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WORLD SOCIAL FORUM: War on Iraq would Affect WTO Trade Talks
By Gustavo Capdevila
PORTO ALEGRE, Jan 25 (IPS) - The outbreak of a war against Iraq could weaken
the bargaining position of developing countries in the World Trade
Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks with a view to the ministerial
meeting in September in Mexico, warned activists at the World Social Forum
taking place in this southern Brazilian city.
There is no doubt that a United States victory in what many see as an
impending military strike on Iraq would have a dramatic effect on the WTO
talks and other regional or bilateral negotiations, said Paul Nicholson,
with the Spanish branch of Via Campesina, an international network of
peasant, small farmer and indigenous organisations.
The difficulties facing developing countries in the run-up to the WTO
ministerial meeting in Mexico were discussed by Nicholson and other experts
in a panel Saturday, the third day of the World Social Forum (WSF) which has
drawn tens of thousands of activists and left-leaning politicians and
intellectuals to Porto Alegre from Jan 23-28.
Keeping a close eye on and protesting the war would consume a large part
of the energy of civil society, said Martin Khor, with the Malaysia-based
Third World Network.
Khor said a war on Iraq would divert the attention of developing
countries from the WTO negotiations ahead of the September ministerial
meeting in the southwestern Mexican resort town of Cancun.
That could enable the United States, the European Union and other
industrialised nations to force the rest of the world's governments to
accept the start of negotiations on new issues in the WTO, he predicted.
The WTO, which coordinates the multilateral trade system, is involved in
talks aimed at the further opening up of the world's markets.
The main negotiations are focusing on trade in agricultural products and
services, as well as the question of enforcement of prior agreements and the
developing world's demand for special and differential treatment to
compensate for the smaller size of their economies.
In Cancun, the 145 WTO member countries are to reach a decision on the
industrialised world's goal of starting talks on investment, competition and
government procurements - the three ''new issues'' mentioned by Khor.
The countries of the North are also applying pressure to reach agreement
on new WTO standards that would strengthen the power of transnational
corporations and their attempt to absorb small and medium farms as well as
industry in developing nations, said the activist.
At the last WTO ministerial conference, held in Doha, Qatar in late 2001,
the United States was able to ''use the events of September 11'' (the
terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that year) to press the rest of
the nations to accept its proposals, argued Khor.
Stanley A. Gacek, with the U.S. AFL-CIO labour federation, called for a
consolidation of the coalition of ''progressive forces'' that has emerged in
the United States and Canada against the threatened war against Iraq.
The warmongering of the U.S. government of George W. Bush has
strengthened civil society and public opinion in the United States,
according to Gacek.
The panel of experts meeting at the WSF in Porto Alegre also discussed
the relationship between the WTO talks and the negotiations for the creation
of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) among 34 nations - all of the
countries in the hemisphere except Cuba.
Gacek observed that the process of creating the FTAA, in which investment
and trade interests have predominated so far, could see a shift now that
leftist former steelworker Luiz Inácio ''Lula'' da Silva is president of
Brazil, given his emphasis on an integration process that would also put
priority on political and social aspects.
Khor underlined that there are similarities between the FTAA and WTO
negotiations, and recommended that civil society and developing countries
closely follow both processes.
As the Cancun conference approaches, civil society should alternate the
strategy of lobbying with protests and demonstrations to press the demands
of the developing South, said U.S. activist Lori Wallach with Public
Citizen, the consumer advocacy organisation founded by Ralph Nader.
Civil society in each country must determine the methods with which it
will carry out its campaign of opposition to the new WTO reforms, said
Wallach. The aim is to check the WTO, and keep things from getting worse,
she added.
Alejandro Ramos Hernández, with the committee set up in Cancun to welcome
civil society organisations planning to take part in the
''anti-globalisation'' protests surrounding the upcoming WTO conference,
said the Mexican government had already begun making arrangements to keep
demonstrators from approaching the site of the meeting.
Mexican authorities are also planning on building a barracks to house
special federal police contingents, he said, adding that special police
agents who have been dubbed ''robotoks'' can already be seen on the streets
of Cancun, even though there are still eight months to go before the
conference.
Wallach called on activists who planned to travel to Cancun to use an
application form available on the WTO web site (http.www.wto.org) to seek
accreditation for attending the ministerial conference.
(END/2003)
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