Trevor Royle
Sunday Herald, UK
June 1, 2003

Sleepy little Switzerland does not deserve it, but this weekend it is getting the treatment which Seattle and Genoa know only too well. The G8 summit is coming to town and, even though the event itself is taking place over the border in Evian-les-Bains, Geneva is the main conduit for delegates and protesters alike.

Most of the smaller border crossings have already been closed and, when President George Bush arrives today, there will be 5000 Swiss troops waiting to guard him and his entourage. There is nothing new in the precautions — the G8 summit is always a magnet for anti-capitalist and pro-environment demonstrations — but there is an added edge to tomorrow’s meetings in the French spa town on the shore of Lake Geneva. For a start it gives Bush the first chance to be in the same company as the ‘axis of weasels’ who refused to support him in the war against Iraq — President Jacques Chirac of France, President Vladimir Putin of Russia and Chancellor Gerhardt Schroeder of Germany.

While State Department officials insist there’s no longer any animosity and that the time has come to rebuild bridges, it will still be a charged moment when the leaders meet — Bush has made little secret of the contempt he feels for their betrayal of shared interests. The Pentagon has already banned France from taking part at two international military exercises which will take place next year in Nevada and Alaska and, in another pre-emptive strike, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has warned that US participation in this year’s Paris air show will be scaled down because he can see no reason why US military personnel should be sampling French cuisine while others are eating compo rations in the Iraqi desert.

Meanwhile, in Evian, it is fitting that water will be high on the agenda. The French spa town is famous for its designer-label mineral water, but it is the ordinary variety that will be at the forefront of most delegates’ thoughts. Africa is literally crying out for water, its supplies are limited and many existing sources are unsafe or contaminated. At last year’s summit in the Canadian Rockies, the question of water provision and sanitation was named as a priority and each delegate country will be asked to report on progress. The signs are not good. With 2015 set as the target for making sure that at least 50% of the world’s population are provided with clean drinking water, the charity Water Aid is warning that the funds for water provision are actually falling in real terms.

Unfortunately, this is all too common a failing with the G8 and it gives ammunition to those who regard it as a bulwark of capitalism and a club for the richest countries. All too often it makes the right noises, but then fails to act on its own warnings. Water is a case in point: it underpins all aid work in Africa and without it there can be no realistic improvement of the infrastructure of developing countries.

With that in mind, Africa is under the microscope. Four years ago, the G8 meeting in Cologne instituted the idea of debt relief through the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) scheme. It was a good and humane idea and one which offered incentives and rewards — in return for putting their houses in order struggling countries would have their debts cancelled and be allowed to return to square one. In some places it has worked. Uganda is a notable example of a heartsink country that has benefited from the HIPC initiative, but the goal of writing off £100 billion in debts is still a far-off dream, largely because it has failed to attract the consistent support of the US.

The unresolved question of debt relief or debt cancellation could also provide the summit with another clash between the US and Europe and it will come as little surprise that the trigger is Iraq. As US officials grapple with the massive task of rebuilding the country’s infrastructure and putting it back on its feet, US Treasury officials have called for Iraq’s debts to be written off as a gesture of support for the people who did not incur it in the first place.

In common with all debt relief proposals, it is a good idea, but the G8 is unlikely to buy it. The Russians have already vetoed it and insist they will be pursuing repayment as it becomes available from Iraq’s oil revenues.

All this matters little to the inhabitants of Geneva, who spent yesterday boarding up windows and preparing for the traditional round of trouble that accompanies any G8 summit. Their country does not belong to the club meeting on the other side of Lake Geneva, but that will not keep it off world affairs’ latest front-line.