The Marcus Garvey People’s Political Party (MGPPP) is calling for a demonstration in front of the Bank of Jamaica on Thursday at 1 PM to express sentiments similar to those being made in America by the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement or the 99% Movement and which has now spread to many other countries especially in Europe.
The Jamaican context for similar expressions
Though Bruce Golding was forced to resign because of his involvement with confessed drug dealer and arms trafficker, Christopher Dudus Coke, he still had a hand in selecting his successor Andrew Holness. Golding promptly took Holness to Washington to meet with the directors of the international financial institutions that are currently running Jamaica’s financial affairs. The visit was felt to be necessary to underline Holness’ stated intention to continue with the policies of his predecessor and ultimately the Jamaica IMF agreement.
What is this continuation of policy to which Holness has committed himself? Very simply, the IMF agreement with Jamaica is designed to ensure that creditors, local and foreign, who are owed more than a trillion Jamaican dollars are paid their pound of flesh as per agreement. And, as is the refrain in the United States, 99% of Jamaicans (who had no part in contracting this debt) will unfairly have to bear the burden of paying back the debt, especially hard on the 1.2 million who are living below the poverty line, including the 14% (according to official statistics) who are unemployed.
The OWS movement, which is being replicated all over the world, is shining a bright spotlight on a reality that exists globally -- not just in New York and the rest of the United States -- that it is the poor, the working class, who are being forced to bear the burden of this global economic crisis. The US financial aristocracy for example, [the 1%] were bailed out by the US government with billions of dollars of public money and there is nothing positive to show for such largesse. Unemployment is at its highest since the 1930s depression and there is no will to tax the rich as the OWS and the majority of Americans are demanding according to recent polls.
In Jamaica the situation is no different. On the verge of defaulting or declaring bankruptcy the JLP government turned to the IMF for a bail out, but with the understanding that massive burdens would be placed on the poor as the basis of the IMF guarantee to creditors.
The fact that the government has not completely performed its end of the bargain as demanded by the IMF should not be interpreted to mean that there is any fundamental conflict between the two. One of the main sticking points is that the government had been expected to institute massive public sector layoffs, but not done because of declining public support over the Coke affair which they fear would be compounded by labour strife. As the IMF no doubt realizes such savaging (as Seaga sympathetically describes it) has to be done at the most opportune time.
Will Andrew Holness be able to pull it off? Or must it wait until a possible PNP government is in power? There is no reason to believe that the PNP would be shy about taking such resolute action. After all, they have been crying for the government to get back on track with the IMF.
So if the real import of the OWS or 99% Movement is to have any meaning in Jamaica the appropriate slogans and demands must be raised.
1. No to public sector layoffs. The unions have sent mixed signals about this. as if they would be prepared to accept such layoffs. These trade union bureaucrats must not be allowed to betray the workers.
2. Tax the rich. The government could only muster the courage to impose a minimal tax increase on incomes over 5 million dollars for one year! The taxation measures being discussed in parliament and endorsed by the IMF is nothing but a trick… to impose a more regressive taxation system on the poor and the working class and reduce taxes for the wealthy and for corporations. This must be rejected.
3. Repudiate the debt. It cannot be repaid. The Debt Exchange, though praised, did not go far enough. Where is the economic rebound to come from to reduce the debt other than from squeezing the poor who cannot be squeezed any further.
4. Debt repudiation must be accompanied by a forensic audit of the national debt to determine who else other than those before the courts, have corruptly enriched themselves at the public expense. The culprits are many, and in very high places.
5. Those financial institutions which engaged in irresponsible lending to our politicians should not expect the poor to pay back such loans. Highway 2000? Palisadoes Highway? etc. etc.
6. Free health care. The deteriorating situation in public hospitals is not because of user fee removal as the PNP and some doctors foolishly believe, but because of underfunding.
7. Free education. The same problem as in the health sector – poor test results are a direct result of the historical underfunding by successive governments and now the savage cuts undertaken by this government.
8. Massive public works programmes must be enacted to put people back to work.
The above is the context in which an OWS or a 99% Movement makes sense in Jamaica.
Lloyd D'Aguilar
Campaign for Social and Economic Justice
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