Table of Contents

January 1, 1997
Denver Business Journal

Internet shines a spotlight on G-7 gathering

When thousands of delegates, reporters and academicians converge on Denver this June for the G-7 Summit, the world will be watching. But it may be watching from in front of a computer terminal as much as a television set.

The Internet seems especially suited to an international meeting like the G-7. Visitors to Denver can plan their trip weeks ahead of time, getting the background they need.

Once the summit starts, observers from Moscow to Montreal will be able to tap into the World Wide Web for the latest news. At the last summit in Lyon, France, the Cable News Network, Reuters and several newspapers posted live stories.

The other audience is the information consumer who can't be in Denver but wants to know what is going on.

For those who can't wait that long or want more information on the summit, there are several sites up and running.

The definitive stop for anyone researching information on the G-7 is a Web site put out by the G-7 Research Group at the University of Toronto.

The university began tracking the summit when it came to Toronto in 1988 and hasn't stopped. University faculty and students attend each summit and rate the various countries on their objectives and how well they manage to achieve them.

The site includes a list of delegates at past summits, a chronology, speeches and detailed analysis. It also updates G-7 news during the "off periods," such as a December press release from the G-7 regarding the hostage situation in Peru.

The Halifax, Nova Scotia and Lyon summits have their own Web sites, now largely mothballed. But they serve as an important historical reference for anyone wanting to research what went on in those two cities.

No large conference would complete without protesters. The Other Economic Summit, TOES for short, has its own Web site and is looking for a spot to meet this summer in Denver.

TOES is a forum for non-government groups who want to build what they consider a more just and sustainable society, "an economics as if people mattered."

The technologically minded should check out the site of the G-7 Information Society, a spin off of the regular G-7 that focuses on technology and its role in economic development.

The governments of all the G-7 countries countries also keep Web sites. Although they don't deal specifically with the G-7, they often provide good background information.

Many of the sites can be accessed through the University of Toronto G-7 page. Yahoo! also provides a good search engine for looking up G-7 information, with well-defined categories on the topic.

These delegates room in DU's dormitories

The Summit of Eight won't be the only conference in Denver gabbing about the global economy. Another economic summit, actually named The Other Economic Summit or TOES for short, is ramping up for its own meeting of the minds.

But don't look for menacing motorcades or unblinking body guards to signal the arrival of the delegates June 20. They are more likely to show up to the weekend of meetings and conferences in airport shuttles, rental cars and mini vans.

TOES, under the broad umbrella of the People's Summit, has made a habit of mirroring the location of the economic convergence of the leaders of the industrialized nations historically known as the G-7.

But instead of fashioning multilateral trade agreements or bandying about world currencies, the TOES delegates will attend meetings with titles such as Gandhian Economics, Shareholder Activism and Green Taxes.

Counting on about 1,000 participants, TOES Executive Secretary Larry Martin describes a group that ranges from clinical academicians to visceral professional activists.

"There is a soup of understanding that is sometimes quite palatable," said Martin, a federal employee who leaves his job title intentionally vague, "but it's sometimes quite bitter."

It apparently isn't too acrid for organizers who have braved the crush of thousands of journalists and foreign delegates gathered for G-7s around the world for the past eight years, competing for beds, airline reservations and rental cars to make a point.

"I don't think we had nearly as much trouble as the government has had," said Val Phillips, who found a home for the People's Summit on the Auraria Campus a full two weeks before the U.S. government chose the Denver Public Library as its official site.

The alternative summit also got an early handle on accommodations, reserving a block of beds in the University of Denver dormitories to avoid the scarcity of hotel rooms and to economize the trip.

"While the [Summit of Eight] is having a black tie and tails dinner, we're going to have a people's dinner," Phillips said.

Though the summit wears its populous presentation like a badge, it hopes to catch the attention of the eight world leaders - and the hordes of idle reporters who will fill the Colorado Convention Center.

"Obviously, it's going to be tough to compete with free beer from Coors," said Bill Vandenberg, an organizer with the Colorado Progressive Coalition, lamenting the challenge of luring the press away from the perks of the Summit of Eight.

TOES will have its own media center, and members, several whom are journalists, plan to mingle amongst the other reporters and get the word out.

The intentionally unstructured talks also will churn out an official communiqué a la documents issued by the leaders of the United States, Japan, Germany, Great Britain, Canada, Italy and Russia.

If press conferences and flyers don't grab the desired attention, however, the summit is prepared, even appointing a director of guerrilla activity for the three-day event.

"Civil disobedience is a distinct possibility," Leslie Moody said with a knowing laugh.

Moody, a professional agitator of sorts as the organizer of Denver-based Jobs With Justice, which earlier this year briefly shut down 17th Street in a call for raises for janitors, said the guerrillas will try to get the message across with protests and street theater.

"We're not going to try to take over any of the summit functions," she said. "We do not want any federal arrests."

While it may seem unlikely that the tangle of interests will be embraced by the leaders more concerned with NATO than with sustainable community development, TOES members boast a few successes in past summits.

Susan Hunt, a vice president of TOES, credits the organization with raising consciousness about the social aspects of the GATT and NAFTA trade treaties and with the greening of the G-7 in Halifax.

She also said the alternative group gained a real voice at last year's gathering in Lyon, France, working with government officials to help plan their event. She isn't so confident of similar results this year.

"It's amazing after dealing with the U.S. government," she said. "It's like they don't even talk to us."

John Kirton, a G-7 scholar at the University of Toronto, applauds some of the work, but downplays the groups' influence.

"Their heart is in the right place," he said, "but the sad truth is their impact on the leaders is basically zero."

One is a formal, gray-suited affair costing millions of dollars. The other is a hodgepodge of seminars, demonstrations and cultural events, pieced together on a shoestring budget.

One features leaders from the world's most powerful countries. The other solicits attendance from some of the world's poorest.

One is by invitation only. The other is for everyone else.

Welcome to The Other Economic Summit - TOES for short - a grassroots alternative to Denver's Summit of the Eight. Like its formal counterpart, TOES will also be held in Denver, from June 19-22. The alternative forum is part of a related "people's summit," organized by Colorado groups.

"It's a pretty mixed group," said Larry Martin, executive director of TOES, assessing likely participants to the alternative summit. "We bring in a lot of activists, and we expect we'll get a pretty good crowd from the folks from Denver. The way we play it is if you're not invited to the G-7, you're invited to The Other Economic Summit. "

The Denver Summit of the Eight is the named adopted for the Colorado event, at which the seven G-7 countries will be joined by nonmember Russia.

The alternative summit will feature seminars, a film festival and a "hunger banquet," with a tentative location on the Auraria campus in Downtown Denver. Summit organizers have already lined up dozens of speakers from around the world and hope to draw a crowd of at least 5,000 people.

More importantly, TOES organizers say, they will address issues too often ignored by industrialized countries, including economic inequality, environmental sustainability and human rights. The idea is for greater public participation in that powerful, exclusive club.

"You basically have the leaders of the eight most powerful countries in the world, and they're drafting policies that affect the whole world," said the Rev. Jeff Borg of the Denver Justice and Peace Committee, one of about 100 Colorado groups involved in the alternative forum. "And we don't want to have a world in which we have a few leaders calling the shots for everybody."

Formed in Britain in 1984, TOES has offices in each of the G-7 countries - U.S. headquarters are in both New York and Washington. The group has hosted G-7 alternative summits annually since 1988, in Texas; Tokyo; and Halifax, Nova Scotia, among other sites. Its image is low profile. Its budget is definitely grassroots.

Summit organizers work pro-bono. So far, they have raised only $ 1,000 in travel grants for Third World participants. Another $ 5,000 has been raised for printing brochures and renting dormitory space at the University of Colorado at Denver.

Since the 1991 Earth Summit in Rio, alternative forums have gained increasing stature in international summits. A cluster of United Nations summits in the 1990s - Rio, the Beijing Women's Summit, the Habitat Summit in Istanbul and last November's Food Summit in Rome - all had grassroots components.

Members of nongovernmental organizations point to tangible gains from their presence.

"The women's movement's fingerprints are all over the U.N. cycle of conferences in the '90s," said Susan Davis, executive director of the Women's Environment and Development Organization, a nonprofit that has played a high-profile role in many of the U.N. conferences. "We have helped shape the progressive thinking and pushed the idea of commitments."

Among other achievements gained by grassroots organizations during the U.N. summits, according to Davis: greater rights for women in developing countries, and more aid targeted to education and other social programs. Another international institution - the World Bank - has shifted its emphasis to people-friendly programs, partly as a result of grassroots pressure, Davis said.

There has been little interaction between G-7 organizers and the alternative group. But, said Larry Martin of the Other Summit, new participants are always welcome.

On the agenda are issues of globalization, human rights, women's issues, nuclear weaponry and more.

The summit is being organized by more than 50 Colorado groups, and others from around the world. There will be more than 100 workshops, panels, demonstrations and cultural and religious events at the Auraria Campus, the University of Denver and other locations. For information call 303-866-0908.

While leaders of eight of the world's most powerful nations secret themselves away from the public during the Denver Summit of Eight, members of more than 50 grassroots organizations have invited everyone to their party.

The People's Summit, also known as The Other Economic Summit, will be held in tandem with the Summit of Eight from June 17-22 in an effort to "highlight problems with economic policies that solely benefit profits over people," said Bill Vandenberg, of the Colorado Progressive Coalition. "The People's Summit will also illustrate positive examples from Colorado and around the globe that show how communities can work together to develop innovative economic solutions that benefit everyone."

In contrast to the Summit of Eight, the People's Summit doesn't exclude anyone, Vandenberg said. "The Denver Summit of Eight represents power. It also represents exclusivity. By bringing diverse elements together, we hope to bring our community together," he said.

While the Summit of Eight brings together leaders of some of the richest nations, the Other Summit invited those from some of the world's poorest countries. Organizers of the summit, which has been held alongside the G-7 meetings annually since 1988, hope to draw several thousand people from around the world.

Among the issues that will be discussed at the alternative summit are the environment, immigration, women's issues, human rights, free trade, and racism.

Seminars will be held at the Auraria Campus, the University of Denver, and other Denver-area sites. The subjects will include:

A Women's Summit to focus on women's rights in the United States and abroad.

The People's Banquet, illustrating disparities between the "haves" and "have nots."

A Peace Summit calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2000.

The Indigenous People's Tribunal, spotlighting crimes against people and their land.

The March for Justice, a demonstration for human rights.

The Workers Film Festival.

Release of the People's Platform, a set of positions to be used as building blocks for groups to mobilize after the Denver Summit and the People's Summit are over.

PHOTO: The Denver Post/Lyn Alweis Bill Vandenberg, an organizer with the Colorado Progressive Coalition, announces the events for The Peoples Summit '97 in Denver, a grassroots alternative to the Denver Summit of the Eight.

Good news about the economy is reported weekly as stocks rise and inflation doesn't. But for average working men and women, things don't look so good. Wages and salaries for many have remained the same or, adjusted for inflation, even dropped over the past two decades.

Workers have been "downsized" by corporations that regard employees merely as costs of production and fire them wholesale to make next quarter's bottom line look good. High-paying manufacturing jobs disappear as companies move overseas, where they can pay workers less for a day's work than workers here made in an hour. Those lucky enough to find new jobs often earn only half what they were paid before. Many who led a middle-class life, worked hard and played by the rules to achieve the American dream now can barely make ends meet.

Why is this happening? A good part of it has to do with globalization, the creation of an international economic system that allows capital to move easily across borders; a system that makes it easy for multinational corporations to exploit workers worldwide, and damage the environment, in search of maximum profit without regard for consequences.

This system, which has devastated many people around the world, is being put into place in the name of "free trade." But the freedom it gives corporations is stolen from citizens, who are excluded from participation in the decisions that affect their lives.

Government and corporate leaders speak of the need to "harmonize" laws across national boundaries to allow free trade. What that has meant is a reduction of laws protecting health and safety, human rights and the environment to a lowest common denominator.

International institutions such as the North American Free Trade Agreement are being used to override local and national laws, and thus the people's will, to benefit huge corporations.

The major forum for creating this "new world economic order" is the Group of Seven, through which the world's largest economic powers set global economic policy.

The people most affected by those policies, ordinary working men and women, have no place at the table in those negotiations, which are dominated by corporate and financial interests.

The power disparity is reflected in a grotesque disparity in wealth: CEOs of corporations make an average of 225 times what their employee makes.

On June 20-22, the G-7 Summit (now the Summit of Eight, including Russia) will be in Denver. At the same time, citizens of Denver and other Colorado communities will hold an alternative summit, a People's Summit, at the Auraria Higher Education Center and elsewhere in the metro area.

The People's Summit will challenge the G-8 to recognize that the policies they promote do not meet the majority's needs.

The People's Summit will demand that those policies be changed so the priorities of the economic system will be not maximum profits for multinational corporations, but rather maximum social, economic and environmental justice for ordinary people.

Through panels, workshops and other events, our summit will provide an nopportunity to learn more about global economic policies; to discover alternative ways of organizing economic life; and to connect with people who have been victimized by those policies and want to work to change them.

You can't be part of the Summit of Eight. Their meetings are closed. But you are invited to participate in the People's Summit. Soyun Park, a South Korean immigrant, is an organizer for the Colorado Progressive Coalition. Mark Cohen, a freelance writer and editor, co-chairs Colorado New Jewish Agenda.

GRAPHIC: PHOTOS: Cohen Park

You can't break bread, or bison, with President Clinton at the Wild West-flavored Denver Summit of the Eight unless you're one of a handful of prime ministers, global financiers and think tank wonks.

But across downtown Denver at the People's Summit, anyone can dine on subsistence fare at the Hunger Banquet with grass-roots activists, tribal chiefs and rebels in what they describe as the global struggle for peace and justice.

''We are open to the public,'' said People's Summit coordinator Bill Vandenberg. ''It's their exclusivity versus our inclusivity.''

The People's Summit is an umbrella organization that's organizing 50 groups and 1,000 participants in a sprawling schedule of workshops, panels, rallies and vigils Friday through Sunday.

At the Auraria Higher Education Center, it aims to provide a parallel universe to the summit on international trade and politics.

Instead of arranging a $1 billion dam project in China, activists and scholars may discuss $100 loans to women in Bangladesh to establish a weaving cooperative.

''Projects like dams suck up huge amounts of money, flood the environment and relocate communities,'' said Vandenberg, who represents the Colorado Progressive Coalition. ''The People's Summit is about accountability for those decisions and finding other ways that work.''

Organizers said they are barnstorming the world - mostly via the Internet, e-mail and fax lines - to publicize their summit.

On Friday, the group will host several ''hunger banquets.'' Participants experience a taste of deprivation by drawing lots based on a global economic and nutritional scale. They won't know until their number is called whether they will eat a gourmet dinner or, like billions of people, barely anything.

Demonstrations will include a march for justice on Saturday from Auraria to the Capitol.

The alternative summit program was born in the United Kingdom in 1984. It sent a delegation to the G-7 summit city until 1988, when it began scheduling its own meeting alongside the big boys.

The first alternative summit in the United States was in 1990 in Houston, and it drew more than 1,000 people from 40 countries. The one in Lyon, France, last year, probably was the largest of eight alternative summits.

True to its themes of ''the haves and have-nots'' and bootstrap economics, the People's Summit operates on a shoestring. It has raised about $ 7,000 in grants and private donations. That's enough to print promotional fliers and reserve 250 dormitory beds at the University of Denver.

Coordinators are volunteers. Even speakers have to pay registration fees of up to $150 apiece, as well as their own travel costs.

''A lot of people coming are teachers and educators,'' said Josephine Hehnke of Colorado World travel in Denver, travel agent for the People's Summit.

''They don't have a lot of money to spend on travel, but they have made a commitment . . . ''

What it might lack in pomp, the People's Summit will compensate with a deluge of provocative information and ideas.

While leaders of of the world's most powerful nations secrete themselves from the public during the Denver Summit of the Eight, members of more than 50 grassroots organizations have invited everyone else to their party.

The People's Summit, also known as The Other Economic Summit, will be held in tandem with the Summit of the Eight next weekend.

It will "highlight problems with economic policies that solely benefit profits over people," said Bill Vandenberg of the Colorado Progressive Coalition. "The People's Summit will also illustrate positive examples from Colorado and around the globe that show how communities can work together to develop innovative economic solutions that benefit everyone."

In contrast to the Summit of the Eight, the People's Summit doesn't exclude anyone, Vandenberg said.

"The Denver Summit of Eight represents power," he said. "It also represents exclusivity. By bringing diverse elements together, we hope to bring our community together."

While the Summit of the Eight brings together leaders of some of the richest nations, the other summit invited those from some of the world's poorest countries.

Representatives from Amnesty International and the Sierra Club will be attending the alternative summit, along with Dennis Brutis, a South African activist and poet. Organizers of the People's Summit, which has been held alongside the annual G7 meetings since 1988, hope to draw several thousand people from around the world.

Among the issues that will be discussed at the alternative summit are the environment, immigration, women's issues, human rights and free trade.

Seminars will be held at the Auraria Campus, the University of Denver, and other Denver-area sites. The subjects will include:

A Women's Summit to focus on women's rights in the United States and abroad.

The People's Banquet, illustrating disparities between the "haves" and "have nots."

A Peace Summit calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons by 2000.

The Indigenous People's Tribunal, spotlighting crimes against people and their land.

The Workers Film Festival.

Release of the People's Platform, a set of positions to be used as building blocks for groups to mobilize after the Denver summit and the People's Summit are over.

Opportunities abound to follow the Denver Summit of the Eight on the Internet.

(Abstract)

. . . The Other Economic Summit (TOES) will be Tuesday through Saturday at Central Presbyterian Church, 1660 Sherman St., and other venues. Representatives of native communities around the globe will discuss indigenous peoples' issues. . . .

June 16 - At last year's Group of Seven Economic Summit in Lyon, France, neighborhood festivals celebrated the ways of the member countries, leading to the curious sight of a French band playing country-western tunes as a nod to U.S. culture.

Children wrote stories about life as they imagined it for kids in other lands. Before and after the summit, locals were allowed to tour the site, with its new art works and landscaping, where the summit delegates and press camped out.

And on banks of televisions, the Lyonnais could see their neighborhoods on international broadcasts.

With such efforts, the organizers of the 1996 summit tried to give residents of the host city a role, a connection, to meetings that usually are as private as a diary.

But Denver has gone a different route.

At the Denver Summit of the Eight, which begins Friday, there will be no venue tours. No televisions in LoDo airing international telecasts of the Rocky Mountain West. And no festivals themed around a country.

Nothing, really, for the folks.

Although Denver has more than 3,500 volunteers ready to participate, the feeling among Denver and the rest of Colorado cannot be the same as it was in Lyon.

Why? Depends on who you ask.

Keeping it quiet with few public events was the mayor's idea, said Harold Ickes, director of summit affairs.

"We basically went along with what the mayor wanted to do," Ickes said. "If he wanted a parade and fireworks every few blocks, we would've done that. He wanted moderation, at least that's my impression." But that's not how the mayor's staff sees it.

"That's easy for (Ickes) to say when he's only given us three months to plan," said Andrew Hudson, Mayor Wellington Webb's press secretary. "From the very beginning, we were told by the federal government to make it clear it was not a public summit." And so there are fancy dinners for world leaders, gala events for big contributors, even a bash and bushels of gifts for journalists.

But no events are planned for Coloradans who lack clout, political title or a press pass.

No matter who is responsible, the end result is that most people will be shut out.

To some extent, that is the way these summits are designed: The whole point is to offer a private setting to some of the most powerful people in the world.

The heads of state and government from the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, economic issues. Russia this year will be almost a full-fledged member of the club. The European Union also sits in as an observing member.

This is their chance to close the doors of the Denver Central Library and with a dearth of staff - each will have only one personal assistant with them - have a frank discussion with no fear of its contents being leaked.

Even though there will be scant public participation, the city and state do expect to reap big rewards that should trickle down: Officials have said the 6,000 to 8,000 people expected here will spend up to $13.8 million. The profile of Colorado and Denver will be raised to heights that should attract tourism and business dollars for years to come. And there's the substantial promise of being a witness - albeit one screened off from the action - to history.

This year, for example, may produce a major effort to aid African economies.

"The issues discussed at these summits are of profound long- and short-term consequence for everyone who lives in Denver and around the world," said Ickes, the summit director. "It's sort of like walking around in Manhattan. You have to look up from daily life and see what this is all about."

But those are concepts. As a practical matter, there is little chance for the average citizen to touch or inhale the history being made aside from working as a volunteer - no more are needed, by the way - or getting stuck in traffic as a motorcade goes by.

Volunteerism was the city's only significant magnet to draw residents in.

"We made it clear that the best way to get involved was to volunteer. Obviously, the community was excited, and we got 3,500 volunteers, many more than we thought we would get," Hudson said.

The business community has got ten involved by hosting receptions and making cash and in kind contributions of about $6 million.

But it wouldn't be the same as seeing your backyard on a BBC broadcast of Denver.

"The things that went on in Lyon and other places show that they had more time and could include the public," Hudson said. "We're a week away, and we're still trying to fit a table into the library. Some places have a year and a half to plan what we're doing in six months." Next year's host, Birmingham, England, already knew where the world leaders would meet at its summit months before Denver had settled on a site.

The delay wasn't because Denver waited until the last minute to begin its planning. That started nearly a year ago.

Lucilla Altamirano, head of the international management program at the University of Denver, attended the Lyon summit shortly after Denver was selected as the 1997 site. And last fall, she made oral and written reports to the mayor and his staff that, among other topics, touched on attendance at the Lyon summit, the slick and substantial materials given to the media and delegates and links to the community.

But the city couldn't act on that information until February when the White House, which had to approve the city's ideas, finally had gotten President Clinton elected and inaugurated and could focus on planning.

"There was some warranted criticism because of the late start," Ickes said. That is still of little solace to those who are missing out on that all-inclusive feeling that ran through last year's event.

There are other alternatives like The People's Summit, also known as The Other Economic Summit, which is open to everyone.

"The Denver Summit of the Eight represents power. It also represents exclusivity.

By bringing diverse elements together, we hope to bring our community together," said Bill Vandenberg of the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

A mock summit to discuss the same issues as those leaders will be held at the University of Denver from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday.

June 19 - As elaborate preparations to welcome leaders from eight of the world's most powerful nations continued Wednesday, a small group of children's advocates and environmentalists gathered in the basement of a downtown church to draw attention to the dangers they see in free-wheeling trade.

During the Denver Summit of the Eight world leaders will meet behind closed doors and discuss policies that will affect the entire planet, said Daniel Seligman, an organizer with the Sierra Club's Responsible Trade Campaign and one of the organizers of Wednesday night's Children's Summit. But those policies are creating a world run by huge multinational corporations that care little about the environment or human rights, Seligman said.

"We'll hear a lot of happy talk from the summit spin doctors this weekend, but the truth is regular folks are worried. Worried about their jobs. Worried about their communities. Worried about their environment.

"But most of all, worried about their children's future," Seligman said.

"We need a restoration of democratic values equal to the challenge of controlling global economic forces - because without democratic values, corporations will rule."

The Children's Summit is just one of the many public "alternative summits" scheduled to coincide with the meetings during the Denver Summit of the Eight this week. During the week summits to focus the world spotlight on women's issues, nuclear power, solar power, global warming and aggression against indigenous peoples are among those scheduled.

But Wednesday night the focus was on children.

Around the world more than 250 million children - some as young as 4 - are doomed to an often short and unhappy life of forced labor, 12-year-old Laura Hannant told the group at the Central Presbyterian Church. Young children are especially sought-after for work in rug factories they can tie tighter knots, 14-year-old Tanya Davis said. They are often beaten, chained to their looms and work 16-hour days.

"They hardly have any time for happiness let alone education," Davis said. Davis and Hannant are both members of Free The Children, a Canadian grassroots organization formed two years ago with the goal of ending child labor in the world.

They traveled to Denver from Canada this week to draw attention to the plight of children forced into slave labor.

But all children on the planet will suffer if global leaders don't crack down on corporations that are plundering natural resources, said Kevin Scott, vice president of the Canadian Parks and Wilderness Society. "This is the No. 1 issue that is facing the natural resources in the world," Scott said. "The trade agreements being negotiated are detrimental to our environment. . . . We're passing on a very sick planet to our children." The leaders participating in the Denver summit can protect the children and the world they will inherit but they will have to rein in corporations, Seligman said.

"Stop giving corporations new economic privileges through free-for-all trade policies until you have secured the democratic rights we need to create a world worthy of our children's promise."

Organizers of an alternative summit Wednesday demanded the Denver Summit of the Eight leaders open their minds at their closed meetings to the needs of billions of working people around the world.

''The economic agenda being discussed is about our lives,'' said Njoki Njehu, of 50 Years is Enough: U.S. Network for Global Economic Justice. ''Decisions must not be left to people who do not really share the interests of the majority of working people.

''We demand a voice. We are here to say one way or another we are going to participate.''

Njehu is among the more than 50 grass-roots political, environmental, human rights, and peace and justice groups staging The People's Summit from Friday through Sunday. Up to a 1,000 participants may attend.

On Wednesday, various group leaders spoke out against the economic tyranny they claim the Denver Summit of the Eight perpetuates.

The counter summit is meant as a refuge and enlightenment for people who believe the leaders of the industrialized world wield sweeping power mostly to benefit multinational corporations, not human beings.

''We can no longer be for profits over people,'' said Soyun Park of the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

''And it will be a lot of fun,'' said Lara Riscol, of Colorado Women's Agenda.

And different: all critical Summit of the Eight meetings are secret; all The People's Summit activities are open to anyone.

The working persons summit will include educational forums and workshops, demonstrations, marches and cultural events. Many events will be at the Auraria campus downtown. Highlights include a rally against sweatshops at 9: 45 a.m. Saturday on the 16th Street Mall and Market Street; and a march for justice at 12:15 p.m. Saturday from Skyline Park, 16th Street Mall and Arapahoe Street, to the State Capitol.

President Clinton has not responded to an invitation to The People's Summit or assistance from its groups. The Denver host committee formed by Mayor Wellington Webb has been gracious to the alternative summit, organizers said.

The alternative summit was born in the United Kingdom in 1984.

For information call 303-866-0908

"Women's equality and full participation in the family and society are a necessity for economic development and promoting peace." - UNICEF

Amid all the hype surrounding the Denver Summit of the Eight, where are women's voices? Women make up 50 percent of the world's population and 0 percent of the world leaders to be sitting around the economic policy table this weekend. Most media reports focus on festivities for our international guests and visiting press, but claim that there's "nothing, really, for the folks."

But there is. As part of the People's Summit, volunteers ages 11 to 83 have worked for six months to bring a Women's Summit to the public. The Women's Summit - workshops, a rally, Capitol march, hunger banquet, and leadership film and forum - demands economic, political and social justice for women. Join U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, NOW President Patricia Ireland, MS. Editor Marcia Ann Gillespie and other internationally renowned speakers at the "Women's Rights are Human Rights" rally at 10:45 a.m. Saturday on the Auraria campus.

Lara Rodriguez Riscol, Colorado Women's Agenda.

G-string: This week's Denver Summit of the Eight has inspired a global village of cottage industries hoping to bask in the reflected glow of the 50-watt klieg lights. On the commercial side, there's the Faux Show opening Friday at the Art & Artists Gallery, with "repainted great masterworks" from France, the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, Japan and Germany. The exhibit promises to be even better than a display of real Van Goghs or Picassos, because these paintings are "affordable." Or let your conscience be your guide to lectures and political protests by women's groups, Jewish groups, space lawyers, Iranians, hemp growers (with state Senator Lloyd Casey giving a toke--er, talk) and, of course, The Peoples Summit.

With so many organizations and issues clamoring for attention, smaller groups are likely to find themselves in a familiar situation: ignored. To help you plan a G-whiz weekend, Westword has compiled a handy quiz. Eight of the following are actual events this weekend; eight are fakes (answers below).

And no fair cheating off of your most-favored neighbor.

A. Baby Seal Protest at New Aquarium Site
B. Tribunal on Indigenous Peoples
C. Workshop: Herbs in a Global Economy
D. Haikus That Teach Children Peace
E. Workshop: Alternatives to Neoliberalism
F. Workshop: Bull (Crap) Market
G. Funny Business, the Lighter Side of the IMF
H. Workshop: Biopiracy
I. Concentration Camp Protest at McDonald's
J. Slide show: Tie-dyed T-shirts on Five Continents
K. Workshop: Commodifying Youth Crime
L. The Art of Resistance: Music, Poetry
M. Workshop: Idealized Materialists
N. Sweatshop Shut-down Demonstration
O. Film screening: Sex, Lies, and Global Economics
P. Workshop: De-imperializing Your Bathroom

Meanwhile, official Summit planners could use a crash course in those Western traditions - howling coyotes, barroom brawls, fried bull's balls, et al. - that are supposed to delight our international visitors. When Colorado Ski Country dropped off bolo ties for the goodie bags being prepared for visiting journalists, a Summit staffer asked what the hell they were, then explained she'd only moved west of the Mississippi three weeks earlier.

Our quiz answers: The real events are B, E, H, I, K, L, N, 0.

If the official Summit of the Eight seems too preoccupied with protocol, there's another, earthier, group in town determined to keep it on its TOES (more on that in a moment).

Questions abound about the official summit. What does Russia's inclusion signify? Why are no Africans invited to the summit when one of the major initiatives being launched is to promote economic growth in African countries?

Will the Summit of the Eight, the Group of 7 until recently, soon be called the Group of 8, 9 or 10? Russia, which until recently had an observer status, is not just knocking at the door but is already virtually in. This weekend, out of a total 11.5 hours set aside for head-of-state discussions, Boris Yeltsin will be absent for scarcely one hour. The final communique will be a joint statement of all participants, rather than just the summit host.

Although Russia's economic situation is rather bleak, Yeltsin is purportedly being rewarded for at least acquiescing to NATO's expansion, and the move is afoot to help Russia's integration into the world economy - membership in the World Trade Organization and perhaps in the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

It seems likely that in the not-too-distant future, what was formerly a rich-nations' club will likely include China and then perhaps India and a few others.

As significant as the formal sessions are, bilateral talks between the leaders at the dinner on Friday evening and continuing that night and Sunday are perhaps even more important. For example, President Clinton will discuss the continuing Japanese trade export surplus with Prime Minister Ryutaro Hashimoto. Clinton's talks with Yeltsin are likely to include relations with Iran and

Bosnia and the status of nuclear nonproliferation and anti-ballistic missile treaties. Similarly, Yeltsin and the Japanese prime minister will certainly talk about the conflict between the two countries over the so-called northern territories issue, whose solution Japan has linked with Russia's admission to the Group of 7.

The Germans and French are apt to discuss the problems associated with a new European currency, the "euro," and the priority of combatting inflation or unemployment, as the French fear rising unemployment if Germany insists on excessive economic austerity.

For a Denver resident who is otherwise shut out from the summit activities, there is an intriguing alternative, The Other Economic Summit (TOES). Activists on human rights, the environment and alternative economic policies have poured into the city from many parts of the world. From India, D.B. Tengadi, a prominent thinker who suggests an alternative global economic system, will speak at a plenary session. Dozens of workshops on international security, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, human rights and adverse effects of globalization are being held through Sunday.

The International Indigenous Peoples' Tribunal is already in session and continues through Saturday. An international panel made up of jurists and indigenous peoples from the U.S., Thailand, Burma, Russia, Ecuador, Canada and Argentina is hearing testimony on actual cases. For example, 10 Ngarrindjeri people from Hindmarsh Island, South Australia, who had never before left their homeland, arrived in Denver to challenge the construction of a bridge connecting their island to the mainland - an act they allege is destroying their sacred sites.

After hearing their testimony and considering the objections from an attorney representing the construction company, the tribunal, which I chaired, called upon the government of Australia to "honor the spiritual and sacred traditions of the Ngarrindjeri people, treat them with the utmost dignity and respect" and ensure their full participation in the decision-making processes. There are 10 such cases, including as parties several multinational corporations and all of the G7 countries.

Globalization, free trade, investment in developing countries, and stability in financial markets, which will be the focus of the formal summit, are the policies with which The Other Economic Summit takes issue. Today through Sunday, the Peoples' Summit sessions offer a potpourri of provocative and stimulating ideas on economic and political subjects that will shape our future world. Ved P. Nanda is director of the International Legal Studies Program at the University of Denver College of Law.

(The article included the following sentences:)

The arrival of all eight leaders was also occasion for those with opposing views or press hunger to demonstrate or call news conferences.

Amnesty International declared that the summit was derelict for not including human rights in its economic promotion.

The greatest trade in the world is not in wheat or electronic parts but in hypocrisy, a spokesman for Amnesty International said Friday in excoriating the Denver Summit of the Eight for leaving out human rights.

"It is one issue that has virtually never been on the agenda. Yet it is our contention that you can't divorce economic issues from human rights," said William Schulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, in a press briefing on the first day of the Denver summit.

The organization released its annual survey last week claiming that human-rights violations are up nearly 10 percent worldwide. Full of holes Schulz ripped President Clinton's contention - widely held among the eight leaders attending the summit - that more international trade will improve human rights.

"His policy is full of holes. If he truly believes that it will work in China, then why won't he allow trade to Cuba? If it will work in Indonesia, then why not in Iraq? The president is tough on human rights when it won't cost that much money. With weaker states, pariah states, he can be tough. But trade trumps torture every time."

Amnesty International believes that, in the long run, a country that abuses its citizens creates a "boiling cauldron" that will one day result in political instability, a situation bad for business.

Corporations find it difficult to function in countries where the rule of law disappears, as McDonald's learned two years into a supposed 20-year contract with China to sell hamburgers on Tiananmen Square. The restaurant was replaced by government offices.

A free press, capable of rooting out corruption, also is a cornerstone of a healthy business environment, said Schulz. "If human rights are ignored, countries also tend to ignore other laws."

According to Clinton administration officials, the Denver gathering will discuss human rights in Hong Kong after the July 1 takeover by China. In a briefing prior to his arrival in Denver, National Security Adviser Sandy Berger said the Universal Declaration of Human Rights is widely embraced by the eight industrialized nations, but "there are different approaches among the eight to how best to pursue that objective." Call for action Schulz said that if the United States and its summit allies take no immediate action concerning threatened freedoms in Hong Kong, China may misinterpret the inaction and attempt a takeover of Taiwan, a move that would involve the United States in a difficult, if not military, response.

Schulz applauded Clinton's efforts to set up a permanent international war-crimes tribunal and to help Africa economically. But even the United States is on Amnesty's list as a violator of the Vienna Declaration for not notifying the 15 native countries of 62 foreign citizens on death row in American prisons.

With the leaders of the world's richest industrial nations looking more and more like salesmen for their countries' corporations, a few readers ask: ''Where's the moral imperative?'' in Denver's Summit of the Eight.

The answer is there isn't one really.

Sure, the summiteers will express concern for the oppressed of the Earth - the old, the sick, the hungry, the war refugees, the dissidents of Myanmar (Burma) and the downtrodden of Africa. They will even pledge to do more for them by way of aid and trade.

But they are not nearly as generous as they like to think. U.S. foreign aid, for example, amounts to less than 1 percent of the federal budget and most of it is spent at home, benefiting American farmers and American industry more than the people it is supposed to help.

The real emphasis is on trade or, to use the buzzword of the day, ''globalization.'' Everyone is better off, or so the argument goes, once their countries are integrated into the global economy because open markets create prosperity, which leads to political freedom, which leads to democracy, which leads to peace and stability and respect for human rights.

There's no altruism here. But our government feels good because it has sluffed off the moral imperative to the private sector. U.S. corporations feel good because they're told they're doing good while making money too. And most Americans feel that's the way things should be.

In a poll conducted by the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations, four- fifths of the respondents said the chief goal of U.S. foreign policy should be to secure jobs for Americans and only one-fifth said it should be to promote democracy and human rights around the world.

The Clinton administration, ever obedient to public opinion, only waves the human rights stick when it won't cost us much money. This has led to a curious double standard: We embargo Cuba while ''engaging'' with Communist China to achieve the same end, namely to improve the way they treat their citizens. China, of course, is a huge market for American goods and thus a provider of American jobs.

The same goes for Indonesia and Iraq, or Nigeria and Libya. The pariah states get whacked, but those where business is too lucrative get ''constructively engaged.''

The problem with this approach, says William Shulz, executive director of Amnesty International USA, is that ''trade alone cannot improve a country's human rights. If it could, Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa would have been paragons of human rights.''

South Africa, in fact, is where the State Department's Chester Crocker invented the words ''constructive engagement,'' now being used by the Clinton administration to justify decoupling human rights from a very profitable trade relationship with China.

The State Department's own human rights report disputes the Clinton administration's claim that ''constructive engagement'' improves Chinese behavior; it has worsened considerably over the past two years. And Amnesty's 1997 report points out that while trade has picked up worldwide, so have torture, extrajudicial killings, disappearances, arrests of political dissidents and decreasing protection for refugees.

The number of countries using torture has increased by 9 percent and those with prisoners of conscience by 10.5 percent.

Shulz cited eight reasons ''why economic interests cannot be divorced from human rights'':

1. Any country that abuses its citizens is creating a ''cauldron'' that eventually spills over into political instability, which is bad for business.

2. Countries that abuse human rights have no rule of law, without which no business can function properly.

3. Respect for human rights equates to respect for contracts. McDonald's found out how little the Chinese respect contracts when it lost its premises on Tiananmen Square because Beijing needed the building for more government offices.

4. A free flow of information is as vital to businessmen as the rest of society. Censorship is bad for business.

5. A lack of human rights invites corruption. And corruption is bad for business.

6. Business rights are closely interrelated with human rights.

7. Countries that abuse human rights are seed beds for terrorism, which is bad for business.

8. Corporations that collaborate with repressive regimes are not respected at home. Their image, and their business, suffer.

Also, ignoring human rights abuses usually proves more expensive in the long run than swift and decisive action.

To prove his latter point, Shultz cited the case of Rwanda. Washington could have averted the genocide there at a cost of about $ 300 million, he said, if it had sent a limited number of troops as soon as it learned that ethnic tensions were coming to a boil. Instead it waited too long, up to a million people were killed and subsequent relief operations cost the U.S. government $ 1.2 billion.

Now we are pouring aid money into Bosnia and Croatia. It will be wasted, said Shulz, unless NATO makes a concerted effort to arrest war criminals. ''If they are not brought to justice,'' he warned. ''there will never be the reconciliation and stability needed to attract investment.''

Amnesty would like to see the Summit of the Eight regain a moral imperative by drafting a compact that links trade to human rights and removes any ambiguity from dealings between the world's top industrial powers and their customers. And the first place to apply it is China.

''China has made it quite clear that the reversion of Hong Kong is a first step to taking back Taiwan,'' said Shulz. ''If we don't protect the liberties of Hong Kong, China may be tempted to take a much harsher approach to Taiwan.''

Of course, trade reprisals would have to be applied multilaterally. Otherwise, U.S. corporations might simply be undermined by their foreign competitors.

Without such a compact, said Shulz, ''the greatest trade in the world is not in wheat or electronic parts but in hypocrisy.''

If there was something to protest, it was being protested in Denver Friday as every kind of activist sneaked into the international media spotlight here for the Denver Summit of the Eight.

Human rights demonstrators, Iranian expatriates, gay rights activists, Nation of Islam leaders - and just about everyone else held a demonstration somewhere in Denver Friday:

• Cries of ''freedom, democracy'' in English and Farsi rang across the east lawn of the Capitol Friday as more than 1,000 Iranians demanded that world leaders boycott the ''mullah's regime,'' which they say grips Iran with an iron fist.

• In a church basement just three blocks away, a multinational tribunal representing the world's indigenous peoples took on international corporations and governments that support them.

• A militia group mustered a force of only three people at the Convention Center to burn a United Nations flag and protest what they fear is a U.N. plot to create a ''one-world government.''

• At City Park, local representatives of the Nation of Islam called a news conference to insist that President Clinton not only apologize for slavery, but offer surplus government land as restitution to slaves' descendants.

The People's Summit hosted a protest Friday against a global investment plan, where demonstrators pitched trash bags into a garbage bin to symbolize the loss of sovereignty, environmental standards and labor rights that they said corporate investment schemes bring to less developed nations.

Gay rights activists questioned why lesbian issues did not enter into the human rights doctrine at the Beijing Women's Conference.

In the evening, while world leaders were driven to a banquet at the Phipps Mansion, Jennifer Gueddiche set up tables for the Hunger Banquet at the Iliff School of Theology.

The meal was symbolic of world hunger: Since 15 percent of the world's population is affluent, 15 percent of the diners had table-cloths and ate a hearty meal. One-fourth got the ''minimum adequate diet'' with lentil stew and rice, and 60 percent of the estimated 200 attendees got a scoop of rice and water - the amount of food most of the world subsists on, she said.

''Hey hey! Ho ho! Corporate greed has got to go!'' about 50 protesters shouted as they worked their way down the 16th Street Mall Friday afternoon.

The workers from various metro-area unions didn't get much public notice, but just the same, leaders shouted, ''Don't get arrested. We have lots more to do this weekend.''

Graphic: Color Photo
More than 1,500 Iranian protesters gather Friday on the east side of the state Capitol. They chanted and drummed in support of President elect Maryam Rajavi of the Iranian Resistance. The rally also called for the severance of diplomatic and trade ties with Iran. By George Kochaniec Jr., Rocky Mountain News.

The story told Friday of environmental devastation and the imprisonment of tribal chiefs who tried to stop logging operations on sacred Indian land exemplify the issues being tackled this weekend during the People's Summit.

That summit - an alternative to the Denver Summit of the Eight - on Friday officially kicked off three days of seminars and demonstrations. More than 5,000 participants from 30 nations are expected to attend.

Among those are Lawrence Pootlass, whose Indian name is chief Nuximlaye, and Charlie Nelson, chief Slicxwliqw, hereditary chiefs of the Nuxalk Nation in British Columbia, Canada.

They told their story to the International Indigenous People's Tribunal, which is hearing testimony from native people from all over the world this week. Today, the tribunal will release its report on how the policies of the world's most powerful nations affect native people.

The two chiefs spent more than a month in jail last year after they blockaded an International Forest Products logging operation in old-growth rain forest on ground sacred to the Nuxalk tribe. The company has no right to cut trees, the chiefs said.

"We have never ceded, relinquished or sold our lands to anyone. Nor have we ever entered into any treaty ceding any of our nation's territory," Nelson said.

The very survival of the Nuxalk Nation, which has shrunk to just a few hundred members, is threatened by the policies instituted by Canada's leaders and big business, he said.

"(International Forest Products), the Canadian government and the British Columbia government have continually denied us our right to exist. They are destroying salmon spawning grounds, fishing areas, hunting areas, burial sites, rock carvings, medicinal hot springs and medicinal plants within our territory."

In addition to the tribunal, Friday's alternative summit included 30 educational panels covering subjects such as: the impacts of economic globalization; global climate change; and women and economic policies.

Today features more than 40 seminars on subjects such as: immigrant issues in the U.S. and abroad; sustainable energy policies; corporate power and the "American Dream"; and strategies to combat economic globalization.

Several demonstrations and rallies are also scheduled for today, among them: a student-organized demonstration at 10:15 a.m. at 16th and Welton streets to protest the Nike Corp.'s record on child labor; the Women's Rights are Human Rights rally on the Auraria Lawn at the Auraria Campus; and the People's March for Justice at 12:15 p.m. starting at 15th and Arapahoe streets and proceeding to the state Capitol.

In stark contrast to the private meetings of the Denver summit, the workshops and seminars, many of which are held on the Auraria Campus, are open to everyone, said Soyun Park, an organizer with the Colorado Progressive Coalition, one of the 50 groups that helped organize the alternative summit.

God is an "equal-access God, and the path to heaven isn't filled with barricades and police cars," a Methodist minister said Friday night at a worship service directed at the Denver Summit of the Eight.

Reaching God's people doesn't happen "with private limos, $20 million spent on security, fingerprints and photo ops with the president," said Teresa Fry Brown, preaching at Trinity United Methodist Church, 18th Avenue and Broadway.

Brown, associate professor of preaching at Candler School of Theology, Emory University, Atlanta, directed several barbs at the summit and the security around the historic church, across the street from the Brown Palace Hotel where President Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton are staying.

The entire block around the Brown is barricaded, and Broadway is bumper to bumper with security vehicles. Those driving by the Brown on Broadway are stopped under a canopy where security personnel ask them to step outside. Security agents then search each car and check in the trunks and under the hoods.

The group of the richest industrial nations "meets year after year and solves absolutely nothing," said Brown, one of Methodism's top preachers. "Your lives won't be changed one iota by Tuesday morning."

The leaders "have a $27,000 conference table and special-blown water glasses, as if paper cups wouldn't do just as well," said Brown, a graduate of Denver's Iliff School of Theology. She told of a man in the Bible who laid down on the ground and drank water from a river using his cupped hand. "And he was one of God's chosen," she said.

"You can't hear the cries of the poor if your mouth's running all the time," she said, charging that world leaders are the chaplains of the status quo.

What the world needs, she said, is for people to work for justice and to come to God for help. "There are no barriers to God. God has no stepchildren, no foster children. Come with broken hearts. He will renew your spirit and still be with you when the G8 is over."

More than 200 people attended the interfaith service, which was sponsored by Iliff Institute, the Colorado Council of Churches and the Religious Working Group of the People's Summit, currently meeting in Denver.

Marie Dennis, who works with a national religious group pushing for international justice, chastised world leaders for ignoring the poor.

"The powerful forces of the world are dealing death. They help the privileged few while millions are in poverty," Dennis said, adding that the rich nations need to "repent and transform" and begin helping the poor nations.

"We are challenged to reflect on who we are are, where we are going, how we get there and who are are traveling with," she said.

The west steps of Colorado's Capitol turned into a revolving stage for rallies and protests Saturday while the Denver Summit of the Eight convened two blocks away at the Denver Public Library.

A combined rally by Nuclear Abolition 2000 and Physicians for Prevention of Nuclear War segued into a rally by End the Politics of Cruelty before the National Council of Resistance of Iran took over the steps.

The Iranian rally ended just as a raucous March for Justice reached the Capitol, bringing with it companion rallies by the International Indigenous Peoples Tribunal, Stand Up for Human Rights and the Women's Summit.

Except for the women and the Iranians, public interest in the plethora of protests and the cavalry of speakers was scant.

Only three people showed for denunciations of a global nuclear weapons capability.

About 15 minutes later, hundreds of Iranian expatriates from across the United States called for the overthrow of the fundamentalist Islamic regime in Iran.

Clutching letters of support from Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, R-Colo., Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and Rep. Dan Schaefer, R-Colo., speakers called on the world leaders to boycott the Tehran government.

On the 16th Street Mall, shoppers Saturday ignored about 20 student protesters who chanted against Nike athletic shoes made in Asia. The posters read, ''Exploitation - Just Do It,'' and ''People Over Profits.''

Other makers of athletic footwear also use child labor, said Sarah Wolf, a student at Golden High School, ''but we have to target someone.''

About the same time at Auraria, the Indigenous People's Tribunal read decisions against more than a dozen ''corporations and their host countries for violating the rights of people and damaging the global environment,'' said Roy Young, an organizer.

The international panel of activists ruled against Peabody Coal for what it said was violation of the rights of the Navajo and Hopi people, ASARCO for contaminating the soil in Globeville, the World Bank for leaving thousands homeless by building dams in Africa and Central America.

Also at Auraria, the all-white male economic summit inspired the Women's Summit, sponsored by feminist groups that named their own set of eight leaders to inject equal rights into the global picture.

''We knew there would be no women at the (summit) table, so we called together eight of our own leaders to speak out for women's rights and human rights,'' DeGette said at Auraria.

The list of speakers, which drew a crowd of about 100, included Dottie Lamm and Patricia Ireland of the National Organization for Women.

One raucous protest was by Amnesty International at the Capitol. Actors from El Centro Su Theatro held giant, villainous-looking puppets labeled Capitalism, Imperialism and Racism.

It was early in the morning Saturday, long before Bill Clinton would make his way into the Central Library, when Danny Bowden began playing his flute.

He was sitting on the west steps of the Capitol, scrunched into a tiny sliver of shade near the top. It made him easy to miss, and I'd nearly walked past him until around me rose the sweet music of his instrument.

He was about 35, I figured, with shaggy, dirty brown hair. The blue jeans and plaid shirt he wore looked slept in. I took him to be just another street musician.

''I'm playing for Bill Clinton,'' Danny Bowden explained. Beg pardon? ''I'm playing for the president and the others,'' he said softly. ''For justice. You know, for peace.''

You think they'll hear you, Danny? He nodded his head, returned his lips to the flute and played once more.

They've been all over downtown Denver this week, people like Danny Bowden. People with a message they want eight powerful men to hear, a beef, a cause they want aired. I've watched them stand for hours in the shadows, hopelessly far away from any of the eight world leaders they want to notice them. And I admire them.

I admire their zeal, their persistence, their against-all-odds optimism that maybe - just maybe - even one of the most powerful men on the planet might notice and hear them. And as a result, change might come.

Massood Omrani, 39, had for more than an hour stood in the blistering heat of Friday banging a drum and chanting slogans. We spoke afterwards beneath a large shade tree blocks from the Central Library.

He was one of hundreds of Iranian exiles who marched through Denver demanding that summit leaders impose an economic, political and military boycott on the clerical government in Tehran. Do you think they heard you? he is asked. "Very much so,'' Massood Omrani said. ''I am a very hopeful man."

He had flown in from Detroit that morning, taken the day off from his job as a Ford Motor Co. engineer, to be here. He was flying back out in a few hours. ''My parents, siblings - all my relatives - are still living in Iran under a medieval government that exports terrorism and cares nothing about human rights. To come here for one day is the least I can do.''

That none of the summit participants were anywhere near the library did not seem to matter. ''I just know,'' he said, a big smile on his face, ''that they will hear our voices.''

This is, of course, doubtful. But it does not deter any of them. All around the Capitol and along the distant perimeter of the fortressed Central Library they amassed: Amnesty International, women's groups and out World Federalists and Nuclear Abolition 2000.

''Someone is going to pay attention,'' Vicki Nash of the World Federalists said hopefully as she stood nearly a quarter-mile from the library.

Such hopefulness. Young men and women stood along Broadway holding signs, glass of the limousines racing by and make a difference.e it through the tinted

A long shot in reality. Yet amid the bustle of signs being painted, sound systems being assembled and position papers being distributed, the sweet melody of a flute could be heard. This time from the east steps of the Capitol.

Though far away, perhaps the president and the others could also hear it and its message. I, too, am a very hopeful man.

DENVER - Eight of the world's most powerful leaders negotiated around a $25,000 hand-wrought table Saturday.

A few blocks away, about 400 people gathered on the weathered stone steps of the state Capitol.

"It's the Economic Model, Stupid!" read one sign that waved above the crowd of protesters. "Hands Off Cuba," read another.

The hour-long demonstration capped the March for Justice - just one piece of what organizers called "The Other Economic Summit." Also known as the People's Summit '97, the event stressed issues that aren't high on the official agenda of the Denver Summit of the Eight: human rights, environmental degradation and "economic justice." It capped nearly a week of unofficial and decidedly leftist events that provided alternative views on the world than the one being projected by the world leaders assembled in Colorado.

The Labor Party was there; so were the Young Socialists. The Green Party of Colorado showed up, joined by self-described "ecofeminists" and human-rights groups.

Organizers estimated as many as 1,200 people from around the world attended Saturday's culminating alternative summit, which featured protests, rallies, workshops and panel discussions.

Their dominant theme: the Summit of the Eight was glorifying capitalism but ignoring its costs.

"Companies' stocks soar as soon as they announce they're going to lay people off," said Don Holmstrom, chapter president of the Colorado Labor Party. Others criticized multinational corporations for exploiting workers in developing nations and then moving the profits back to industrialized countries.

"I realized that you can buy a real sweat shirt made in a real sweatshop with real sweat," said Andrew Evans of Colorado Springs. "In this country most people don't realize that kind of stuff is going on."

Earlier Saturday, about 200 demonstrators rallied on the Auraria campus and urged governments to support women's rights.

Dottie Lamm, the former first lady of Colorado, said she was ashamed of Congress for not understanding how important family planning and the problems of overpopulation are. U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver, agreed, saying leaders don't spend enough time addressing women's concerns.

"From Beijing to Boulder, Denver to Delhi, societies across the globe are losing opportunities and choking progress by ignoring the full potential of women," DeGette said. She called for the ratification of the United Nations' Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The United States is the only country participating in the Summit of the Eight that has not ratified the agreement, she said.

Another group said the industrialized nations were even more remiss in their treatment of native peoples. The International Indigenous Peoples Tribunal listened to three days of testimony about the negative effects corporate behavior has on the environment and native populations.

"It's very difficult at times, what we're faced with," said Charlie Nelson, one of the hereditary chiefs of the Nuxalk Nation in British Columbia, Canada.

But few of those who participated in the alternative events said they expect much help from the governments of the nations participating in the summit.

"They want to continue dominance of the economic structure of the world," said protester (name deleted by request).

The speakers at the March for Justice urged the crowd to work for change and not wait for the leaders.

"Forward with the struggle, and down with the Group of Seven," called Dennis Brutus, a South African activist and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh.

The crowd cheered as the rally ended and began chanting, "The people united will never be defeated."

-Staff writer Donella Danielson contributed to this report.

June 22 - The world's wealthiest nations must take greater responsibility for environmental and human rights atrocities caused by corporations based in their countries, a group of activists concluded at The Other Economic Summit held in Denver Saturday.

The International Indigenous Peoples Tribunal released a report that directs leaders of Denver Summit of the Eight countries, multinational businesses and international organizations to respond to specific alleged rights violations.

"The focus is to ask them to act as responsible citizens," said Ved Nanda, an international law professor at the University of Denver.

"There are all those international standards," he said, referring to such human rights documents as the Universal Declaration of the Rights of Peoples adopted in 1976. The tribunal asks "that those standards be applied and not simply be on the books." The tribunal looked at cases involving everything from bridges built on Aboriginal sacred ground in Australia to water and land contamination in and around Denver. The group is made up of environmental and human rights activists and law experts from around the world.

About 100 people attended Saturday's program, which was part of the alternative summit running concurrently with the Summit of the Eight. Some of the cases discussed by the group over the past several days included:

A pipeline project in Burma involving the alleged cooperation of Unocal Corp. and Total Petroleum Inc. and the military to clearcut forests and displace Burmese people. The tribunal condemned the companies' participation in the project and said it would hold the United States and France accountable for any devastating human and environmental consequences of the project. They also called for an independent environmental and social impact analysis.

The ongoing controversy over the disposal of radioactive waste by Shattuck Chemical Co. in the Overland neighborhood in Denver. The tribunal decided that while the case does not specifically involve indigenous peoples, the neighborhood "is being subjected to the policies of corporations which disregard the environmental standards and human rights." The group also recommended to the neighbors that they talk with human rights and nongovernmental, environmental organizations.

The alleged destruction of forests in Canada on land held by the Nuxalk Nation, an Indian tribe in British Columbia, resulted in the recommendation that the company logging the area, International Forest Products, cease logging activities and that the states ensure there is recognition of the indigenous peoples' desires in the future.

The aim of the tribunal is not to stop private enterprise, but "there are ways to do it that are responsible and protect the livelihoods and cultures and societies of indigenous people," said Alan O'Hashi, a board member of Global Response and chairman of Boulder's Human Relations Commission.

Even though some of the cases, such as the Overland issue, involve small groups of people, "there are way more of those small cases" around the world, he said.

Lara Riscol knew the Aberdeen Proving Grounds' dirty little secret long before the Maryland base became the Army's symbol of sex abuse last year.

In 1984 her gunnery sergeant sexually harassed her verbally every day. In a tank turret one day, he physically assaulted her.

'I was afraid to say anything,'' Riscol said Saturday as she organized a rally on women's rights for the Peoples Summit. ''There was nowhere to turn.''

Radicalized by her military experiences, Riscol was one of hundreds of activists participating Saturday in the alternative to the Denver Summit of the Eight.

The counter-summiteers were young, politically left-leaning people determined to force human sensibilities onto the world's economic systems.

It's not easy.

Large crowds have endured hours in unforgiving sun the past two days for only a glimpse of President Clinton and other world leaders here for the Summit of the Eight.

At Denver's downtown Auraria campus, alternative summit organizers charitably estimated the crowd at 325 for Saturday's women's rally that featured Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization for Women, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Colo., and former Colorado first lady and women's advocate Dottie Lamm.

About 2,000 attended Saturday's rallies, protests and 40 workshops. [NB: If you count the 1,500 Iranian protesters, who had nothing to do with the Peoples' Summit/TOES '97 conference. SH)

Most participants believe in women's and human rights, environmental protection, peace, justice, and more equitable wealth distribution through a global economy. Organizers concede they are probably preaching to the converted. Little was done to make the event more festive and fun to attract more mainstream residents.

'It's tough to find that balance,'' said Bill Vandenberg of the Colorado Progressive Coalition.

Riscol sees value for the faithful.

''You need to be affirmed and charged,'' she said. ''You need to know you're not crazy.''

Riscol should know.

She was raised in a conservative Christian home in Las Vegas and taught daily that women exist for the benefit and service of men. She left at 17. The Army life pushed her over the edge.

Riscol said she was targeted for dismissal when she complained about sexual harassment. She said she kept her tank mechanic post only by threatening to expose the abuse.

Her Army experience led to a vagabond career of organizing campaigns and major events around the country and world to benefit women, children and the environmen.

Riscol, 33, is now with the Colorado Women's Agenda, working on a master's degree in contemporary issues and public affairs at the University of Denver.

Women's rights was laced throughout the alternative summit, which concludes today.

''The reason it is so important is because the economic security of the country is directly related to the economic security of its women,'' she said.

Educational forums such as the alternative summit are imperative, Riscol said, to teach people the hows and whys of accomplishing change.

She said she hopes the Peoples Summit remind individuals they matter. ''People need to know that participation matters, that they are a part of their government - we are the government.''

GRAPHIC: Photo (2), Lara Riscol.
Rep. Diana DeGette, D Colo., right, whispers to Dottie Lamm while Patricia Ireland, president of the National Organization of Women, addresses the Peoples Summit Saturday at the Auraria campus. DeGette was among the speakers.
By Linda McConnell / Rocky Mountain News.

June 22 - Someday in her lifetime, Colorado's 1st Congressional District Rep. Diana DeGette would like to see another international economic summit in Denver.

But this one, she said, would have a slightly different cast.

"I'm looking forward to the day that the U.S. president is a woman, and the governor is a woman and all the other heads of state are women," DeGette told the crowd gathered on the Auraria campus Saturday morning. "My husband has volunteered to put together the spouse events in case that ever happens." It's a pretty safe bet that her husband will never have to make good on his promise, DeGette noted. "Not in my lifetime, but maybe in my daughter's lifetime."

DeGette was joined by former Colorado first lady Dottie Lamm, National Organization for Women President Patricia Ireland, and other nationally and internationally recognized feminists at a rally that kicked off "The Women's Summit." The grassroots effort offers three days of public events designed to highlight the impact of globalization on women and families, and to respond to the all male makeup of the Summit of the Eight.

"Women make up more than 50 percent of the world population and zero percent of the G-7 leaders," said Ireland. "We will hold these men accountable." A key aspect of that accountability, according to speakers at the rally, was the United State's current refusal to ratify CEDAW: the United Nation's Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women.

"CEDAW is the most comprehensive and detailed international agreement establishing the rights of women. It was drafted and signed by the U.S. government in 1980. Since then, 153 countries, including every G-7 nation (except the U.S.) has agreed to be bound by the convention. But 17 years later, CEDAW is languishing in the U.S. Senate," DeGette said, advising the crowd to write U.S. Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell and Wayne Allard, both Republicans.

The plans and promises made at the Fourth World Conference on Women held in Beijing in 1995 were also major subjects of contention. At the Beijing meeting the participation of women in economic policy planning was a major focus. But two years later, the speakers noted, there are no women at the table during summit discussions.

"It is obscene, racist and sexist that eight white males would presume to decide how the world will be lived in," said Jane Midgloy, author of The Women's Budget, who spoke after DeGette.

An audience of about 200 cheered the speakers - including Nancy Reiko Kato National Board Member of Radical Women and Vandana Shiva, the director of a national resource foundation in India.

Topics included:

Calling for an end to female genital mutilation, gay-bashing and union busting.

Improving the education and literacy of women.

Providing family planning services throughout the world.

"Population is an economic issue, and this is an economic summit, but I haven't heard anything about population at this summit - have you?" Lamm offered.

State Sen. Dorothy Rupert called for a moment of silence in memory of the recent rape and slaying of Capitol Hill resident Jane Benedict.

"This does not have to happen. This is just one more way that we go along with being controlled," Rupert said.

The Women's Summit is sponsored by the Colorado Woman's Agenda, the Colorado National Organization for Women, the Women's International League for Peace and Freedom and the Women's Foundation of Colorado. The kickoff rally was followed by a march down 16th Street to the Statehouse.

DeGette, who flew into town on Air Force One with the president and has played a fairly prominent role in the social events connected to Summit of the Eight, said that although she didn't agree with everything that was said at the wide-ranging rally, she thought it was important to have the issues raised.

"It's important for people to hear these issues, particularly the viewpoints from other countries," she said.

Ireland, the NOW president, said in an interview after her speech that though she was disappointed in the virtual non-role that first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton has played in the summit, it "was a minor discordant note."

"A whole piece of the orchestra is missing," Ireland said. "We need to get a woman in the White House as a president (as opposed to a spouse)." Both in her prepared remarks and in casual conversation after the speech, Ireland encouraged women to run for office as the way to solve the problems that confront them. "Run for the mosquito control board, run for city council, run for the board of education," she said.

"Just run," she said.

Homeless kept away from park

Denver's homeless and street people who frequently spend daytime hours in Civic Center Park were shut out of the area with fences Saturday, as world leaders gathered at the Denver Public Library across the street.

They were also conspicuously absent from surrounding areas. City officials have said they did nothing to ''move'' the homeless out, other than fence the park.

But apparently that was sufficient to keep their presence from being noted.

''When the big wheels come to town, the little people take a walk,'' said Jack Real of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless. ''Most of them I would guess went to the river, or spent their day around the shelters.''

Speaker: It's all to get press

At least the lone speaker for the People's Summit workshop on ''How to Organize a Demonstration'' was honest.

''It is all to get press,'' said Leslie Moody, an organizer for Jobs with Justice in Denver.

The Saturday morning workshop was apt, considering the dozen or more demonstrations held on the State Capitol steps, in front of the Colorado Convention Center's media center and the People's Summit at Auraria campus.

Moody, who arrived for the 8:45 p.m. workshop at 9:20 a.m., reassured the audience of six that she'd been an activist for five years and ''I've never been to jail.''

The June 20 Post included four interesting perspectives on the Summit of the Eight. First was Chuck Green's cynical view that the summit is merely a big party for out-of-touch, privileged politicos who will in the end accomplish little except inconveniencing Denverites and running up a huge tab for taxpayers.

Next, the Post editorial welcomes attendees with a gushing small town, chamber-of-commerce-style "Howdy! Come check us out!"

Then, Thomas Friedman of The New York Times raises the point that the G7 lineup doesn't accurately reflect the true economic centers of power and proposes that besides nations, alternative participants could include financially powerful families, corporations and even mafias.

Finally, Ved Nanda shares Friedman's view that the summit's membership will need to better reflect global economic reality and opines that, for now, the real action may be the less formal dinner talks between the dignitaries. He then goes on to mention The Other Economic Summit (TOES), also here at this time, as an option for those more interested in learning about the negative repercussions that may result from any policies agreed upon at the Summit of the Eight.

Like Chuck Green, I may be a bit skeptical about the summit paying for itself in terms of concrete policies. However, should the attendees want to come away with something more substantial than some showpiece documents, they would be wise to act on the suggestion of Friedman and Nanda and see how future summits could more accurately reflect the economic power bases of today's world and include nations whose economic and political systems point the way to success in the next century.

Greg McCarty

(No text provided)

(No text provided)

Many cultural festivals are accompanied by alternative celebrations for audiences who like to view themselves as out of the mainstream. Avant- garde. Progressive.

The Summit of the Eight is no exception. While the world leaders were in Denver, organizers of the People's Summit '97 offered their own eclectic program of lectures, workshops, demonstrations and rallies. Some 50 organizations participated.

Most of the events were held at the Auraria campus, with the Colorado Progressive Coalition handling the arrangements.

I sat in on several sessions of the People's Summit, and I think I'm safe in saying this production isn't heading to Broadway any time soon. The cast and the audience are pretty much the same people, going from panel to panel talking to each other. Very little they say would be persuasive to anyone not already persuaded.

Take Cuba, for example, which is very highly regarded in these circles and was the subject of several workshops. Speaking at the Women's Summit on Saturday morning, June 21, Nancy Reiko Kato extolled the virtues of Cuban society - free health care, universal literacy.

She didn't mention, of course, that the free hospitals have no supplies and people are jailed and tortured for reading or writing the wrong books.

Winding up, Kato declaimed, ''The heroic Cuban example provides a model for what the world could be like without the profit motive.''

She's exactly right about that, but haven't any of these people noticed that the raft traffic in the Florida straits is entirely one-way?

Blaming Cuba's miseries on the United States trade embargo is a popular excuse. But it's in conflict with with another cherished doctrine: that ''free-for-all'' global trade policies ''threaten to steal our children's future.''

That was the thesis of the Wednesday evening program put on by the Sierra Club's ''Responsible Trade Campaign'' at Central Presbyterian Church. The people on the panel or working the literature tables almost outnumbered the audience.

Whether any trade qualifies as responsible in their eyes wasn't clear. The woman who introduced the first panelists opined that we ''can't have real democracy as long as corporations are ruling the world.''

Which part of the world did she have in mind, I wondered. North Korea? Hong Kong?

Leading off the panel were two teenage girls from Canada, representing a children's group working to end child labor. According to the introduction, Tanya Davis, 14, has been an activist all her life, going to her first demonstration at the age of three months; Laura Hannant, 12, became one at age nine, during a backpacking trip to Nepal, where she learned about the abuses suffered by children forced to work in rug factories.

They described the abuses of child labor, but there are no easy solutions. Children have always labored alongside their parents. Only an affluent society can afford to allow its children so many years of leisure (or take them backpacking in Nepal).

No parents anywhere would sell their children into slavery unless they had no better option; economic development gives them better options.

The girls' presentation exemplified the problem with the People's Summit: the speakers raised genuinely important issues, with which many people would sympathize, but their proposed solutions were hopelessly unrealistic.

One Shoshone activist declared her devotion to living close to the land; fine for her, if that's what she wants, but subsistence agriculture is not what most of the world's peoples aspire to. The Young Socialists met to discuss how to overthrow capitalism. A Mexican social worker talked about Popocatapetl's rumblings, astronauts, human sacrifice and the planet Gaia. I'm not sure what his point was, but everyone listened intently.

It's a pity that so much energy and so much goodwill was lavished on this summit. Even the world leaders accomplished more.

With the concrete barriers gone, the motorcades and street closures a distant memory, few Coloradans will carry from the Denver Summit of the Eight much more than a feeling of pride that their city showed. On any scale, the summit probably ranked well below the Colorado Avalanche's first-season Stanley Cup victory.

The human story may have been in the peripheral events; the mini-summits taking advantage of the gathering of nations, and more importantly, the press from all around the world. More than 3,000 media representatives translated their stories in human terms, or in terms of economic development.

With this potential for exposure, the International Indigenous People's Tribunal came together at Denver's Central Presbyterian Church on June 18. The tribunal was formed in response to the Declaration of Rio, which grew out of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development's 1992 Rio Earth Summit.

Ten women and one man, members of the Ngarrindjeri Nation (an Aboriginal people who reside in southern Australia), arrived in Denver as part of a cultural tour of the United States. They came with little more than their outrage that they have been wronged by a process that had no desire to understand their culture. The group appealed to the tribunal in hopes that the international prestige of the United Nations would pressure the world community to support the Aboriginal peoples worldwide in their fight to continue their traditions and autonomy.

Through a network of good people, beds and showers were found, food coupons were donated, and the delegation made their case before the tribunal.

The increased industrialization of the world has affected the cultures of indigenous peoples and the sustainability of global ecosystems. The delegation from the Ngarrindjeri Nation came to Colorado at the same time as the Summit of the Eight to appeal an Australian government decision that will allow a bridge to be built from the Australian mainland to Hindmarsh Island. The island -- no more than five miles long and four miles wide, has been the sacred site for the women of the nation to pass on their oral traditions and perform their sacred rites.

While the decision by the Australian government to build and fund the bridge was made in the name of economic development, the Ngarrindjeri believe it is another example of the increasing efforts by the Australian government to undermine the Aboriginal peoples and their cultures. The U.N. continues to be a forum of last resort for such cases.

The tribunal represented indigenous peoples from nine countries and was chaired by Ved Nanda from the University of Denver. Ngarrindjeri spokesman Tom Treverrow was articulate and passionate - and unfortunately male. The issue concerns lands sacred to the women of the nation and their womanhood rights. Regardless, Treverrow made a clear case and the panel listened with respect.

The tribunal's verdict was unanimous. It told the Australian government to make sure that the negotiations with the Aborigines are conducted with dignity and respect for their spiritual and sacred traditions, and that all land-development proceedings have a human rights observer. The tribunal also urged the Ngarrindjeri to network with governmental organizations - particularly women's organizations.

Will the 11 members of the Ngarrindjeri Nation return to Australia to find an enlightened appreciation of their rich cultural diversity and the traditions that have allowed them to live on land without depleting its resources? Probably not. But there will be a heightened awareness worldwide of the problems facing indigenous peoples of the globe, the residues of racism and the need to address human and ecological concerns.

Because of these reasons, the Denver Summit of the Eight may have contributed indirectly to the ongoing battle for human rights.

Susan Kirk is a regent of the University of Colorado and an international marketing consultant with Holme, Roberts & Owen LLP.

Understanding purpose of the People's Summit

Did anyone else notice the June 23 News dripping with irony? As part of the newspaper's Summit of the Eight coverage, it depicted the Alternative People's Summit with scorn. The main headline declared ''Many demonstrate, few listen,'' with the subhead having the group ''prancing'' on the state Capitol steps.

But pull out the Business section and there on page 1 we see the business editor declare ''Corporations, not nations hold the power.'' ''Many of us,'' editor Rob Reuteman flatly states, ''have come to the realization that governments barely run the world anymore. Multinationals do.''

The point of the People's Summit was essentially that the official summit promoted the interests of the corporate bottom line at the expense of people's needs and peoples' lives.

What's the difference? None, except that the People's Summit put corporate control in a moral context and for this received the newspaper's (corporate) public derision while the business editor provided tacit support.

Last but not least, I wonder how the reporter happened to spot all the 15-foot-tall People's Summit caricature puppets of capitalism, imperialism, racism, but missed patriarchy.

Lowell May, Denver