User:Sphinx@indymedia.org/Imperial Global Economic Conferences

Berlin Conference of 1884

In German it is referred to as Kongokonferenz ("Congo Conference").

Participants

Austria–Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Spain, Sweden–Norway (union until 1905) and the Ottoman Empire(Turkey).

Background

Increasing well-organized slave rebellions in the Americas that culminated in the independence of Haiti (first independent state by former slaves), and the successes of the anti-slavery movement with the abolition of slave trade were beginning to extract a heavy toll on profits from the Slave Trade Based Global Economy. The major powers found colonialism as a new way around the difficulty created by the slave resistance and anti-slavery movement. In this case they used their superior weaponry to take control of the land from the indigenous African populations and forced the Africans to work in mines and plantations to produce the same tropical goods they used the slaves to cultivate in the Americas.

Purpose

To avoid the major powers from going to war over colonial concessions thus allowing even the newly established Germany empire (13years) to be given access by the other powers to colonies.

Kind of the equivalence today of major powers agreeing on “international trade rules” that allow the militarily powerful countries to seize control of oil, gas and mineral repositories in less powerful countries to the exclusion of the indigenes.

G8

Participants

Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, and Russia.

Background:

During the cold war the world was divided into sphere of influence between NATO controlled countries and Warsaw Pact controlled countries. In both cases both Organizations used force to impose puppet regimes that could guarantee their exploit of resources at very low cost.

Purpose

At the end of the cold war with the rise of struggles against NATO or Warsaw Pact installed collaborator regimes around the World, Main NATO members and Russian leaders come together to determine how to maintain the status quo of being able to continue previous exploitations of resources without getting into dispute with one another.