On the evening of the 5th of July, 120 people including overseas campaigners, passers-by in the street, journalists and community educators gathered in the Augustine United Church Debt Centre for a public debate. The aim: for the public to decide for itself whether this G8 Summit really holds out the possibility of an end to the debt crisis.

Debt Chains created by campaigners

The number of speakers was raised at the last moment from four to five, to allow Chris Gekonge, a Kenyan Justice and Peace campaigner staying with Jubilee Scotland Edinburgh Group, to tell about Kenya's exclusion from the HIPC debt relief initiative. Apart from Chris, Rachel Ordu of Nigeria spoke of the corruption under the Abacha dictatorship and the vast theft of the loans given by the West to prop up the incompetent military regime. Lidy Nacpil (from the Philippines) expressed the view of many Southern Campaigners that the West should be put on notice that at some point reparations will be demanded for its role in producing the debt crisis. Romulo Torres gave a forensic analysis of the links between debt, corruption and terror in Peru; Charity Musamba spoke of apartheid debt and the way that Zambia was plunged into a crisis despite having historically a transparent and effective government.

Opinion in the room was divided as to whether the G8 could, or would, produce a real solution to the debt crisis. Some thought the very idea of debt cancellation was patronising and wrong-headed, in that it implied that cancellation was some kind of gift that the West might give to the rest of the world. Others thought that there was a possibility of some progress over the next few days. Others still thought that there could be no real solution until full reparations were made by the West for the harm they had caused.

A full report of the Debt Tribunal will be published shortly. The aim of the event was to give people in Edinburgh a chance to speak directly to visiting campaigners, for the energy of the global campaigners to feed directly into the local campaign and for the real issues to be aired. It was a terrific success, and the organisers were satisfied that had met their goal of making sure the G8 Summit didn't fly over the heads of ordinary people.

Even if - as seems likely - the G8 does not address the real issues that need to be discussed, the people of Scotland can be satisfied that a real, full-blooded, powerful and diverse discussion has taken place. If the atmosphere in that room could be extended to govern the world, a true solution to global injustice would have been found.