Dennis Brutus, Merton Center board member and world-class poet and activist, is spending the summer in Johannesburg in his native South Africa, organizing a "People’s Summit" to precede the World Summit on Sustainable Development, to take place in Johannesburg from August 26 to September 4.

The World Summit, expected to be one of the largest gatherings of world leaders ever held, will take up new approaches to economic growth, social development and environmental protection.

Brutus departed for Johannesburg on May 8, in time to participate in a series of pre-summit seminars and workshops.

While working toward the summit, Brutus will continue to promote the developing boycott of World Bank bonds, which he was instrumental in founding.

"We need to break the power of the World Bank over developing countries," he said, "as the disinvestment movement helped break the power of the apartheid regime in South Africa."

The boycott campaign, launched in 200, has started to have some success in pressing U.S. institutions to dump World Bank-owned bonds. The cities of San Francisco, Boulder, Oakland and Berkeley have joined the boycott, along with several U.S. unions.

Shortly before departing for Johannesburg, Brutus made a quick trip to New York for a meeting on April 24 with Kofi Annan, Secretary-General of the United Nations, to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The meeting was organized by Nadia Hijab, past president of the Association of Arab American University Graduates, who invited Brutus and six others to participate.

The group made no demands of Annan, Brutus said, but simply offered support for whatever actions Annan would find necessary to resolve the conflict.

"We thanked him, and told him we supported him, and we invited him to tell us how we could help in the future," Brutus said. "We represent some of the non-governmental institutions he needs to reinforce his positions.

Looking toward the World Summit, Brutus said it is vital that non-governmental organizations from around the world be represented at the preceding "People’s Summit," which will draft items to be presented to the full summit. Among those items will be global climate change and the Kyoto Treaty, which the United States walked away from earlier this year.

"It’s important to get organizations from other parts of the world," he said. It’s also imporant, he added, to have representatives from Pittsburgh organizations participate.

"If we can get ten from Pittsburgh, each from a different organization, it will be wonderful," he said.