop a joint regional energy strategy to ensure effective access to clean and renewable energy resources for us as this is a social justice issue which must not be based on market principles as they are anti-people approaches, and it is uncontrolled transitional corporations that have been the prime cause of global warming with accompanying ecological crisis that will disproportionately affect the poor especially in Africa.

Our peoples' responses and solidarity

All these adverse factors are being confronted by most of our people with creativity and courage. But some marginalized and desperate people resort to desperate measures. This is what fundamentally drove the recent escalation of verbal abuse and violent attacks by some elements of the South African population against their fellow Africans from the region and elsewhere on the continent.

We call for carefully planned and just reintegration of internally displaced people resulting from the above deeply deplorable events.

It is also in this context that we participants from all the countries in the SADC region welcome the opportunity to share experiences on our common concerns and deepen our mutual support. Thus we stress that this is a Peoples' Solidarity Summit and we commit ourselves to make this a real active expression of Solidarity towards each other and a means to ensure that the governments of SADC respond and fulfill the key demands we have outlined here, advance the developmental integration of our region and of the whole African continent.

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