GLOBALISING RESISTANCE/263From the beginning, discussion and debate around the debt
issue has gone hand-in-hand with public activities aimed at kick-
starting 'mobilisation'. COCAD participants never saw the
organisation as a mere think tank or study circle. Other groups of
this sort already exist, COCAD has cooperated with them on an
ongoing basis. Since 1990, COCAD campaigns have attracted a
wider and wider spectrum of people. The names of past COCAD
campaigns speak for themselves: 'The Third World Debt Time
Bomb'; 'Third World Debt in a Time of Cholera'; 'While 40,000
Children Die Each Day, Every Minute Counts'; 'Third World Debt:
Necessary Solidarity Between Peoples'. The current campaign is
called 'From North to South, Up to Our Ears in Debt'.
COCAD also functions as an editorial collective. It has helped
draw up a number of platforms and declarations. Madrid 1994,
Copenhagen 1995, Brussels 1995, Chiapas 1996, Manila 1996,
Mauritius and Caracas 1997, are some examples of key events
where COCAD was able to help enrich analytical efforts carried out
in various places around the world. These democratic and organi
sational enterprises are vital for overcoming a sense of isolation
and for working together on a given project with others.
COCAD has always taken pride in its international and interna
tionalist identity. There is nothing surprising about being
'international' when dealing with such issues. Beyond this,
however, COCAD has always seen itself as part of a broader anti-
imperialist movement, as a partisan of a renewed form of
internationalism. Internationalism has taken some hard blows in
recent times, yet it is more urgent than ever before to set it back on
its feet.
While COCAD has been building itself up patiently in Belgium,
at the same time it has directly linked up with movements in other
countries. Whenever possible, activists from other parts of the
world have been invited to COCAD events; COCAD itself has
accepted invitations elsewhere from those who had already made
the trip to Belgium. A number of COCAD sympathisers have often
also made the trip to these events in distant lands, weaving a
stronger web of subversion in the process.
This kind of exchange has actually boosted serious grassroots
activity on the home front. COCAD has always been at the ready
to respond to calls for action, whether from a university professor,
in a local parish's Lenten sermon, from an unemployed workers
group or a long-established solidarity committee. COCAD responds