On November 14-15, Sydney will host a meeting of World Trade Organisation (WTO) trade ministers from some 25 countries to discuss the Doha round of multilateral trade negotiations.
The meeting will evaluate the progress that has been made since last November's WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, in enforcing the corporate elites' "free trade" agenda.
The WTO's rules, enforceable by sanctions, effectively give the corporate elite free reign to exploit and destroy people's lives and the natural environment. As the embodiment of all that is unjust and oppressive about world capitalism, the WTO is becoming one of the most hated institutions on the planet.
The WTO meeting in Sydney presents an opportunity and a responsibility for all those fighting social injustice in Australia to come together in a mutually strengthening display of public opposition to corporate greed, exploitation and oppression.
It should be a necessary focus of protest for every worker and trade unionist concerned to defend jobs against the onslaught of privatisation and public sector cutbacks, stop the erosion of working conditions through individual contracts and casualisation and defend unions' right to organise workers and take militant action to stop these attacks.
It should be a necessary focus of protest for all those campaigning against the imperialist powers' wars of terror against Third World peoples, whether in Palestine, Afghanistan, Colombia, Iraq or everywhere else where there is popular resistance to the "new world order" of utter compliance with United States' dictates.
It should a necessary focus of protest for the refugees' rights movement. In the era of "free" capital flow around the globe, the number of refugees internationally is greater than ever. Neo-liberalism and the imperialist wars that enforce it are generating millions of refugees, yet the beneficiaries of this new world order are erecting ever higher barriers against the victims of their global regime.
It should be a necessary focus for protest for all those in solidarity with the peoples' of Latin America, Africa and Asia who are struggling for democracy and justice against the effects of a crushing Third World debt and the corrupt rulers of their own countries.
It should be a necessary focus of protest for all those who understand the urgent need to stop the big corporations' rampant destruction of the world's forests, waterways, soil, air, natural food stocks and energy sources in the name of "economic growth" and development.
Federal trade minister Mark Vaile said that the WTO meeting being held in Sydney is confirmation of Australia's strong leading role in the multilateral trading system and its "commitment to drive the trade agenda forward".
By uniting all those who know that another world is possible, and building a huge public protest against this meeting, we can not only make Vaile and his government eat those words, we will join the millions of people worldwide who have dealt, and will continue to deal, serious blows to the corporate elite's ability to rule. All out on N14-15!
From Green Left Weekly, August 28, 2002.
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