Over 10,000 chains delivered to UK government
Nearly 11,000 paper chain links saying ‘Drop the Debt’ in English and Japanese have been signed around the UK in recent weeks, as part of the activities to mark ten years since the Birmingham G8 meeting in 1998. If you have signed one of those chain links – thank you!
After forming the white band around Parliament Square, we made our way to the Department for International Development on Palace Street where we delivered the fifteen bags full of chains to International Development Minister Gareth Thomas, along with a certificate giving the total number of chains signed - 10,969.
We told the Minister that we are looking to the UK Government to begin tackling the 80% of unpayable debt that has still not been cancelled. We talked about our involvement in the debt campaign, with some explaining they have been Jubilee campaigners for ten years or more, and others that they have joined the campaign more recently. We all stressed the need to tackle the unfinished business of international debt – and drew particular attention to our call for a moratorium on debt repayments for countries affected by the food crisis.
Having made our views known to the Minister, some of us then made our way across Green Park to the Japanese Embassy on Piccadilly, where we handed in some additional chains to Kiyomi Migawa, the G8 Representative for the Japanese Embassy in London, to be passed on to the Japanese Prime Minister, Yasuo Fukuda.