| RIGHTING GLOBAL WRONGS
No Simple Solutions
By Aye Aye Win*
Fighting my way through the masses at PUC and Gigantinho
in the scorching heat may be exhausting, but it is nowhere
as overwhelming as the joint struggle ahead for the reform
of the international financial and trade institutions.
If you want a big cheer from the crowd, it’s clear
what the speakers should do: smash neo-liberalism to pieces,
condemn foreign debt, demonise the enemy, the TNCs, the IFIs,
and to round it off call for their abolition. A deafening
applause is guaranteed.
That's exactly what we are witnessing at the big conferences
and seminars here. At the Gigantinho conference on the crisis
of the international financial system, a Cuban speaker Osvaldo
Martínez, declared to the masses that there was a need
for "new architects without neo-liberal dogmas",
who will do away with the IMF. His passion was so strong that
I could hardly resist standing up from my seat and applauding
along with the crowd.
Participating with the mob is so wonderful for energy.
But we need to go beyond rally slogans and simple solutions
to resolve complex problems.
Susan George, the grand goddess of the WSF, who came in next,
acknowledged the role of governments in IFI reform, because,
as she said, it’s through governments that we can change.
“Protests do not stop these institutions -- binding
laws do.”
Alas, was I hearing aright? Was this radical pioneer in demonstrations
really admitting the importance of laws and governments?
As much as I hate the alienating legal jargon, laws do play
a role in this debate. The huge body of international environmental
and human rights laws touch on many of our concerns and provide
the movement with a moral and legal weapon to fight the IFI
and WTO rules that damage the environment or violate basic
human rights.
Recently published guidelines on poverty reduction prepared
by the UN to ensure that when governments draft PRSPs for
the World Bank and IMF their human rights obligations are
borne in mind. Small, but significant steps.
Joined at the hip through the ‘Our World is Not for
Sale’ network, campaigners for WTO reform are demanding
a “no-new-round turn around” rejecting any further
expansion of WTO agreements, laying out 11 demands for the
WTO under the banner of “Shrink or Sink”, and
trying to protect basic social service and rights by stopping
the GATS attack.
The next battleground is the fifth WTO ministerial in Cancun
in September. For results? Rally the masses, pressure the
governments, make concrete proposals. Only that combination
will bring change.
* Aye Aye Win, Burma, is the Coordinator of Dignity International
and a member of the IPS Board of Directors.
|
