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For Immediate Release
September, 24 2015, 08:15am EDT
Contact:
Valentina Pavarotti,CIDSE Media & Communication Officer,T: +32 (0)2 2824073,pavarotti(at)cidse.org
Influential Voices Call on World Leaders to Do More to Support Social Justice and Equality for the People and the Planet
NEW YORK
A group of leading voices has come together to demand greater ambition in tackling social injustices, calling for a new emphasis on notions of well-being, a culture of care and shared prosperity. The common statement, co-signed by political decision-makers, writers, activists, faith leaders and civil society representatives, was released just before the United Nations Summit in New York (25-27 September), and before Pope's Francis address to the UN General Assembly (25 September) in which he is expected to call world leaders to put the poor and vulnerable at the heart of their decisions.
The call, coordinated by CIDSE (International alliance of 17 development agencies), brought together a range of leading voices. Among the signatories were Viviane Reding (former Vice-President of the European Commission and Member of the European Parliament, Luxembourg), Susan George (PhD, President, Transnational Institute,), Hilal Elver (Professor of law, Turkey; and UN Special Rapporteur on Right to Food), Bill McKibben (Co-founder 350.org), Georges Bach (Member of European Parliament, Luxembourg), Pa Ousman Jarju (Minister of Environment Climate Change, Water Resources and Parks and Wildlife of Gambia), Mamadou Goita (Insitut de Recherche pour des Alternatives au Developpment en Afrique), Mgr. Theotonius Gomes (Auxiliary Bishop Emeritus of Dhaka, Federation of Asian Bishops' conference), Naderev "Yeb" Sano (Leader of The People's Pilgrimage for Climate Action, OurVoices), Kumi Naidoo, (Executive Director, Greenpeace International), Nicolas Hulot, (Special Envoy of the President of the French Republic for the Protection of the Planet), several representatives from the CIDSE network and many others.
The statement, coming only 70 days before the 21st Conference of Parties of the UN Framework Convention for Climate Change (COP 21), welcomed the growing number of religious leaders from all over the world that continue to speak up on climate change: the encyclical letter Laudato Si' on our Common Home, the Islamic declaration on climate change, and the Lambeth Declaration signed by faith leaders in the UK are examples of this engagement.
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), according to the statement, seek to respond to many of today's most pressing challenges, but do not overcome fundamental contradictions in the global economy. They do not tackle the unjust rules governing finance, taxation, trade and investment, the signatories warned, arguing that these are essential elements of the structural transformation that is needed in order to address the root causes of poverty and inequality.
Meanwhile, world leaders were called upon to set limits on natural resource extraction, agree to equitable natural resource-sharing, resist the influence of entrenched interests, and to counter the power of transnational corporations to influence public policy.
They were also urged to renew and redirect finance from dirty energy to decentralized community-based renewable energy production, transform the financial system to support the emergence of sustainable alternatives, reform the systems that exclude the majority of the world from determining global taxation rules, trade agreements, and other areas that have a great impact on them.
In addition, world leaders were called upon by the signatories to allow marginalized groups such as indigenous people and migrants to speak for themselves at the negotiating table.
The full statement can be read here.
Our 17 member organisations from Europe and North America come together under the umbrella of CIDSE to fight poverty and inequality. We challenge governments, business, churches, and international bodies to adopt policies and behavior that promote human rights, social justice and sustainable development. These are important elements of our mission, which we try to achieve through joint advocacy, campaigning and development cooperation work. We work with people of all faiths and none.
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As leaders in Europe respond to once-unimaginable threats by the United States to take territory from a NATO ally, one US senator on Monday proposed legislation banning funding for any Trump administration military action against Greenland.
Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) put forth an amendment to the Senate Defense Appropriations bill "to prohibit the use of funds for military force, the conduct of hostilities, or the preparation for war against or with respect to Greenland," a self-governing territory of Denmark.
“Families are getting crushed by rising grocery and housing costs, inflation is up, and [President Donald] Trump’s name is all over the Epstein files," Gallego said in a statement. "Instead of doing anything to fix those problems, Trump is trying to distract people by threatening to start wars and invade countries—first in Venezuela, and now against our NATO ally Denmark."
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"This is not more complicated than the fact that Trump wants a giant island with his name on it. He wouldn’t think twice about putting our troops in danger if it makes him feel big and strong. The US military is not a toy," Gallego—a former Marine Corps infantryman—said on social media.
The illegal US invasion and bombing of Venezuela and kidnapping of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro and his wife—which came amid a high-seas airstrike campaign against alleged drug traffickers—spooked many Greenlanders, Danes, and Europeans, who say they have no choice but to take Trump's threats seriously.
“Threats, pressure, and talk of annexation have no place between friends,” Greenland Prime Minister Jens-Frederik Nielsen said Monday on social media. “That is not how you speak to a people who have shown responsibility, stability, and loyalty time and again. Enough is enough. No more pressure. No more innuendo. No more fantasies about annexation.”
Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen warned during a Monday television interview that "if the United States decides to militarily attack another NATO country, then everything would stop—that includes NATO, and therefore the post-Second World War security."
Other European leaders have also rallied behind Greenland amid the mounting US threat.
"Greenland belongs to its people. It is for Denmark and Greenland, and them only, to decide on matters concerning Denmark and Greenland," the leaders of Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and Spain asserted in a statement also backed by the Netherlands and Canada—which Trump has said he wants to make the "51st state."
The White House said Tuesday that Trump and members of his national security team are weighing a “range of options” to acquire Greenland, and that military action is “always an option” for seizing the mineral-rich and strategic island.
This, after White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller brushed off criticism of a social media post by his wife, who posted an image showing a map of Greenland covered in the American flag with the caption, "SOON."
"You can talk all you want about international niceties and everything else," Miller told CNN on Monday. "But we live in a world, in the real world, that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power."
No war powers resolution has ever succeeded in stopping a US president from proceeding with military action, including one introduced last month by Gallego in a bid to stop the boat strikes in the Caribbean Sea and Pacific Ocean.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), who has also unsuccessfully tried to get war powers resolutions passed, implied Tuesday that more measures aimed at preventing Trump from attacking Greenland may be forthcoming.
“He has repeatedly raised Greenland, Cuba, Mexico, Colombia. He’s waged military action within Nigeria,” Kaine said of Trump, who has bombed more countries than any president in history. “So I think members of the Senate should go on the record about all of it.”
In Greenland, only a handful of the island's 57,000 inhabitants want to join the United States. More than 8 in 10 favor independence amid often strained relations with their masters in Copenhagen and the legacy of a colonial history rife with abuses. Greenlanders enjoy a Nordic-style social welfare system that features universal healthcare; free higher education; and income, family, and employment benefits and protections unimaginable in today's United States.
Pro-independence figures say like-minded people must use the specter of a US takeover to wring concessions from Denmark.
"I am more nervous that we are potentially in a situation where only Denmark's wishes are taken into account and that we have not even been clarified about what we want," Aki-Matilda Tilia Ditte Høegh-Dam, a member of the pro-independence Naleraq party in Greenland's Inatsisartut, or Parliament, told Sermitsiaq on Tuesday.
"I'm in the Folketinget [Danish Parliament] right now, and I see that the Danish government is constantly making agreements with the United States," she added. "It’s not that they ask Greenland first."
US Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) was among observers who noted Tuesday that any US invasion of Greenland would oblige other NATO members to defend the island under the North Atlantic Treaty's collective defense requirement.
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Since the Trump administration invaded Venezuela to abduct President Nicolás Maduro over the weekend, Graham Platner, a military veteran and Democratic US Senate candidate from Maine, has been calling out not only the attack, but also the Republican lawmakers who enabled it—particularly Sen. Susan Collins, whom he hopes to beat next November.
After the attack, Collins said that while "Congress should have been informed about the operation earlier and needs to be involved as this situation evolves," she was "personally briefed" by Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Maduro is "a narco-terrorist and international drug trafficker... who should stand trial" in the United States.
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The progressive candidate also joined protesters in Portland on Saturday, addressing the crowd at Longfellow Square.
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President Donald Trump—who was elected with the backing of fossil fuel billionaires—addressed the nation after the attack on Saturday and again made clear that he has set his sights on Venezuelan oil.
In response to Trump, Platner called "bullshit," adding, "I watched my friends die in Iraq in the wake of speeches like this one." He also posted photos from the Portland protest and declared, "No blood for oil."
Platner also put out a video blasting the failure of federal lawmakers to pass a war powers resolution requiring congressional authorization for military action against the South American country.
In recent months, both GOP-controlled chambers of Congress have failed to pass resolutions that would have blocked Trump's strikes on alleged drug smuggling boats and war with Venezuela. In both Senate votes, Collins has voted no.
Platner highlighted the Republican senator's November vote against the Venezuela measure, which failed 49-51, and said that "from Iraq to Venezuela, you can count on Susan Collins to enable illegal foreign wars."
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During Maduro's first court appearance in New York City on Monday, he said that "I am the president of Venezuela, and I consider myself a prisoner of war," and pleaded not guilty—as did his wife, Cilia Flores, who was also captured in Caracas.
Amid mounting global outrage and arguments that their abduction violated the US Constitution and international law, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has pledged to force another vote on a bipartisan war powers resolution this week.
Maine's other US senator, Angus King, an Independent who caucuses with Democrats, has voted for both previous war powers resolutions. After Trump abducted Maduro, King said that "I'm very concerned about where this leads."
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The Trump White House's revisionist history of the riots falsely claims that rioter Ashli Babbitt was "murdered in cold blood" by Capitol Police, when in reality she was shot while trying to break into into the Speaker's Lobby after being warned multiple times by officers to stand back.
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"On his first day back in office, January 20, 2025, President Trump issued sweeping blanket pardons and commutations for nearly 1,600 patriotic Americans prosecuted for their presence at the Capitol—many mere trespassers or peaceful protesters treated as insurrectionists by a weaponized Biden DOJ," the website says.
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"Never forget that Trump attempted a coup to stay in power after losing reelection, ending with the violent insurrection he incited that left 140 cops injured, five dead," wrote HuffPost White House correspondent SV Dáte on X.
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Author Mike Rothschild accused the White House of engaging in historical revisionism on par with the government depicted in George Orwell's classic novel 1984, arguing that Trump and his underlings of embracing "an alternate reality so hackneyed and obviously fake that it would make Orwell stick his head in a wood chipper."
Victor Ray, a sociologist at the University of Iowa, raised alarms about what the January 6 White House website says about Trump's mental health.
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