BY SIMON BUTLER
The mini-ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization (WTO) which is to be held in Sydney on November 14-15 will be met by a number of protest actions.
One of the protest actions planned for November 14 is a youth demonstration against the impending war on Iraq. Initiated by the socialist youth organisation Resistance, the Youth Against War protest aims to mobilise young people to show their opposition to the threat of the US-led war to stop the war before it starts.
The protest organisers will be encouraging high school students to walk out of class on the day of the protest.
The youth demonstration will meet at 11am at Sydney Town Hall on November 14 before marching to join with an anti- war contingent organised by Sydney Network for Peace that meets at noon in Hyde Park North.
"Along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, the WTO is one of the main institutions the global corporate elite uses to ensure that the Third World, where the vast majority of the world's population lives, remains a profitable plundering ground for First World business interests", said Leigh Hughes, Resistance's national high school work coordinator and an organiser of the protest.
"The role the WTO plays in furthering the process of corporate globalisation alone makes it a worthy protest target."
But Hughes believes it's important that the protests against the WTO make a direct link between the pro-corporate profits economic policies the WTO represents and the underlying motivations for the US government's projected war on Iraq.
"It won't be enough for the global justice movement to only raise the important issues of Third World debt and corporate globalisation during the WTO protests", he said.
"The WTO doesn't just symbolise global economic injustice. As far as we are concerned 'No WTO' also spells 'No war on Iraq'."
According to Hughes, "the US government's War on Terror is aimed at militarily enforcing the ability of US corporations to exploit the Third World, particularly the Middle East's oil resources. "The War on Terror is merely a continuation and a deepening of the economic offensive by the banks and corporations of the rich countries on the poor countries that has been waged under the guise of neo-liberal 'free trade' doctrines.
"The fundamental agenda underlying the WTO and of the war on Iraq are the same. Both are necessary for the continuation of an economic and social system that perpetuates widespread poverty and misery in order to protect the extravagant privileges and profits of a tiny minority. You only have to look as far as George Bush's National Security Strategy (NSS) document to see that the war on Iraq is about US political and economic domination of the Middle East not eradicating fictitious weapons of mass destruction."
Released by the Bush administration in September, the NSS bluntly outlines the US foreign policy objectives in the context of the War on Terror. It was labelled George Bush's "how I'll rule the world" document by the New York Times.
Among other things, the NSS states: "The United states enjoys a position of unparalleled military strength and great political advantage the president has no intention of allowing any foreign power to catch up with the huge lead the United States has we will oppose them with all our power."
Hughes argues that the movement for global justice needs to become a movement against global war. "Corporate globalisation and the US war drive are two sides of the same imperialist coin. So it's fitting that young people will be walking out of school on November 14 to protest against the WTO and to oppose Bush and Howard's oil war."
From Green Left Weekly, October 30, 2002.
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