[asia-apec 403] Re: Meeting on the WTO in Spain - Detailed description

[George J. Aditjondro]

Dear Rosa Ruano;

At the time of the next WTO meeting in Spain, I will be just 'next door' in
Oporto, teaching a summer course on Indonesia for Portuguese (speaking)
participants, and would be interested to attend the NGO meeting on WTO in
Spain.

I am interested in particular, with the combined European-American-Japanese
campaign against the special deal between South Korea's Kia Motors and
President Suharto's youngest son, Tommy Suharto, in promoting the so-called
Timor car in Indonesia. It is a US$ 1 billion tax break, or, should we say,
bribe, for the Suharto family, which I have been opposing against, since
last year.

I am contactable through the following email addresses in Oporto, and hope
to hear from you soon.

Prof. A. Barbedo de Magelhaes <barbedo at garfield.fe.up.pt>

and

Madalena Veiga <maddy at ufp.pt>


Since tomorrow morning I am already leaving for Oporto, please send your
reply to those addresses. Muchas gracias,


George J. Aditjondro

--------------------------------------
>Please, find enclosed a detailed description of the meeting on the World
>Trade Organisation (WTO) which will take place in Spain from the 4th to the
>8th of August. If you are interested in this meeting, please contact us as
>soon as possible, since it is already quite late.
>
>Greetings,
>
>Rosa Ruano
>
>
>  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
>
>
>(we apologize for eventual cross-posting)
>
>MEETING ON THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO) - Spain, 4th to 8th of
>August 1997
>
>In case you have read the message named "1998 WTO Ministerial Conference in
>Geneva", please quit section 1 of this message.
>
>Contents:
>
>1.      Introduction
>2.      Objectives of the meeting
>3.      Contents of the meeting
>        3.1.    Proposals for international action
>        3.2.    Coordination of WTO-related activities at international level
>        3.3.    Exchange of information
>4.      Participation fee
>5.      Travel
>6.      Practical details
>Appendix: Information about the network Play Fair Europe!
>
>
>1.     INTRODUCTION
>
>The second WTO Ministerial Conference will take place in Geneva in 1998,
>according to all rumours in the first half of the year (either in May or in
>June). It will be combined with an official commemoration of the 50th
>anniversary of the multilateral trading system. Both these events should
>"celebrate the past while preparing the way for the future" (WTO FOCUS, no.
>16, February 1996).
>
>This is in our opinion a fine opportunity to expose to the public what the
>WTO is and which function it has, what interests it defends, the extent of
>its power and its social and environmental impact. More important than
>this, it is a really strategic moment to express opposition to the
>destructive effects that the global market and the WTO have on rural
>societies, dignity in labour, the environment, cultural diversity and
>self-determination. Finally, it is a great moment for networking among the
>growing amount of organisations working on or concerned with the WTO.
>
>This meeting has the aim of advancing in the process of coordination and
>collaboration between organisations on the topic of the WTO, and to plan
>different international actions aimed to make a good use of the second
>Ministerial Conference.
>
>The date and venue of the meeting has been strategically chosen to take
>place right after the Second Intercontinental Encuentro (Gathering) for
>Humanity and against Neo-liberalism, which takes place this summer in
>Spain. The Encuentro, the continuation of the one organised last summer by
>the zapatista communities in Chiapas, will bring together up to 4.000
>people in a week of discussions, with the aim of creating a worldwide
>network for humanity and against neo-liberalism.
>
>There will be a good potential of people interested in taking action on the
>WTO in the second Encuentro. However, the Encuentro has been structured
>along six rather general and broad topics and will take place in five
>different places, which means that it will not really offer a good setting
>for a focussed discussion on the WTO. We hence took the initiative to
>organise a smaller, more focussed meeting right after the encuentro. This
>meeting will take place in El Indiano, a community of the Sindicato de
>Obreros del Campo, from the 4th to the 8th of August.
>
>The topics of the meeting will be of two kinds: on the one hand there will
>be discussions on concrete action proposals, and on the other more general
>discussions on the strategy or strategies (confrontation, lobby, strong
>demands, rejection...) to follow towards the WTO within an eventual common
>platform for action.
>
>
>2.      OBJECTIVES OF THE MEETING
>
>1. To plan international activities and publications in relationship with
>the Second Ministerial Conference of the WTO in 1998.
>
>2. To discuss the strategy to follow within the Peoples' Summit on Trade,
>Money and Finance and, eventually, in a new international platform for
>action on the WTO.
>
>3. To promote the incorporation of the WTO on the agenda of organisations
>and networks not yet active on the issue.
>
>4. To discuss ways in which organisations active on the WTO in different
>regions of the world can support each other.
>
>
>
>3.      CONTENTS OF THE MEETING
>
>What we write in this section are only the topics that Play Fair Europe! is
>bringing forward for this meeting. However, the first day of the meeting we
>will discuss the agenda with the participants, and see whether they also
>bring in their own issues and proposals.
>
>The participants will also decide how we should talk about the issues.
>There are practical topics (the proposals for international action) on
>which it seems better to work in small groups, while some others (the
>discussion on the coordination of WTO-related activities) have more of a
>fundamental nature and should hence in our opinion be discussed by the
>whole group.
>
>
>
>        3.1.    Proposals for international action
>
> We hope that many of the participants of the meeting will bring their own
>proposals for actions on the WTO that they would like to realise at
>international level, in cooperation with other organisations. We in Play
>Fair Europe! have some concrete proposals that we have been spreading
>around in the last weeks. These are:
>
>1. Leaflet(s) on the WTO
>2. Book on trade liberalisation and the WTO
>3. Roundtables & publications on globalisation
>4. Peoples' Conference on Alternatives to the WTO
>5. Actions during the Ministerial Conference
>
> In case you have not received the message with the description of all
>these actions, please get in touch with us in
><playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de>
>They are only examples, and there will be more proposals on the table in
>the meeting (for example, a proposal for an international day of action on
>the World Food Day, put forward by the Norwegian GATT/WTO campaign).
>
>
>
>        3.2.    Coordination of WTO-related activities at international level
>
> Right now there are (as far as we in Play Fair Europe! know) two
>international platforms of civil society specifically created to work on
>the WTO: the International Centre for Trade and Sustainable Development
>(ICTSD) and the Peoples' Summit on Trade, Money and Finance. Besides that
>there is a number of international networks working on the WTO as part of
>their activities (like the ICFTU, the Alliance for a Responsible and United
>World, the Third World Network, etc.), and other networks on which the WTO
>is one of the main issues (like La Vía Campesina, IFOAM, GRAIN, etc).
>
> The ICTSD works only as a link between a group of NGOs and (mainly) the
>WTO, but its mandate does not consist of taking any position, let alone
>campaigning. The Peoples' Summit is still rather undefined in its programme
>of work, and until now it is restricted to the areas of food, agriculture
>and biological diversity. It is basically an idea that has been supported
>by several individuals and organisations.
>
> Hence, in our opinion there is still not a real tool for the facilitation
>of a continued collaboration on the WTO that we could use after the
>meeting. The Peoples' Summit might be one, but then it should be defined in
>this way. Anyhow, before doing so, we think that we need some more
>discussion on whether we need a tool for international collaboration -
>maybe the collaboration can work on an informal basis. And even before
>talking about this, we should define which kind of collaboration do we want
>to have:
>
> - in terms of its scope (restricted to only certain topics, like the
>Peoples' Summit is right now, or encompassing all WTO-related issues?)
>
> - in terms of its nature (only information sharing, or common
>confrontative actions, or a platform of demands? Or a combination of
>these?)
>
> We hence want to talk about these issues during the meeting, to see
>whether there is common ground (at least among some of the participants) to
>build a tool for working together on the WTO at international level.
>
> We expect that many of the initiators of the Peoples' Summit will be
>present in the meeting, so that we can discuss its nature and eventually
>define it more accurately.
>
>
>
>        3.3.    Exchange of information
>
> An important component of the meeting will be the exchange of information
>and the getting-to-know-each-other among the persons and organisations
>attending it. We will hence propose to allocate an appropriate amount of
>time for it.
>
>
>
>4.      PARTICIPATION FEE
>
> The only costs involved in this meeting are the food costs, which will be
>divided among the participants. They will be about 10 US $ per day.
>
>
>
>5.      TRAVEL
>
>
> We are organizing a bus from Amsterdam to Spain for the Encuentro and the
>post-Encuentro meeting on the WTO, but we still do not know the price
>neither the itinerary. If you are interested, please contact us and we will
>send you this information as soon as possible.
>
>
>6.     PRACTICAL DETAILS
>
> If you want to come to the meeting you should arrive to Sevilla if
>possible on the 3rd of August. The meeting will take place in a rural
>community in Cadiz, called El Indiano, one and a half hours away from
>Sevilla. If you cannot get directly to Sevilla, there are trains connecting
>Madrid and Sevilla several times a day - we do not have the timetable here,
>but any travel agency should have it actually, and if not, send us an email
>and we will send it to you. You can get from Sevilla to El Indiano as
>follows:
>
> You should get to the Bus Station in El Prado de San Sebastian (Estacion
>de Autobuses del Prado de San Sebastian), and ask for the bus enterprise
>called "Casal". They have a regular bus from Sevilla to Puerto Serrano at
>following times:
>
>Monday to Saturday: 8:30, 13:30, 19:00
>Sunday and other non-working days: 8:00, 17:30
>
> This bus arrives one and a half hours later to Puerto Serrano. From Puerto
>Serrano to El Indiano there is about 1 Km walk (about 15 to 20 minutes),
>which will be clearly signalised. The bus costs 660 pesetas, about 5
>dollars, and there are no non-working days in Andalucia in the first half
>of August.
>
> The meeting will take place in cosy, but not "luxorious" conditions: we
>will stay in a building without beds, which means that everybody should
>bring her/his sleeping bag and matress. We will cook ourselves, and have
>nice parties around the fire.
>
>
>       APPENDIX: INFORMATION ABOUT THE NETWORK PLAY FAIR EUROPE!
>
>
> The Network Play Fair Europe! was created in October 1995 as the result of
>a two-weeks seminar called Autumn University On North-South Issues "Play
>Fair Europe!". The 80 participants of this event decided to create a
>network in order to coordinate the work of the different individuals who
>were present there, and made the choice of not having neither a network
>office nor network resources, but a really horizontal collaboration between
>individuals and groups from all over Europe. Play Fair Europe! was thus
>conceived solely as a tool for collaboration and coordination of the
>different organisations involved in the network, in order to boost further
>activities at the European level for the sensibilization of youths in the
>field of North-South relations and sustainability.
>
> The groups that form part of the network are of different nature. Some are
>called Play Fair Europe! too, like the ones in Amsterdam and Aachen. These
>have been formed after the first Autumn University, by people inspired by
>this event. Others existed already before the Autumn University and have
>come in contact with the network in one of its events, and decided to use
>the network too as a tool for collaboration.
>
> The main international projects of Play Fair Europe! as a network have
>been a meeting in Madrid during the EU Summit (December 1995), the seminar
>"Brave New World" parallel to the 4th ITCPGR in Leipzig (June 1996) and The
>Hunger Gathering, an activists forum of 330 people parallel to the World
>Food Summit (organised in collaboration with A SEED).
>
> For the next year, almost all the energies of PFE! will be concentrated on
>the WTO. The main area in which we are going to be active (beyond the
>roundtables and the peoples' conference in Geneva) is awareness-raising. We
>will start with a second Autumn University designed to prepare a whole
>cadre of WTO activists, a basis of multiplicators for the sensibilisation
>and awareness-raising work in Europe. This Autumn Univeristy, called
>"Surviving in a Globalised World", will take place in Aachen from the 27th
>of September to the 11th of October of 1997.
>
> PFE! Aachen was formed right after the first Autumn University. We have
>been doing local conscientization work, and we have also been active in all
>the international projects of PFE!. We are a relatively small group of
>people, all students (at least in theory), quite dedicated to the idea of
>social ecology and very engaged in solidarity work with a strong political
>content.
>
>
>*******************************************************************
>
>Play Fair Europe! e.V.          Tel: +49-241-80 37 92
>Turmstr. 3                      Fax: +49-241-88 88 394
>52072 Aachen, Germany           email: playfair at asta.rwth-aachen.de