WTO: From capsizing Cancun to diving in Hong Kong
14/12/2005
- Opinión
Everybody predicts zero results from the 6th Ministerial Meeting of the
World Trade Organization -WTO-, inaugurated December 13 in Hong Kong. Even
Director General Pascal Lamy reiterated the request to reduce expectations
and seek unity. Meanwhile, there are new attempts to postpone, once again,
the most controversial issues, or to change them without attracting too
much (or bad) attention; and then to seek an elegant way out, negotiated in
the exclusive meetings of the so-called "Green Room", to which only the
ministers present have access. But the problems are not going to disappear
just because they are evaded.
Agriculture continues to be presented as the bone of contention, as in fact
it is. But beyond that, the debates that the issue has generated reveal
that the main problem of the WTO is the claim that commerce is "the"
paradigm, that it is self-sufficient, that it is independent of other human
relations and that it constitutes in and of itself the prototype for
generating well-being. Yet even Lamy states that the reason-for-being of
the WTO is not to distribute well-being but to generate wealth.
From its beginnings in 1995, this body has come across as an instrument of
the Group of the 8 most industrialized countries - the G8 -, to promote its
interests, reducing the global South to an area of influence of its members.
Therefore, the emergence of the Group of 20 - G20 -, led by Brazil, with
significant clout in this meeting, has not only had the virtue of revealing
that the South exists and can express its own interests, but also that the
enormous disparities between regions and countries cannot be avoided under
the pretext that everything will be solved through the uniformity of trade
rules.
With a record of failed major meetings (Seattle in 1999, Cancun in 2003,
and others) the preoccupation now is not to add a new fiasco; because at
this point the controversies, of all types and from all sides, include
viewpoints that express from the inside that it is not only the WTO model
that is at issue, but the very foundations of the Consensus of Washington.
In this state of things, more than a few voices are talking of the
necessity to revamp the whole WTO, so as to reorient it towards the
formulation of policies for facilitating, guiding and coordinating
bilateral and multilateral processes, based on the fact that preventing the
formation of protectionist trade blocks was among its original purposes.
There are also those who think that free trade agreements and the WTO
process should follow separate paths.
The round of negotiations that was supposed to culminate at the present
meeting started in Doha, Qatar, in 2001. Its agenda was to guarantee and
increase world-wide development through the pillar of free trade.
But as the definition of that pillar is - to say the least - uncertain,
problems continue to arise: the issue of agricultural subsidies on the part
of both great powers, followed by that of industrial goods, then patents,
among others. Moreover, there are the aforementioned geo-economic
disparities, in the face of which matters such as cotton, bananas or sugar,
that are on the agenda of the present meeting, appear as sectoral issues.
The repentance for having disregarded the requirements of Southern
countries comes too late. The offers of marginal benefits for the poorest
countries are no longer so important on the agenda, because the differences
between the United States and the European Union on issues such as
agriculture demonstrate that it is not just a question of North and South,
but of a model based on competition and impositions, on which, sadly, the
fate of the world hangs.
WTO off the land, WTO out of water
On the arrival of the activist march against the WTO to the area
surrounding the venue of the Ministerial Meeting, coinciding with its
inauguration, about two hundred peasant farmers from Korea, members of the
Via Campesina, jumped into the sea and swam across the stretch of water
that separates the tightly militarized convention center from the closest
accessible place. From there they shouted "No to the WTO!", "Yes to
farmers' rights!", while from dry land, thousands of demonstrators echoed
them.
A mixed assortment of organizations from around the world has been holding,
since December 12 in Hong Kong, a significant agenda of mobilizations,
debates and cultural activities of resistance. The epicenter of the
activities is without a doubt the rural movement, which maintains its
purpose of stopping the negotiations and keeping agriculture out of the WTO.
They are joined by a variety of groups, such as fisher-people, that are
also taking on symbolic mobilizations, in their case on the sea. Similar
initiatives have been taken up by cultural movements and others. At this
rate, as Honduran farmer leader Rafael Alegría holds, one by one all the
issues will have to stay out of the WTO.
https://www.alainet.org/en/articulo/113798
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