[asia-apec 348] Re: APEC 96: Rhetoric, Reality and Ramos

[Gatt Watchdog]

Path: corso!gattwd
From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog)
Newsgroups: misc.activism.progressive
Subject: APEC 96: Rhetoric, Reality and Ramos
Message-ID: <gm4J2D1w165w at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz>
Date: Mon, 03 Feb 97 15:31:03 +1200
Reply-To: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog)
Organization: PlaNet Gaia Otautahi

APEC 96: Rhetoric, Reality and Ramos
by Aziz Choudry (Adapted from The Big Picture, December 1996)

The roadside from Ninoy Aquino International Airport into Manila was 
still being painted white just days before November's APEC Leaders 
Summit was held at the former US naval base in Subic preceded by 
numerous meetings in Manila itself.  The paintjob was nothing compared 
to the tens of thousands of urban poor forcibly removed from the route 
between the airport and the Philippines International Convention Centre, 
tthe venue for the officials and trade ministers meetings.  The squatter 
colonies in which they lived were demolished and billboards erected to 
hide the evidence of the impact of the market-driven, people-last model of 
development for which APEC acts as a vehicle in the Asia Pacific.  A 
similar model had been embraced with gusto in Ramos' great plan for 
rapid growth for the Philippines, Philippines 2000.  This is based on 
export-oriented industrialisation, liberalisation of external trade and 
investment, and deregulation and privatisation.  In two words: structural 
adjustment.  The moral of the story is: when the reality of the effects of 
structural adjustment policies and free market reforms does not stack up 
with all the rhetoric sweep it under the carpet.  But the veneer of stability 
and economic success which President Ramos sought to project 
internationally had already slipped by the time APEC hit the Philippines.  
Try as they might, the Philippine government could not prevent the 
largest mass mobilisation against APEC so far from taking place, 
involving thousands of people.

According to former Marcos Defence Chief and current Senator J Ponce 
Enrile, APEC was the "most important event ever to be held in our 
country, and is many times bigger than the IMF-World Bank Meeting in 
1975, the Thrilla in Manila between Muhammed Ali and Joe Frazier also 
in 1975 and the Miss Universe Beauty Pageants."  Not unlike successive 
New Zealand governments, the Philippines government sees itself as a 
trailblazer in pursuing policies of unilateral liberalisation, whether or not 
its neighbours follow.  In this sense, its position in APEC is far closer 
ideologically to the USA than other ASEAN nations.

Ridiculous Claims

Some truly ridiculous claims were being made of APEC.  Ramos said that 
civil society and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) had played a 
role in shaping the Philippine Individual Action Plan, and indeed the 
direction of APEC itself.  "Sustainable development is the bottom line in 
APEC, not profits", he claimed, promising a "kinder, gentler APEC".  Sure, 
he met with some NGOs who set up an 'alternative' forum called APSUD 
(Asia Pacific Sustainable Development Initiative), which played footsie 
with the government, and got excited at the inclusion of words and 
phrases like 'sustainable development' in the Philippine IAP.  And he'd 
met with the Ken Douglas-led International Confederation of Free Trade 
Unions' Asia Pacific Labour Network, who praised globalisation and 
APEC, but respectfully asked for a seat at APEC on the same basis as 
business in order to advise on how to address some of the negative 
impacts of free trade like poor working conditions and union rights.  

The prominence of such claims shows how effective opposition to APEC 
has been - these statements were clearly aimed at a Filipino audience in a 
feeble attempt to counter the widespread unease and outright opposition 
directed at the APEC meetings.  Nothing in the Manila Action Plan for 
APEC (MAPA), the detailed blueprint for further action which the 
meetings endorsed backed up the claims that civil society was now 
involved in APEC.  It merely represented a continuation of the same 
agenda.

Tiresome "Tiger" Talk

With the creation of the APEC Business Advisory Council (ABAC), 
business became a formal adjunct to APEC.  In 1996 big business featured 
much more visibly at the APEC Business Forum (ABF), a two-day summit 
where hundreds of CEOs from major corporations met to put their own 
proposals to the APEC meeting, and to lobby ministers from the 18 
member 'economies'.  At about the same time as Ramos told APSUD how 
clean and green APEC really was, he addressed the ABF as "my fellow 
tigers", saying "Let's go for it.  Go.  Go.  Go.  Go.  Go."  Whatever the "it" 
was it sure as hell was not genuine sustainable development, and the 
tigers he was talking to were rapidly destroying the environment in which 
they roamed around looking for new prey - cheaper labour, open 
economies to plunder, and natural resources to expand their markets and 
profit margins.  Business, Ramos said, was now being engaged as a "full 
partner" of APEC - rather ironic, given the key role it has always played 
in driving APEC.  Sure enough, with US pressure on to achieve tariff-free
trade in information technology products, the infotech corporate barons
were out in force at the ABF.  People like George David, President of the
US-ASEAN Business Council and CEO of Unitech, the 30th largest corporation
in the USA with revenues of almost US $23 billion in 1995.

Behind all the rhetoric was a country in the grips of a World Bank/IMF-driven
programme of structural adjustment and a government hellbent on attracting
investment at any price - particularly to the new economic areas of Subic Bay
and Olongapo.  Manila and the road to Subic were lit up like a Christmas tree,
with streetlights draped with banners declaring "APEC Means Business".
Nauseatingly regular TV ads announced: "Global Trade: Let's Get Ready".  And
while the Philippines government tried to make the most of its more unassuming
approach to APEC compared with the 1995 summit in Osaka, vast amounts of money
were lavished on the meeting.  One figure put the government's contribution at
P987 million (about NZ $56.1 million) with P140 million (about NZ $ 8 million)
from the private sector.

Suffering Intensified - Repression Grows

The massive dislocation and suffering which followed the eruption of Mt
Pinatubo was added to by heavy militarisation and human rights violations
in Central Luzon.  Nine military battalions were deployed all over Zambales,
Bataan and Pampanga in preparation for APEC.  East Timor's Nobel Laureate Jose
Ramos-Horta had been denied a visa to attend the Manila People's Forum on APEC
(MPFA) to placate Indonesia - fast becoming a major investor in the
Philippines.  Others wondered if our names were on a supposed "black list"
of suspected "trouble makers" which the Ramos administration claimed it
would not allow into the country.  As far as the Ramos administration went,
any critical attitude towards APEC now constituted "terrorism".  5 Sri Lankan
workers and unionists on their way to the MPFA were detained at the airport
and sent back a week before the official meetings got underway.  In a fax to
the MPFA organisers, the Sri Lankans stated "this is the globalisation the
APEC leaders are going to impose on us.  This is the type of democracy they
want to establish".  The security measures and elaborate preparations devised
for APEC led many Filipinos to ask if this was the excuse that Ramos needed to
impose Marcos-style martial law on a large chunk of the country.  By the time
the official meetings kicked off in Manila, local citizens had been added to
the list of "unsightly images" which the government did not want delegates to
see, as an enforced four day holiday began, part of the security paranoia
which was one of the salient features of APEC 1996.  There were bomb scares,
tales of "Pakistani-trained" Filipino assassins running around on the southern
island of Basilan, and even a couple of drunk American businessmen arrested in
Subic on suspicion of being "Jordanians".  Labour leader "Popoy" Lagman was
arrested by military intelligence before the APEC meetings in a flimsily disguised
attempt to get him out of the way before the official meetings.  In and around
Subic, farmers were told that after November they could not go to their farms
to harvest their produce for "security reasons".  For the APEC meeting, the
Subic area became a virtual fortress.

The Philippines government was desperate to be seen as no longer the "sick man
of Asia" but a "tiger economy".  Road widening schemes were being rushed to
completion, and the friendship lanes (two lanes of traffic each way on
Manila's main routes were reserved only for APEC delegates) aroused much
indignation from Manila's trafficjammed citizens, as well as causing several
fatal accidents.  While Manila's urban poor watched the bulldozers destroy
their squats, 18 luxurious Mediterranean-style (one per "economic leader")
were constructed especially for the event at a cost of US $50 million -
for about 6 hours use by the leaders.

>From Vision To Action - Or Photo-Op?

What emerged from this year's APEC Summit, apart from more inane photo-ops of
the 18 APEC "economic leaders" lined up and waving, this time wearing
barong-tagalogs?  Some observers viewed Manila as being the crunch time to see
whether APEC's vision would lead to concrete actions by the year 2020.  They
also pointed out that pressure to move further and faster may well lead to
increased tensions between those, especially the "Anglo-American" bloc, eager
for decisive progress to be made in terms of liberalisation, and the more
cautious, pragmatic approach of many of the Asian countries.

This year Ramos insisted that the forum had moved "from vision to action", but
again, deliberately ambiguous language glossed over the divisions that are so
much a part of APEC.   Many offers - for example those of the USA, Japan,
South Korea, Malaysia, and Thailand - were vague and patchy.  New Zealand
representatives expressed disappointment at this.  In 1995, Ministry of
Foreign Affairs and Trade (MFAT) officials said that they were off to Osaka to
eliminate the "wriggle room"; APEC, they said then, was a voluntary agreement
insofar as it was voluntary to enter into, but once a member, an economy is
bound by its commitments.  This view was consistent with the push by the USA
and Australia to make APEC a more rules-based beast, rather than a "voluntary,
non-binding process".  In 1996, MFAT told a different story, seemingly
designed to deflect questions about the secrecy surrounding the New Zealand
IAP, and the mandate of those representing New Zealand at APEC to make any
commitments, especially with a caretaker government in place at the time.  Now
they said that commitments at APEC were not binding, and that a future
government could alter its offer to liberalise.  But the goal of free trade by
2010/2020 remained, of course, and this change seemed merely to say that there
was some flexibility in the pace and means by which the goal is pursued.  In
Subic at least, moves to institutionalise APEC did not win out.  Japan
remained ambiguous in its position on further liberalisation.  At Osaka it
sought to deflect emphasis on liberalisation with its own push for "technical
cooperation".  In 1996 it maintained a strong position on this area -
naturally enough, such "cooperation" is driven by the interests of its
own private sector in securing new opportunities.  Chinese Vice Premier Qian
Qichen also stated that APEC should work more towards building economic and
technical cooperation among the members.

IT Moves

At Osaka, the issue of agricultural liberalisation was under the spotlight.
A year on, it barely rated a mention.  The WTO Ministerial Meeting in
Singapore was not far away, and this certainly shaped the 1996 APEC Summit.
Washington's push for an Information Technology agreement to remove tariffs on
computers and software by 2000 dominated the meetings.  Chile, China, Malaysia
and Thailand were not supportive of the proposal.  The final wording read that
the APEC leaders called for the conclusion of such an agreement by the WTO
ministerial conference in Singapore that would "substantially eliminate
tariffs by the year 2000" while recognising the need for "flexibility" in
negotiations currently underway in Geneva.  Disagreement over the pace of
liberalisation in this area, and the range of goods included ensured that the
USA could not get a consensus in favour of their IT plan.

APEC members agreed to harmonise tariff categories by the end of 1996.  A
target of 1998 was set for harmonising custom clearance procedures.  The
Leaders Statement supported the ABAC recommendations to create an APEC
Business Visa to facilitate the movement of businesspeople within the region,
to strengthen investment protection in terms of "transparency, predictability,
arbitration and enforcement of contracts", to involve the private sector in
infrastructure planning, to develop policies supportive of small and medium
enterprises, and encourage greater business sector participation in economic
and technical cooperation.

The issue of new members was unresolved.  Criteria for APEC membership will be
decided on in Vancouver in November this year, a list of countries that fit
the criteria (Vietnam and Peru seem the most likely contenders) set in 1998,
and members would not actually take their places at APEC till it meets in
Auckland in 1999.  In order to join, a country must voluntarily open up its
economy and implement the same sort of programmes as contained in the IAPs of
APEC members - a "shadow" IAP, as it were.  This resembles the way in which
countries seeking World Bank loans must first implement shadow structural
adjustment programmes to prove that they can follow the dictates of the World
Bank conditions.

Nationwide Opposition Mounted

While its government engaged in "all-out liberalisation", as Congressman
Wigberto Tanada put it, many Filipinos were actively opposing APEC, seeing
very clearly how it meshed with the policies imposed in the name of
"Philippines 2000" by Ramos, or IMF-World Bank structural adjustment
programmes.  People mobilised against APEC not only in Manila, but in Cebu,
Subic, Iloilo, Bacolod City, Davao and elsewhere. While Ramos was hailing APEC
as the country's "coming out party", workers, peasants, students, indigenous
peoples, women and international delegates to the several alternative forums
on APEC organised in Manila were heading out onto the streets.  As well as the
MPFA, there was the People's Conference on Imperialist Globalisation (PCAIG).
Solidarity of Labour against APEC in Manila (SLAM APEC) dressed as devils and
marched and picketed through the city.  PCAIG and MPFA organised two "people's
caravans" of jeepneys and other vehicles that tried to get into the
cordoned-off Olongapo area.  As well as police roadblocks to delay the
caravans, the Airforce were used to seed the clouds and induce rain on the
protest caravans, and security forces successfully snarled the traffic up to
Subic to such a standstill that it became impossible to proceed by vehicle.
Neither caravan was able to reach Subic, but by that time, the world already
knew of the widespread anti-APEC activity that overshadowed what was supposed
to be the main event.

(The Big Picture is a quarterly bulletin of GATT Watchdog.  A year's
subscription costs NZ $15.  For more information please write to GATT
Watchdog, PO Box 1905, Christchurch 8015 Aotearoa/New Zealand.
Fax 64 3 3668035.  Email: <gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz>)


=====================================================================

    GATT Watchdog, Box 1905, Otautahi (Christchurch) 8015, Aotearoa
          (New Zealand).  Ph 64 3 3662803 Fax 64 3 3484763
=====================================================================