Social forum delegates urge canceling debt, strengthening minorities

Published: 2004-08-03

QUITO, Ecuador (CNS) -- Some 11,000 delegates from North and South America's church, social and indigenous movements called for canceling illegitimate debt and strengthening the rights of indigenous peoples and ethnic minorities. In conclusions that largely reflected Catholic social teaching on a variety of issues, the July 25-30 Americas Social Forum in Quito called for citizen audits of countries' debt burdens and the cancellation of debts deemed illegitimate; a concerted effort between the governments of Latin America and the Group of Eight nations to reach the U.N. millennium development goals by 2015; and better coordination among the continent's 60 million indigenous peoples. It also rejected the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas, a project whose social effects have been questioned by church leaders. The conclusions of some 300 workshops of the continental forum will be discussed at the World Social Forum in Brazil in 2005.

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