Band-aids all round
The bruising World Trade Organization (WTO) gathering in Hong Kong achieved so little that there’s going to be another one to follow. NI co-editor Vanessa Baird assesses the quality of first aid on offer.
See also: The two worlds of Hong Kong (The first report from Vanessa Baird)
See also: All the photos from Hong Kong.
As the WTO talks drew to a close on Sunday, more than 1,000 protesters – most of them peasant farmers from Korea, Indonesia and Thailand – were still under arrest.
Stand-offs between protesters and as many as 9,000 Hong Kong police using tear gas, water cannon and pepper spray, had continued through the previous night, leaving 70 people injured, two seriously.
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Inside the Convention Centre, trade officials and delegates were nursing another injury – that to the credibility of the WTO itself.
But, desperate to avoid a repeat of Cancún, Mexico, where similar talks collapsed two years ago, band-aids were finally agreed upon and applied.
They were ‘modest’ – to use a word favoured by WTO Director-General Pascal Lamy – but chaos was averted, inside the Convention Centre at least.
So what was achieved for the world’s poorest people in what was supposed to be a round of talks specifically devoted to development?
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First, members agreed to eliminate agricultural export subsidies by 2013. This anti-dumping measure should in theory help protect developing countries from some of the most unfair and distorting dumping of agricultural products by rich countries. But it won’t necessarily reduce subsidies to rich-world farming, much of it agribusiness, because domestic subsidies can continue and so can exports.
| So what was achieved for the world’s poorest people in what was supposed to be a round of talks specifically devoted to development? |
Second, members agreed to eliminate cotton export subsidies from 2006 onwards. Again, export subsidies are only the tip of the iceberg of generous government support given to US cotton producers.
Third, quota-free and duty-free access should be given to most of the goods from the least developed countries, with some exceptions. The trouble is those exceptions are highly significant. For example, Japan will not allow in duty-free rice and the same applies to the US and textiles.
The least developed countries (LDCs in the jargon) had been hoping to get unconditional access to rich-world markets and to see an end to domestic cotton industry support in those countries. They got neither.
In short, the US and the EU gave very little – but they did not get as much as they had wanted in return, and the agreements made did do something to chip away at some of the most unjust distortions of the market.
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More significant, perhaps, are the unresolved issues – the trade in services (GATS) and industrial, fishery and forestry products (NAMA). In these areas, rich countries were able to open up negotiations likely to benefit them at the expense of jobs, services and natural resources in developing countries.
As so little progress was made in Hong Kong that there will have to be another ministerial meeting (dubbed Hong Kong II) in Geneva within the next four months. This is likely to be on a smaller scale, raising concerns that it may be even less transparent. The Hong Kong round has been strongly criticized by delegates from the South because so many key decisions were made by a small number of countries behind closed doors or in the infamous ‘green room’.
‘It’s like in Orwell’s Animal Farm,’ said Ugandan delegate Margaret Ateng Otim. ‘All animals are equal at the WTO but some animals are more equal than others.’
| ‘It’s like in Orwell’s Animal Farm,’ said Ugandan delegate Margaret Ateng Otim. ‘All animals are equal at the WTO but some animals are more equal than others.’ |
Some good things have come out of Hong Kong, though. In previous gatherings there were successful attempts by the richer nations to create divisions between developing countries. But in Hong Kong 110 developing countries stood firm and issued a joint statement proclaiming a ‘shared interest in the development dimension of the round’ and their ‘expectations of a comprehensive development outcome’.
It would be difficult to argue that those expectations were realized here. But another positive outcome has been the strength of protest by the global justice movement; a diverse and dazzling array of the world’s people resisting neoliberalism and the WTO – farmers from Brazil, fisherfolk from India, migrants from Indonesia, workers from Europe, activists, artists, environmentalists and NGOs galore.
Street protests have only been a small part of a week’s alternative round of workshops, conferences, seminars and actions where people from all parts of the world were able to discover how much they had in common.
‘I believe that what has been achieved outside the negotiations this week has been as, if not more, important than what has been achieved inside,’ said Jim McIlroy of Australia’s Socialist Alliance. ‘Hong Kong represents a global revival of the people’s anti-neoliberal campaign'.
According to Walden Bello of the Centre for the Global South: ‘The role of people on the streets has been very critical and has affected the negotiations. Massive coverage has sent a message around the world that there is something deeply flawed about this organization [the WTO].’
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But there were warnings too about the need for vigilance, pressure and action over the coming months in the lead-up to ‘Hong Kong II’. And it seems unlikely that the hundreds of Korean farmers who took such a lead in Hong Kong will be able to get to Geneva to lend a hand.
As the WTO ministers and trade officials packed their bags and left for the airport, protesters were still calling for the release of hundreds of their arrested colleagues, while local civil groups criticized the police for brutality.
In spite of the disturbances to local business and Christmas shopping, many Hong Kong people appear to have taken the plight of the Korean farmers especially to heart. During the week there was much listening, shaking of hands and even tears of sympathy.
| In spite of the disturbances to local business and Christmas shopping, many Hong Kong people appear to have taken the plight of the Korean farmers especially to heart. During the week there was much listening, shaking of hands and even tears of sympathy. |
‘We don't have farmers here,’ one Hong Kong resident told a rally. ‘But this has made me think about the WTO and what it is doing.’
A group of young friends went further: they declared a hunger strike in support of the farmers.
‘There is not much we can do to change their situation, but we can do this,’ said Terry, shivering as he spent a second night in the ‘protest zone’, the Convention Centre tantalizingly in sight but inaccessible.
In a ‘letter to our international friends’ the hunger strikers wrote: ‘Thank you for coming here, from far way, to share with us your life stories, to make us aware that this “shopping paradise” is built upon the blood and sweat of peasants and workers from poor and developing countries…
‘Thank you for showing us the significance of solidarity...
‘Thank you for the colours, songs, dances and body languages that you have introduced to our rally culture; it tells us that demonstrations are not silent requests to power, but a manifestation and expression of people’s power and creativities.’
The farmers, fisherfolk, migrants and other protesters may have left more than the odd straw hat or green Via Campesina scarf in Hong Kong.
‘I think this will change us,’ said Hong Kong resident Siu Wai. ‘Our civil liberties protests have been very tame up to now.’
See also: The
two worlds of Hong Kong (The first report from Vanessa
Baird)
See also: All the photos from Hong Kong.
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