BY EVA CHENG
On September 9, the Zapatista National Liberation Army's Subcomandante Marcos addressed protesters who had gathered to oppose the World Trade Organisation's September 10-14 ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. He pointed out that the WTO is one of the key tools in the imperialist powers' drive to economically recolonise the Third World. "This is a war. A war on humanity. The globalisation of those who are above is nothing more than a global machine that feeds on blood and defecates dollars", Marcos declared.
Ridiculing the extensive security deployed to "protect" the government delegates, Marcos said: "This is not the first time... that those who think they own the planet have hidden behind their high walls and pathetic security to make their plans. Just as in any war, the high command of this army of the transnationals, which seeks to conquer the world in the only way that it can be conquered — by destroying it — meets under a security system which is matched in size only by their fear."
Venezuela's chief trade negotiator Victor Alvarez on September 5 called on all underdeveloped countries to refuse to make any new commitments at the Cancun meeting because "there is such a long list of [Third World concerns] that haven't been satisfied". Alvarez described the WTO as one of those "institutions created by empires to [help them] continue dominating the world".
At the third WTO ministerial meeting in Seattle in 1999, Third World delegates revolted when the imperialist powers sought to coerce the organisation's member-countries to begin negotiations on an expanded and even more harmful package ("round") of global trade rules. Assisted by militant, youthful anti-WTO protesters on Seattle's streets, the summit collapsed.
As a result, the round of negotiations was delayed by two years, against the backdrop of a global wave of mass protests against the WTO and other imperialist-dominated financial and political institutions. The round was eventually forced through at the fourth WTO ministerial meeting in Doha, Qatar, in November 2001 — under the shadow of the US bombing of Afghanistan.
At Doha, the WTO's dominant players resorted to dirty tactics to achieve their agenda. This included an illegal "last-minute" extension of the meeting by a day; many delegates could not attend because their travel arrangements could not be adjusted at such a short notice. Crucial decisions were rammed through the 36-hour marathon final session attended by utterly exhausted poor country delegates (who could muster only one or two delegates per country, whereas the European Union delegation numbered 500).
Stalemate
In the Seattle and Doha WTO ministerial meetings, Third World countries opposed a new round because the trade-offs promised previously were mostly not delivered. However, the Doha round was kick-started with yet more promises.
Once again these promises have not been honoured. This contributed to the negotiations being stalemated for the last 10 months. The Cancun ministerial is meant to push things along so that the completion date of January 2005 can be met.
Since the first WTO ministerial meeting in Singapore in 1986, the rich countries have tried to expand trade rules in order to liberalise four main new areas, with little success (dubbed the "Singapore issues"): investment, competition, government procurement and "trade facilitation".
Getting the WTO's 147 member-countries to agree to these issues being included on the negotiation agenda is the rich countries' top goal at the Cancun meeting. The rich countries want to ensure that the trade rules allow foreign investors unfettered rights to enter any WTO member-country, as well as disallowing governments' rights to regulate them. Any attempt by governments to nurture or assist their local industries will also be outlawed. This would seriously damage poor countries' ability to formulate government policies to develop their economies.
"Trade facilitation" relates to issues such as countries' importing and exporting regulations and customs procedures. The WTO claims the goal is to "cut the red-tape at the point where goods enter a country and provide easier access to information" about such regulations and procedures. The WTO seeks to "standardise" these across the globe.
The Doha resolution clearly stated that no negotiations will start on the "Singapore issues" until there is "explicit consensus" among members on the "modalities". However, the EU, supported by Japan, has been able to have the "Singapore issues" included in the official "ministerial draft" to be presented for adoption at Cancun. This is despite strong objections from underdeveloped member-countries.
More than 40 underdeveloped countries (led by Cuba, Venezuela, China, India, Indonesia and Nigeria) put forward an opposing position. They proposed that the "Singapore issues" be studied by working groups rather than become areas of formal negotiation. They requested that their views be included in the official draft and annexes. But WTO bureaucrats rejected the requests.
Agriculture
Agricultural issues are crucial to the entire round. Rigged trade rules on agriculture from the 1986-1994 Uruguay round resulted in rich country governments being able to maintain high subsidies for export and domestic production by agribusiness. Such subsidies have increased since 1994, enabling US and EU producers to flood poor countries with their cheap produce, with a devastating impact on local farmers.
Moreover, rich countries were able to make use of loopholes in existing rules to minimise the importation of selected farm produce into their countries, slashing poor countries' exports.
The poor countries sought to address these problems in the Doha round, with no success. The US and the EU put forward a joint proposal on agriculture in mid-August that largely ignored poor countries' concerns. Outraged, 20 or so underdeveloped countries (including India, China, Brazil and Mexico) put forward a counter-proposal, listing measures to protect Third World agriculture from further devastation. However, the official WTO draft echoes only the US-EU demands.
Import barriers for industrial goods is another bone of contention. In response to Third World countries' complaints that they are much worse off following the Uruguay round, the Doha meeting declaration pledged that "developing" and least developed countries are entitled to "less than full reciprocity in [tariff] reduction commitments". This supposedly meant that poor countries were able to keep some measures in place to protect local industries.
But that pledge was nowhere to be found in the official draft for Cancun. Reflecting the US-EU-Canada position, the draft targets the last remaining tariff protection measures still maintained by poor countries to avoid the total destruction of their manufacturing industries.
The Third World Network said in a September 9 analysis that the draft's industrial tariff proposals would inflict "immense damage" to the industrial sectors of the underdeveloped countries. "There is already much evidence of de-industrialisation (closure of local firms and loss of jobs) in many developing countries due to past liberalisation. The Cancun draft, if adopted, will make the situation even more critical."
As a highly limited concession, the US on August 30 agreed to allow poor countries without medicine manufacturing capabilities to import cheaper generic versions of essential drugs. But the conditions and restrictions set are so stringent that most commentators believe it will do little to broaden poor countries' access to life-saving medicines. An alternative proposal, supported by all other WTO members, was blocked in December because of the lone objection of the US.
Will the Cancun meeting reflect the will of the majority of its member countries? The Third World Network noted in its September 9 commentary: "[In Cancun, the underdeveloped countries] will face an uphill (some say almost impossible) battle to have their views reflected in the texts that form the legal results of Cancun. They already had a bad experience in Geneva [where the pre-Cancun negotiations mainly took place]... despite the many consultations, the texts on many areas ignored their views. At previous ministerials — except Seattle — the rich countries got their way."
On September 9, a group of Britain-based NGOs joined 11 African governments to call for an end to the "arm-twisting" tactics at the WTO negotiations. Under Western pressure at least six ambassadors from poor countries were removed from their posts after they had put up a fierce fight against the rich countries at the Doha ministerial meeting.
One of them was former WTO ambassador for the Dominican Republic, Federico Cuello. He told a NGO meeting in London in early September that "countries are penalised for speaking their minds [within the WTO] or building alliances with like-minded countries. Countries are not free to promote their national interests. Their issues are ignored unless presented as group proposals." It has been proved that group proposals, unless coming from the rich countries, will also be ignored.
From Green Left Weekly, September 17, 2003.
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