Debt relief campaigners are relying on a massive online campaign to get their message across shark-infested waters when leaders from the world's leading industrialised countries meet in Okinawa, Japan.
Jubilee 2000, the movement pressing for debt relief for the world's poorest countries, has set up a website urging people to email the US president, Bill Clinton, the prime minister, Tony Blair, and other G8 leaders in a "drop the debt" campaign.
There will be also a virtual summit, with G8 members invited to take questions emailed from the public on the snail's pace at which wealthier nations are writing off debt. Jubilee 2000 will also host an unofficial "people's summit" on Okinawa itself on July 21, the opening day of the G8 summit.
Campaigners have accused the G8 of choosing Okinawa, a remote island 1,250 miles south of Tokyo, to avoid the rioting that bedevilled the World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle last November. At G8 meetings in Cologne last year and Birmingham in 1998, tens of thousands of people demonstrated in favour of debt relief. That was out of the question at Okinawa - so campaigners are resorting to the net.
"Far more people are doing things this time, all over the world," said Nick Buxton of Jubilee 2000, "whether it's a small church gathering in Birmingham or a big rally in Detroit, Michigan ... the net connects them all." People are invited to post messages about their events on the drop the debt website.
In a coup for Jubilee 2000, President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria has accepted an invitation to address the unofficial summit. He also plans to meet G8 leaders in Japan on behalf of the G77 group of developing countries, which he chairs. The president's response came after months of lobbying by Jubilee 2000 to ensure that leaders of the rich countries invite the poor to the annual G8 summit. The Japanese government agreed to a meeting between G8 leaders and Mr Obasanjo and President of Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of Algeria, representing the Organisation of African Unity. The meeting is due to take place on July 20 in Tokyo, after which Mr Obasanjo will fly on to Okinawa for the Jubilee 2000 people's summit.
In accepting the invitation, Mr Obasanjo told Jubilee 2000 UK: "It is heartwarming to know that your petition campaigns are doing well at all levels, especially the collection of 17m signatures worldwide in support of debt cancellation." Some 350,000 emails have already been sent to G8 leaders.
Ann Pettifor, the director of Jubilee 2000 UK and co-founder of the international movement, said: "The president's determination to travel to the remote Japanese island of Okinawa to represent his people will send a powerful message to the leaders of the richest countries. It is time for them to honour their promises to a billion of the world's poorest people, and to drop the debt."
Debt relief through the World Bank and IMF's debt relief programme has been slow. G7 leaders set themselves a target of getting 25 countries through the process by the end of 2000. Only 10 countries have started the process and only one, Uganda, has benefited from any debt cancellation.
In a report this week, Cafod, the Roman Catholic development agency, said the public had been fooled into believing that the battle to reduce the third world's debt burden had been won. Repeated announcements by western leaders that they are cancelling 100% of poor countries' loans have convinced more than half the population that debt is no longer a problem, according to Cafod.
"Gordon Brown and the other G7 finance ministers have the power to get the debt process back on track," said Jessica Woodroffe, head of campaigns at the World Development Movement, part of the Jubilee 2000 coalition. At their last summit in Cologne a year ago, the G8 promised to write off £67bn of loans to the world's poorest, but they have delivered just £1.3bn in extra debt relief.
Useful links
Drop the debt campaign: send your own email
Jubilee 2000
Special report: debt relief
Special report: WTO summit
