[asia-apec 1361] Women's Statement Against AOA/WTO

[tpl at cheerful.com]

Please write GABRIELA <gab at info.com.ph> a short note if you have decided to
sign or endorse the statement below so your name and/or that of your
organization can be added to the list of signatories.  
>-----------------------------------------------
>
>Join the fight against WTO and globalization!
>Be a signatory or endorse this statement.
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>WOMEN'S STATEMENT AGAINST AOA/WTO
>presented by GABRIELA and AMIHAN
>in the Peoples' Assembly Session: Women Say NO to WTO!
>November 29, 1999
>Seattle, Washington, U.S.A.
>
>Stop Trading Off Peoples' Lives and Future!
>Take Agriculture Out of WTO!
>Junk WTO!
>Women Say NO to Imperialist Globalization!
>
>In Seattle, the stage is set for another trading event that will barter the
>lives and future of women, men and children in exchange for super profits
>for monopoly capital. The Millennium Round of negotiations of the World
>Trade Organization (WTO) will definitely be dominated by the US,
>Japan, Germany and the rest of the Group of 7. Majority of their people and
>the rest of the world will once more be shoved into economic and political
>maelstrom. 
>
>We, the impoverished producers of Asia, await with much apprehension the
>outcome of the 3rd WTO Ministerial Meeting, one of which main agenda is a
>review of the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA). And not without enough basis.
>Most of our governments are gearing to further open up our markets for
>agricultural products and our lands and other resources to corporate
>plunder. The same formula that is whittling away whatever control we still
>have on our products and resources. 
>
>No doubt the dominant players in the game, the US, Japan and EU will
>again battle to squeeze out more concessions despite the astonishing array
>of concessions already gained in the previous rounds. 
>
>No doubt governments of developing countries, will beg for more favors,
>promise more bargains and make more compromises to keep them on board ship. 
>
>In the end, among the major losers in this trading game are the poor
>producers: the peasants, farmers, agricultural workers, the women and the
>children without whose labor there could be no products to be traded,
>without whose labor there could be no trade in agriculture to speak of.
>
>In the end, the gainers are the national ruling elite, made up of the big
>landowners and big business, and the transnational corporations (TNCs)whose
>monopoly control of the land, trade and production technology already
>assures them of the lion's share of the region's productive output. Once
>more, monopoly capital gets the loot.
>
>We, who toil daily under the scorching sun to produce 91% of the world's
>rice, barely have enough rice to eat. We, who work in the plantations of
>bananas, pineapples, rubber and palm oil, barely have enough cash to send
>our children to school and buy medicine when we get sick. Official data tell
>it all. Asia is home to rich natural resources and strong human power. It is
>home to an unparalleled ecological heritage, yet it remains the home of 70%
>of the world's poor. 
>
>We therefore re-state in the strongest terms: We have never benefited from
>our governments' commitments to the AOA and the rest of the WTO agreements. 
>
>The market access provision of the AOA, which provides for tariff
>reduction, is skewed to the advantage of industrialized countries which
>start off with high tariff rate bases and therefore end up still being
>able to protect their local markets. The developing countries are left with
>their local markets wide open for imports thus displacing their local
>products. 
>
>But developing countries have to sell and trade, say our governments
>which are still keeping blind to the fact that all of globalization's
>promises have failed. "Equal playing field" under imperialist globalization
>is a lot of nonsense. There can be no free trade nor fair trade in a world
>system dominated by monopoly capital. 
>
>Our governments continue to offer us as sacrificial lambs to the
>so-called 'global competitiveness'. Intensification of exploitation of our
>labor and the natural resources are resorted to in order to produce
>products at the cheapest price possible. Men, women and children are made
>to work almost as slaves on mere pittance. Family labor is mobilized in
>exchange for compensation fit for paupers. 
>
>Another anomaly is the domestic support provision of the AOA which
>mandates a reduction of production subsidies for the farmers. Various
>estimates point, that even with a 20% subsidy reduction, governments of
>developed countries can still can afford to provide billions of subsidies
>to their farmers in various forms without them being declared WTO illegal.
>
>One the other hand, we from the developing countries have to fend for
>ourselves. Our cash-strapped and debt-burdened governments are only too
>happy to take away our already low subsidies. With little or no support
>from government, and with high production inputs, our local products cannot
>compete with the cheap, highly subsidized imported products that flood our
>markets. 
>
>The WTO has spelled disaster on us and our natural resources. Large
>tracts of lands devoted for the production of staple food are converted
>for the cultivation of products for trade. Worse, our lands and forests are
>taken away from us to pave the way for conversion to golf courses and other
>tourism resorts, grandiose mal-development projects like dams, mining and
>logging concessions and so-called industrial centers. We are left landless
>and ruined.
>
>Of great concern is our food security, our capacity to produce our own food
>and its accessibility to every one. We can never subscribe to the idea
>peddled by most of our governments that food security is simply the
>availability of food and that we are better off importing cheap food from
>other countries. 
>
>These products have been flooding the local market, competing with
>locally produced ones which have become relatively more expensive because
>of higher production cost due to withdrawal of subsidies and lower tariff
>for the imported ones. Imported products continue to threaten, if not
>already putting an end to, the viability of local products. Worse, with
>the trade of even our staple food like rice and corn, in the hands of
>cartels, price manipulation resulting into steep increases in the prices of
>these commodities, have been resorted to. Heavier pressure is created on
>our already very tight food budget.
>
>Our health suffers from all the chemicals introduced in agricultural
>production and the pollutants from mining and industrial operations that
>poison our lands, air, seas, rivers and other bodies of water. 
>
>For us, WTO means greater exploitation of our labor and resources,
>further ruin of our sources of livelihood and steady deterioration of our
>already meager income. These further translate to hunger, malnutrition and
>worsening of our life situation. 
>
>For us women, the squeeze is even tighter. As our meager family income is
>further reduced, our husbands are forced to depart from  our villages in
search of jobs. Many do not return, leaving us women on our own to keep the
rest of
>the family alive. Our working hours are doubled or tripled to augment our
>income and find food for the children. 
>
>Hundreds of thousands of us are likewise forced to leave for the urban
>areas and even other countries in the hope of finding jobs. Many end up
>being victimized by labor and sex traffickers. And some of us have
>prostituted ourselves as unwilling commodities in the sex trade. 
>
>To make matters worse, the collusion among the imperialist powers, the
>local ruling elite and the state, that they dominate, goes beyond the
>economic sphere. To stifle peoples' opposition and to protect monopoly
>capital business interests, the state unleashes its military and
>paramilitary forces against the women, men and communities resisting
>globalization. Militarist aggression is the imperialists' and the state's
>answer to legitimate peoples' demands. 
>
>We, therefore, affirm our commitment to resist and fight imperialist
>globalization and its newest conduit - the WTO. Let their trading begin. But
>let us fight to have our lives and our future spared. 
>
>Take Agriculture out of WTO!
>Junk WTO!
>Strengthen international solidarity 
>and advance the peoples' struggle against imperialism!
>
>[Initiated by AMIHAN, GABRIELA, KMP and BAYAN. Please send to friends,
colleagues and networks. Please write Gabriela at <gab at info.com.ph> 
if you have decided to sign or endorse the statement.]
>
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