Chronicle 1999 ...As seen from the perspective of the majority world.

new internationalist

CHINA celebrates the 50th anniversary of the People’s Republic by removing all ‘undesirables’ from Beijing’s streets including the mentally ill and the homeless. Fearing demonstrations, ordinary people are barred from the (mainly military) show and told to watch it on TV.

JAPAN suffers its worst-ever nuclear accident – at a uranium reprocessing plant. Radiation continues to leak from the chain reaction as over 300,000 people in the area are told to stay indoors.

South Africa’s gay pride inspired African gays -- but appalled some leaders.

ERIC MILLER / PANOS PICTURES

AFRICA President Moi of Kenya claims homosexuality is against African traditions and biblical teaching, supporting an outburst by Ugandan President Museveni in September. The anti-gay triumvirate is led by Zimbabwe’s President Mugabe, who believes they have no rights at all. African gays have been more actively demanding their rights since South Africa constitutionally guaranteed them.

YUGOSLAVIA Around 50,000 people protest against the Milosevic Government in Serbia – and are brutally treated by riot police using teargas.

SIERRA LEONE Foday Sankoh, the leader of the RUF rebel faction, returns three months after the peace accord to take up a place in the Government. He apologizes for the rebels’ savage treatment of civilians during the nine-year civil war. The UN authorizes a 6,000-strong force to help restore peace and replace the ECOMOG force of neighbouring West African states.

WTO Shambles in Seattle

Images of teargas, rubber bullets, and an over-reacting police force dressed in Darth Vader-like riot gear may be how most people will remember the World Trade Organization’s Third Ministerial Meeting in Seattle. But if it is, it will be a pity, because the breakdown of the global trade talks could mark a major turning-point in what British Prime Minister Tony Blair has triumphantly called the ‘irreversible and irresistible’ march of economic globalization.

Around 50,000 protestors gathered in Seattle to voice their concerns about a trade system which puts profits before people, and which ignores its effects on the environment, animal welfare and jobs. An unlikely alliance of trade unionists, farmers, US steel workers and animal-rights activists, as well as environment and development campaigners, took to the streets and disrupted the first day’s proceedings, making it impossible for delegates to forget that they were negotiating in the full glare of public and media scrutiny. And when the talks finally collapsed at the end of the week, amid the jubilation of most of the crowds, there was also a profound sense that international negotiations will never be the same again.

If the US and European Union learn the lessons, the Seattle meeting could still go down in history not as a failure, but as the moment when world leaders finally realized that they need a radically different approach to international trade.

First, it is clear that trade deals can no longer be secretly stitched up among the more powerful WTO members, with the poorer countries then being arm-twisted into accepting the resulting draft agreements. This was tried at Seattle, but resulted in an unprecedented public rebellion by Third World delegates. The WTO process has to far more democratic and transparent. Moreover, the playing field needs to be levelled. The US and the European Union came with armies of lawyers and advisers, while developing countries were lucky to have just one or two. Around 30 developing countries simply could not afford to send a delegation at all.

More important still, the collapse of the WTO talks will buy time to allow some vital questions to be asked about the impact of world trade. Over 1,500 organizations from nearly 100 countries have signed a declaration demanding no further trade liberalization until the social and environmental impacts of existing free-trade commitments have been assessed and the problems fully addressed.

For some, Seattle was a landmark protest against something more pervasive, but less tangible, than the normal targets of mass protest — a signpost to the looming reaction against overblown materialism, and a moment when citizens who had thought they were powerless against the forces of economic globalization found their voice. Perhaps it was, after all, a fitting end to the twentieth century.

Caroline Lucas, Green Member of the European Parliament

ZIMBABWE The IMF discovers Zimbabwe has used $166 million to bankroll its intervention in the DR Congo war, vastly more than it has been claiming. In a major U-turn, President Mugabe promises compensation for victims of mass killings by the Army in opposition strongholds in the 1980s.

ISRAEL / PALESTINE Negotiators agree a deal establishing the first ‘safe passage’ for Palestinians between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip since 1967.

TANZANIA Julius Nyerere dies of leukaemia at 77. He is acclaimed as a beacon of integrity. In the wake of his death Zanzibar revives the idea of seceding from the union with Tanganyika.

INDONESIA Parliament elects moderate Abdurrahman Wahid as President; supporters of election winner Megawati Sukarnoputri are appeased by her choice as Vice-President. Wahid’s Cabinet of national unity includes ministers from all parties in parliament, from Aceh and Irian Jaya/West Papua, ethnic Chinese and Christians. There are also five soldiers but the defence ministry goes to a civilian for the first time ever.

MEXICO Torrential rains cause flooding and landslides which kill hundreds and drive nearly 300,000 from their homes. Police capture Jacobo Silva Nogales, leader of the Revolutionary Army of Insurgent People (Erpi).

UNITED STATES To world alarm, Congress rejects the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty. Only the US, China and Russia have failed to ratify it.

PAKISTAN The army takes power in a coup, deposing unpopular Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

RUSSIA / CHECHNYA Russia’s aerial bombardment continues, causing heavy civilian casualties and the flight of 187,000 Chechen refugees to next-door Ingushetia. The refugees face dire conditions as the Caucasian winter bites.

COLOMBIA Five million take to the streets in support of an end to the 30-year civil war (see Box: Colombia).

ANGOLA The Unita rebels confirm that government troops have captured their headquarter towns of Bailundo and Andulo.

GUATEMALA Union leaders representing Del Monte workers are forced by 200 armed men to flee in fear of their lives on the eve of a 10-day strike.They request urgent international action to ensure the safety of the 3,000 banana workers on the plantations.

INDIA A super-cyclone sweeps across the east coast killing over 7,500 people and leaving at least 1.5 million homeless in the impoverished state of Orissa.

WORLD The Lomé Convention on aid and trade between the European Union and 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries is extended for a further eight years – provided the World Trade Organization will allow it.

ARMENIA Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisyan is assassinated in Parliament by opponents of government policy on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.