From ua at ahrchk.org Thu Apr 1 15:53:19 1999 From: ua at ahrchk.org (AHRC Urgent Appeal) Date: Thu, 01 Apr 1999 15:53:19 Subject: [asia-apec 1056] Sri Lanka: 55th Session of UN Commission of Human Right Message-ID: <3.0.6.16.19990401155319.516f71a0@pop.hk.super.net> URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT URGENT ASIAN HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSION URGENT APPEAL PROJECT UA Index: 33199 ********************************************************************** UA 15/99: UN Commission on Human Right 31 March 1999 SRI LANKA: 55th Session of UN Commission on Human Right *********************************************************************** A Special Request - Relating to discussions at the 55th session of the UN Commission on Human Rights We are making this request at a very special moment. As the United Nations Human Rights Commission has started its session the delegates have begun to arrive. Very much in the agenda of discussions is the disappearances issue about which we have kept you informed.(Any person who wants further information can refer to the Web-site www.is2.hk.super.net/~ahrchk) Sri Lankan disappearances issue in particular has been taken up, as the largest number of disappearances (over 26,800 according to official record) has taken place there. If significant action is taken at the Commission, this will help to prevent future occurrences and set a precedent regarding other countries. Now, much will dependant on the position that will be taken by the official government delegation on this issue. We understand that this delegation does understand the seriousness of the problem as three government Commissions have submitted reports giving details of how disappearances occurred and establishing a systematic practice of disappearances. The delegation however, has not yet decided to commit itself to take serious action to deal with the issue. A show of concern at this stage can be most helpful and likely to produce a good result. The issues raised are that systematic practice of disappearances must be treated as a crime against humanity and effective action should be taken on that basis; that Criminal investigation must be held into these cases, if necessarily with the help of international Community and the culprits must be brought to justice. BACKGROUND INFORMATION: Asian Human Rights Commission will focus on the worsening human rights situation especially regarding disappearance in Sri Lanka. AHRC has published its findings and recommendations. A draft resolution relating to disappearance in Sri Lanka is included in the slim 60 page publication. The booklet is being distributed to the UN Human Rights Commission, concern Human Rights Organisations and individuals. The publication and the resolution is now available at out website In a memorandum to the UN Working Group on Involuntary and Enforced Disappearances AHRC have summed up the basic issues relating to the Sri Lanka?sdisappearance issue.? At the AHRC web-site [www.disappearances.org] you will find many documents giving further details on the disappearances issue including the Sri Lankan situation.? The main document of three commissions of inquiry into involuntary removal and disappearances of person in Sri Lanka, is being made available at this web-site.? We hope that Human Rights Organisations would actively support the resolution during this 55th Session.? RECOMMENDED ACTION: It will be most helpful if you write urgently to make your concern known. Kindly encourage others also to do so. As the Sri Lankan government delegation is at Geneva, you may contact them through the Sri Lankan consulate in Geneva. --------------------- Suggested letter --------------------------------- Dear Sir, I am writing at this stage to make my deep concern known on the issue of disappearances. I am sure you are committed to eradication of this practice and to take suitable action for this purpose. I very much urge you to use this occasion of the gathering of the United Nations commission to publicly show the resolve of your government to take decisive steps on the basis of finding of facts by the Commissions appointed by the government itself. I particularly urge that systematic practice of disappearances be treated as a crime against humanity and effective action should be on that basis; that Criminal investigation must be held into these cases, if necessarily with the help of international Community and the culprits must be brought to justice. Your decision at this stage can help to better the image of your government and also better the lives of the people. Kindly bring this message to the notice of the Sri Lankan delegation attending the United Nations Human Rights Commission sessions. Thank you ----------------------------------------------------------------------- SEND APPEAL LETTER TO: Hon. Ambassador Permanent Mission and Consulate General of Sri Lanka 56, Rue De Moillebeau, 5th Floor, 1 209, Geneva 19 Switzerland. Fax: (41-22) 734 9084 E-mail: mission.srilanka@itu.ch SEND COPIES TO: Ms. N. Font de Berlioz Working Group on Enforced or Involuntary Disapperance Room D-121 UN Centre for Human Rights United Nations Office Palais des Nations CH-1211, Geneva 10 Switzerland Tel: [4122] 917 3945 Fax: (4122) 917 0022 Email: nfontdeberlioz.hchr@unog.ch and Sri Lanka?s diplomatic representatives in your country -------------------------------------------------------------------------- You may re-post this message on to other sources provided the main text is not altered in any way and the header crediting the Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) remains intact. Please remember to send a copy of your letter to: ua@hk.super.net *********************************************************************** Urgent Appeal Project Tel: +(852)-2698-6339 Asian Human Rights Commission Fax:+(852)-2698-6367 Unit D, 7 Floor, 16 Argyle Str. Email: ua@hk.super.net Mongkok Commercial Centre http://www.hk.super.net/~ahrchk Kowloon, Hong Kong SAR CHINA *********************************************************************** Visit the Asian Human Rights Commission's Campaign For Recognition of State-sponsored Disappearances as a Crime Against Humanity website: http://www.disapperances.org From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Fri Apr 2 09:42:27 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 12:42:27 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1057] Media Release - 1998 Roger Award for Worst TNC in NZ Message-ID: MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE 1 April 1999 MAYOR OF DUNEDIN & PROMINENT MAORI LAWYER TO ANNOUNCE SECOND ANNUAL ROGER AWARD FOR WORST TRANSNATIONAL CORPORATION IN NZ The second annual Roger Award for the worst transnational corporation operating in New Zealand will be announced at a function in Christchurch later this month. The Award is being organised by Corso, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), and GATT Watchdog. "We have received nominations from right around New Zealand. Finalists include Telecom, agrochemical and bio-engineering giant Monsanto, Carter Holt Harvey, Fletcher Challenge, TranzRail (the 'winner' of the inaugural award, announced in February 1998), and last year's joint second 'prizewinner', INL" says a spokesperson for the organisers, Leigh Cookson. The judges for the Roger award are the Mayor of Dunedin, Sukhi Turner; Ngati Pikiao lawyer and Treaty activist Annette Sykes; President of the NZ Trade Union Federation, Maxine Gay; and Director of Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture (Maori Legal Service) Moana Jackson. Mayor Turner and Mr Jackson will be present to announce the award on 27 April. The award will be announced in Christchurch at an evening function (at 8pm at the Trade Union Centre, 199 Armagh St, Christchurch) during this month's APEC Small and Medium Enterprises (SME) Ministerial Meeting as part of a programme of alternative activities to expose and oppose APEC being organised alongside the Christchurch APEC meetings. "Transnational corporations now dominate almost all aspects of the New Zealand economy and our lives, from the food that we eat to the clothes that we wear to the technology which we use to communicate with each other. In spite of APEC's advocates pointing to such initiatives as the focus on small and medium sized enterprises, APEC has been shaped primarily by and for big business interests. Successive New Zealand governments have told us that what is good for big business is good for the rest of us. The bottom line for transnational corporations is profit. These corporations are behind the push, through free trade and investment arrangements like APEC, to get governments to comply with their demands to be able to operate however, and wherever they like, without any accountability to the communities they affect. The Roger Award is one way to hold big business accountable and generate some much-needed debate about the role of transnational corporations in New Zealand", said Ms Cookson. The award will be given to the transnational corporation judged to have had the most negative impact in each or all of the following fields: unemployment, monopoly, profiteering, abuse of workers/conditions, political interference, environmental damage, cultural imperialism, impact on tangata whenua, running an ideological crusade, impact on women, health and safety of workers and the public. For further comment, contact Leigh Cookson Ph. (03) 3662803 (w); Email: corso@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz From panap at panap.po.my Fri Apr 2 10:14:49 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 09:14:49 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1058] Re: Alternative Activities to the APEC AGENDA; Globalisation and Labour Laws Message-ID: Dear friends in New Zealand, If possible, could you keep us informed about these activities through the listserv. Thanks, Devlin >a. Know about the series of activities being organized in Aotearoa/New >Zealand leading to a 2 day Conference to be held in Auckland on 11-12 >September 1999 (the same time as the APEC Leaders Summit.) From panap at panap.po.my Fri Apr 2 10:03:05 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 09:03:05 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1059] Re: The Chotiari Reservoir Project Sindh Pakistan Message-ID: Dear Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani, RE: >The Chotiari Reservoir Project Can you please provide more information about: -CIDA's involvement in the project. -Actions taken against the dam by the affected communities. -World Bank (and other funders) loan conditions Also, if this is of any use to you, the Sector Stategy and Policy Specialist of the Rural Development Department (Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Development) is Robert L. Thompson. His email is Rthompson2@worldbank.org and his fax is 1-202-522-3309. I wouldn't expect him to be sympathetic, but it may be useful to your campaign work. You should also note that the 636 participants to the Asia-Pacific Peoples' Assembly, representing 316 organisations from 30 countries, adopted, as a resolution to the final unity statement, the following regarding the World Bank financed dam near Ramancherry, Tamil Nadu: "We, the participants of APPA, demand that the World Bank withdraw all support for the project and all other dam schemes." Keep up the fight, Devlin PAN-AP From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Fri Apr 2 13:18:31 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Fri, 02 Apr 1999 16:18:31 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1060] Re: Alternative Activities to the APEC AGENDA; G In-Reply-To: Message-ID: The URL for the Aotearoa/New Zealand APEC Monitoring Group Website is http://www.apec.gen.nz You may find that the site is still under construction - however, for those with Web access this will be where articles, releases, notices etc will be posted, as well as to this listserve. Cheers Aziz Choudry GATT Watchdog Aotearoa/NZ APEC Monitoring Group From tpl at cheerful.com Sat Apr 3 08:56:55 1999 From: tpl at cheerful.com (tpl@cheerful.com) Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 07:56:55 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1061] KMP denounces NATO bombing of Yugoslavia Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990403075655.006ab440@pop.skyinet.net> >From: KMP >To: tpl@cheerful.com > >NEWS RELEASE >29 March 1999 > >KMP denounces US and NATO aggression vs. Belgrade > >The Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP - Peasant Movement of the Philippines) joined other militant organizations in picketing the United States embassy to condemn the bombardment of Yugoslavia by forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. > >KMP chair Rafael Mariano said US imperialism goaded NATO to strike at >Belgrade and belied US president Clinton's false claims that the attack >is a humanitarian protection for Albanian forces against Serbs who >refused to sign the US-brokered "peace deal." > >"Yugoslavia has been split into several states as a result of policies >targeted against Eastern Europe that started with the Reagan >administration," Mariano said. "In the 1984 National Security Decision >directive titled "United States Policy towards Yugoslavia," market >reforms imposed by creditors and the International Monetary Fund wreaked >economic and political crises thereby exacerbating conflicts among the >different republics inside the Yugoslav federation." > >State funds, which should have bought food and services for republics >and autonomous provinces, were made to service Belgrade's debt with the >Paris and London banks. Workers' wages and rights were abolished to >maximize profits for Western corporations who took over strategic >industries, destroying 1.9 million jobs. > >Mariano said that IMF and the European Bank for Reconstruction and >Development are now dictating the economies of several republics, while >60,000 NATO troops are occupying several republics purportedly to >enforce fragile peace accords, but actually to keep the oil fields in >Bosnia and Croatia safe for US exploration firms such as Amoco. Germany, >the US and Russia have it in their interest to keep people fighting each >other because a weak and divided Balkan territory is good for their >profits and their control of territories. > >"The US government is hiding the real roots of the conflict behind >imagined or overrated ethnic reasons in much the same way Philippine >President Estrada and US Secretary of State Madeline Albright play up >the Chinese threat in the Spratlys to justify the passage of the >Visiting Forces Agreement," Mariano explained. "The value of NATO in the >Balkan crisis should make it clear that the VFA will make it easy for the >US to hatch mock conflicts in the Philippines to protect corporate >investments here." > >Mariano also said the air assault on Serbia completely violates NATO's >own constitution, which defines NATO as a defensive force which >cannot attack a nation unless that nation first commits aggression >against one of its members. On the contrary, it is NATO which has landed >25,000 troops in nearby Macedonia, built up an armada of 400 planes and >many war ships and threatened to bomb Serbia for the past 6 months. > >Moreover, the bombings negate the validity of the peace deal that the US >is forcing on Serbia, as the 1969 Vienna Convention on the Law of >Treaties provides that applying coercive tactics on a State to sign a >treaty invalidates the treaty. > >The KMP demanded that the US and NATO quit playing the role of world's >bully cops and should pull out of the Balkan region, and divert the funds >wasted on the bombs to rebuild the industrial capacity of the Yugoslav >republics and provinces. It also issued the demand for multilateral >agencies to stop fooling around with the economies in the region. > >The peasant alliance also chided the Estrada government for its failure to stick to a non-aligned, peace-loving foreign policy and its stubborn obedience to US dictates despite the people's protest.# > From chossudovsky at sprint.ca Sat Apr 3 07:57:23 1999 From: chossudovsky at sprint.ca (Michel Chossudovsky) Date: Sat, 03 Apr 1999 06:57:23 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1062] RECOLONISATION OF YUGOSLAVIA Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990403065723.006a5264@pop.skyinet.net> DISMANTLING YUGOSLAVIA, COLONIZING BOSNIA by Michel Chossudovsky Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and author of The Globalisation of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. Copyright by Michel Chossudovsky, Ottawa, 1996. To reproduce this text, contact the author at chossudovsky@sprint.ca * * * The following text was written in the wake of the 1995 Dayton Agreement (Covert Action Quarterly, Spring 1996, No. 56 contains the complete article with footnotes; a more detailed version is contained in "Globalisation of Poverty", chapter 13). Macro-economic reforms imposed by Belgrade's external creditors since the late 1980s had been carefully synchronised with NATO's military and intelligence operations. Kosovo's fate had already been decided. Resulting from the IMF's deadly economic medicine, the entire Yugoslav economy had been spearheaded into bankruptcy. The Rambouillet agreement largely replicates the model of colonial administration and military occupation imposed on Bosnia under the Dayton agreement. In Kosovo, the economic reforms were conducive to the concurrent impoverishment of both the Albanian and Serbian populations contributing to fueling ethnic tensions. The deliberate manipulation of market forces destroyed economic activity and people's livelihood creating a situation of social despair... In parallel with the destruction of federal Yugoslavia, similar macro-economic reforms under IMF auspices were imposed on Albania with devastating economic and social consequences. The plight of Albania culminating with the West's military intervention in 1997 is analysed by the author in a separate text. * * * As heavily-armed US and NATO troops enforce the peace in Bosnia, the press and politicians alike portray Western intervention in the former Yugoslavia as a noble, if agonizingly belated, response to an outbreak of ethnic massacres and human rights violations. In the wake of the November 1995 Dayton peace accords, the West is eager to touch up its self-portrait as savior of the Southern Slavs and get on with "the work of rebuilding" the newly sovereign states. But following a pattern set early on, Western public opinion has been misled. The conventional wisdom holds that the plight of the Balkans is the outcome of an "aggressive nationalism", the inevitable result of deep-seated ethnic and religious tensions rooted in history. Likewise, commentators cite "Balkans power-plays" and the clash of political personalities to explain the conflicts. Lost in the barrage of images and self-serving analyses are the economic and social causes of the conflict. The deep-seated economic crisis which preceded the civil war is long forgotten. The strategic interests of Germany and the US in laying the groundwork for the disintegration of Yugoslavia go unmentioned, as does the role of external creditors and international financial institutions. In the eyes of the global media, Western powers bear no responsibility for the impoverishment and destruction of a nation of 24 million people. But through their domination of the global financial system, the Western powers, in pursuit of national and collective strategic interests, helped bring the Yugoslav economy to its knees and stirred simmering ethnic and social conflicts. Now it is the turn of Yugoslavia's war-ravaged successor states to feel the tender mercies of the international financial community. As the world focuses on troop movements and cease fires, the international financial institutions are busily collecting former Yugoslavia's external debt from its remnant states, while transforming the Balkans into a safe-haven for free enterprise. With a Bosnian peace settlement holding under NATO guns, the West has unveiled a "reconstruction" program that strips that brutalized country of sovereignty to a degree not seen in Europe since the end of World War II. It consists largely of making Bosnia a divided territory under NATO military occupation and Western administration. Neo-Colonial Bosnia Resting on the Dayton accords, which created a Bosnian "constitution," the US and the European Union have installed a full-fledged colonial administration in Bosnia. At its head is their appointed High Representative, Carl Bildt, a former Swedish prime minister and European Union representative in Bosnian peace negotiations. Bildt has full executive powers in all civilian matters, with the right to overrule the governments of both the Bosnian Federation and the Republika Srpska. To make the point crystal clear, the accords spell out that "The High Representative is the final authority in theater regarding interpretation of the agreements." He will work with IFOR's Military High Command as well as creditors and donors. The UN Security Council has also appointed a "commissioner" under the High Representative to run an international civilian police force. Irish police official Peter Fitzgerald, with previous UN policing experience in Namibia, El Salvador, and Cambodia, presides over some 1,700 policemen from 15 countries. The police will be dispatched to Bosnia after a five-day training program in Zagreb. The new constitution hands the reins of economic policy over to the Bretton Woods institutions and the London-based European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD). The IMF is empowered to appoint the first governor of the Bosnian Central Bank, who, like the High Representative, "shall not be a citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina or a neighbouring State." Under the IMF regency, the Central Bank will not be allowed to function as a Central Bank: "For the first six years . . . it may not extend credit by creating money, operating in this respect as a currency board." Neither will Bosnia be allowed to have its own currency (issuing paper money only when there is full foreign exchange backing), nor permitted to mobilize its internal resources. Its ability to self-finance its reconstruction through an independent monetary policy is blunted from the outset. While the Central Bank is in IMF custody, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) heads the Commission on Public Corporations, which supervises operations of all public sector corporations, including energy, water, postal services, telecommunications, and transportation. The EBRD president appoints the commission's chair and will direct public sector restructuring, meaning primarily the sell-off of state and socially-owned assets and the procurement of long term investment funds. Western creditors explicitly created the EBRD "to give a distinctively political dimension to lending." As the West trumpets its support for democracy, actual political power rests in the hands of a parallel Bosnian "state" whose executive positions are held by non-citizens. Western creditors have embedded their interests in a constitution hastily written on their behalf. They have done so without a constitutional assembly, without consultations with Bosnian citizens' organizations and without providing a means of amending this "constitution." Their plans to rebuild Bosnia appear more suited to sating creditors than satisfying even the elementary needs of Bosnians. And why not? The neo-colonization of Bosnia is the logical culmination of long Western efforts to undo Yugoslavia's experiment in market socialism and workers' self-management and impose in its place the diktat of the free market. The Shape of Things to Come Multi-ethnic, socialist Yugoslavia was once a regional industrial power and economic success. In the two decades prior to 1980, annual GDP growth averaged 6.1 percent, medical care was free, the literacy rate was of the order of 91 percent, and the life expectancy was 72 years. But after a decade of Western economic ministrations and five years of disintegration, war, boycott, and embargo, the economies of the former Yugoslavia are prostrate, their industrial sectors dismantled. Yugoslavia's implosion was in part due to US machinations. Despite Belgrade's non-alignment and its extensive trading relations with the European Community and the US, the Reagan administration targeted the Yugoslav economy in a "Secret Sensitive" 1984 National Security Decision Directive (NSDD 133), "United States Policy toward Yugoslavia." A censored version declassified in 1990 largely elaborated on NSDD 54 on Eastern Europe, issued in 1982. The latter advocated "expanded efforts to promote a `quiet revolution' to overthrow Communist governments and parties" while reintegrating the countries of Eastern Europe into a market-oriented economy. The US had earlier joined Belgrade's other international creditors in imposing a first round of macroeconomic reform in 1980, shortly before the death of Marshall Tito. Successive IMF-sponsored programs since then continued the disintegration of the industrial sector and the piecemeal dismantling of the Yugoslav welfare state. Debt restructuring agreements increased foreign debt, and a mandated currency devaluation also hit hard at Yugoslavs' standard of living. This initial round of restructuring set the pattern. Throughout the 1980s, the IMF prescribed further doses of its bitter economic medicine periodically as the Yugoslav economy slowly lapsed into a coma. Industrial production declined to a negative 10 percent growth rate by 1990--with all its predictable social consequences. Mr. Markovic Goes to Washington In autumn 1989, just before the fall of the Berlin Wall, Yugoslav federal Premier Ante Markovic met in Washington with President George Bush to cap negotiations for a new financial aid package. In return for assistance, Yugoslavia agreed to even more sweeping economic reforms, including a new devalued currency, another wage freeze, sharp cuts in government spending, and the elimination of socially-owned, worker-managed companies. The Belgrade nomenklatura, with the assistance of Western advisers, had laid the groundwork for the prime minister's mission by implementing beforehand many of the required reforms, including a major liberalization of foreign investment legislation. "Shock therapy" began in January 1990. Although inflation had eaten away at earnings, the IMF ordered that wages be frozen at their mid-November 1989 level. Prices continued to rise unabated, and real wages collapsed by 41 percent in the first six months of 1990. The IMF also effectively controlled the Yugoslav central bank. Its tight money policy further crippled federal Yugoslavia's ability to finance its economic and social programs. State revenues that should have gone as transfer payments to the republics and provinces went instead to service Belgrade's debt with the Paris and London clubs. The republics were largely left to their own devices. In one fell swoop, the reformers engineered the final collapse of Yugoslavia's federal fiscal structure and mortally wounded its federal political institutions. By cutting the financial arteries between Belgrade and the republics, the reforms fueled secessionist tendencies that fed on economic factors as well as ethnic divisions and virtually ensured the de facto secession of the republics. The IMF-induced budgetary crisis created an economic fait accompli that paved the way for Croatia's and Slovenia's formal secession in June 1991. Crushed by the Invisible Hand The reforms demanded by Belgrade's creditors also struck at the heart of Yugoslavia's system of socially-owned and worker- managed enterprises. As one observer noted, "The objective was to subject the Yugoslav economy to massive privatization and the dismantling of the public sector. The Communist Party bureaucracy, most notably its military and intelligence sector, was canvassed specifically and offered political and economic backing on the condition that wholesale scuttling of social protections for Yugoslavia's workforce was imposed." It was an offer that a desperate Yugoslavia could not refuse. Advised by Western lawyers and consultants, Markovic's government passed financial legislation that forced "insolvent" businesses into bankruptcy or liquidation. Under the new law, if a business were unable to pay its bills for 30 days running, or for 30 days within a 45-day period, the government would launch bankruptcy procedures within the next 15 days. The assault on the socialist economy also included a new banking law designed to trigger the liquidation of the socially owned "Associated Banks." Within two years, more than half the country's banks had vanished, to be replaced by newly-formed "independent profit-oriented institutions." These changes in the legal framework, combined with the IMF's tight money policy toward industry and the opening of the economy to foreign competition, accelerated industrial decline. From 1989 through September 1990, more than a thousand companies went into bankruptcy. By 1990, the annual rate of growth of GDP had collapsed to -7.5 percent. In 1991, GDP declined by a further 15 percent, while industrial output shrank by 21 percent. The IMF package unquestionably precipitated the collapse of much of Yugoslavia's well-developed heavy industry. Other socially-owned enterprises survived only by not paying workers. More than half a million workers still on company payrolls did not get regular paychecks in late 1990. They were the lucky ones. Some 600,000 Yugoslavs had already lost their jobs by September 1990, and that was only the beginning. According to the World Bank, another 2,435 industrial enterprises, including some of the country's largest, were slated for liquidation. Their 1.3 million workers--half the remaining industrial workforce--were "redundant." As 1991 dawned, real wages were in free fall, social programs had collapsed, and unemployment ran rampant. The dismantling of the industrial economy was breath-taking in its magnitude and brutality. Its social and political impact, while not as easily quantified, was tremendous. "The pips are squeaking," as London's patrician Financial Times put it. Less archly, Yugoslav President Borisav Jovic warned that the reforms were "having a markedly unfavourable impact on the overall situation in society . . . Citizens have lost faith in the state and its institutions . . . The further deepening of the economic crisis and the growth of social tensions has had a vital impact on the deterioration of the political-security situation." The Political Economy of Disintegration Some Yugoslavs joined together in a doomed battle to prevent the destruction of their economy and polity. As one observer found, "worker resistance crossed ethnic lines, as Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Slovenians mobilized . . . shoulder to shoulder with their fellow workers." But the economic struggle also heightened already tense relations among the republics--and between the republics and Belgrade. Serbia rejected the austerity plan outright, and some 650,000 Serbian workers struck against the federal government to force wage hikes. The other republics followed different and sometimes self-contradictory paths. In relatively wealthy Slovenia, for instance, secessionist leaders such as Social Democratic party chair Joze Pucnik supported the reforms: "From an economic standpoint, I can only agree with socially harmful measures in our society, such as rising unemployment or cutting workers' rights, because they are necessary to advance the economic reform process." But at the same time, Slovenia joined other republics in challenging the federal government's efforts to restrict their economic autonomy. Both Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman and Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic joined Slovene leaders in railing against Yugoslavia's attempts to impose harsh reforms. In the multi-party elections in 1990, economic policy was at the center of the political debate as separatist coalitions ousted the Communists in Croatia, Bosnia and Slovenia. Just as economic collapse spurred the drift toward separation, the separation in turn exacerbated the economic crisis. Cooperation among the republics virtually ceased. And with the republics at each others' throats, both economy and the nation itself embarked on a vicious downward spiral. The process sped downward as the republican leaderships deliberately fostered social and economic divisions to strengthen their own hands: "The republican oligarchies, who all had visions of a `national renaissance' of their own, instead of choosing between a genuine Yugoslav market and hyperinflation, opted for war which would disguise the real causes of the economic catastrophe." The simultaneous appearance of militias loyal to secessionist leaders only hastened the descent into chaos. These militias, with their escalating atrocities, not only split the population along ethnic lines, they also fragmented the workers' movement. Western Help The austerity measures had laid the basis for the recolonization of the Balkans. Whether that required the breakup of Yugoslavia was subject to debate among the Western powers, with Germany leading the push for secession and the US, fearful of opening a nationalist pandora's box, originally arguing for Yugoslavia's preservation. Following Franjo Tudjman's and the rightist Democratic Union's decisive victory in Croatia in May 1990, German Foreign Minister Hans Dietrich Genscher, in almost daily contacts with his counterpart in Zagreb, gave his go-ahead for Croatian secession. Germany did not passively support secession; it "forced the pace of international diplomacy" and pressured its Western allies to recognize Slovenia and Croatia. Germany sought a free hand among its allies "to pursue economic dominance in the whole of Mitteleuropa." Washington, on the other hand, favored "a loose unity while encouraging democratic development . . . Secretary of State] Baker told Tudjman and [Slovenia's President] Milan Kucan that the United States would not encourage or support unilateral secession . . . but if they had to leave, he urged them to leave by a negotiated agreement." Instead, Slovenia, Croatia, and finally, Bosnia fought bloody civil wars against "rump" Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) or Serbian nationalists or both. But now, the US has belatedly taken an active diplomatic role in Bosnia, strengthened its relations with Croatia, and Macedonia, and positioned itself to play a leading role in the region's economic and political future. The Post-War Regime Western creditors have now turned their attention to Yugoslavia's successor states. As with the demise of Yugoslavia, the economic aspects of post-war reconstruction remain largely unheralded, but the prospects for rebuilding the newly independent republics appear bleak. Yugoslavia's foreign debt has been carefully divided and allocated to the successor republics, which are now strangled in separate debt rescheduling and structural adjustment agreements. The consensus among donors and international agencies is that past macroeconomic reforms adopted under IMF advice had not quite met their goal and further shock therapy is required to restore "economic health" in Yugoslavia's successor states. Croatia and Macedonia have followed the IMF's direction. Both have agreed to loan packages--to pay off their shares of the Yugoslav debt--which require a consolidation of the process begun with Ante Markovic's bankruptcy program. The too familiar pattern of plant closings, induced bank failures, and impoverishment continues apace. And global capital applauds. Despite an emerging crisis in social welfare and the decimation of his economy, Macedonian Finance Minister Ljube Trpevski proudly informed the press that "the World Bank and the IMF place Macedonia among the most successful countries in regard to current transition reforms". The head of the IMF mission to Macedonia, Paul Thomsen, agreed. He avowed that "the results of the stabilization program were impressive" and gave particular credit to "the efficient wages policy" adopted by the Skopje government. Still, his negotiators added, even more budget cutting will be necessary. But Western intervention is making its most serious inroads on national sovereignty in Bosnia. The neo-colonial administration imposed by the Dayton accords, supported by NATO's firepower, ensures that Bosnia's future will be determined in Washington, Bonn, and Brussels-not Sarajevo. Reconstruction Colonial Style If Bosnia is ever to emerge from the ravages of war and neo- colonialism, massive reconstruction will be essential. But judging by recent Balkan history, Western assistance is more likely to drag Bosnia into the Third World rather than lift it to parity with its European neighbors. The Bosnian government estimates that reconstruction costs will reach $47 billion. Western donors have pledged $3 billion in reconstruction loans, yet only $518 million dollars have so far been granted. Part of this money is tagged to finance some of the local civilian costs of IFOR's military deployment and part to repay international creditors. Fresh loans will pay back old debt. The Central Bank of the Netherlands has generously provided "bridge financing" of $37 million to allow Bosnia to pay its arrears with the IMF, without which the IMF will not lend it fresh money. But in a cruel and absurd paradox, the sought-after loans from the IMF's newly created "Emergency Window" for "post-conflict countries" will not be used for post-war reconstruction. Instead, they will repay the Dutch Central Bank, which had coughed up the money to settle IMF arrears in the first place. Debt piles up, and little new money goes for rebuilding Bosnia's war-torn economy. While rebuilding is sacrificed on the altar of debt repayment, Western governments and corporations show greater interest in gaining access to strategic natural resources. With the discovery of energy reserves in the region, the partition of Bosnia between the Federation of Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Bosnian-Serb Republika Srpska under the Dayton accords has taken on new strategic importance. Documents in the hands of Croatia and the Bosnian Serbs indicate that coal and oil deposits have been identified on the eastern slope of the Dinarides Thrust, retaken from rebel Krajina Serbs by the US-backed Croatian army in the final offensives before the Dayton accords. Bosnian officials report that Chicago-based Amoco was among several foreign firms that subsequently initiated exploratory surveys in Bosnia. "Substantial" petroleum fields also lie in the Serb-held part of Croatia just across the Sava river from Tuzla, the headquarters for the US military zone. Exploration operations went on during the war, but the World Bank and the multinationals which conducted the operations kept local governments in the dark, presumably to prevent them from acting to grab potentially valuable areas. With their attention devoted to debt repayment and potential energy bonanzas, the Western powers have shown little interest in rectifying the crimes committed under the rubric of ethnic cleansing. The 70,000 NATO troops on hand to "enforce the peace" will accordingly devote their efforts to administering the partition of Bosnia in accordance with Western economic interests rather than restoring the status quo ante. While local leaders and Western interests share the spoils of the former Yugoslav economy, they have entrenched socio-ethnic divisions in the very structure of partition. This permanent fragmentation of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines serves to thwart a united resistance of Yugoslavs of all ethnic origins against the recolonization of their homeland. But what's new? As one observer caustically noted, all of the leaders of Yugoslavia's successor states have worked closely with the West: "All the current leaders of the former Yugoslav republics were Communist Party functionaires and each in turn vied to meet the demands of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the better to qualify for investment loans and substantial perks for the leadership." Concluding Remarks Western-backed neoliberal macroeconomic restructuring helped destroy Yugoslavia. Yet, since the onset of war in 1991, the global media has carefully overlooked or denied its central role. Instead, it has joined the chorus singing praises of the free market as the basis for rebuilding a war-shattered economy. The social and political impact of economic restructuring in Yugoslavia has been carefully erased from our collective understanding. Opinion-makers instead dogmatically present cultural, ethnic, and religious divisions as the sole cause of the crisis. In reality, they are the consequence of a much deeper process of economic and political fracturing. This false consciousness not only masks the truth, it also prevents us from acknowledging precise historical occurrences. Ultimately it distorts the true sources of social conflict. When applied to the former Yugoslavia, it obscures the historical foundations of South Slavic unity, solidarity and identity. But this false consciousness lives worldwide, where the only possible world is one of shuttered factories, jobless workers, and gutted social programs, and "bitter economic medicine" is the only prescription. At stake in the Balkans are the lives of millions of people. Macroeconomic reform there has destroyed livelihoods and made a joke of the right to work. It has put basic needs such as food and shelter beyond the reach of many. It has degraded culture and national identity. In the name of global capital, borders have been redrawn, legal codes rewritten, industries destroyed, financial and banking systems dismantled, social programs eliminated. No alternative to global capital, be it market socialism or "national" capitalism, will be allowed to exist. But what happened to Yugoslavia--and now continues in its weak successor states--should resonate beyond the Balkans. Yugoslavia is a mirror for similar economic restructuring programs in not only the developing world but also in the US, Canada and Western Europe. The Yugoslav reforms are the cruel reflection of a destructive economic model pushed to the extreme. Michel Chossudovsky Department of Economics, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, K1N6N5 Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415 Fax: 1-514-425-6224 E-Mail: chossudovsky@sprint.ca Recent articles by Chossudovsky on the global economic crisis at: http://wwwdb.ix.de/tp/english/special/eco/6373/1.html http://www.transnational.org/features/chossu_worldbank.html http://www.transnational.org/features/g7solution.html http://www.twnside.org.sg/souths/twn/title/scam-cn.htm http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/chossd.htm http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/eco/ http://heise.xlink.de/tp/english/special/eco/6099/1.html#anchor1 From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Mon Apr 5 09:15:23 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Mon, 05 Apr 1999 12:15:23 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1063] Alternatives To The APEC Agenda - please repost Message-ID: APEC 99: It's Not Worth It! >From 26 April to 7 May 1999 Ministers and Senior Officials from 21 "economies" of the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum meet in Christchurch (Aotearoa/New Zealand) to plan the agenda for the APEC Ministerial and Leaders Meetings that will be held in Auckland in mid-September 1999. The "Alternatives to the APEC Agenda: Development, Foreign Investment and Sovereignty" Forum will provide an opportunity to learn more about APEC and to express our opposition to the extreme neoliberal and free market policies that are the cornerstones of the APEC agenda. One way of understanding APEC is to see it as "Rogernomics" on an Asia-Pacific scale. While the promoters of APEC try to project it as a forum for economic cooperation and development, APEC exists to give more and more freedom to the large corporations to exploit the region. APEC is anti-women, anti-worker, anti-Maori, and fundamentally, anti-people. ALTERNATIVES TO THE APEC AGENDA: Development, Foreign Investment & Sovereignty Public Meeting (All welcome to attend) Friday 23 April 7.30pm Knox Hall, Cnr Victoria St and Bealey Ave, Christchurch With Annette Sykes (Ngati Pikiao, Lawyer & Treaty Activist) Dr David Small (Corso National Officer) Murray Horton (Organiser, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA)) Forum (see registration details below) Alternatives to the APEC Agenda: Development, Foreign Investment and Sovereignty Saturday 24 April 9am - 6pm Knox Hall, Cnr Victoria St & Bealey Ave, Christchurch Programme 9.00am Welcome and outline 9.20am An overview of APEC - Aziz Choudry (GATT Watchdog) 10.00am Development & the Market Model - Radha D'Souza (labour rights/human rights lawyer/activist, Asia Pacific Workers Solidarity Links, India); Dr David Small (Corso National Officer) 10.30am Discussion/workshops 12pm Lunch 1.30pm Foreign Investment - Dr Bill Rosenberg & Murray Horton (Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa) 2pm Discussion/workshops 3.30 Sovereignty under threat? Annette Sykes (Ngati Pikiao, Treaty Activist); Leonie Pihama (Te Atiawa, Ngati Mahanga) 4 pm Discussion/workshops 5.30pm Sum up - Dr David Small To register for the forum on 24 April, please fill out details below and return with payment to Aotearoa/New Zealand APEC Monitoring Group, PO Box 1905, Christchurch 8015: Name ................................................................................................. Address............................................................................................. Phone.................................................................................................... Fax........................................................................................................... Email...................................................................................................... Registration is $20 (waged)/$10 (unwaged)/$50 (supporting) Please make cheques payable to: Aotearoa/New Zealand APEC Monitoring Group This forum, organised by the Aotearoa/New Zealand APEC Monitoring Group, GATT Watchdog, Christchurch Corso, and CAFCA, is one of a series being organised around the country this year leading to a two-day conference to be held in Auckland on September 11-12 1999 (at the time of the APEC Leaders Summit) For further information please contact us at gattwd@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Fax (64) 3 3668035 or refer to our website www.apec.gen.nz From ppc at philonline.com Mon Apr 5 23:41:33 1999 From: ppc at philonline.com (ppc@philonline.com) Date: Mon, 5 Apr 1999 23:41:33 +0900 (JST) Subject: [asia-apec 1064] Bayan-Philippines on the US-led NATO bombings of Kosovo Message-ID: <199904051441.XAA25485@mail.jca.apc.org> PRESS STATEMENT 29 March 1999 Stop the US-led NATO bombings! Bayan (New Patriotic Alliance) strongly condemns this latest brutal act of United States aggression on the sovereign state and peoples of Yugoslavia. On March 24, the world witnessed once more brazen US aggression when it led the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in launching massive bomb strikes on Yugoslavia. On the pretext of intervening to prevent a ?humanitarian catastrophe? the US began another massive bombing spree. US President Clinton called the interventionist act a ?moral imperative.? The US government must end this deadly hypocrisy now. It has no moral authority to proclaim itself champion of human rights while it is responsible for a string of human rights violations the world over. What it did to the Philippines a century ago when it launched its bloody war of colonization, and several decades later, its dirty wars in Vietnam, Latin America and Africa -- exemplifies the US government's true "commitment? to human rights. The US has also been highly selective in citing the human rights violations only of sovereign governments it considers "unfriendly" while ignoring the atrocities of its client regimes led by universally condemned dictators such as Marcos, Somoza, Mobutu, Pinochet, Batista and Suharto to name a few. The bombings in Yugoslavia have little to do with upholding human rights and attaining peace in the Balkans. It conforms more to US hegemonic designs in Eastern Europe and trying to shape the latter's economic and political configurations to suit these interests. We see it as a concretization of US plans to expand the role of NATO and use the latter to legitimize interventionism -- primarily in Europe but also in other parts of the world. As NATO?s first out-of-area mission and its first extensive combat operations in fifty years, the war in Kosovo sets a dangerous precedent of this new role being assumed by NATO under US leadership. Yugoslavia is the guinea pig for US experiments as sole superpower in the post-Cold War era. The crisis in Kosovo and in Yugoslavia is not simply driven by deep-seated racial hatred and extreme nationalism between Serbs and Albanians and other ethnic groups. After the collapse of the USSR, Eastern Europe was up for grabs. A new market was opened wide for transnational corporations. State firms were being privatized and the region offered a vast potential for investments and big profits. The policies of the US and the advanced capitalist countries of Western Europe towards Yugoslavia have been geared towards carving their own spheres of influence in this former Soviet satellite country. Invariably these have played a major part in fanning the flames of nationalism and in leading to where Yugoslavia is today. Indeed, there is telltale evidence of US tacit support to reactionary nationalist groups in Kosovo as well as open political support to other factions in Yugoslavia more willing to bow to US dictates. US sincerity in attaining peace in the Balkans is thereby highly questionable. The US has bungled peace efforts in Yugoslavia many times. In 1992, it sabotaged an acceptable settlement brokered by the European Community between Croats and Serbs in Bosnia by expressing support to the regime of Alija Izbetgovic. In 1994, it violated a UN Security Council arms embargo on Bosnia. Each US move is driven by a strong desire to secure its foothold in a very strategic region. What the US really intends in Kosovo and for the whole Yugoslavia is apparent in what it did to Bosnia through the Dayton Peace Accord. In effect the US established a virtual colonial administration: the IMF now practically runs the Bosnian Central Bank. The International Bank for Reconstruction and Development for its part dictates where capital funds should go. At the head of the Central Bank sits a High Representative of these multilateral agencies with full executive powers. The war in Kosovo sends a powerful message to those who continue to resist US global supremacy. The world's people are treated to an obscene display of American firepower with more than 260 aircraft -- stealth bombers, F-15s, F16s, A10s -- surrounding the area. Meanwhile the Western press glorifies these death machines even as it provides moral and political justification to the US-led genocidal war. While the US-led NATO claims that there is little damage to the civilian population and infrastructure, other independent news sources say otherwise. There are now half a million refugees in Kosovo and adjoining countries, representing 25% of the Kosovar population. Ironically the death rampage of the US-led NATO focres is now being used to justify moving on to the second phase of military attacks. This despite growing protests from the international community on the carnage and increasing unease on whether the bombings will indeed lead to their avowed objective of attaining "peace". We strongly condemn this thoroughly wanton act of US aggression. No self-respecting sovereign state and people can tolerate such a shameless display of superpower arrogance in the guise of being today's global police force. Bayan has stated time and again that one compelling reason why the Philippine Senate must not ratify the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) is to avoid getting the Philippines entagled in US wars of aggression and intervention. Our peace-loving people should not allow Philippine territory to be used as a launching pad for American global bullying. ### From panap at panap.po.my Wed Apr 7 10:15:58 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 09:15:58 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1065] MONSANTO IN THAILAND! Monsanto, IRRI push pesticides on thai farmers with micro-credit Message-ID: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY MONSANTO, IRRI, PUSH PESTICIDES ON THAI FARMERS THROUGH THAI DEVELOPMENT NGO April 6, 1999 (Pesticide Action Network-Asia and the Pacific and BIOTHAI strongly oppose the proposed project between Monsanto, IRRI, the PDA, and the Department of Agriculture to encourage Thai farmers in the Northeast to use Monsanto’s agrochemicals and technologies.) A project outline has been drawn-up between the Population and Community Development Association (PDA), Monsanto Company (USA), Monsanto Thailand, the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and the Department of Agriculture (Thailand). The project, entitled "Innovative Partnerships for Agricultural Changes in Technology" (INPACT), will use a micro-credit system to encourage rice farmers in the Nang Rong and Lamplaimart Districts in Buri Ram Province, Northeast Thailand, to use Monsanto’s pesticides and other technologies. Both IRRI and Monsanto will train farmers on how to use their recommended technologies. The technologies include: -land leveling -Monsanto’s conservation tillage technology -tractor operation -use of herbicides -use of seeds with "improved quality and traits" -harvesting and threshing technology The participating farmers will then work with PDA to teach other farmers to "increase the number of farm households impacted." The intentions of the project are clear: 1. To develop large-scale extensive and industrial rice farming in Thailand; 2. To increase and introduce sales and use of Monsanto’s herbicides in Thai rice farming; and, 3. To improve Monsanto’s tarnished name through alliances with established development groups. It is also likely that the project will be used to introduce Monsanto’s genetically engineered seeds or its hybrid seeds into Thai rice farming. Monsanto is currently developing rice genetically engineered to be resistant to its herbicides. It also holds patents on the infamous Terminator Technology-- which makes seeds sterile and prevents farmers from saving seed from year to year as they have for generations. Such a technology would be especially damaging to Thai rice farming, given that the high-quality of Thai rice is the result of generations of careful selection and breeding by Thai farmers. PAN-AP and BIOTHAI believe that it is inappropriate for a development organisation to work with Monsanto, a US transnational chemical company that is responsible for such products as PCBs and Agent Orange-- both of which continue to cause suffering and death. Currently, the company is trying to create a new image as a "life sciences" company seeking to feed the world. Monsanto has invested heavily in biotechnology, buying up many smaller companies, and, due to recent acquisitions, is now the world’s third largest seed company. Almost all of its biotechnology work on agriculture focuses on the development of crops resistant to its herbicide, Roundup Ready. Farmers that buy these seeds are required to sign stringent contracts and are not allowed to save seeds or use other agrochemicals. Monsanto has encountered widespread resistance wherever it has tried to introduce its genetically engineered crops. Also, the seeds are costly and not compatible with the small-scale farms of Asia that are not heavily reliant on agrochemicals. In response, the company has tried to forge alliances with development groups that can not only "clean" Monsanto’s image, but also bring Monsanto’s products to farmers through development programs and micro-credit schemes. For instance, in July 1998, Monsanto offered the Grameen Bank of Bangladesh, a pioneer of the micro-credit system, US$150,000 to provide loans to poor farmers to buy Monsanto’s agriculture products and to establish a Monsanto-Grameen Center. After a wave of local protests and widespread international condemnation, Grameen withdrew from the agreement. Monsanto’s efforts in Thailand mirror what happened in Bangladesh. Like Mohammad Yunus (the founder and President of the Grameen Bank) Meechai Viravaidya (the founder and head of PDA) is a high-profile innovator of development projects. He is also a former Minister of Industry and is currently a Senator. Monsanto has offered support to other non-governmental organisations, such as BIOTHAI, and they have refused to accept it. We hope that Mr. Viravaidya will follow Mr. Yunus and the other Thai organisations’ example, by withdrawing from the INPACT project. We also believe that it is entirely inappropriate for IRRI to be working in conjunction with Monsanto. IRRI is an international agency funded through the Consultative Group on International Agriculture Research, which operates from the World Bank. It is based in the Philippines and its gene bank contains nearly all Asian rice cultures, including Khao Dawk Mali (Jasmine) rice. The director of biotechnology of Monsanto (USA) and the company’s main contact for the INPACT project is a former high-level employee of IRRI. Also, Meechai Viravaidya is on the IRRI Board of Directors. Working relationships between IRRI and Monsanto will increase opportunities for Monsanto to access the genetic resources of Thai farmers for its own profit. INPACT claims that its goal is to "improve the livelihood of the rural community in North East Thailand", but the outline suggests the opposite. The project is actually designed to reorganise Thai rice farming in such a way that multinational agribusinesses, such as Monsanto, can make profits. For example, the project will use Monsanto’s "conservation tillage", described in Monsanto’s annual report as "the practice of substituting the judicious use of herbicides for mechanical tillage." At the same time, the project aims to mechanise Thai rice farming with tractor operations and threshing technology. In other words, INPACT will create farms suited to Monsanto’s technology and its financial interests. Mechanised farms that are highly dependent on the products of multinational companies will never improve the livelihood of Thailand’s rural communities! For more information please contact: Witoon Lianchamroon BIOTHAI Tel. 66 2 952 7953 Fax. 66 2 952 7371 Email: biothai@wnet.net.th Devlin Kuyek Pesticide Action Network- Asia and the Pacific (PAN-AP) Tel. 6 04 6570271 Fax. 6 04 6577445 Email: panap@panap.po.my From panap at panap.po.my Wed Apr 7 12:05:41 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Wed, 07 Apr 1999 11:05:41 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1066] STATEMENT FROM MEMBERS OF INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY OPPOSING A MILLENNIUM ROUND OF TRADE NEGOTIATIONS (fwd) Message-ID: >In November 1999 governments plan to meet in Seattle for the World Trade >Organization's (WTO) Third Ministerial Meeting. A number of those >governments, including those in the European Union, Japan and Canada, are >already calling for a further Millennium Round of trade liberalisation >negotiations to be launched at that meeting, in addition to any >negotiations and reviews already mandated as part of the WTO's "built-in >agenda". The general impression given is that there is no alternative and >that a Millennium Round will go ahead. > >The groups that have signed the following statement reject this approach. >Many members of civil society and many governments are opposed to a new and >comprehensive round of trade negotiations. There has been no review of the >social or environmental impacts of the Uruguay Round and many developing >countries find themselves unable to consider any further commitments at >present. In addition, the WTO process continues to promote trade >liberalisation at the expense of society and the environment and remains >firmly weighted in favour of stronger economies. > >The members of civil society that have signed this statement believe that a >halt should be called to the liberalisation process and that a review of >the process, its benefits and its beneficiaries should be carried out. We >call on other non-governmental organisations to join this call to reject >the Millennium Round proposal. Please sign, discuss and circulate the >attached statement to colleagues and civil society networks and communicate >its contents to media and governments as you see fit. > >All sign-ons should be sent to ronnieh@foe.co.uk as soon as possible. There >is no deadline for signing, but intergovernmental negotiations concerning >the Millennium Round are ongoing and we need to build up the list of >signatories as soon as possible. The name of the organisation should be >written in full exactly as signatories wish it to appear. Texts with an >updated sign-on list will be sent to all signatories at regular intervals. >If you need an updated list for a specific event, your request should also >be sent to ronnieh@foe.co.uk > > >STATEMENT FROM MEMBERS OF INTERNATIONAL CIVIL SOCIETY OPPOSING A MILLENNIUM >ROUND OF TRADE NEGOTIATIONS > >In November 1999, the governments of the world will meet in Seattle for the >World Trade Organization's Third Ministerial Conference. We, the >undersigned members of international civil society, oppose any effort to >expand the powers of the World Trade Organization (WTO) through a new >comprehensive round of trade liberalisation. Instead, governments should >review and rectify the deficiencies of the system and the WTO regime itself. > >The Uruguay Round Agreements and the establishment of the WTO were >proclaimed as a means of enhancing the creation of global wealth and >prosperity and promoting the well-being of all people in all member states. >In reality however, in the past five years the WTO has contributed to the >concentration of wealth in the hands of the rich few; increasing poverty >for the majority of the world's population; and unsustainable patterns of >production and consumption. > >The Uruguay Round Agreements have functioned principally to prise open >markets for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of >national economies; workers, farmers and other people; and the environment. >In addition, the WTO system, rules and procedures are undemocratic, >untransparent and non-accountable and have operated to marginalise the >majority of the world's people. > >All this has taken place in the context of increasing global economic >instability, the collapse of national economies, increasing inequity both >between and within nations and increasing environmental and social >degradation, as a result of the acceleration of the process of globalisation. > >The governments which dominate the WTO and the transnational corporations >which have benefited from the WTO system have refused to recognise and >address these problems. Instead, they are pushing for further >liberalisation through the introduction of new issues for adoption in the >WTO. This will lead to the exacerbation of the crisis associated which the >process of globalisation and the WTO. > >We oppose any further liberalisation negotiations, especially those which >will bring new areas under the WTO regime, such as investment, competition >policy and government procurement. We commit ourselves to campaign to >reject any such proposals. In particular we oppose the Trade Related >Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPs). > >We call for a moratorium on any new issues or further negotiations that >expand the scope and power of the WTO. > >During this moratorium there should be a comprehensive and in-depth review >and assessment of the existing agreements. Effective steps should then be >taken to change the agreements. Such a review should address the WTO's >impact on marginalised communities, development, democracy, environment, >health, human rights, labour rights and the rights of women and children. >The review must be conducted with civil society's full participation. > >The failure of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development's >Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) demonstrates broad public >opposition to the deregulation of the global economy, the increasing >dominance of transnational corporations and escalating resource use and >environmental degradation. > >A review of the system will provide an opportunity for society to change >course and develop an alternative, humane and sustainable international >system of trade and investment relations. > >This statement is signed by: > >American Lands Alliance, United States >A SEED, Europe >BUKO Agro Coordination, Germany >BUND, Friends of the Earth Germany >Church of Sweden Aid / Lutherhjaelpen, Sweden >Corporate Europe Observatory >Friends of the Earth England, Wales and Northern Ireland >Friends of the Earth Finland >Friends of the Earth United States >Komitee Widerstandgegen das MAI, Germany >MAI niet gezien! anti-MAI campaign, the Netherlands >Oxfam-Solidarity, Belgium >Oxfam-Wereldwinkels (Belgium) >People's Forum 2001, Japan >Play Fair Europe!, European Union >PRESS, Save the Children youth, Norway >Public Citizen >Rainforest Action Network >Red Green Alliance, Denmark >Third World Network >Towards a Different Europe >Weltladen-Dachverband, Germany >Working Group Against the MAI and Globalisation - Turkey > >last updated 30 March 1999 > From isgn at tri-isys.com Thu Apr 8 03:28:12 1999 From: isgn at tri-isys.com (Francisco Pascual) Date: Thu, 8 Apr 1999 02:28:12 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1067] FW: iraq & kosovo Message-ID: <01BE8167.9C56C760@arze> -----Original Message----- From: Phyllis Bennis [SMTP:PBENNIS@compuserve.com] Sent: Wednesday, April 07, 1999 8:58 AM To: isgn@tri-isys.com Cc: ytandon@harare.iafrica.com; tveter@dis.no Subject: iraq & kosovo Dear folks - a beginning. Unfortunately I'm afraid we're going to have lots of time to work through analyses like this before the crisis ebbs... Phyllis IRAQ AND KOSOVO: Two Regional Wars and a Global Pentagon Budget (for Middle East International - 6 April 1999 - 1715 words) Bill Clinton has switched TV channels from the largely hidden, but still lethal, crisis in Iraq to the far more visually compelling disaster in Kosovo. The U.S.-British bombing of Iraq, halted for more than two weeks in the run-up to NATO's bombing of Serbia, resumed at the beginning of April. Among the targets destroyed on April 1st was the communications station controlling the flow of Iraqi oil to the Mina al-Bakr terminal south of Basra, Iraq's main Persian Gulf port. The still-sanctioned oil is shipped out from the port as part of the Oil for Food program; senior oil ministry officials said repairs had been made and oil was flowing as of April 3rd. With the domestic and global media focused on the humanitarian and political crises in Kosovo, little American attention was paid to the resumption of bombing in the U.S.-British imposed "no fly zones" in Iraq. U.S. officials issued no explanation for their attack on the oil communications center, an economic installation whose targetting is therefore prohibited under international law. And little press interest has emerged in the latest documentation of the sanctions-driven human toll in Iraq. In fact, the most recent UN report acknowledges that little has changed. "Under current conditions the humanitarian outlook will remain bleak and become more serious with time," the humanitarian impact panel reported to the Security Council on March 30. "Infant mortality rates in Iraq today are among the highest in the world. Low infant birth weight affects at least 23 percent of all births, chronic malnutrition affects every fourth child under 5 years of age; only 41 percent of the population have regular access to clean water; 83 percent of all schools need substantial repairs. ... The gravity of the humanitarian situation of the Iraqi people is indisputable and cannot be overstated." The continuing human catastrophe must, at this moment of proving the U.S. ability to wage two regional wars simultaneously, inevitably link Iraq with Kosovo (although so far, at least, the civilian deaths in Kosovo fall dramatically behind the sanctions-driven toll in Iraq). But the political and strategic parallels emerge as perhaps even more direct analogues. The crucial parallel begins with Washington's undermining and marginalizing of the United Nations. In the case of Iraq, especially in the last year, the U.S. has replaced UN primacy with an unabashed unilateralism in Iraq policy. For Kosovo, Washington's international agency of choice to provide an international imprimatur is NATO -- a military alliance without a shred of authority to make the decisions the UN Charter claims as its own. In both Iraq and Kosovo the UN's role was degraded and ridiculed by U.S. diplomats; when Council members insisted that Resolution 1159 of February 1998, calling for "severest consequences" in the event of future Iraqi violations of UNSCOM access agreements, did not provide automatic U.S. authority for military strikes, then-Ambassador Bill Richardson simply shrugged and said the U.S. believes it does have the authority. More recently, when France proposed a Council debate on how to respond to Kosovo, the U.S. simply refused, placing the matter in NATO's hands. The two wars together give the Pentagon long-sought evidence that it can indeed fight two regional wars at the same time -- at least wars in which the opposition is weak to non-existent. Logistics officers are showing off their ability to, for instance, shift EA-6B planes, used to destroy anti-aircraft batteries, out of Turkey from where they attacked Iraqi "no-fly zones," to the Balkans. The aircraft carrier Theodore Roosevelt, heading towards the Gulf, was diverted to the Adriatic. And Iraq and Kosovo jointly provide a pretense to continue a bloated arms budget. Just as one example, the claimed "shortage" of million-dollars-each cruise missiles, as a result of the hundreds used up in Iraq during and since December's Desert Fox operation and in Kosovo just in the first days of the air war, means increased Pentagon leverage on Congress for new funding for more missiles, and for over $50 million more to convert 92 nuclear cruise missiles into conventional models. (It should be noted that the Pentagon's $270 billion budget contains virtually no budget lines to actually fight a war. One wonders whether Congress might decide to simply swap its recent $50 million refugee assistance grant for the $50 million needed to convert the once-nuclear missiles into conventional [and thus economically as well as politically usable] missiles.) Other political parallels abound. In both Iraq and Kosovo bombing campaigns consolidate, rather than diminish, political support for appalling leaders. Even reluctant citizens, once made victims of U.S.-British-NATO bombing campaigns, tend to respond with a circle-the-wagons reaction that only heightens xenophobia and nationalism. In both cases U.S.-orchestrated demonization of brutal (and certainly deservedly demonized) leaders is deliberately widened to demonize entire populations, thus weakening potential anti-bombing sentiment in the U.S. while heightening popular solidarity with Saddam Hussein or Slobodon Milosevic inside Iraq or Serbia. In both cases direct U.S. actions made bad conditions significantly worse. In both Iraq and Serbia, massive violations of civil and political rights by each country's dictator were answered with a U.S. response that actually strengthened the existing denial of political rights, while stripping the victimized people of their economic and social rights, the little that remained of their human rights. In Iraq, economic sanctions have subjected an entire population to disease, loss of education, insufficient food, unclean water and possible death -- while doing nothing to restore their political rights. Similarly, the NATO bombing that was supposed to force Milosevic to grant political rights to the Albanian Kosovars actually led to a massive escalation in the Serbian government's brutal expulsions, a tough crack-down on Serbia's anti-war opposition, and exacerbation of a humanitarian crisis of gargantuan proportions. The governments of Iraq and Serbia were both formerly tied, one through military partnership, the other through a grudging diplomatic alliance, to the U.S. But both governments eventually proved unwilling to play by U.S. rules. U.S. policy towards both brutal dictatorships then focuses on economic sanctions and bombing - not diplomacy. In Iraq, the world's most comprehensive sanctions continue to slaughter civilians and prevent any hope of the rehabilitation of Iraqi society. In Serbia, like in Iraq, sanctions have helped create a powerful anti-Western, "us against them" dynamic that fuels a spiralling political extremism. And in both Iraq and Serbia the U.S. claims it had "no alternative" but to bomb -- bombing to force Saddam Hussein to allow UNSCOM promised access, bombing to force Slobodon Milosevic to sign the Rambouillet agreement. In both cases the U.S. failed. In both cases the U.S. deliberately undermined the potential of flawed, but at least partially effective, international instruments. In Iraq, UNSCOM had succeeded, despite Baghdad's obstructionism, at finding and eliminating the vast majority of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. But the discovery that Washington had placed spies within UNSCOM, and had used its technology to provide intelligence that may well have assisted U.S. military assaults against Iraq, led to UNSCOM's functional demise. Similarly, the withdrawal of the 1400 OSCE monitors (however limited their efficacy because their mandate allowed only an unarmed observer presence rather than a serious protection force) on the eve of the NATO bombing at the moment their presence might have made the greatest difference, allowed the violent escalation of attacks on the Albanian Kosovars to take place without a watchful international presence. In neither Iraq nor Kosovo was a real effort made to use international war crimes charges as a means of deterrence. U.S. diplomats have long insisted that Milosevic was a "necessary partner" in Balkan diplomacy, and protected him from indictment by the war crimes tribunal sitting in The Hague. As for Saddam Hussein, while some U.S. officials have recently made oblique references to war crimes, it has been obvious for years that Washington had no stomach for a serious investigation. Such an effort would inevitably implicate the U.S. government and U.S. weapons dealers who had armed and backed Saddam Hussein as part of official U.S. policy throughout the 1980s, when Iraq's worst war crimes were carried out: the Anfal campaign that destroyed thousands of Kurdish villages, and the use of poison gas against Kurdish civilians and Iranian troops in 1988. In both Iraq and Serbia, when Washington turned on its former allies, no political alternatives were sought, no negotiation was allowed. And certainly, in both cases, negotiation is still vitally needed; diplomacy must be returned to center stage. With the Security Council deadlocked, the General Assembly has the right, under the Uniting for Peace precedent, to consider issues of peace and security that ordinarily lie in the Council's domain. While bringing NATO to heel, let alone the Milosevic-led Serb military, would by no means be guaranteed by such a UN resolution, a specific Assembly demand for an end to the bombing would go far towards delegitimizing NATO's role, challenging the U.S., and reasserting the centrality of the UN in dealing with the latest instance of ethnic cleansing. The Assembly could thus craft a policy with at least a better chance to, in the Hippocratic sense, "first, do no harm.". And certainly it is not too late for the Assembly to authorize a combined UN-OSCE protection force, an armed force prepared to provide real safe havens for Albanian Kosovars -- to make real the unrealized promise of Srebrenica. Certainly it is not too late for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees to claim the initiative as the official coordinator of the refugee assistance campaign -- in which NATO may be pressed into service providing cargo or human transport planes or logistical assistance, but in which the United Nations maintains the overall authority. Finally, the General Assembly can go beyond calling for a resumption of serious diplomacy, to name its representatives to carry out such missions in the name of the international community. Such an effort might best be carried out by Nelson Mandela and Kofi Annan -- African statesmen who together empower the international legitimacy of the United Nations with the internationally recognized credibility of the South African president. It is long past time for serious resources -- financial, political, intellectual -- to be put into efforts towards making real a UN capacity for preventive diplomacy. Until such time, however, pick-up diplomacy will be called on every time. Under those circumstances, in both Kosovo and Iraq, who knows what such a Mandela-Annan diplomatic 'dream team' might be able to accomplish, that economic sanctions and NATO bombing could not? From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Thu Apr 8 15:48:53 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Thu, 08 Apr 1999 18:48:53 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1068] Chile - State Tries Indigenous Women Message-ID: <7BNe7e1w165w@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz> IPS Subject: CHILE: Elderly Indigenous Women Tried by Military Courts Country: Chile Mark as Current News: X LAC Archive : X Mark as Background : _ General : _ Politics : _ Military : _ Environment : _ Rights : X Education : _ NZ links : _ Aid/Relief Proj: _ Economics : _ Indig: X Title: RIGHTS- CHILE: Elderly Indigenous Women Tried by Military Courts SANTIAGO, Mar 29 (IPS) - Environmental groups protested Monday against the military trial of two elderly Pehuenche indigenous women, criticising the government for defending former dictator Augusto Pinochet while neglecting human rights at home. The Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts classed the trial of Berta and Nicolasa Quintreman in the Military court of Chillan, 403 kilometres south of Santiago, as unacceptable. These two sisters, both aged over 70 years-old, were with a group of Pehuenche residents of the upper Biobio river who oppose the building of the Ralco hydroelectric plant by the Spanish- Chilean Endesa company. ''It is unacceptable for the military courts, with their sorry history under the Pinochet dictatorship (1973-90), to be trying two old Pehuenche women for the alleged crime of ''physically abusing Caribineer officers,'' said the Observatory. The Pehuenche, a branch of the Mapuche ethnic group, have ancestral lands in the upper reaches of the Biobio, the biggest river in southern Chile, some 500 kilometres from the capital, home to the aracucaria tree - a native conifer known as Pehuen in the indigenous language. The action against the Quintreman sisters and other Pehuenches was based on incidents which took place in February, when indigenous people and ecologists blocked the access road to Ralco, producing confrontations with the Caribineers. The Latin American Observatory of Environmental Conflicts is part of the Biobio Action Group (GABB), a network of social and ecological organisations opposed to construction at Ralco, as the dam here would mean the flooding of Pehuenche lands. Campaign leaders Lucio Cuenca and Luis Mariano Rendon said the military tribunal's accusation is ''a fresh manoeuvre from a government which aims to delegitimise the peaceful defense of indigenous territory and the environmental heritage of all Chileans.'' The Eduardo Frei administration supports construction at Ralco, citing development of the energy network, while environmentalists oppose this as they believe it would irreversibly destroy a unique ecological habitat. GABB classed the dam project as ethnocide, stating it attacks the ancestral culture of the Pehuenche, and accused the government of favouring hydroelectric consortia instead of seeking alternatives for development of the nation's energy sector. ''It seems worrying to us that the government of Chile today not only stands up internationally to defend the dictator who violated human rights in our country, but also puts into practice much the same repressive methods as were used in the past by their protege,'' said Cuenca and Rendon. Pinochet, 83 years-old and now senator for life, has been under arrest since October 1998 in London, with his fate in the hands of Britain's Home Secretary Jack Straw who is to decide on his possible extradition to stand trial in Spain. The Frei administration has stood by Pinochet since he was arrested, citing the principles of sovereignty - which they claim should give Pinochet diplomatic immunity, and the territorial nature of justice - which should prevent him from standing trial abroad. During his regime, Pinochet gave the military courts extensive powers to deal with cases of civilians accused of ''mistreating'' police officers physically or verbally. Environmentalists claimed the military courts ''used yesterday to lock up thousands of Chileans'' are today ''the instrument to persecute the Pehuenche and the ecological organisations.'' Cuenca and Rendon similarly stated the conflict over Ralco will continue to worsen as the authorities are allowing Endesa to go ahead with the major works of the dam ''in an evident policy of what is done cannot be undone.'' According to them, work should be stopped until the National Corporation of Indigenous Development can bring an end to the conflict over land substitution and the relocation of Pehuenche families. Eight indigenous families, out of a total of 81, are opposed to leaving their land. According to GABB, most of the Pehuenche who did agree to give up their land to Endesa were either tricked or subjected to various forms of extortion. The Environmental Observatory demanded the government clarify ''whether or not it respects the legislation the Chilean State itself has produced to protect the land, culture and environmental heritage of the indigenous people.'' [c] 1999, InterPress Third World News Agency (IPS) From kevin.li at graduate.hku.hk Sun Apr 11 16:36:38 1999 From: kevin.li at graduate.hku.hk (Li Yuk Shing Kevin) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 15:36:38 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1069] PGA events in 1999 Message-ID: <37105106.1CCFDDBE@graduate.hku.hk> ***please distribute this message*** PEOPLES' GLOBAL ACTION AGAINST 'FREE' TRADE AND THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION: EVENTS FOR 1999 Dear friends, This message contains brief descriptions of the major projects inspired by the international network "Peoples' Global Action against 'Free' Trade and the World Trade Organisation" (PGA) for 1999. These projects are the outcome of a planning meeting of the 10 movements from all continents who form the current convenors committee of PGA, listed at the end of the email. If this is the first time that you have heard about PGA (a global instrument for communication and coordination for all those fighting against the destruction of humanity and the planet by the global market, while building up local alternatives and peoples' power, created in February 1998 in Geneva) and wish to know more about it, please visit www.agp.org or send a message to . CONTENTS: 1. The second PGA conference, which will take place in Bangalore (India) in August. 2. Inter-Continental Caravan for Solidarity and Resistance: 400 Indian activists and farmers and 100 activists of other Southern countries will come to Europe in May/June to confront the governments, institutions and economic interests responsible for their exploitation and the destruction of their environment. 3. June 18th 1999: A international day of action aimed at the heart of the global economy - the financial and banking districts - coinciding with the first day of the G8 summit. 4. Worldwide mobilisations during the Third Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), which will take place in Seattle, USA Novemeber - December 1999. ****** 1. THE SECOND PGA CONFERENCE The second PGA conference will take place from the 23rd to the 26th of August 1999 in Bangalore, India. This event will be of key importance for the PGA process in several senses. a) The conference will launch a discussion process among peoples' movements from the around the world on the role and functions that an international coordination and communication network like the PGA should play, and how it should fulfil those functions. This discussion could not take place in the first PGA conference (23-25 February 1998, in Geneva) since most of that time was devoted to discussion of the PGA manifesto, and to coordinating actions to coincide with the Second Ministerial Conference of the WTO in May 1998. We feel that a wide and inclusive discussion should start as soon as possible in order to consolidate and move forward the PGA process. b) The conference will also provide a great opportunity to plan massive mobilisations against the Third WTO Ministerial Conference (see point 4 below), along with generating new plans for action. c) The PGA manifesto will also be revised during the conference (although we will devote less time to this discussion than during the first conference) and a new Convenors' Committee will be elected. d) As the conference will be hosted by the Karnataka State Farmers' Association (KRRS), one of the biggest social movements in South Asia, it will enable all who travel to Bangalore to get acquainted with the work of this very inspiring grassroots movement. It will also offer the possibility of getting to know other movements in Karnataka and the North of Kerala. To this purpose, there will be a series of exposure trips before and after the conference (15th-19th and 27th-31st August) to rural areas where important struggles are taking or have taken place. e) Just before the conference (20th-22nd August), a number of roundtable discussions will take place in Bangalore, giving the participants to exchange information and opinions and share experiences in issues such as biotechnology, the struggle of indigenous peoples, the organisational processes of afro-american communities, or the negotiations agenda in the WTO. f) Of course an important part of the conference is to meet people, feel inspired - to feel that we, in our groups around the world, are part of something far bigger. If you want more information about the conference and the events that it will be linked to (roundtable discussions and visits to areas of struggle) please write to . We will soon post the whole conference documentation available at http://www.agp.org ****** 2. INTER-CONTINENTAL CARAVAN FOR SOLIDARITY AND RESISTANCE Several hundred activists from all over the world will go to Europe in May-June 1999, to participate, jointly with European groups, in non-violent actions against the most important centres of power of the continent (like headquarters of TNCs, banks, multilateral institutions, corporate lobby groups, parliaments, etc.), and meet groups from many European countries. The timing of their visit will coincide with two major political events: the summit of heads of state of the European Union and the G8 summit (or World Economic Summit, which brings together the heads of state of USA, Japan, Germany, UK, France, Canada, Italy and Russia). The G8 summit, which marks the end of the visit, will be the highest point of the caravan, and will coincide with other initiatives going on at the same time, such as the June 18th global day of action targeting financial centres. Since this project was originally conceived in India (by KRRS), a large share of the participants will be Indian farmers, but the programme is open for activists from all over the world and different social sectors to join it. It is anticipated that there will be about 400 activists from India, and about 100 from other countries. The caravan was inspired by and is co-ordinated through the PGA network. Its political position is based on the PGA philosophy of non-violence, non- hierarchical structures, and will maintain a confrontational attitude and practice non-violent civil disobedience and direct action (rather than lobbying) as tools for political change. For more information please contact: European co-ordination office, c/o PO BOX 2228, 2301 CE Leiden, Holland. Tel/fax: 00 31 71 517 3094 E-mail: , website: ****** 3. JUNE 18th 1999: A DAY OF PROTEST, ACTION, AND CARNIVAL IN FINANCIAL CENTRES ACROSS THE GLOBE June 18th 1999 will be an international day of action aimed at the heart of the global economy: the financial centres, banking districts and multinational corporation power bases. The idea is to encourage as many movements and groups as possible to organise their own autonomous protests or actions, on the same day (June 18th), in the same geographical locations (financial/corporate/banking/business districts) around the world. Events could take place at relevant sites, eg. multi- national company offices, local banks, stock exchanges. Each event would be organised autonomously and co-ordinated in each city or financial district by a variety of movements and groups. It is hoped that a whole range of different groups will take part, including workers, peasants, indigenous peoples, women, students, the landless, environmentalists, unwaged/unemployed and others...everyone who recognises that the global capitalist system, based on the exploitation of people and the planet for the profit of a few, is at the root of our social and ecological troubles. Already groups in 30 countries are preparing events for June 18th. Individual groups include Diverse Women For Diversity (USA), North Sumatra Peasants Union, Bangladesh Garements Workers Confederation, Policy and Information Centre for International Solidarity (Seoul, South Korea), and Chikoko (an umbrella movement linking different indigenous peoples fighting oil exploration in Nigeria). Some countries already have June 18th coalition groups, including Australia, UK and the USA. Protests are being planned in many of the world's financial centres, such as London, New York, Sydney and Seoul. For more information send an email to listproc@gn.apc.org with the following request: subscribe J18DISCUSSION Your Email Address then messages sent to J18DISCUSSION@gn.apc.org will automatically go to other interested groups around the world to facilitate wider discussion of this day of action. Or visit the website on http://www.gn.apc.org/june18 Also if your group is planning an event on June 18th send an email to J18contacts@hotmail.com to allow a global list of groups involved to be compiled. Information about June 18th is on the website http://www.gn.apc.org/june18 ****** 4. THIRD MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE OF THE WORLD TRADE ORGANISATION (WTO), USA, 29th NOV.- 3rd DEC. 1999 The Northern governments and the TNCs the world over want to further expand the regime of the WTO, which sets the rules of exploitation and destruction of global capitalism and guarantees its continuity. They expect the Third Ministerial Conference to serve their interests by: 1) launching a new round of negotiations within the WTO to further 'liberalise' trade and investment, incorporating into the WTO regime an agreement similar to the defeated Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) that was negotiated in the OECD (among others); 2) expanding the Agreement on Agriculture of the WTO, which is one of the main reasons for the misery of small farmers in all the continents, the ellimination of food security policies, the increasing cocentration of productive resources in the hands of agribusiness and the introduction of genetic engineering in fields and kitchens all over the world; 3) expanding the TRIPs agreement on intellectual property, which forces all countries which are members of the WTO to give private property rights over life forms (in the form of patents). Only a massive worldwide outcry against these policies can stop this onslaught on the lives of millions of people and on the future of the planet. The second PGA conference will provide a good opportunity to strengthen the awareness of peoples' movements of the issues that will be discussed at the WTO III conference, as well as to discuss and plan a global campaign against the WTO regime, including actions all over the world to coincide with the WTO conference (29 Nov-3rd Dec 99). A project that our friends from the Americas have already started to prepare is a second Inter-Continental Caravan, mainly composed by representatives of Latin American movements, which would travel though the USA ending at the WTO III conference in Seattle. This will be discussed further at the Bangalore conference. An email list has been set up to organise against the 3rd WTO Ministerial. To subscribe send a message to . For more information, please write to or go to http://members.aol.com/mwmorrill/pga.htm ****** 5. CONCLUSION As we realise that no issue is single, be it exploitation of workers, the peasant farmers going bankrupt, the indigenous peoples getting displaced by 'development' programmes or our environment being destroyed, we also realise that we must act together. In the global economy the ground is being laid for huge social and political changes. Social movements from all over the world are strengthening their collaboration. Never before has there been a time when co-ordinated action across the planet has been so necessary and so possible. We realise that the projects described above make up a very ambitious programme, but we think that there is an urgent need to speed up the processes of collaboration between peoples' movements. Only a strong global mobilisation at grassroots level can take power away from multilateral institutions and TNCs and give it back to people. We do not expect to finish this job in 1999, but we hope that the projects of this year will help to take this long-term process a few steps further, enabling us to reach out to and create awareness among wide sectors of society. We hope that you can also become part of this collective effort. Go to http://www.agp.org or contact us at pga@agp.org for further information. We hope to see many of you in Bangalore! In solidarity, The Convenors' Committee of PGA, composed of: Black Communities' Process (Colombia) Canadian Union of Postal Workers Committee of Female Workers of El Salvador Confederation of Education Workers of Argentina Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador Maori Independence Movement (Aoteoroa - New Zealand) National Alliance of People's Movements (India) Reclaim the Streets London (UK) Rural Organisation for Mutual Help (Mozambique) Socio-Ecological Union (federation of over 200 groups in Central/Eastern Europe). ******************************************* Peoples' Global Action pga@agp.org against 'Free' Trade www.agp.org and the WTO (PGA) From tpl at cheerful.com Sun Apr 11 12:00:57 1999 From: tpl at cheerful.com (GABRIELA) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 11:00:57 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1070] Pao-yu Ching on A Celebration of the Lifework of William Hinton Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990411110057.0069e824@pop.skyinet.net> Understanding China's Revolution: A Celebration of the Lifework of William Hinton Speech delivered by Dr. Pao-yu Ching in one of the sessions in the conference honoring William Hinton on his 80th birthday. April 3, 1999 [Note: William Hinton is the author of the classics Fanshen: A Documentary of Revolution in a Chinese Village and Shenfan: The Continuing Revolution in a Chinese Village. His books, including The Great Reversal: The Privatization of China -- 1978-1989, deal with the course of development that China has undergone since the Chinese revolution led by Chairman Mao Zedong. Dr. Pao-yu Ching was keynote speaker in the workshop "Strategies, Gains and Challenges for Women's Struggle Against Imperialist Globalization" convened by APWLD, GABRIELA, SRED (Chennai) and Tamil Nadu Women's Forum in the 3rd International Women's Conference Against APEC which began the Asia Pacific People's Assemply (APPA) held in Kuala Lumpur in November 1998.] I would like to change the title of our session to: China in the context of Imperialist Globalization. Bill, you are my teacher. I have learned so much about China through reading your books and articles and through many conversations we have had. I want to thank you for including me today in the celebration of your work and your life. Many of the speakers today have discussed much about the current situation in China. I will use the experiences of most Third World countries in the post- World War II period to explain why Deng Hsiao-ping's model of capitalist development is bound to fail in the global capitalist system. After World War II, leaders in many newly independent countries and leaders in countries which were dominated by the imperialist powers were determined to develop their economies. These countries followed the examples of the United States and Germany which had used the import substitution strategy to industrialize and eventually were able to free themselves from British domination. Leaders in many Third World countries thought this capitalist model of development would help them win the economic and political independence they fought for through decades of struggle. The key features of the import substitution strategy were: 1) Governments used import tariffs to protect domestic industries. Without the protection, domestic industries would not have been able to compete with foreign manufactures which were far better capitalized and equipped with much more advanced technology. 2) The State owned and ran many of the key industries which included major utilities, transportation, energy, finance, and even important manufacturing. Some of these industries were formerly owned by foreign capital and the State took them over. Since there were few domestic capitalists who had enough capital to start these basic industries and to fend off foreign take over, these state-owned industries were instrumental in facilitating capital accumulation. 3) The third feature of the import substitution strategy was that private enterprises were subject to government regulations. One of the regulations was to limit foreign capital shares in private enterprises. The import substitution strategy was working -- not perfectly -- but it was working. Latin American countries which adopted this strategy experienced higher rates of growth and improved standards of living in the 1960s and 1970s. As a matter of fact, in the early 1970's during the first post-war major crisis of the global capitalist system, the economic growth in Latin American countries was one of the reasons that attracted foreign direct investment from industrialized countries whose own economies were stagnated. At the same time, large foreign loans also came to Latin America and other developing countries through the recycling of the petrodollar after OPEC raised the crude oil prices. Then, in 1981, Paul A. Volcker, head of the Federal Reserve, raised interest rates in the US to calm inflation. This action was the immediate cause for the worst recession in the US since the Great Depression. The higher interest rates raised the cost of servicing debt for debtor nations and consequently caused the debt crisis in Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Poland, and South Korea. The debt crisis and what followed was the beginning of the end of the import substitution strategy of capitalist development in Third World countries. According to an estimate made by Susan George, between 1982 and 1990, the net outflow of capital from the debtor nations to the creditor nations (the developing countries remitted in debt service $1,345 billion, not counting the payment of royalties, dividends, repatriated profits and underpaid raw materials, minus the inflow of foreign capital) was $418 billion. The $14 billion US Marshall Plan to help Europe after World War II, converted to 1991 dollars would be $70 billion. This means that during those 8 years developing countries aided the developed countries an equivalent of six Marshall Plans. (The Debt Boomerang, Pluto Press, 1992, p. xv - xvi) With this magnitude of capital taken from these debtor nations, it was no wonder that they went through a whole decade of stagnation. Workers and peasants suffered high rates of unemployment in cities, impoverishment in the countryside and an overall lowered standard of living. For a country like Brazil, which has vast areas of fertile land, one third of its children suffered some form of malnutrition. During the debt crisis, large multinational banks with the help of the International Monetary Fund not only extracted large amounts of surpluses from the developing countries, but the IMF also imposed the Structural Adjustment Program on the debtor nations. The SAP took away the autonomy of sovereign nations to set their own economic policies. It forced governments to eliminate social programs to help the poor, and it forced them to privatize their state enterprises and liberalize their economies to provide freedom of movement for international capital. In the end, under economic, political, and military pressure from the imperialist powers, countries, which had hoped to develop their economies through the import substitution strategy, gave in. Rulers in these countries also saw very attractive opportunities for them if they cooperate closely with foreign capital. They have since acted more like the agents of foreign capital than leaders who have responsibilities to protect the interests of their own nations. Again using Latin America as an example, the debt-ridden countries went through an unprecedented scale of privatization and deregulation. Foreign capital bought state owned enterprises at deep discount, from 50% to as much as 80% discount, through the debt-equity swap program. Latin American countries sold public utilities, railroad, mines and many major manufacturing enterprises to foreign investors. They reversed their development strategy from building an industrial base for their domestic market to joining the rest of the developing countries in the competition for exports. From this we can conclude that capitalist development through the import substitution strategy for developing countries has failed during the high tide of imperialist globalization. Well then, how about the export-led strategy of capitalist development? Or, the strategy of these so-called tiger economies? The tigers now look more like pussy cats after the crisis of global capitalism in the late 1990s. I prefer not to call it the Asian financial crisis, because it is in fact a global capitalist crisis manifested in the form of the financial crisis that beset Asia. More than anything else this crisis shows how the fundamental contradiction of capitalism has intensified. Keynesian economists have attributed the prosperity in the 1950s and 1960s to the policies of John Maynard Keynes, while forgetting to give thanks to the destruction brought by the Great Depression and the Second World War. Those events resolved at least temporarily the over capacity problem that had existed since the 1920s. After Japan and Europe recovered from the War and after the newly industrializing countries added more productive facilities in steel, petro-chemical, textile, footwear, electronics, and automobiles, the problem of worldwide over capacity became apparent in the early 1970s and has been further intensified in the 1990s, bringing about the current round of crisis that broke out in 1997. During the decade of severe crisis in Latin America, foreign direct investment shifted to Asia. (During the 1970s Latin American countries had received 52% of all direct foreign investment from developed to developing countries and that percentage dropped to 25% by the end of the 1980s.) Additionally, the high price of the Japanese yen in the second half of the 1980s, on the other hand, made it harder for Japan to push for an even bigger trade surplus to relieve its excessive over-capacity problem. The high price of yen also made direct investment in other Asian countries cheaper and more profitable. (Currencies in South East Asian countries, Taiwan, China, and South Korea are pegged to the US dollar.) These Asian countries attracted foreign direct investment as well as portfolio investment by high interest rates and fixed currency exchange rates, so that foreign capital could earn higher returns without the risk of currency depreciation. Japanese, US and European capital poured in. Here we really do not need the advice of the economists, that if capital keeps pouring in, statistics will show high rates of growth. The mass media built myth on top of myth that there was an Asian miracle. These high rates of growth only indicate increases in economic activities which included the construction of high-rise office buildings, luxury hotels, airports and other infrastructure which now lie empty and unused. The economic activities included the construction of productive facilities for the single purpose of export. Since these facilities were built during the time of worldwide excessive over-capacity, the export market were destined to collapse. The domestic markets in these countries were too small to buy the products. These factories built with large amounts of natural and human resources are now abandoned. Economic activities also included speculation in real estate markets that inflated the prices of real estate as well as created a false sense of wealth. Under the liberalization program pushed by the IMF and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), foreign capital, which included the portfolio capital and speculative capital, could come and go with free will. As we have witnessed in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, South Korea and the Philippines, the foreign exchange reserves earned by ruthlessly squeezing their laboring people under the "We must compete in the international market" campaign were robbed clean in a matter of weeks. Subsequently, international capital also raided the foreign exchange reserves of Taiwan, Hong Kong, Russia, and Brazil. Then, the IMF came to the "rescue" - and to once more dictate domestic economic policies. These countries not only lost their accumulated foreign exchange reserves, they also ended up owing large debts to international financial institutions. Under the pressure of IMF, APEC and WTO, all instruments of international monopoly capital, many Asian countries have already gone through rounds of privatization and de-regulation earlier. Now after 1997 the push for further privatization and liberalization has been intensified. The Structural Adjustment Programs imposed on them by the IMF are more blunt and shameless. In addition to all the conditions previously mentioned, the SAPs further dictate keeping the labor market flexible and rewriting bankruptcy laws. Many countries that have pursued the export-led strategy of capitalist development are left only with human suffering and environmental devastation. Both the International Monetary Fund and the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) were mechanisms intended to regulate international capital in order to avoid the deadlock of the Great Depression. Their historical mission of stabilizing exchange rates and promoting trade through lowering tariffs ended in the 1970s. They have since transformed themselves into instruments of imperialist powers to force the will of monopoly capital onto developing nations. From the 1970s until recently, IMF worked wonders by taking control of economies of sovereign nations and helped keep economic crisis in one region from spreading to the rest of the world. We have witnessed in this current crisis, even though IMF can still force debtors to comply with its SAPs, that it can no longer contain the crisis in Asia. According to the Economist, "Brazil faces its steepest economic decline since the early 1980s. Ecuador is having its worst financial crisis in generations. Forecasters expect a fall of 1.5% in Latin American GDP this year...." (March 20, 1999, p. 18) We have also witnessed that the new WTO is totally ineffective in resolving trade conflicts among the big powers. Countless cases of complaints from these powers are piling up, and the WTO's rulings have been ignored by the United States, the European Union and Japan. Yet, WTO is still a powerful instrument that forces Third World countries to open up their economies, to privatize their state enterprises, de-regulate, allow foreign banking, insurance, hospitals, and school to come in, honor the patent laws of the imperialist powers, and stop subsidies to their own farmers. China caught the tail end of this maniacal export-led strategy of capitalist development. How and why does anyone think it can succeed? Workers and peasants in the Third World already realize that the export-led strategy of capitalist development has not and will not work for them. The capitalists in these countries may still see a glimpse of hope, when their stock and real estate markets begin to show some signs of recovery. Workers and peasants in these countries know that neither higher stock prices nor higher real estate prices will benefit them. During the 1980's the imperialist powers were able to shift the burden of the crisis of global capitalism to the debtor nations to bear the cost. That crisis ended the import substitution strategy of capitalist development. During this current crisis the imperialist powers have shifted the burden of the crisis to countries which had pursued the export-led strategy of capitalist development. With excessive worldwide over-capacity, these countries have little hope to export themselves out of their economic stagnation. So if both strategies of capitalist development failed for our people, isn't it time that we conclude that under imperialism, capitalist development cannot succeed in Third World countries and that socialism is our only viable alternative? Bill, what you have done in explaining China's socialist development under Mao, using the strategy of worker-peasant alliance, is as relevant today as it was in 1966 when Fanshen was first published. I disagree strongly with those who suggest that we, on the left, should discard the valuable experiences of countries whose leaders were inspired by Marx and Lenin and made the most serious attempts to build new socialist societies. Writers who make such suggestions imply that the under developed productive forces in Third World countries made their struggle to build socialism unrelated to what Marx wrote in the Capital. Worldwide human suffering and environmental devastation demand great urgency for the Left in Third World countries and the Left in the imperialist countries to work together. Bill, your life long work contributed greatly towards the world's understanding of China - a country so far away from your Vermont home (especially at that time.) Your work helped in a big way to connect the Chinese people and the American people and many other peoples in their common struggle. Bill, I admire you so much for your unwavering class stand, your valuable foresight, your courage, your effort, and your scholarship. You are a model for us to follow. I thank you for all you have done, Bill, and happy birthday! From tpl at cheerful.com Sun Apr 11 14:43:37 1999 From: tpl at cheerful.com (BAYAN) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 13:43:37 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1071] Landlordism centerpiece of Estrada's bogus land reform Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990411134337.0069e824@pop.skyinet.net> KMP -- Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (Peasant Movement of the Philippines) e-mail: ; NEWS RELEASE 9 April 1999 Landlordism, conversions now officially Erap's bogus land reform program centerpieces After assuring export cropland monopolies last Christmas that they are safe from the demands of peasants for land reform, the Estrada administration's Department of Agrarian Reform (DAR) unleashed Lenten torment when it decreed all other farmlands to be fair game for conversion to non-agricultural use. Thus noted KMP when it condemned the DAR for putting out Administrative Order No. 1 series of 1999 during Holy Week, branding it another of the agency's deceptive ploys to further dilute its token implementation of land reform in favor of land monopolies. Early this year KMP condemned DAR's midnight proclamation of Administrative Order No.9 Series of 1998 which enshrined the corporative farming scheme of Marcos-Estrada crony Danding Cojuangco and allowed big landlords like him to evade distributing commercial farmland to tenants. KMP chair Rafael Mariano said DAR hastily passed AO No. 1-1999 to legalize the clandestine but highly profitable processing of applications for conversions that piled up since Malaca?ang issued a half-hearted directive suspending conversions in January. He pointed out that Section 6 blatantly assigns Priority Development Areas for Conversion having been already identified as such under legal instruments under the Marcos dictatorship and subsequent administrations. These are the regional agro-industrial centers, ecozones and tourism development areas named by the Medium Term Philippne Development Plan. Local government units are also given wide latitude in reclassifying even irrigated land into housing blocks. The areas catalogued do not need environmental clearance certificates or ECCs from the Department of Environment and Natural Resources. This provision alone threatens thousands of peasants across the nation of being evicted from their farmlands, such as the 10,000 residents of the 8,600-hectare Hacienda Looc. Since 1995, they have been running legal battles with the real estate giants Fil-Estate and Manila Southcoast Development Corp. against plans to convert the lands, which have been tagged as tourist development area despite being issued with agrarian reform patents, into golf courses and beach fronts. Guillermo Bautista, peasant leader of the Ugnayan ng mga Mamamayan Laban sa Pangwawasak ng Kalupaan sa Hacienda Looc (UMALPASKA) says the removal of the ECC requirement is another evidence of the Estrada government's anti-peasant policies, and amounts to treachery on the part of DAR Secretary Horacio Morales, who just last month promised to assist in maintaining their legal stay on the rich sugar cane and rice farmlands. Also at high risk is land eyed by House Speaker Manny Villar in San Jose del Monte, Bulacan and the 44,000-hectare Clark Air Base, declared an Ecozone by former President Fidel Ramos. "The deceptive order does not rationalize land conversions, rather completely deregulates land-use policies according to the dictates of the World Bank's willing buyers for willing sellers concept. This is a license for a reconcentration of land monopolies by big landlords and multinational firms," Mariano said. He added that DAR AO No. 1-1999 will further unmask the vaunted food security posture of President Estrada as a sham and heighten the resolve of the peasantry to fight for genuine land reform. # # # From rverzola at phil.gn.apc.org Sun Apr 11 18:42:05 1999 From: rverzola at phil.gn.apc.org (Roberto Verzola) Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 18:42:05 Subject: [asia-apec 1072] Earth Day statement Message-ID: <199904121051.SAA12868@phil.gn.apc.org> The following statement will be sent to President Joseph Estrada of the Philippines. Philippine groups who want to be included among the signatories are welcome to sign up. Please email me the full name of your organization and other contact details. (The final version might contain slight stylistic changes or may be laid out differently.) Signatories are welcome to join the march-rally which environmental groups will spearhead on Earth Day, April 22. Assembly is inside the Quezon Memorial Circle, 2-3pm. March to DENR will start 3pm; rally will end 5pm. A festival of Green advocacies will be going on at the QM Circle Apr. 22-25. The Philippine Greens will also launch their book "Society, Ecology and Transformation" (A program for transforming Philippine Society based on the Green worldview), 1:30 pm Apr 22, at the Philippine Greens' booth. Obet Verzola Philippine Greens (Tel. 921-5165) PS. Addresses outside the Philippines may get the book (83pp) by sending a carefully-wrapped five-dollar bill and your mailing address to: Roberto Verzola 108 V.Luna Road Extension Sikatuna Village 1101 Quezon City, Phils. A Letter to President Joseph Estrada and the Filipino people: PROTECT OUR COMMUNITIES, HEAL THE EARTH! On the occasion of the last Earth Day of this millennium on April 22, 1999, we the undersigned declare our deepest concern about the destruction of our communities and our environment. Under the guise of "utilization of natural resources," "industrialization," and "globalization," such destruction has gone from bad to worse under previous administrations. It continues unabated under your administration, Mr. President. With little regard for the views of local folks, government and corporate projects have trampled on the rights and livelihood of these people, displaced entire communities, and opened forests and watersheds to destructive commercial exploitation. They have converted prime agricultural lands into golf courses, plush subdivisions and industrial enclaves, thus jeopardizing our food security. They have brought in industries which release highly toxic by-products. This blind pursuit of profits and so-called growth is not only impoverishing our people; it is also destroying or poisoning the very basis of life on earth -- the air, our water sources, our food farms, the social fabric of our communities, and the ecological fabric of nature. This madness must stop. It must not be carried over to the new millennium. We, the undersigned, commit ourselves and our organizations to stop this madness. We pledge to: 1. Reduce our use of private cars, walk short distances, and use bicycles or public transport more often. 2. Support small municipal fisherfolk in their struggle for aquatic reform. 3. Reduce our use of metallic and other mineral products (like using earthen instead of metallic cookware) to minimize the need for mining. 4. Reuse lumber and to use timber products sparingly to minimize the need for logging; those of us who dwell in the forests pledge to guard them with our lives. 5. Phase out pesticides and other poisons in our homes and farms, prefer local over imported food products, and support the farmers' struggle to convert to sustainable agriculture. 6. Boycott all genetically-engineered food. 7. Segregate waste, do home composting, support local recyclers, and avoid products with toxic components. 8. Use energy more sparingly. 9. Campaign against the return of U.S. troops and their highly toxic and radioactive weapons, equipment and vessels on Philippine soil. 10. Recognize and support honest and dedicated government officials. We in turn ask you, Mr. President, to heed the following demands. They represent the beginnings of a sincere program to start healing the life-threatening wounds created by centuries of colonial and corporate despoilation of our environment and our peoples. 1. CLEAN AIR: Ground government vehicles that don't meet anti-pollution standards * Enact and implement without delay a Clean Air Act with the ban on incinerators * Expand pedestrian walkways, bicycle lanes, and public transport facilities. 2. COMMUNITY WATERS: Stop commercial fishing in the 18 environmentally-critical bays and gulfs identified by the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources * Involve fisherfolk organizations in fishery area management * Adopt community-based tenure systems like ancestral waters, stewardships and lease agreements by fisherfolk groups and communities * Develop riverbank communities on-site 3. NO MINING DESTRUCTION: Close down all Marcopper/Placer Dome operations and all open-pit/open-cut mines * Repeal the 1995 Mining Act * Stop mining permits processing and mining operations and exploration in watersheds, forest reserves, natural parks, agricultural valleys, and ancestral lands and dwelling places of indigenous peoples * Provide for the compensation of communities affected by mining-related damage 4. PROTECTED FORESTS: Cancel all four remaining Timber Licensing Agreements (TLAs) * Adopt a total ban on commercial logging and timber exports * Prosecute without exception all big illegal loggers * Reorient reforestation towards community-based approaches that harbor life and restore ecological balance through indigenous species 5. FOOD SECURITY: Adopt sustainable agriculture in place of chemical agriculture * Stop the conversion of agricultural and forest lands * Reject patents on life * Accelerate the land-to-the-tiller program 6. NO ENGINEERED MUTANTS: Stop the field-release of genetically-engineered crops and other organisms * Require labels on all genetically-engineered food products and ingredients * Promote organic farming 7. ZERO-WASTE: implement waste segregation, local composting and recycling as a national policy * Stop the entry of banned chemicals and imported wastes (like old ships for scrapping) 8. SUSTAINABLE ENERGY: Give priority funding to energy conservation, energy efficiency and self-reliance, and community-based renewable energy projects * Stop building huge dams * Phase out coal plants * Ban nuclear power plants 9. NO U.S. TROOPS: Insist on the U.S. responsibility for the cleanup of Clark and Subic toxic sites * Reject the Visiting Forces Agreement based on environmental grounds and the very poor environmental record of the U.S. military 10. A CLEAN DENR: Free the Dept. of Environment and Natural Resources of corrupt officials, syndicates and big business interests. That we may attain our demands and meet our commitments, so help us, God. ***** April 22, 1999 Signatories: From sbdean at sfu.ca Wed Apr 14 06:34:29 1999 From: sbdean at sfu.ca (Elsie Dean) Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 14:34:29 -0700 Subject: [asia-apec 1073] Fw: Corporate Buyout of NATO Message-ID: <017701be85f5$6c745e80$297b3a8e@sbdean> -----Original Message----- From: dcintern@juno.com To: wilpf-news@igc.apc.org Date: Tuesday, April 13, 1999 7:06 AM Subject: US: Corporate Buyout of NATO >This article appeared in today's Washington Post. > >Kelly Barber, >Jeanette Rankin Intern >********************************************************* > >Count Corporate America Among NATO's Staunchest Allies > > By Tim Smart > Washington Post Staff Writer > Tuesday, April 13, 1999; Page E01 > >For many Washingtonians, the NATO military alliance's upcoming >50th-anniversary bash may end up being notable only for nightmare traffic >tie-ups. For a few companies, though, the summit could be the ultimate >marketing opportunity. >A handful of top-drawer U.S. companies -- including heavyweights such as >Ford Motor Co. and General Motors Corp. as well as upstarts such as >Nextel Communications Inc., a McLean-based wireless communications firm >-- will be the gathering's hosts and as such will get to showcase their >wares and schmooze with top military and political leaders from 44 >nations at events taking place throughout the District. > >A dozen companies have paid $250,000 apiece in cash or "in-kind" >contributions for the privilege of having their chief executives serve as >directors of the NATO summit's host committee. The group is a >private-sector support system raising $8 million to finance the April >23-25 event. > >While company representatives express disdain at the notion they will be >lobbying NATO officials for business, many of the firms on the host >committee sell precisely the kinds of products most in demand by the >emerging economies of Eastern and Central Europe -- which include NATO's >newest members and some prospective additions. Ameritech, for instance, >is interested in running international phone networks. United >Technologies Corp. views emerging or developing countries as a big >potential market for its Otis elevators and Carrier air-conditioning and >heating units. Both Ford and GM have auto plants throughout Europe. Their >target audience? Heads of state and key cabinet ministers from the 19 >NATO members, accompanied by leaders from 25 nations that make up the >Partnership for Peace, countries with aspirations to join the alliance. >The guests will be accessible for the kind of low-key lobbying and wining >and dining customary at such international gatherings. About 1,700 >dignitaries are expected to attend -- along with a media contingent of >3,000. > > "The business community was in it from Day One," said Alan John Blinken, >a former U.S. ambassador to Belgium and investment banker who is heading >the host committee. "In a lot of these cases, they came to us -- we >didn't solicit them." > > A second tier of firms, including Washington powerhouse law and lobbying >firms Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer & Feld, and Verner, Liipfert, Bernhard, >McPherson and Hand, are members of the committee. Other companies, such >as Eastman Kodak Co. and missile manufacturer Raytheon Co., are >participating but taking a less public role. And more are still being >courted. "They're actually wooing our CEO right now," said Gerald Robbins >of 3Com Corp.'s Washington office. The communications networking company >has a contract with NATO to supply equipment for the military alliance's >AWACS surveillance and control planes that are being flown over Kosovo. >"NATO is a big customer," Robbins said. > >Some host committee members, including Nextel, also hope to attract the >attention of top U.S. government officials at the summit. The company is >providing almost 2,000 of Motorola Inc.'s I-1000 combination cell phone >and two-way radios to visiting foreign dignitaries and members of the >State Department's summit staff. Four hundred of the $299 phones will be >embossed with a special anniversary emblem. > >Hungary, one of NATO's three newest members, held a reception last week >at its embassy here, where Nextel's general manager, Nick Sample, proudly >displayed one of the phones. Beaming, he told of how the product had >recently been added to the General Services Administration's list of >approved merchandise, allowing government purchasing officers to order >the wireless communications gear. Having Nextel phones widely available >to high-level bureaucrats as well as foreign heads of state is the kind >of marketing that can only be labeled as priceless. > >For the guests, it's free, as Nextel is providing the phones gratis. >"We've had quite a few inquiries already from the FBI, the State >Department and the CIA," Sample said. > >Corporate support for the NATO summit is an outgrowth of the active role >many U.S. companies, particularly defense contractors such as Lockheed >Martin Corp. of Bethesda, have played in the move to enlarge NATO byond >its traditional U.S.-Western Europe axis. U.S. defense companies lobbied >hard in Congress in recent years to admit the former Soviet satellites >Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic. > >"Companies like Lockheed Martin, for example, and all of them were active >with me overseas," said former congressman Gerald B.H. Solomon, who >headed a House task force appointed by former House speaker Newt Gingrich >to push the membership issue. > >Solomon, now a private lobbyist, said he traveled throughout Eastern and >Central Europe spreading the message that if the United States was going >to be NATO's principal military power, supplying most of its high-tech >weaponry, then U.S. defense firms should receive contracts to rearm the >former Soviet states. > >"We wanted them to buy American," Solomon said. > >Corporate representatives say private-sector underwriting of an >international meeting for sovereign nations is standard business practice >these days, though the NATO event is a far bigger draw than other >international get-togethers. > >"This is a very unique beast," said Sally Painter, a lobbyist for Tenneco >Inc. on leave from the auto parts and packaging conglomerate while >serving as chief operating officer of the host committee. Painter, >previously a top aide to then-commerce secretary Ronald H. Brown, was >involved in international business development for Tenneco. "These are >global corporations that understand the role stability plays with >investment. There's no quid pro quo at all." > >Jim Christy, vice president of government relations for TRW Inc., said it >makes sense for companies, rather than the member nations, to foot the >bill for such events. > >"Whether it's the [Group of Seven] summit in Denver or the Summit of the >Americas in Miami, there are not government funds available," Christy >said, noting that TRW Chairman Joseph Gorman was personally approached by >Blinken on behalf of the host committee. > >"My chairman is public-spirited and agreed to do so," Christy said. > >TRW, though it has no contracts to provide products to NATO, is one of a >handful of companies providing critical communications and defense >supplies to the U.S. military. Along with donating $250,000 in cash to >the summit, TRW is developing its World Wide Web site. > >"We were hit up for the Summit of the Americas" Christy said, adding that >TRW did not contribute money for the meeting but built the summit's Web >site for free. > >Blinken said that the expansion of NATO and the pro-Western tilt of >countries formerly tied to the Soviet Union have created "major new >trading partners" for the United States but that today the interest in >new markets comes not only from arms merchants but also from a variety of >technology firms, including Ameritech Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc. and >Nextel. > >"Most of the companies are not companies you would have expected in the >old day, companies selling bombs and missiles, what have you," Blinken >said. "You've got communications companies." > >Yet a good number of the firms on the host committee sell weaponry. >Although the economic crisis that spread throughout Asia and other parts >of the world last summer has somewhat cooled their enthusiasm, new NATO >members such as Poland and other countries such as Turkey are viewed as >prime candidates for U.S. weapons. Poland has been considering new >fighter jets from either Lockheed or Boeing Co. > >TRW's Christy said the summit was low on the radar of most companies just >a couple of months ago, when the events committee made its first >solicitations. But the fighting in Yugoslavia has focused attention on >the gathering. > >"All of a sudden," he said, "now this is beginning to burnish a little >into the consciousness." > >NATO Access > >Here are the 12 companies that have paid $250,000 to have an executive >(in parentheses) serve as one of the directors on the NATO summit's host >committee: > > Ameritech (Richard Notebaert) > DaimlerChrysler (Robert Liberatore) > Boeing (Christopher W. Hansen) > Ford Motor (Jacques A. Nasser) > General Motors (George A. Peapples) > Honeywell (Michael R. Bonsignore) > Lucent Technologies (Richard A. McGinn) > Motorola (Arnold Brenner) > Nextel Communications (Daniel F. Akerson) > SBC Communications (Edward E. Whitacre Jr.) > TRW (Joseph Gorman) > United Technologies (George David) > > SOURCE: NATO Anniversary Summit Host Committee > >? Copyright 1999 The Washington Post Company >___________________________________________________________________ >You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. >Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html >or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] > From tpl at cheerful.com Wed Apr 14 08:12:04 1999 From: tpl at cheerful.com (BAYAN) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 07:12:04 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1074] Impacts of NATO's "Humanitarian" Bombing Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990414071204.006a133c@pop.skyinet.net> >Date: Sun, 11 Apr 1999 21:07:29 -0400 >From: Michel Chossudovsky >Subject: Impacts of NATO's "Humanitarian" Bombing > >Ad-hoc Committee to Stop Canada's Participation >in the War in Yugoslavia >----------------------------------------------- > >For distribution at Press Conference >Monday, April 12, 10 a.m. >National Press Theatre >150 Wellington Street, Ottawa > > > IMPACTS OF NATO'S "HUMANITARIAN" BOMBINGS, > THE BALANCE SHEET OF DESTRUCTION IN YUGOSLAVIA > > by > > Michel Chossudovsky > >Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, author of The >Globalization of Poverty, Impacts of IMF and World Bank Reforms, Third >World Network, Penang and Zed Books, London, 1997. Professor Chossudovsky >can be contacted at 1-514-4252777; email chossudovsky@sprint.ca; fax >1-514-4256224. > > >Amply documented, the bombings of Yugoslavia are not strictly aimed at >military and strategic targets as claimed by NATO. They are largely intent >on destroying the country's civilian infrastructure as well as its >institutions. > >According to Yugoslav sources, NATO has engaged around 600 aeroplanes of >which more than 400 are combat planes. They have flown almost 3,000 attack >sorties, "with 200 in one night alone against 150 designated targets". They >have dropped thousands of tons of explosives and have launched some 450 >cruise missiles. > >The intensity of the bombing using the most advanced military technology is >unprecedented in modern history. It far surpasses the bombing raids of >World War II or the Vietnam War. > >The bombings have not only been directed against industrial plants, >airports, electricity and telecommunications facilities, railways, bridges >and fuel depots, they have also targeted schools, health clinics, day care >centres, government buildings, churches, museums, monasteries and >historical landmarks. > > >Infrastructure and Industry > >According to Yugoslav sources: "road and railway networks, especially road >and rail bridges, most of which were destroyed or damaged beyond repair, >suffered extensive destruction". Several thousand industrial facilities >have been destroyed or damaged with the consequence of paralysing the >production of consumer goods. According to Yugoslav sources, "[B]y totally >destroying business facilities across the country, 500,000 workers were >left jobless, and 2 million citizens without any source of income and >possibility to ensure minimum living conditions". Western estimates as to >the destruction of property in Yugoslavia stand at more than US$ 100 billion. > >Bombing of Urban and Rural Residential Areas > >Villages with no visible military or strategic structures have been bombed. >Described as "collateral damage", residential areas in all major cities. >The downtown area of Pristina (which includes apartment buildings and >private dwellings) has been destroyed. Central-downtown Belgrade -- >including government buildings-- have been hit with cluster bombs and there >are massive flames emanating from the destruction. According to the >International Center for Peace and Justice (ICPJ): > >"No city or town in Yugoslavia is being spared. There are untold civilian >casualties. The beautiful capital city of Belgrade is in flames and fumes >from a destroyed chemical plant are making it necessary to use gas masks". > >Civilian Casualties > >Both the Yugoslavia authorities and NATO have downplayed the number of >civilian casualties. The evidence amply confirms that NATO has created a >humanitarian catastrophe. The bombings are largely responsible for driving >people from their homes. The bombings have killed people regardless of >their nationality or religion. In Kosovo, civilian casualties affect all >ethnic groups. According to a report of the Decany Monastery in Kosovo >received in the first week of the bombing: > >"Last night a cruise missile hit the old town in Djakovica, mostly >inhabited by Albanians, and made a great fire in which several Albanian >houses were destroyed ... In short, NATO attacks are nothing but barbarous >aggression which affects mostly the innocent civilian population, both Serb >and Albanian. > >The Dangers of Environmental Contamination > >Refineries and warehouses storing liquid raw materials and chemicals have >been hit causing environmental contamination. The latter have massively >exposed the civilian population to the emission of poisonous gases. NATO >air strikes on the chemical industry is intent on creating an environmental >disaster, "which is something not even Adolf Hitler did during World War >II."According to the Serbian Minister for Environmental Protection >Branislav Blazic, "the aggressors were lying when they said they would hit >only military targets and would observe international conventions, because >they are using illegal weapons such as cluster bombs, attacking civilian >targets and trying to provoke an environmental disaster". A report by NBC >TV confirms that NATO has bombed a the pharmaceutical complex of Galenika, >the largest medicine factory in Yugoslavia located in the suburbs of >Belgrade. The fumes from this explosion have serious environmental >implications. "The population is asked to wear gas masks that in fact nobody > >Supply with drinking water for the inhabitants of Belgrade is also getting >difficult after the drinking water facility at Zarkovo was bombed. > >Hospitals and Schools > >NATO has targeted many hospitals and health-care institutions, which have >been partially damaged or totally destroyed. These include 13 of the >country's major hospitals. More than 150 schools (including pre-primary day >care centres) have been damaged or destroyed. According to Yugoslav >sources, more than 800,000 pupils and students do not attend schools in the >wake of the war destruction. There is almost no pre-school institutions >(nurseries and day-care centres) which are operational. > >Churches, Monasteries and Historical Landmarks > >NATO has also systematically targeted churches, monasteries, museums, >public monuments and historical landmarks. > > "The targets of the attacks on historical and cultural landmarks have >included the Gracanica monastery, dating back to the 14th century, the Pec >Patriarchate (13th century), the Rakovica monastery and the Petrovarardin >Fortress, which are testimony to the foundations of the European >civilization, are in all world encyclopedias and on the UNESCO World >Heritage list". > >The Use of Weapons banned by International Convention > >The NATO bombings have also used of weapons banned by international >conventions. Amply documented by scientific reports, the cruise missiles >utilize depleted uranium "highly toxic to humans, both chemically as a >heavy metal and radiologically as an alpha particle emitter". Since the >gulf War, depleted uranium (DU) has been a substitute for lead in bullets >and missiles. According to scientists "it is most likely a major >contributor to the Gulf War Syndrome experienced both by the veterans and >the people of Iraq". According radiobiologist Dr. Rosalie Bertell, >president of the International Institute of Concern for Public Health: > >"When used in war, the depleted uranium (DU) bursts into flame [and] >releasing a deadly radioactive aerosol of uranium, unlike anything seen >before. It can kill everyone in a tank. This ceramic aerosol is much >lighter than uranium dust. It can travel in air tens of kilometres from >the point of release, or be stirred up in dust and resuspended in air with >wind or human movement. It is very small and can be breathed in by anyone: >a baby, pregnant woman, the elderly, the sick. This radioactive ceramic >can stay deep in the lungs for years, irradiating the tissue with powerful >alpha particles within about a 30 micron sphere, causing emphysema and/or >fibrosis. The ceramic can also be swallowed and do damage to the >gastro-intestinal tract. In time, it penetrates the lung tissue and enters >into the blood stream. ...It can also initiate cancer or promote cancers >which have been initiated by other cancinogens". > >According to Paul Sullivan, executive director of the National Gulf War >Resource Center: > >"In Yugoslavia, it's expected that depleted uranium will be fired in >agricultural areas, places where livestock graze and where crops are grown, >thereby introducing the spectre of possible contamination of the food chain." > >The New York based International Action Center called the Pentagon's >decision to use the A-10 "Warthog" jets against targets in Serbia "a >danger to the people and environment of the entire Balkans". (Truth in >Media, 10 April 1999). In this regard, a report in from Greece: > >"registered an increase in levels of toxic substances in the atmosphere of >Greece, and said that Albania, Macedonia, Italy, Austria and Hungary all >face a potential threat to human health as a result of NATO's bombing of >Serbia, which includes the use of radioactive depleted uranium >shells".(April 10, 1999, see Truth in Media, 10 April 1999). > >The Plight of the Refugees > >What is not conveyed by the international media, is that people of all >ethnic origins including ethnic Albanians, Serbs and other ethnic groups >are leaving Kosovo largely as a result of the bombing. > >There are reports that ethnic Albanians have left Kosovo for Belgrade where >they have relatives. There are 100,000 ethnic Albanians in Belgrade. The >press has confirmed movements of ethnic Albanians to Montenegro. Montenegro >has been portrayed as a separate country, as a safe-haven against the >Serbs. The fact of the matter is that Montenegro is part of Yugoslavia. > > > Michel Chossudovsky > > Department of Economics, > University of Ottawa, > Ottawa, K1N6N5 > > Voice box: 1-613-562-5800, ext. 1415 > Fax: 1-514-425-6224 > E-Mail: chossudovsky@sprint.ca > > >Recent articles by Chossudovsky : > >On Kosovo: http://www.transnational.org/features/crimefinansed.html > >On the break-up of Yugoslavia: >http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/62/022.html > >On the Brazilian financial crisis: >http://wwwdb.ix.de/tp/english/special/eco/6373/1.html > >On global poverty and the financial crisis: > >http://www.transnational.org/features/chossu_worldbank.html >http://www.transnational.org/features/g7solution.html >http://www.twnside.org.sg/souths/twn/title/scam-cn.htm >http://www.interlog.com/~cjazz/chossd.htm >http://www.heise.de/tp/english/special/eco/ >http://heise.xlink.de/tp/english/special/eco/6099/1.html#anchor1 > From cjayanta at hotmail.com Wed Apr 14 15:49:41 1999 From: cjayanta at hotmail.com (Jayanta Chowdhury) Date: Tue, 13 Apr 1999 23:49:41 PDT Subject: [asia-apec 1075] Mail Message-ID: <19990414064943.42345.qmail@hotmail.com> Dear friends, I am writing to seek your help in the filling of a vacancy in the ECPAT International Secretariat in Bangkok. We are seeking a person to fill the position of Resource Center Officer. The role of this position is to contribute to the dissemination of information by ECPAT particularly by updating and developing the Information Resource Center located within ECPAT International Secretariat in Bangkok. Candidates should either be qualified in librarianship or have previous experience in maintaining a library or an information resource center, be able to analyse information received and organise large amounts of material efficiently, have a knowledge of relevant data base programs and have a good command of written and spoken English. Applicants should send a copy of their Curriculum Vitae, with a covering letter by 30 April 1999. Interviews will be held in May and the successful applicant should preferably be available to commence in July. I would request that you circulate this notice to anyone who you think would be suitable and interested in the position, include it in any relevant publications you produce or display it in a prominent place in your organisation. If you have any further questions about the position please contact Chitraporn Vanaspong, our Information Officer. Yours sincerely, Muireann O Briain Executive Director ECPAT International ----------------------- POSITION VACANT RESOURCE CENTER OFFICER ECPAT International is a global network of organisations working to end child prostitution, child pornography and the trafficking of children for sexual purposes. One of the major tasks at the International Secretariat in Bangkok is to contribute to the dissemination of information by ECPAT particularly by updating and developing the Information Resource Center. This will allow for easier searches for information by ECPAT national groups and public. Working from the International Secretariat in Bangkok, the role of this position is to: 1. Develop and maintain the Information Resource Center. This includes: - Defining the purpose for the Resource Center - Establishing an acquisition policy - Cataloguing the existing collection of materials - Developing a user-system suitable for a small resource center - Circulating information on materials received to staff in the Bangkok office, Executive Committee members and ECPAT network. 2. Develop and maintain a computerised database for the storage and retrieval of information resources on the commercial sexual exploitation of children. 3. Assist in responding to information inquiries and the development of materials on ECPAT activities. Qualified candidates should have - Qualifications in librarianship and/or - Extensive experience in maintaining a library or an information resource center - Ability to analyse information received and organise large amounts of material efficiently. - Knowledge of a data base program such as ISIS. Other computer application skills such as Microsoft Word, Lotus Notes and Access would be an advantage. - Good command of written and spoken in English - Ability to communicate in Spanish or French would be an advantage Salary will be with in the range of 41,600-52,000 baht (this is equivalent to 1,120-1,400 US$ at the current exchange rate) per month plus accommodation and other benefits and an allowance for relocation if required. Interested persons are invited to send in application, with resume, including contact telephone number to: ECPAT International 328 Phayathai Road, Bangkok 10400, Thailand Tel: (662) 215-3388, 611-0972 Fax: (662) 215-8272 Email: ecpatbkk@ksc15.th.com. If you have any further questions about the position please contact Chitraporn Vanaspong, our Information Officer. Closing date for application is 30 April 1999. Interview will be held in May. The successful applicant should preferably be available to commence in July. ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com From kevin.li at graduate.hku.hk Wed Apr 14 22:41:20 1999 From: kevin.li at graduate.hku.hk (Li Yuk Shing Kevin) Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 21:41:20 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1076] Focus on Trade #34, Part 1 of 2 Message-ID: <37149B00.CACE29C4@graduate.hku.hk> -------- Original Message -------- Subject: Focus on Trade #34, Part 1 of 2 Date: Wed, 14 Apr 1999 15:12:49 +0700 From: "Administration" Organization: Focus on the Global South FOCUS ON TRADE Number 34, April 1999 Part 1 of 2 Focus-on-Trade is a regular electronic bulletin providing updates and analysis on regional and global trade and finance. Although initially concerned with APEC, the scope of the bulletin now extends to include the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA), the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and any other acronyms that require critical attention. Focus-on-Trade contains updates on trends in world trade, with an emphasis on analysis of these trends from an integrative, interdisciplinary viewpoint that is sensitive not only to economic issues, but also to ecological, political, gender and social issues related to developments in world trade. Your contributions and comments are welcome. Please contact us c/o CUSRI, Wisit Prachuabmoh Building, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok 10330 Thailand. Tel: (66 2) 218 7363/7364/7365, Fax: (66 2) 255 9976, E-Mail: admin@focusweb.org, Website: http://focusweb.org Focus on the Global South is an autonomous programme of policy research and action of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute (CUSRI) based in Bangkok. ***************************************************** CONFERENCE CALLES FOR RADICAL REFORM OF INTERNATIONAL FINANCE ON March 23, more than 320 people from 40 countries converged in Bangkok for the international conference 'Economic Sovereignty in a Globalising World: Creating People Centred Economics for the 21st Century.' The conference, organised by Focus on the Global South, and co- sponsored by DAWN and SAPRIN, was a benchmark meeting, bringing together activists and academics working on everything from debt, financial regulation, trade policy, investment agreements and institutional reform to local currencies and community banks, regional alternatives for trade and investment, food security, speculation taxes and foreign direct investment. The depth and breadth of participation brought new dimensions to the debate about global financial architecture -- especially from the 'South' and development perspective - inspiring new possibilities for alliance building and international action. Strong consensus was clear on several key issues: immediate and radical reform of the IMF, debt cancellation and abolition of HIPC, no new round of the WTO, and total opposition to any variation of the Multilateral Agreement on investment. In addition, the rights and responsibilities of national governments to set economic policies determined through domestic democratic processes was upheld. The urgent need to quell the power and volatility of finance was repeated throughout the conference as was the importance of supporting a job- creating, equitable and environmentally sustainable real economy. Many participants commented that the IMF stands as one of the main obstacles to reform of the international economic system. In the lead up to the IMF and World Bank Annual Meetings, Focus on the Global South will work with other organisations and networks to launch a campaign for immediate and radical reform of the Fund. In the next months, there will be a number of follow-up activities and projects. As a start Focus has created a list-serve for all conference participants to share ideas and information and posted all conference papers to the Focus website (http://focusweb.org). Reports of the four working groups - market reform, institutional reform, national policies and people-centred alternatives - will be posted by the end of the month. In addition, Focus is preparing an edited selection of conference papers for publication. THIS ISSUE of Focus on Trade includes the conference's final press communique which reflects the overwhelming mood of the meeting, one of the keynote speeches and an interview with Hazel Henderson and Walden Bello which appeared in Thailand's leading English daily paper The Bangkok Post following the conference. As preparations for the end of year WTO ministerial are building hundreds of organisations are mounting a all-out offensive opposing a new round of the WTO. In this issues, we have included Tomoko Sakuma's report on the unprecedented meeting between Japanese government officials and civil society groups to discuss trade and the final last article is Aileen Kwa's clear and incisive analysis of why the WTO is not good for developing countries. ***************************************************** NEW RELEASE: THE SIAMESE TRAGEDY Walden Bello's major book on development in Thailand 'The Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand' is now available. In The Siamese Tragedy, Walden Bello and co-authors Shea Cunningham and Li Kheng Poh, argue that, even before the collapse, the Thai economy had feet of clay and that vested interests, both local and international, propelled the Thailand down a path which is economically, socially and environmentally unsustainable. If you would like a copy contact: Food First in the US, 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA, 94618; Zed Books for the UK and Europe, 7 Cynthia Street, London, N1 9JF; White Lotus for Thailand and Asia at GPO Box 1141, Bangkok, Thailand 10501. A Thai language edition is also available. ***************************************************** IN THIS ISSUE IMF chief must resign, conference demands Architectural blueprints, development models, and political strategies by Walden Bello A meeting of minds: interview with Hazel Henderson and Walden Bello by Sanitsuda Ekachai and Atiya Achakulwisut Japanese officials try to woo civil society reps by Tomoko Sakuma The WTO and Developing Countries: Will Vietnam Benefit from Being a WTO Member? by Aileen Kwa ***************************************************** IMF chief must resign BANGKOK, 26 March: The resignation of the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Michel Camdessus, is just one of the demands issued today by the growing "people's movement" for international financial reform. Over 300 activists, parliamentarians, economists and academics from throughout the world have spent the past three days in Bangkok, drawing up concrete steps to change the current system, which favours the rich, at the expense of the poor. The overwhelming majority of the participants at the "Economic Sovereignty in a Globalising World" Conference say Michel Camdessus must take responsibility for the failures of the institution. In a final communique, participants demanded that Camdessus and all senior IMF staff immediately resign, and that Camdessus' successor be elected through a democratic process. The participants also demanded debt cancellation for all countries and an end to linkages between structural adjustment and "debt relief" (HIPC).. The Fund must also cease all efforts to push capital account liberalisation. The conference also called for the establishment of regional stabilisation funds that would act in the interests of peoples throughout the world. The conference supports the right of countries to impose capital controls in the interests of economic sovereignty and the betterment of their citizens. The conference has also called for a two year review of the World Trade Organisation's (WTO) impact on jobs, the environment, human rights and the poor, and there should be no new negotiations until this review is completed. The conference participants strongly opposed and denounced efforts to bring the Multilateral Agreement on Investment into the WTO. The increasing power of civil society to effect change was noted by Carlos Fortin, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), when he warned that 'people power' should not be underestimated. "Sustained campaigning by NGOs led to the abandonment of the controversial Multilateral Agreement on Investment. These groups were also instrumental in the creation of the international convention banning landmines. They can also play an important role in reforming global financial systems," said Mr Fortin. Participants lent their support to various expressions of ressistance and denounced corporate economic globalisation led by the United States and the G7. "We strongly believe our fate cannot be left in the hands of the G7 and that creating a just international financial system cannot succeed unless this is undertaken within the framework of democratic participation by citizens and social movements," stated participants. Dr Walden Bello, Co-director of Focus on the Global South - the organisation hosting the event - says the conference has succeeded in generating a global movement aimed at reforming the current global economic system. "This conference has been a tremendous success in bringing together so many sectors of society from all over the world. We are seeing the emergence of a coordinated and organised global movement against speculative capital and the IMF," he says. "We shall work towards a world not of globalisation but of true internationalism based on mutual respect and democratic interaction between free and diverse peoples." ***************************************************** Architectural blueprints, development models, and political strategies by Walden Bello* Today, the world media are awash with talk about reform of the global financial architecture. However, the published reports focus mainly on discussions taking place within the Group of Seven or the larger Group of 22, particularly on the debate between the finance authorities of the United States and those of Europe and Japan. Sometimes, there are some reports that come out on proposals from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) or from some government in the South. But little weight is attached to the latter by media commentators, even when substantively these views merit consideration. Of course, if one is a Jeffrey Sachs or a Paul Krugman, of course, one's views are given some currency. If you are not a neoclassical economist, forget it. And if you come from the world of NGO's, your views don't count at all. This is, of course, interesting because when it comes to global trade, US Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky, and WTO Director General Renato Ruggiero are talking about consulting civil society and about actively and democratically involving all of us in the globalization process. But when it comes to the world of high finance, these are matters of allegedly great complexity that are best left to the experts and the managers of the world economy like Alan Greenspan, Robert Rubin, and Larry Summers, whom Time has anointed as 'The Committee to Save the World." Or to the much-broader Group of 22 countries handpicked by the US, whose three reports released in October 1998 have been anointed as "the international community's definitive statement on reforming the international architecture…"(1) Why Are We Here? The overriding purpose of this conference is to get the rest of us to crash this exclusive party talking about the financial order of the world. We need to do this for several reasons. First, because those who are actively debating this issue are, for the most part, still arguing within a paradigm of neoliberal economics that has been central to generating this crisis. Second, because devising a global financial order is not simply a matter of technical economics but one that must be informed by values, and the main values and priorities of those who are managing this process are different from those of you and me. Third, because this process is, first and foremost, a question of power, and unless we do out best to gatecrash this gathering, what will emerge will simply be a global architecture that will benefit a very small global elite and continue to marginalise the vast majority of the world's peoples. Considerations on Finance Capital Before discussing strategies being proposed for global financial reform, let me advance some propositions. First of all, I think we need to put to rest once and for all the idea that the Asian crisis is not a product of "crony capitalism." What brought about the crash of 1997 was not crony capitalism but "casino capitalism." Even at the height of the Asian financial collapse in September of that year, Stanley Fischer, the American deputy managing director of the IMF, was blaming the crisis on the fact that "markets are not always right. Sometimes inflows are excessive, and sometimes they may be sustained too long. Markets tend to act fast, sometimes excessively."(2) And even the Economist, one of the premier organs of market fundamentalism, had to admit that "the economic pain being imposed [by global capital markets] on the ex- tigers is out of all proportion to the policy errors of their governments."(3) The Fund and the US Treasury, of course, continue to uphold the rightness of their obsession with "reforming" domestic economic and financial arrangements, but the credibility of this approach is eroded daily by the spectacular fashion that IMF straitjackets are suffocating economies in Thailand, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Second, finance has been the cutting edge of the globalization process. The integration of commodity markets via free trade and that of production systems via TNC subsidiarization have proceeded apace, but both processes have been outstripped by the integration of global capital markets under the aegis of London and Wall Street. Third, finance, which was liberated from the confines of the Keynesian state by the Thatcherite and Reaganite ideological revolution, has steadily gained "ascendancy over industry" and other sectors of the economy, to borrow the prescient characterisation of the 1991 UNCTAD Trade and Development Report.(4) This pre-eminence of the financial sector is related to the crisis of dwindling growth or deflation that deflation which has increasingly overtaken the real sectors of the global economy. This crisis has its roots in overcapacity or under-consumption, which today marks global industries from automobile to energy to capital goods.(5) Diminishing, if not vanishing, returns in industry has led to capital being shifted from the real economy to squeezing "value" out of already created value in the financial sector. The result is essentially a game of "global arbitrage," where capital moves from one capital market to another, seeking to turn profits from the exploitation of the imperfections of globalised markets by taking advantage of interest-rate differentials, targeting gaps between nominal currency values and "real" currency values, and short-selling in stocks, that is, borrowing shares to artificially inflate share values then selling. Not surprisingly, volatility, being central to global finance, has become as well the driving force of the global capitalist system as a whole. Third, since differences in exchange rates, interest rates, and stock prices are much less among the more integrated Northern markets, movements of capital have been much more volatile between the capital markets of the North than the so-called "Big Emerging Markets" of the South and Asia. Thus while crises are endemic to the finance-driven global capitalist system, the crises of the last few years have been concentrated in the emerging markets.(6) Since late 1994, we have had Mexican financial crisis, the "Tequila Effect" of this crisis in Latin America, the Asian crash, the Russian collapse, the unravelling of the Brazilian real, and the spinoff of the Brazilian crisis on the rest of Latin America. Fourth, despite the global financial system's proneness to crises, finance capital operates, as Robert Kroszner describes it, "in a realm close to anarchy."(7) That deregulation at the national level has not been replaced by reregulation at the international level is because finance capital has accumulated tremendous political power over the last two decades. While finance capital was liberated from the straitjacket of the Keynesian economy by the Republican administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush, it has been under the Democratic administration of Bill Clinton that financial interests became paramount in the foreign economic policy of the US government. Represented in the inner sanctum of Washington by Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, a former arbitrage artist, and Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, a former Street consultant, the so-called Wall Street-Treasury Complex stands foursquare against any serious financial regulation. The power of this lobby stems partly from the strength of the interests it represents, but even more from its ideology of market freedom, which it markets as applying not only to trade in goods but also to the mobility of capital. Fifth, the crisis of the developing countries of the South is not simply one of exposure to unregulated financial flows-one can easily be fixed with capital controls at both the global and national level. The financial deregulation of their economies that has proven so devastating is simply the latest phase of a development model that they have internalised over the last two decades under the aegis of IMF-World Bank structural adjustment programs-one that makes foreign markets and foreign capital the twin engines of development. In other words, the Mexican Crisis on 1995, the Asian Collapse of 1997, and the Latin American unravelling of 1999 were events waiting to happen to economies where liberalization of trade and investment had become equated development, and where import substitution, trade policy, and industrial policy had been vilified as anti-development. The Three Schools of Global Financial Reform There are now a thousand and one proposals for world financial reform, ranging from proposals for preemptive crisis mechanisms to reform of the International Monetary Fund to establishment of a "World Financial Authority."(8) Rather than take them up one by one in technical fashion, let me instead go into the heart of the matter, power and interests, and group the most important proposals into three different strategies. I will call the first the "It's the wiring, not the architecture" approach. The second might be termed the "Back to Bretton Woods" school. And we might christen the third strategy as the "Change the development model" strategy." "It's the Wiring, not the Architecture"(9) One might say that this is basically the US position-though it is shared to some degree by many of the G-7 members, with probably the notable exception of Japan. This school assigns primacy to "reforming" the financial sectors of the crisis economies along the lines of more transparency, tougher bankruptcy laws to eliminate moral hazard, prudential regulation using the "Core Principles" drafted by the Basle Committee on Banking Supervision, and greater inflow of foreign capital not only to recapitalize shattered banks but also to "stabilise" the local financial system by making foreign interests integral to it. When it comes to the supply-side actors in the North, this perspective is to leave them to voluntarily comply with the Basle Principles, though government intervention might be needed periodically to catch freefalling casino players whose collapse might bring down the whole global financial structure, as was the case last year when the US Federal Reserve had to organise a rescue of the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management after the latter was unravelled by Russia's financial crisis. the Russian crisis unravelled the hedge fund Long Term Capital Management.(10) The farthest the Group of Seven has gone in terms of dealing with the controversial hedge fund question was to issue a declaration in October 1998 commenting on the need to examine "the implications arising from the operations of leveraged international financial organizations including hedge funds and offshore institutions" and "to encourage off-shore centers to comply with internationally agreed standards."(11) Finally, when it comes to the existing multilateral structure, this view supports the expansion of the powers of the IMF, proposing not only greater funding but also new credit lines, such as the "precautionary credit line" that would be made available to countries that are about to be subjected to speculative attack. Access to these funds would, however, be dependent on a country's track record in terms of observing good macroeconomic fundamentals, as defined traditionally by the Fund. While much has been made of the conflict between the US and the other members of the G-7 countries in the world press, in fact, the articulated differences appear to be marginal. France and Germany (at least before the resignation of Oskar Lafontaine), with some support from Japan, have proposed the establishment of "target zones" that would reduce the fluctuations among the yen, dollar, and euro. There are no virtually no suggestions from the European Union on controlling capital flows on the supply side. Japan has made additional proposals on the IMF, but these are variants of the position of either the US government or some US think-tanks: more IMF monitoring of hedge funds, getting the IMF to push private creditors and investors to participate in a rescue program instead of bailing them out, and providing a "certified" line of credit to countries that follow good economic policies which are under speculative attack, something similar to Clinton's precautionary credit line.(12) "Back to the Bretton Woods System" The second school of thought would put tougher controls at the global level, in the form the Tobin Tax or variants of it.(13) The Tobin tax is transactions tax on capital inflows and outflows at all key points of the world economy that would "throw sand in the wheels" of global capital movements. Controls at the international level may be supplemented by national-level controls on capital inflows or outflows. A model of such a measure is the Chilean inflow measure that requires portfolio investors to deposit up to 30 per cent in an interest-free account at the Central Bank for a year, which has been said to be successful in discouraging massive capital portfolio inflows. For some people, there is an ill-concealed admiration for Prime Minister Mohamad Mahathir's tough set of outflow measures, which included the fixing of the exchange rate, the withdrawal of the local currency from international circulation, and a one-year lock-in period for capital already in the country.(14) In addition to controls at the national and international level, regional controls are also seen by proponents of this view as desirable and feasible. The Asian Monetary Fund is regarded as an attractive, workable proposal that must be revived. The AMF was proposed by Japan at the height of the Asian financial crisis to serve as a pool of the foreign exchange reserves of the reserve-rich Asian countries that would repel speculative attacks on Asian currencies. It was, not surprisingly, vetoed by Washington. The thrust of these international, national, and regional controls is partly to prevent destabilising waves of capital entry and exit and to move investment inflow from short-term portfolio investment and short-term loans to long-term direct investment and long-term loans. For some, capital controls are not simply stabilising measures but are, like tariffs and quotas, strategic tools that may justifiably be employed to influence a country's degree and mode of integration into the global economy. In other words, capital and trade controls are legitimate instruments for the pursuit of trade and industrial policies aimed at national industrial development. When it comes to the World Bank, the IMF, and the WTO, the thrust of this school is to reform these institutions along the lines of greater accountability, less doctrinal push for free trade and capital account liberalization, and greater voting power for developing countries. Like the G-7, advocates of this approach view the IMF as a mechanism to infuse greater liquidity into economies in crisis, but unlike the G-7, they would have the Fund do this without the tight conditionalities that now accompany its emergency lending. Some people in this school accompany their proposals to reform the Bank and the Fund with a recommendation to establish a "World Financial Authority," whose main task, in one formulation, would be to develop and impose regulations on global capital flows and serve as "a forum within which the rules of international financial cooperation are developed and implemented…by effective coordination of the activities of national monetary authorities."(15) In other words, the Fund, World Bank, and WTO continue to be seen as central institutions of a world regulatory regime, but they must be made to move away from imposing one common model of trade and investment on all countries. Instead, they must provide a framework for more discriminate global integration, that would allow greater trade and investment flows but also allow some space for national differences in the organisation of capitalism. In the vision of Dani Rodrik, the current chief economic adviser to the G-22, a grouping of developing countries. the ideal multilateral system appears to be substantially a throwback to the original Bretton Woods system devised by Keynes that reigned from 1945 to the mid-seventies, where "rules left enough space for national development efforts to proceed along successful but divergent paths."(16) In other words, a "regime of peaceful coexistence among national capitalisms."(17) Not surprisingly, this perspective has resonated well with economists and technocrats from developing countries, the devastated Asian economies, and the UN system-which is said to the refuge of Keynesians who fled the neoliberal revolution at the World Bank and academic institutions. "Change the Development Model" Those that we classify as belonging to this school regard the IMF and WTO, in particular, as Jurassic institutions that would be impossible to reform both owing to both their deep neoliberal indoctrination and the hegemonic influence within them of the United States. The world would be better off without them since they serve merely to order the global system in favour of the North. The same scepticism marks their view on the possibility of imposing global capital controls or prudential regulations on hedge funds and other big casino players, again because of the strength of neoliberal ideology and financial interests. National capital controls are seen as much more promising, and the experiences of China and India in avoiding the financial crisis, of Chile in regulating capital flows, and Malaysia in stabilising its economy have convinced proponents of this view that this is the way to go. Like the "global Keynesians," this school would also see regional arrangements such as the Asian Monetary Fund as feasible and workable. Where the proponents of this view differ from the global Keynesians is that their advocacy of capital controls is accompanied by more fundamental and thorough critique of the process of globalization that goes beyond its blasting away legitimate differences among national capitalisms. Buffering an economy from the volatility of speculative capital is an important rationale for capital controls, but even more critical is the consideration that such measures would be a sine qua non for a fundamental reorientation of an economy toward a more inner-directed pattern of growth that would entail, in many ways, a reversal, though limited of the globalisation process. The main problem, from this viewpoint, is not the volatility of speculative capital, but the problem lies in the way that the export sector and foreign capital have been institutionalised as the engines of these economies. The problem is the indiscriminate integration into the global economy and the over-reliance on foreign investment, whether direct investment or portfolio investment, for development. Thus while the current crisis is wreaking havoc on peoples' lives throughout the South, it also gives us the best opportunity in years to fundamentally revise our model and strategy of development. Changing the Development Model What are some of the priorities of this alternative model of development? What makes it different not only from the neoliberal model but also from the national capitalisms stoutly defended by Dani Rodrik? Comprehensive, integrated formulations are few and far between in our region today, but the following ideas, proposals, or visions are being actively discussed throughout East Asia today: While foreign investment of the right kind is important, growth must be financed principally from domestic savings and investment. This means good, progressive taxation systems. One of the key reasons for the reliance on foreign credit and foreign investment was the elites of East Asia did not want to tax themselves to produce the needed investment capital to pursue their fast-track development strategies. Even in the depths of today's crisis, conspicuous consumption continues to mark the behaviour of Asia's elites, who also send so much of their wealth abroad to safe havens in Geneva, Tokyo, or New York. Regressive taxation systems are the norm in the region, where income taxpayers are but a handful and indirect taxes that cut into the resources of lower-income groups are the principal source of government expenditures. While export markets are important, they are too volatile to serve as reliable engines of growth. Development must be reoriented around the domestic market as the principal locomotive of growth. Together with the pitfalls of excessive reliance on foreign capital, the lessons of the crisis include the tremendous dependence of the region's economies on export markets. This has led to extreme vulnerability to the vagaries of the global market and sparked the current self-defeating race to "export one's way out of the crisis" through competitive devaluation of the currency. This move is but the latest and most desperate manifestation of the panacea of export-oriented development. Making the domestic market the engine of development, to use a distinctly unfashionable but unavoidable term, brings up the linkage between sustained growth and equity, for a "Keynesian" strategy of enlarging the local market to stimulate growth means increasing effective demand or bringing more consumers (hopefully discriminating ones, that is) into the market via a comprehensive program of asset and income distribution, including land reform. There is in this, of course, the unfinished social justice agenda of the progressive movement in Asia-an agenda that has been marginalised by the regnant ideology of growth during the "miracle years." Vast numbers of people remain marginalised because of grinding poverty, particularly in the countryside. Land and asset reform would simultaneously bring them into the market, empower them economically and politically, and create the conditions for social and political stability. Achieving economic sustainability based on a dynamic domestic market can no longer be divorced from issues of equity. Regionalism can become an invaluable adjunct to such a process of domestic market-driven growth, but only if both processes are guided not by a perspective of neo-liberal integration that will only serve to swamp the region's industries and agriculture by so-called "more efficient" third party producers, but by a vision of regional import-substitution and protected market-integration that gives the region's producers the first opportunity to serving the region's consumers. While there are other elements in the alternative development thinking taking place in the region, one universal theme is "sustainable development." The centrality of ecological sustainability is said to be one of the hard lessons of the crisis. For the model of foreign-capital fuelled high-speed growth for foreign markets is leaving behind little that is of positive value. In the case of Thailand, at least, it is hard to dispute this contention. As many of you visiting this once lovely city can testify, 12 years of fast-track capitalism is leaving behind few traces except industrial plant that will be antiquated in a few years, hundreds of unoccupied high-rises, a horrendous traffic problem that is only slightly mitigated by the repossession of thousands of late-model cars from bankrupt owners, a rapid rundown of the country's natural capital and an environment that has been irreversibly, if not mortally, impaired, to the detriment of future generations. In place of 8-10 per cent growth rates, many environmentalists are now talking of rates of three to four per cent or even lower. This links the social agenda with the environmental agenda, for one reason for the push for high growth rates was so that the elites could corner a significant part of the growth while still allowing some growth to trickle down to the lower classes for the sake of social peace. The alternative-redistribution of social wealth-is clearly less acceptable to the ruling groups, but it is the key to a pattern of development that will eventually combine economic growth, political stability, and ecological sustainability. These and similar ideas are already being discussed actively throughout the region. What is still unclear, though, is how these elements will hang together. The new political economy may be embedded in religious or secular discourse and language. And its coherence is likely to rest less on considerations of narrow efficiency than on a stated ethical priority given to community solidarity and security. Moreover, the new economic order is unlikely to be imposed from above in Keynesian technocratic style, but is likely to be forged in social and political struggles. This fire down below is likely to upset the best laid plans of the tiny elite that are trying to salvage an increasingly unstable free-market order by tinkering at the margins of the global financial order and calling it reform. * This paper was prepared for the Conference on "Economic Sovereignty in a Globalised World," Bangkok, March 23-26, 1999. Walden Bello, PhD, is professor of sociology and public administration at the University of the Philippines and co-director of Focus on the Global South, a research, analysis, and advocacy program of the Chulalongkorn University Social Research Institute in Bangkok. He is the author or co-author of ten books, including the recently published A Siamese Tragedy: Development and Disintegration in Modern Thailand (London: Zed Press, 1998). (1) Barry Eichengreen, Toward a New Financial Architecture (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1999), p. 131. (2) Stanley Fischer, "Capital Account Liberalization and the Role of the IMF," Paper presented at the "Asia and the IMF Seminar," Hong Kong, Sept. 19, 1997. (3) Economist (4) Quoted in UNCTAD, Trade and Development Report 1998 (Geneva: UNCTAD, 1998), p. i. (5) See, for instance, "Barbarians at Bavarians' Gates," Economist, Feb. 13, 1999, p. 22. (6) Stanley Fischer, "On the Need for an International Lender of Last Resort," Speech delivered at the joint luncheon of the American Economic Association and the American Finance Association, New York, January 3, 1999. (7) Randall Kroszner, "The Market as International Regulator," in Mastering Finance, p. 399. (8) A list of the more significant proposals are found in Barry Eichengreen,Toward a New Financial Architecture (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, 1999). (9) Among the documents that broadly share this view are the following: Group of 22, "Reports on the International Financial Architecture, Working Groups on Transparency and Accountability, Strengthening the Financial System, and International Financial Crises, Oct. 1998; Morris Goldstein, The Asian Financial Crises: Causes, Cures, and Systemic Implications (Washington: Institute for International Economics, 1998); Robert Rubin, "Strengthening the Architecture of the International Financial System," Speech at the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC, April 14, 1998 (downloaded from Internet); Stanley Fischer, "On the Need for an International Lender of Last Resort," Paper prepared for the joint luncheon of the American Economic Association and the American Finance Association, New York, January 3, 1999; and Barry Eichengreen, Toward a New International Financial Archictecture (Washington, DC: Institute for International Economics, Feb. 1999). (10) Federal Reserve Chairman explicitly opposed regulation of hedge funds during hearings at the US Congress in October 1998, when the LTCM fiasco occurred. See David Ignatius, "Policing Hedge Funds: Who's in Charge Here?," International Herald Tribune, Feb. 22, 1999., p. 6. (11) Quoted in "Towards a New Financial Architecture: A Report of the Task Force of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations," United Nations, New York, January 21, 1999. (12) As summarized by David de Rosa, 'Miyazawa's Big Ideas on How to Run the IMF," Bloomberg News column, reproduced in Manila Times, March 3, 1999, B13. (13) Among the documents that might be said to broadly belong to this viewpoint are the following: Task Force of the Executive Committee on Economic and Social Affairs, United Nations, "Towards a New International Financial Architecture; UNCTAD, "The Management and Prevention of Financial Crises," Trade and Development Report 1998 (Geneva: United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 1998), pp. 83-110; Dani Rodrik, "The Global Fix," New Republic, Nov. 2, 1998 (downloaded from Internet); John Eatwell and Lance Taylor, , "International Capital Markets and the Future of Economic Policy," CEPA Working Paper, No. 9, Center for Economic Policy Analysis (CEPA), New School for Social Research, Sept. 1998; Roy Culpeper, , "New Economic Architecture: Getting the Right Specs," Remarks at the Conference on "The Asian Crisis and Beyond: Prospects for the 21st Century, Carleton University, Ottawa, January 29, 1999. (14) See, for instance, Roy Culpeper. (15) John Eatwell and Lance Taylor, p. 14. (16) Dani Rodrik. (17)Ibid. End Focus on Trade #34, part 1 of 2 Focus on the Global South (FOCUS) c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok 10330 THAILAND Tel: 662 218 7363/7364/7365 Fax: 662 255 9976 E-mail: admin@focusweb.org Web Page http://www.focusweb.org From rverzola at phil.gn.apc.org Fri Apr 16 18:20:53 1999 From: rverzola at phil.gn.apc.org (Roberto Verzola) Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 18:20:53 Subject: [asia-apec 1077] Re: Philippine env and devt petition Message-ID: <199904161025.SAA15760@phil.gn.apc.org> I'd like to thank all those on the Asia-APEC list who sent in their signatures to our statement. Roberto Verzola Philippine Greens >A Letter to President Joseph Estrada and the Filipino people: > > PROTECT OUR COMMUNITIES, HEAL THE EARTH! > > > On the occasion of the last Earth Day of this millennium on April >22, 1999, we the undersigned declare our deepest concern about the >destruction of our communities and our environment. Under the guise of >"utilization of natural resources," "industrialization," and >"globalization," such destruction has gone from bad to worse under >previous administrations. It continues unabated under your >administration, Mr. President. ..... From rreid at actrix.gen.nz Mon Apr 19 19:00:23 1999 From: rreid at actrix.gen.nz (Robert Reid) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 22:00:23 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1078] NO-TO-APEC IN CHRISTCHURCH Message-ID: <199904191003.WAA29596@mail.actrix.gen.nz> AOTEAROA / NEW ZEALAND APEC MONITORING GROUP P O Box 1905 CHRISTCHURCH TEL: (03) 366 2803 Fax: (03) 366 8035 MEDIA BRIEFING (3 pages) 19/04/1999 Alternatives to the APEC Agenda: Development, Foreign Investment & Sovereignty Programme Of Activities The Aotearoa/New Zealand APEC Monitoring Group, GATT Watchdog, Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa (CAFCA), and Christchurch Corso have organised a programme of activities in Christchurch in opposition to the APEC Meetings which take place from 26 April - 7 May. All 4 organisations have been actively monitoring and campaigning on free trade and investment issues locally, nationally and internationally for many years. The April/May activities in Christchurch are part of a year-long education and action programme co-ordinated by the APEC Monitoring Group to expose and oppose APEC's narrow economic agenda and its consequences, to make the connections between APEC and domestic free market policies, and build public debate on alternatives to this model of development. Other events are planned for Wellington (June), Auckland (June), Rotorua (August), culminating in a two-day conference in Auckland at the time of the September Leaders Summit. Alternatives to the APEC Agenda starts on Friday 23 April at 7.30 pm with a public meeting addressed by Annette Sykes, Ngati Pikiao lawyer, Treaty activist, Dr David Small, Corso National Officer and University of Canterbury lecturer, and Murray Horton of CAFCA and GATT Watchdog. The forum on 24 April will focus on the impact of, and alternatives to, APEC's free trade and investment agenda on economic and social development, and on sovereignty. The issue of foreign investment will be especially examined as the New Zealand government is deliberately playing down APEC's role in pressuring governments to adopt free investment policies. Confirmed Speakers An Overview of APEC Aziz Choudry, GATT Watchdog, APEC Monitoring Group Development and the Market Model Dr David Small, Corso National Officer, University of Canterbury lecturer Radha D'souza, Indian human rights lawyer, unionist, Asia Pacific Workers Solidarity Links Foreign Investment Dr Bill Rosenberg (CAFCA researcher, author of "Foreign Investment in New Zealand, the Current Position" in Dr Peter Enderwick's "Foreign Investment: The New Zealand Experience", 1998) Murray Horton (CAFCA organiser) Sovereignty under threat?Annette Sykes, Ngati Pikiao lawyer, Treaty activist APEC 1999 - It's Not Worth It! Ten Good Reasons Why 1) APEC is not just about free trade - it promotes a package of reforms including investment provisions which strongly parallel those in the controversial Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) which stalled within the OECD last October after massive international opposition. APEC is only one part of moves to promote a global free market on the world, along with the World Trade Organisation which is due to start another round of global trade talks later this year, and agencies like the World Bank, IMF, and ADB. APEC promotes deregulation, privatisation of state assets, utilities and services, market-driven service sectors including social services like education, privately-funded and owned infrastructure, low-cost, deunionised, flexible labour markets. These policies have the potential to affect every aspect of people's lives. While the interests of business are paramount in APEC discussions, it treats people and the environment as mere commodities, tools for private profit. This model has already led to increased inequality as countries are forced to compete in a race to the bottom to lower wages, working conditions, environmental safeguards and other "barriers" to free trade and investment.2) APEC is an anti-democratic process. It operates through a cycle of closed meetings and secretive discussions. Only a privileged few have access to these. Most of the real negotiations of APEC take place at the Senior Officials Meetings (SOMs) such as the one in Christchurch later this month. The Auckland Leaders Summit is primarily a made for media showpiece - it is the lower-profile meetings where APEC's real work takes place. 3) APEC lacks any clear political legitimacy. Describing itself as a community of "economies" rather than countries, APEC insulates discussions about trade and economic policies from their social, political, cultural, and environmental effects. Issues like poverty, employment, environmental degradation, human rights, and indigenous peoples' rights to self-determination are off the APEC agenda unless they can be redefined in "trade-related" terms. When Jenny Shipley goes to APEC meetings she goes as the leader of the New Zealand economy, not the Prime Minister. Much of APEC's work programme is set by private sector free marketeers, academics, and government officials "acting in their private capacity" - and accountable to no-one. The government is not required to disclose, objectively evaluate or debate in Parliament its policy and commitments in relation to APEC. There has been no genuine consultation with Maori about the substance of APEC negotiations. The only moves to involve Maori and non-governmental organisations in APEC are entirely cosmetic and an attempt to limit debate about the issues arising from APEC and co-opt potential or actual critics. 4) APEC's official slogan is "APEC means business". As US Undersecretary for Economic, Business and Agricultural Affairs, Joan Spero told US Congress in 1995: "APEC is not for governments; it is for business. Through APEC, we aim to get governments out of the way, opening the way for business to do business." With strong representation on the formal institutional voice of business within APEC, the APEC Business Advisory Council (chaired by Philip Burdon in 1999), big business exerts a strong influence on APEC's programme. Many of APEC's key working groups are dominated by representatives of major transnational corporations. By contrast, the Small and Medium Enterprises programme is almost an afterthought within the APEC agenda - and the New Zealand government's attempts to portray a commitment to advancing the interest of small businesses through APEC are a highly cynical political stunt. The policies adopted by New Zealand governments in the name of free trade have led to a hollowing out of the local economy with thousands of small businesses forced to go under, unable to compete with the power and reach of bigger, global corporations that are being given greater license to operate wherever and however they wish. 5) In Canterbury, and throughout New Zealand, tariff cuts have cost thousands of jobs in the manufacturing sector especially in the sensitive auto, textile, clothing and footwear industries. Even though APEC is a non-binding, voluntary process, the government is using its commitments to APEC to justify further unilateral trade liberalisation. Free trade policies have been pursued vigorously by New Zealand, but most of our major trading partners continue to protect their industries and agricultural producers with tariffs and other forms of support. A May 1998 Canterbury Development Corporation report on the effects of further tariff cuts to the textile, clothing and footwear sectors estimated a further 1330 job losses and some $32 million in lost wages in Christchurch alone. 6) The government is spending $50 million dollars on APEC 1999. For what? APEC, and the Leaders Summit in particular are a taxpayer-funded pre-election photo opportunity for the National Party, and a celebration of an economic agenda which has failed the peoples of New Zealand and the region. It sees inequality as inevitable and desirable and contends that what is good for big business is good for all the peoples of the region. 7) APEC is suffering from a serious crisis of credibility. In spite of government attempts to talk up its achievements, few concrete commitments have actually been made. There are serious internal tensions within the forum, and it is very fragile. With the ongoing economic crisis, many APEC members' ambivalence towards further economic liberalisation has increased. The USA, despite its demands that other nations open their economies up continues to pursue policies which are driven by their own economic interests, not an ideological adherence to the free market theory which underpins New Zealand's economic policies. Japan, many of the ASEAN countries, the USA, and Australia are all resisting the push to speed up economic liberalisation. Even pro-market voices like the Asia 2000 Foundation have been critical of the overwhelming emphasis placed on trade and investment liberalisation measures within APEC. 8) The New Zealand government is desperately going to great lengths to massage APEC's image and to portray the free trade and investment, free market path as the only alternative model of economic development. It wants to use APEC to sell New Zealand-style reforms to other APEC members who have adopted a far more pragmatic approach to economic policy- making than successive New Zealand governments which have put the country at the extreme edge of trade and investment liberalisation - and as such, highly vulnerable. It has already spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on public relations and marketing strategies to develop a "brand image" for APEC to sell to the public and avoid serious debate.9) Claims of economic benefits to New Zealand from the global free market vision advocated by APEC, and from hosting the APEC meetings are highly speculative and unsubstantiated. But the Australian Bureau of Agricultural Resource Economics projects a 0.4% gain to New Zealand's GNP from APEC after 20 years above the supposed returns from the GATT Uruguay Round. Although the combined Christchurch APEC meetings will cost taxpayers over $1 million, Dr Adolf Stroombergen's Infometrics study on the net economic benefits of the meetings estimates that only 8 jobs will be created from hosting the APEC meetings in Canterbury. And we have already seen the high human costs of this agenda through the adherence to this economic model by successive New Zealand governments. 10) The hosting of APEC meetings, especially the Leaders Summits, have become synonymous with human rights abuses caused by the security operations for APEC. In previous years these have targeted local critics of APEC , and led to the disruption of the lives of ordinary citizens of the host cities. The New Zealand government is seeking ways to avoid any open debate about the deficiencies and flaws of the economic model which APEC promotes, and has shown in the past that it will use anti-democratic tactics to suppress dissent and present a false image of stability, security and consent to international dignitaries attending APEC meetings here. Over $18 million is being spent on security alone. Some of that will involve spying on legitimate political activities, harassment of anti-APEC organisers and groups, and preparing for a massive security crackdown for the Leaders Summit. This has already begun. Programme of activities for Christchurch: Friday April 23 Public meeting, Alternatives to the APEC Agenda, 7.30 pm, Knox Hall, Cnr Bealey Ave and Victoria St, with Annette Sykes, Dr David Small, and Murray Horton Saturday April 24 Alternatives to the APEC Agenda: Development, Foreign Investment and Sovereignty (see details above) Tuesday April 27 The Roger Award, 8pm, Trade Union Centre, 199 Armagh St. Mayor of Dunedin Sukhi Turner will announce the 1998 "winner" of the Roger Award for the worst transnational corporation operating in New Zealand (organised by Corso, GATT Watchdog and CAFCA) Friday April 30 Rally and March against APEC (organised by the Campaign Against People Last Economics (CAPLE), leaves Cathedral Square at 6 pm Wednesday May 5 Public meeting on APEC 1999 and the New Right agenda in New Zealand with Dr Jane Kelsey, Professor of Law, Auckland University, and author of The New Zealand Experiment. 7.30 pm Knox Hall. (Organised by GATT Watchdog and the Canterbury WEA) For further comment contact Leigh Cookson (APEC Monitoring Group) ph (03) 366 2803; (03) 381 2951 or Aziz Choudry (GATT Watchdog) on 021 217 3039 From amittal at foodfirst.org Tue Apr 20 06:06:42 1999 From: amittal at foodfirst.org (Anuradha Mittal) Date: Mon, 19 Apr 1999 14:06:42 -0700 Subject: [asia-apec 1079] SIGN-ON AGAINST ESAF Message-ID: Please distribute to your networks. Dear Colleagues, The sign-on letter below launches our public campaign against funding for the IMF's Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility [ESAF]. We want to turn this around quickly to have maximum impact on discussions around the IMF/World Bank joint meetings, where key decisions will be made. Your organization's signature will have the most impact if you can return it by NOON on TUESDAY, April 20. However, if you can't make this deadline please do send your signature, we will be circulating this letter for some time. Return signatures to: Robert Naiman, naimanr@preamble.org. The letter with signatures will be posted on the Preamble web site, www.preamble.org. Please forward to your networks. ---- To Members of the United States Congress We write to oppose any new funding for the Enhanced Structural Adjustment Facility[ESAF] of the International Monetary Fund, either in the form of a Congressional appropriation, or in the form of authorization of sales of IMF gold for the purpose of funding ESAF. We support the sale of IMF gold, but for direct debt relief delinked from IMF structural adjustment, not for IMF programs like ESAF. As an development model for poor countries, ESAF has been a failure. According to the IMF's own staff review, annual real per capita GDP growth averaged 0.0% for countries with ESAF programs over the period 1991-1995, whereas non-ESAF developing countries experienced, on average, 1.0% annual real per capita GDP growth. African countries with ESAF programs fared even worse, with an average annual .3% decline in real per capita incomes over the period of IMF structural adjustment from 1991-1995. At the same time the external debt burden of ESAF countries has grown larger as a share of their economies. Currently, in order to be eligible to receive debt relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries [HIPC] initiative of the IMF and the World Bank, countries are required to have ESAF programs. Unfortunately, President Clinton's recent proposal to improve HIPC preserves this link. The IMF is well aware that ESAF is opposed by development groups, many of whom feel that the ESAF program is "far outside the IMF's mandate and competence," as Harvard development economist Jeffrey Sachs has said. The IMF is trying to leverage its control over debt relief to extort more money for ESAF. We oppose this extortion. We ask Congress to insist that all proceeds from IMF gold sales go directly to cancelling poor countries' debts. In particular, we are quite concerned that the IMF is attempting to make the ESAF program "self-financing." If ESAF becomes self-financing, Congress will lose all oversight over what the IMF is doing in poor countries. Yet Congress is the only body that has been at all effective in holding the IMF accountable for its policies. We ask Members of Congress not to give up this authority. Poor countries urgently need debt cancellation, not more failed IMF programs. In 1997, the United Nations Development Program estimated that, relieved of their debt payments, severely indebted countries in Africa alone could have saved the lives of 21 million people and provided 90 million girls and women with access to basic education by the year 2000. Debt is also an environmental disaster as countries are forced to export their natural resources to earn hard currency for debt payments. From 1990-1995, African HIPC countries experienced forest loss that was 50% greater than non-HIPC African countries. ESAF is also associated with greater environmental degradation. From 1990-1995, African ESAF countries experienced forest loss more than 25% greater than other African countries. Every available dollar should go directly and immediately to cancelling the debt repayments of poor countries. HIPC should not receive any new funds until it is delinked from ESAF. Thank you for your consideration of our concerns. 50 Years is Enough Network RESULTS Friends of the Earth Nicaragua Network Essential Action Preamble Center Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy note new e-mail: amittal@foodfirst.org --------------- Anuradha Mittal Policy Director Institute for Food and Development Policy - Food First 398 60th Street, Oakland, CA 94618 USA Phone: (510) 654-4400 Fax: (510) 654-4551 http://www.foodfirst.org From agr726 at hyd.zoooom.net.pk Tue Apr 20 23:04:35 1999 From: agr726 at hyd.zoooom.net.pk (Dr. Aslam Pervez Umrani) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:04:35 -0000 Subject: [asia-apec 1080] 4 National Drainage Programme of Pakistan Message-ID: <01be8b36$b8bc5e00$0100007f@localhost> National Drainage Programme (NDP)of Pakistan : Hopes and Fears of Small Provinces of Pakistan By: Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani Convenor PNRDP Sindh ****************************************************** Recently Sungi Development Foundation of Pakistan organised a consultative workshop on NDP. The purpose of workshop was to evaluate environmental, institutional and social impacts of NDP. We are forwarding this message to International Community for help and suggestions: In the meeting NDP authorities mentioned that, extensive development of irrigation infrastructure in the Indus Plain during 19th and 20th centuries (particularly after Mangla and Tarbella dams) have brought large tracts of land under year round cultivation. However, these developments had their negative impacts on the land, in the form of waterlogging and salinity. Thus, NDP is going to be implemented in different phases over time period of 25-years and major chunk of funds will come from World Bank. The length of first phase is six and half years and it has started from January 1998. During first phase 785 million US Dollars are allocated for following works: 1. Remodelling/Extension of existing 10000 km Surface and New Drainage 2. Rehabilitation/ Replacement of 1150 No. Tubewells 3. Installation of Pipe Drains 2500000 Acres in new areas 4. Construction of Interceptor Drains 400 km 5. Biological Drainage 40,000 Acres 6. Rest of work includes Water Courses, Farm Organisation and Training During the workshop, when participants of Sindh Province put forward following questions to NDP authorities: 1. How Punjab's (Largest Province of Pakistan) saline drainage water will be disposed off? 2. Whether any funds for improvement of Left Banks Outfall Drainage of Sindh (LBOD) and Tidal-Link are allocated or not? 3. What will be the fate of Right Banks Outfall Drainage of Sindh (RBOD)? The NDP representative's point of view was not different than Water and Power Development Authority (WAPDA) that all the drainage effluent of Punjab and Balochistan will be going into the sea, either through RBOD or LBOD. However, there are no funds available with NDP for the development of Tidal Link and safe disposal of RBOD effluent. Tidal Link is the end part of LBOD, which creates link between drainage effluent and seawater. At present, 0.75 million Feet saline water is disposed off into the sea. This effluent water is only coming from four districts of Sindh. Even that water is causing a salinity problem in district Badin and erosion of Tidal Link. While NDP authority wants to pour Punjab's drainage water into LBOD, without expanding the capacity of Tidal Link. If that happens then whole Badin district's lands would convert into saline lands. The problem of RBOD is much more severe than LBOD, because this will be the first time when urban population of Kotri, Latifabad, Hyderabad and Karachi forced to drink polluted poisonous water. Currently people of Sehwan are getting drinking water from Manchar Lake, which has become outfall of RBOD and has 4000-PPM salt concentration. So far six people have died due to water born disease in Sehwan City; probably many more will die due to kidney and liver failure in future. At present NDP authorities are planning to connect drainage canals of Balochistan and Punjab with RBOD, whereas Sindh Government is trying to construct "Indus Link" between Manchar Lake and River Indus. In theory this approach will enable them to dispose off effluent water into the sea. However, some estimates indicate that RBOD drainage water contains 2000 to 4000 PPM salts concentrations. This drainage water may not be much harmful during flood seasons, but at winter time only effluent water will be passing from Kotri barrage, and same will be available for drinking purposes for Hyderabad, Kotri and Karachi citizens. All the urban population, who cannot afford to purchase mineral water bottles, will be facing health problems. This effluent water of RBOD will also be destroying the fertile lands of Hyderabad, Thatta and Badin districts of Sindh. It will also be destroying the mangro forest and fish stocks of down stream areas of River Indus. During the discussion with NDP person, we found that IIMI and IUCN (NGOs) were supporting the NDP authority, because IUCN has been awarded an Environmental Audit of NDP and IIMI has received funds for 17 NDP projects in Punjab. We should also remember that IUCN signed on controversial Chotiari Project, perhaps they will repeat this mistake again. In the past, WAPDA and other Federal Institutes and Authorities have been trying to how to snatch all the sweet water resources from Sindh and how to dispose off their effluent water in the Sindh. No matter how many problems these decisions can create for the people of Sindh. And these authorities always find some NGOs to support their projects. I think this is the time for all the people of Sindh to unite and raise the issues at all levels. In this regard media is going to play major role to bring this whole issue to masses for discussion and action. We should also look for help and suggestions from International Community, who may have experience of these situations. Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani (PhD in Sustainable Agriculture), Editor: Sustainable Livestock and Agriculture Production (SLAP), Address: House No. 60, Al-Abbas Housing Society, New Wehdat Colony, Hyderabad, Pakistan. Email: agr726@hyd.zoooom.net.pk http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3770/ From magbubukid at hotmail.com Tue Apr 20 15:41:47 1999 From: magbubukid at hotmail.com (Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas) Date: Tue, 20 Apr 1999 14:41:47 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1081] Peasants dare Estrada to junk WTO, reopen peace talks Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990420144147.0069f958@pop.skyinet.net> KMP (Peasant Movement of the Philippines) e-mail: kmp@info.com.ph Peasants dare Estrada to junk WTO, reopen peace talks with NDF PEASANTS led by KMP marched to the US Embassy on April 16, to highlight a global campaign by farmers and agricultural workers worldwide against the World Trade Organization (WTO) and imperialist globalization. KMP chair Rafael Mariano said simultaneous pickets in Manila, Brasilia, Mexico, Honduras, Brussels and other capitals are demanding the pullout of agriculture agreements from WTO. They blame WTO impositions for, among others, the dumping of farm surpluses from corporate giants in industrialized countries resulting in the bankruptcy and further landlessness of 800 million peasants worldwide. KMP said Filipino peasants commemorate the International Day of Farmers' Struggle for Land by likewise pressing the Estrada administration to stop state violence against the rural folk, resume peace talks with the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDF) and honor the Comprehensive Agreement on the Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CAHRIHL) which it signed with the NDF. The peasant alliance also seeks justice for the 22 members of the Movimento Dos Trabahadores Rurais Sem Terra (Landless Peasant Movement, MST) murdered by the police in Parado, Brazil. Every year since then, the date of their arrest has been commemorated by La Via Campesina, a global assembly of farmers to which KMP and MST are affiliated. Satur Ocampo, former spokesperson of the People's Campaign Against Imperialist Globalization, called on Estrada to release the more than 150 political prisoners and NPA guerilla Jelyn Dayong as a reciprocal goodwill gesture to the NDF's release of Gen. Victor Obillo and Capt. Eduardo Montealto whom the New People's Army (NPA) captured a few months ago. "The political prisoners are mostly peasants who struggle against landlessness, injustice and continuing intrusion by foreign mining and agribusiness that destroy their sources of livelihood," Ocampo said. AMIHAN, a national federation of peasant women, blames the Estrada government for the growing human rights violations by the police and the military especially against women and children. Amihan also demands the dismantling of the "corporative farming scheme" being peddled by the Estrada government and big landowners like Marcos crony Danding Cojuangco to get around a genuine land reform program.# From ngls at undp.org Thu Apr 22 02:23:42 1999 From: ngls at undp.org (UN-NGLS (NY Office)) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 17:23:42 +0000 Subject: [asia-apec 1082] ECOSOC meets with BWIs on 29 April Message-ID: <199904212133.RAA05655@nygate.undp.org> The Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC) will hold a special high-level meeting with the Bretton Woods institutions, next Thursday, 29 April at UN Headquarters in New York from 9:30 to 1:30 in the ECOSOC chamber. Background: According to Council President Ambassador Francesco Paolo Fulci (Italy), part of ECOSOC's revitalised role includes increased cooperation with the BWIs. In February 1999, James Wolfensohn, President, and the Executive Directors of the World Bank came to New York to meet with the Council. At Mr. Wolfensohn's invitation, ECOSOC members will meet with the Bank in Washington, DC at a future date. ECOSOC initiated this on-going process with the BWIs in 1998 in a high-level dialogue which included discussion on the Asian financial crisis; effects of financial crises on vulnerable groups and other countries; poverty eradication and globalisation; liberalisation of capital flows and the need to safeguard against speculation and volatility; and debt relief (see NGLS Go-Between #69). From bayan at iname.com Thu Apr 22 08:30:16 1999 From: bayan at iname.com (BAYAN) Date: Thu, 22 Apr 1999 07:30:16 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1083] Oil Price Hike: The Price of Full Deregulation Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990422073016.0069d2d0@pop.skyinet.net> IBON Foundation, Inc. Press Release No. 99-7 21 April 1999 Oil Price Hike: The Price of Full Deregulation Oil companies have increased pump prices by as much as 50 centavos today (April 21) as they remain silent on IBON findings of intense profiteering in 1998. Analyzing the effects of deregulation of the downstream oil industry since 1996, it is clear that the promise of lower prices and better services has been honored in the breach. What happened in 1998 is a glaring example of oil companies' zest for superprofits. Notwithstanding the decrease in crude prices due to oversupply in the world market, the consecutive reductions in pump prices towards the end of 1998 were not substantial. In fact, IBON computations even show that oil firms overpriced their products by as much as P1.7 billion for the whole of 1998. This is already close to P200,000 per hour! Data from the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) also show that the Big Three (Petron, Shell and Caltex) also had a whopping 1,090% increase in profits last year. (See Table 1) Analyzing the oil firms' performance during the 1990s, their reported losses in 1997 are more than compensated by cumulative earnings reaching P37.5 billion from 1990 to 1998. The current situation of increased crude oil prices from January to March 1999, therefore, must be seen in this context. After all, in analyzing the oil firms' unpopular decision, one needs not just a sense of economics, but also a sense of history. Table 1 DECLARED PROFITS/(LOSSES) OF BIG THREE OIL FIRMS 1997-1998 (in billion pesos) 1997 1998 /a Increase Petron (0.6) 3.7 430% Shell (1.5) 1.6 310% Caltex (2.4) 1.1 350% TOTAL (4.5) 6.4 1,090% Source of basic data: SEC /a revised as of April 15, 1999 ---------------------------- IBON Foundation is an independent research think-tank. For verification and details, please call Danny Arao, IBON editor-in-chief, at 713-2729 or 713-2737 From aawl at union4.su.swin.edu.au Wed Apr 21 18:57:25 1999 From: aawl at union4.su.swin.edu.au (Australia Asia Worker Links) Date: Wed, 21 Apr 1999 19:57:25 +1000 Subject: [asia-apec 1084] Fw: Workers Action-Workers Action-Workers Action Message-ID: <199904220752.RAA24584@mail01.ozramp.net.au> Date: Monday, 19 April 1999 22:37 ASIA PACIFIC--------------------------------------------------------------------- -ACTION! WORKERS Vol. 111. No. 3 Monthly Email and fax news sheet about workers organizing in the region March 1999 ________________________________________________________________ Garment Workers Dismissed from German Jacket Manufacturer in Thailand Company Closes Factory, 150 workers Dismissed without Compensation, after Refusing to Negotiate Union Wage Demand. Company tries to ban union from Thailand operations On 6t January 1999, Thai Jacket Labour Union submitted a demand to Splendid Thailand Ltd. to increase the wages of the workers. At that time workers were receiving 162 Baht (USD 4030) per day. However this was not enough to cover living costs. The company refused to negotiate. The union invoked the conciliation procedures with the labour department of 9 January to force the company to negotiate. The Labour Department set the Conciliation talks for 12 January. The company then asked and the union agreed to postpone the talks until 19 January. On January 19 the company suggested to the union that the talks take place only between the company and the union. The union agreed. The talks took place but no agreement was made. The union again sought conciliation talks but the company refuse to participate. At least five attempts were made to hold these talks but the company did not appear on each occasion. On 18 February the company said that there was a decline in production orders and asked the workers to stay home on 70% wages from 22-28 February. The workers refused to sign this agreement and on 19 February the company locked out all 150 workers giving the original wage dispute as the reason for the lockout. On February 20 the workers returned to the factory and gathered inside the factory in front of the factory building demanding that the lockout be lifted and that they be able to return to work. The company declared this action as an illegal picket. However the workers stayed in front of the factory on a 24 hour basis. On March 4 the company dismissed 130 of the workers and took 9 union leaders to Court claiming damages of 700.000 Baht (USD 19,000) the company announced that it was completely closing down because of the action of the workers and the union. The company refused to pay and redundancy compensation because of what they called the "illegal picket line". The workers continued their action outside the factory and on 29 March held a demonstration in Bangkok from Victory Monument to the Labour Ministry. Labour Ministry officials met with representatives of the union and promised to call a meeting with the union and the company on 1 April. At this meeting the company said that they wish to continue the business in Thailand but without the union as the union always made"demands and problems" for the company. The union said that if the company closed down it must pay compensation to the workers. If the company continues the business it must reinstate all the workers and the union will agree to withdraw the wage demand. The Managing Director of Splendid (Thailand) Ltd., Action has been taken: Write telephone, fax or email to Splendid in Thailand, Hong Kong or Duesseldorf demanding: a.. That Splendid reopens the factory its Thailand and reinstates all dismissed workers. b.. That the company drops the damage action against the 9 union leaders. Please fax or Email copies of your letters to the Thai Jacket Labour Union C/o Fax: 66-2-972 7035, Email:clist@loxinfo.co.th Company Profile: Splendid (Thailand) Ltd. 140 Moo 17, New Town, 3 Bangpee Industrial Estate Teparaks Rd, Samuthprakarn Province 10540, Thailand Tel: 66-2-315 1007 Fax: 66-2-315 1009 Email: splbkk@mozart.inet.co.th Managing Director: Mr Hilmar Sauer Headquarters Splendid Dussesseldorf Production (Ltd) Karl Arnold Str 5 47877 Willich Muenchheide Germany Tel: 49-2154- 94100 Tel:49-2154-941052 Managing Director: Mr. Hermann Gerlach Asian Headquarters: 8th Floor, Chung Shun Knitting Centre 1-3 Wing Yip Street Kwai Chung New Territories Hong Kong Tel; 852-2422 $(H(B8332 Grand Boulevard Hotel Strike Attacked, Unionists fired About 300 Security Guards and hired goons of the Grand Boulevard Hotel management attacked the picketline of striking workers and their supporters, last night, March. At least two workers were rushed to the hospital after being seriously injured. Among those attacked were women strike supporters who came from rally held by KMU, Gabriela and Bayan commemorating the International Working Women$B(Bs Day. On March 3, the day after the strike started, the hotel management sent a notice of the termination of 25 unionists "and all those who participated in the strike". Yesterday, a return to-work order was issued by Labour Secretary Beinevido Laguesma. The hotel management, headed by big businessman rebecco Panililio, is reportedly close to the Rebolusyonaryong Alyansang Makabayan (RAM) responsible for the killing of KMU chair Rolando Olalia and Leonor Alay-Ay in 1986. The grand Boulevard Workers continue to defy the government order and vowed to fight on for their demands. REINSTATE THIS DISMISSED STRIKERS! GRANT TH E UNION$B(BS DEMANDS! STOP THE REPRESSION Send protest letters to: Rebecco Panililio The Management Grand Bouleverd Hotel 1990 Roxas Blvd Manila 1057 Philippines Fax: (632) 524-2526/526-0111 Email: grand@pdpx.rpnet.com Solidarity Letters to: GLOWHRAIN-KMU Grand Boulevard Hotel Chapter 1990 Roxas Blvd. Manila 1057 Philippines C/o KMU International Department Fax: (632) 373-1838 Email: kmuid@csi.com.ph ACTION ! Action is designed for workplace notice boards. Please circulate this news sheet widely APWSL : 14 N, Industrial Area, Gulberg, Lahore 54660, Pakistan Tel: 92-42-5715 252 Fax: 92-42-5715 252 Email: rjapwsl@brain.net.pk From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Fri Apr 23 07:57:19 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 10:57:19 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1085] APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Meeting - GATT Watchdog Message-ID: <9HT67e2w165w@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz> GATT Watchdog PO Box 1905 Christchurch Aotearoa/New Zealand MEDIA RELEASE FOR IMMEDIATE USE 23 April 1999 APEC Small & Medium Enterprises Meeting; The Meeting No-one Really Wants To Host Government efforts to be seen to support small and medium businesses through hosting next week's APEC Small and Medium Enterprises Ministerial meeting (SME) in Christchurch are a cynical public relations stunt in an election year, says GATT Watchdog. Documents secured under the Official Information Act confirm a less than lukewarm attitude from Cabinet and Treasury towards holding the SME meeting. "It's an attempt to convince small businesses - and the public - that APEC is not really a vehicle for promoting the interests of big business and is good for them. This denies APEC's history and the direction of its work programme which has always been shaped and influenced by larger private sector free marketeers, especially the representatives of transnational corporations, at the expense of small and medium sized businesses. It denies the fact that the government has used its commitments to APEC - a non-binding voluntary process - to justify unilaterally stripping away protection from local manufacturers and producers that many of our major trading partners still maintain. And it is all part of its attempt to massage APEC's image," says Aziz Choudry, a GATT Watchdog spokesman. Chile had originally proposed that it would host the 1999 SME meeting in Santiago, but then changed its mind. For the past five years, the SME meetings have taken place at the invitation of the host economy for APEC that year, but New Zealand had not originally offered to host the SME. "Holding this meeting is clearly a political stunt in an election year to signal to local small businesses that the government cares about them. Yet the meetings will be "managed" in the hope that the government gets what it wants - support for more of the same extremist free market measures which have seen thousands of local small businesses and jobs wiped out. All for the sake of ideology." "New Zealand sent nobody to the 1996, 1997, or 1998 SMEs - so why the sudden interest this year? The APEC SME programme has clearly never been a priority for the New Zealand government, and indeed within APEC it has been big business which has driven and benefitted from its agenda." "The global free market programme that APEC promotes, and in which New Zealand seeks to lead the world by example has decimated local small industries. In Canterbury alone thousands of manufacturing jobs have already been sacrificed on the altar of free trade. Last May's Canterbury Development Corporation report estimated that the economic impact of removing import tariffs from 2000 in the clothing and textile sector in Christchurch would be another 1330 job losses, and nearly $32 million in lost wages." Cabinet papers about the SME meeting express concern about the "need to manage some risks associated with the SME work programme. Elements of the agenda are at odds with the Government's policy approaches e.g. initiatives promoting concessional and export finance for SMEs. Outcomes from the Ministerial will accordingly need to be carefully managed." Treasury is worried about the "risks associated with the promotion of industry assistance policy outcomes which are at odds with existing policy settings". "This does not reflect a government concerned with policies to support local small industries and jobs. It is more of an attempt to woo votes from a sector which has been stripped of its support even while many of our major trading partners - many of them APEC member economies - continue to offer a range of subsidies and other supports including small business development assistance packages," said Mr Choudry. For further comment, contact Aziz Choudry, GATT Watchdog (03) 3662803; From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Fri Apr 23 08:37:27 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 11:37:27 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1086] Re: More APEC FYI In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5cV67e1w165w@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz> >From Malcolm.MacLean@justice.govt.nz Fri Apr 23 11:19:38 1999 Received: by corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (1.65/waf) via UUCP; Fri, 23 Apr 99 11:36:18 +1200 for gattwd Received: from justmail.justice.govt.nz (justgate.justice.govt.nz [203.97.62.162]) by tofu.ch.planet.gen.nz (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id LAA26009 for ; Fri, 23 Apr 1999 11:19:38 +1200 (NZST) Received: by justmail.justice.govt.nz with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) id ; Fri, 23 Apr 1999 11:14:53 +1200 Message-ID: From: "MacLean Malcolm (OTS)" To: "'Aziz Choudry'" , "'Jane Kelsey'" , "'Robert Reid'" , "'TUFed'" Subject: More APEC FYI Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 11:14:52 +1200 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2448.0) Content-Type: text/plain APEC-CHCH-N/L INTEREST IN APEC'S CHRISTCHURCH MEETINGS GROWING Christchurch, April 22, NZPA - Registrations for next week's Apec meetings in Christchurch are exceeding attendance expectations. Total registrations for the Small and Medium Enterprise Meeting and the Jade Business Forum now stand at 468. Of those, 168 will attend a ministerial meeting, including 19 ministers from around the Pacific. Ministers attending include Australia's employment minister Tony Abbott, the vice-chairman of China's economic and trade commission Zheng Silin, Japan's state secretary for international trade and industry Sanzo Hosaka, Russian finance minister Andrei Shapovalyants, and American deputy secretary of commerce, trade, and industry Robert Mallett. Trade and Enterprise Minister Max Bradford will open the meetings on Monday afternoon. Prime Minister Jenny Shipley will also speak. Meanwhile anti-Apec protesters are promising a full programme of their own, starting tomorrow night with a public meeting at Knox Hall. The opposition is planned by the Apec Monitoring Group, Gatt Watchdog, Corso, and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa. The group has brought Treaty of Waitangi activist Annette Sykes, Indian labour rights lawyer Radha D'Souza, and Auckland University law professor Jane Kelsey to speak during the week's activities. On Tuesday, Dunedin mayor Sukhi Turner will announce the Roger Award for ``worst transnational corporation operating in New Zealand''. An anti-Apec rally takes place in Cathedral Square next Friday. NZPA CHP gt 22/04/99 20-13NZ From panap at panap.po.my Fri Apr 23 13:03:15 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Fri, 23 Apr 1999 12:03:15 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1087] Letter from PAN-AP to Mechai, Re:Monsanto in Thailand Message-ID: April 23, 1999 Dear Friends, Yesterday the letter below was faxed to Mechai Viravaidya, the Chairman of the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) in Thailand. In March, PAN-AP discovered that PDA was working in collaboration with Monsanto and IRRI on a project to bring Monsanto's technology to rice farmers in Northeast Thailand with the use of micro-credit. In early April, PAN-AP and BIOTHAI released a joint press release exposing the project. It has since caused a stir within all the parties involved and it is rumoured that the PDA is considering backing down from the project. Monsanto has approached other NGOs in Thailand, but the PDA is the first to cooperate. This is why your support is so urgently needed. If you share our concerns with the proposed project, we encourage you to send your own letter to the PDA, Monsanto, or IRRI. We would also appreciate if you could CC your letters to us. Thanks in advance for your support. Regards, Devlin Kuyek PAN-AP (fax: 604-6577445 email: panap@panap.po.my) Mr. Mechai Viravaidya Chairman, Population and Community Development Association (PDA) April 22, 1999 Dear Mr. Mechai Viravaidya, We are deeply concerned about recent information we have heard regarding a proposed project between the Population and Community Development Association, Monsanto Company, the International Rice Research Institute, and the Department of Agriculture. As you know, the project is entitled INPACT (Innovative Partnerships for Agricultural Changes in Technology) and its goal is to improve the livelihood of the rural community in North East Thailand. The project plans to attain this goal by bringing Monsanto and IRRI’s technology to Thai rice farmers, through micro-credit. Some of the technologies to be introduced are: -land leveling and water management; -Monsanto’s conservation tillage; -tractor operations and harvesting and threshing technology; -use of herbicides; and -use of seeds “with improved quality and traits”. Essentially the project will convert small-scale rice farms into extensive, industrial farms. It is our firm belief that such a transformation will not improve the livelihoods of the rural community in North East Thailand. We are especially concerned about the promotion of herbicides. There is extensive documentation about the adverse impacts of chemical herbicides to the health of farmers and consumers. The World Health Organization’s World Health Statistics Quarterly (43, 1990) reports that approximately 25 million people in the South alone suffer from occupational poisoning by pesticides every year. These chemicals also destroy the ecology and biodiversity of farms. We believe that the use of seeds “with improved quality and traits” implies the use of hybrid seeds. These crops may generate high-yields, but they have two essential characteristics: 1) They only thrive in response to the heavy use of chemical fertilisers and herbicides. 2) The crops deteriorate in the second year, thereby forcing farmers to buy seeds annually. Monsanto is the world’s largest selling herbicide company and the third largest seed company in the world. It is entirely in its interests to encourage farmers to use these seeds and this expensive model of farming. We also fear that the project may encourage the use of genetically engineered seeds. Monsanto is currently field testing rice that is genetically engineered for tolerance to its herbicide. Scientists estimate that plants genetically engineered to be herbicide tolerant will actually triple the amount of herbicides used. In the US in 1997, expanded plantings of Monsanto’s herbicide tolerant soybeans resulted in a 72% increase in the use of Monsanto’s herbicide. Today, Monsanto owns the patent for the infamous Terminator Technology—which is a method of genetically engineering crops so that they will not germinate and will thereby prevent farmers from saving seeds. The current structure of rice farms in North East Thailand does not support extensive industrial farming. Most farmers produce high- quality rice, that they have bred through generations of careful selection, on small irrigated plots of land that are inaccessible to most industrial farming machinery and that use very little pesticide. Converting these farms into large-scale mechanized farms will force farmers to buy expensive machinery, inputs (chemical fertilizers and pesticides), and seeds, driving them into debt and eventually off their lands. Those who will benefit from such a conversion are the companies that sell products designed for large-scale farms. Monsanto’s annual report describes its “conservation tillage” as “the practice of substituting the judicious use of herbicides for mechanical tillage.” Small Thai rice farms, that use little machinery, do not need this technology. It is only through the mechanisation of Thai rice farms that Monsanto can hope to sell its technology. The farms envisioned in the INPACT project are neither sustainable nor environmentally friendly. They will increase the use of harmful agrochemicals, destroy biodiversity, and force farmers into a spiral of dependency and debt. You have made a name for yourself through your commitment to environmental and social issues in Thailand. However, we believe that your involvement in this project will undermine these objectives and will have adverse consequences for Thai farmers. We call on you to withdraw from this partnership with Monsanto and invite you to join the growing world wide movement of people against Monsanto, chemical farming, genetic engineering, and patents on life. Yours sincerely, Sarojeni V. Rengam Executive Director, Pesticide Action Network- Asia and the Pacific (PDA, Mechai Viravaidya, Fax: 662-2294632, email: pda@mozart.inet.co.th) (IRRI, Dr. Robert Raab, Fax: 632-8450563, email: r.raab@cgnet.com) (Monsanto, Charles Martin, email: charles.m.martin@monsanto.com) From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Mon Apr 26 16:19:57 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 19:19:57 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1088] Christchurch SME APEC Meeting Message-ID: MEDIA RELEASE 23 April 1999 Enterprise and Commerce Minister announces final list of Ministers attending APEC SME Ministers' meeting Max Bradford today released details of the Ministers from the Asia-Pacific region coming to New Zealand for the APEC SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) Ministers' meeting. The meeting is being held in Christchurch, April 26 - 28th. "I am pleased to announce the details of the following high-ranking Ministers who will attend the Christchurch APEC SME (Small and Medium Enterprise) Ministers' meeting," Mr Bradford said. * Abdul Rahman Taib: Brunei's Minister of Industry and Primary Resources; * Walt Lastewka: Canada's Parliamentary Secretary for Industry (Vice-Ministerial rank); * Gonzalo Rivas: The Chilean Executive Vice President of CORFU (Chilean Production Development Corporation); * Francis Ho: Hong Kong's Director-General of Industry (Ministerial equivalent); * Choo June-Suk: Korean Chief Administrator SME Administration; * Kamaruzzaman: Malaysia's Parliamentary Secretary for International Trade and Industry (Vice-Ministerial rank); * Decio de Maria: Mexico's Undersecretary for Industry and Trade Promotion; * Hon Ian Ling-Stuckey: Papua New Guinea's Minister for Commerce and Industry. * Javier Ramirez-Gaston: Peru's National Director of Industries; * Tang Guan Seng: Singapore's Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Trade and Industry (Vice-Ministerial rank); * HE Chih-Kang Wang: Chinese Taipei's Minister for Economic Affairs; * Suwat Liptapallop: Thailand's Minister for Industry; * Dr Le Dang Doanh: Vietnam's President of Central Institute for Economic Management; * Hon Hans Joachim Keil: Samoa's Minister for Trade. Earlier this week Mr Bradford announced the attendance of the following six Ministers; * Hon Tony Abbott: Australia's Minister for Employment Services; * Zheng Silin: Vice Chairman of China's State Economic and Trade Commission; * Adi Sasono: Indonesia's Minister for Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises; * Sanzo Hosaka: Japan's State Secretary for International Trade and Industry; * Andrei Shapovalyants: The Russia Federation's Minister for the Economy; * Robert Mallett: United States Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Trade and Industry; Further details attached Enquiries: Jeremy Kirk, press secretary (04) 471 9836 / 025 424 565 Background information on visiting Asia-Pacific Region Ministers NB: Background is not available for all visiting Ministers * Abdul Rahman Taib: Brunei's Minister of Industry and Primary Resources; The Minister has served the Government of Brunei Darussalam since 1966. Brunei's Ministry of Industry and Primary Resources was created in 1989 because of the Government's thrust for industrialisation and economic diversification. The Minister is also charged with the development of the local industry and regional and international trade. Prior to his current role he served as Minister of Development and Minister of Education. * Gonzalo Rivas: The Chilean Executive Vice President of CORFU (Chilean Production Development Corporation); Gonzalo Rivas was appointed Executive Vice President after the modernisation of the CORFU council. He has previously been the head of the Production Development Division of the Economy Ministry and Executive Secretary of the Interministerial Production Development Committee. * Hon Ian Ling-Stuckey: Papua New Guinea's Minister for Commerce and Industry; He is also the Executive Chairman of the Monian Group which comprises several PNG companies which deal with Property Development and Management and Gaming Operations. He is a member of the Pangu Party and the special Minister appointed to assist the Prime Minister. * Suwat Liptapallop: Thailand's Minister for Industry; He was appointed Minister in 1996. Previous positions include Deputy Minister of Transport and Communications1990-1992 and Minister of Science Technology and Environment in 1995. He has also been the General-Secretary to the Chatpatana Party. * Mr Tang Guan Seng: Singapore's Senior Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Trade and Industry; Mr Tang was appointed to his current role in January 1997. He was MP for the Khe Bong Constituency from 1984-1988 and the MP for Hougang Constituency from 1988-1991. He was Political Secretary to the Prime Minister from 1991 to January 1997. He has also been the co-chairman of the Singapore-Shandong Business Council since 1993. * Hon Tony Abbott: Australia's Minister for Employment Services; Mr Abbott was appointed in his current role in October last year. Previously he had been the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Employment, Education, Training and Youth Affairs from March 1996 - October 1998. * Zheng Silin: Vice Chairman of China's State Economic and Trade Commission; Zheng Silin is an ex-Governor of the Jiangsu province. He has also been a Vice Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation. In his current role he has been heavily involved in the reform of State Owned Enterprises. * Adi Sasono: Indonesia's Minister for Cooperatives, Small and Medium Enterprises; Adi Sasono was appointed a Minister last year. In 1985 he was appointed Secretary General of the Society for Improving Small Entrepreneurs. In 1988 he became the secretary of the Indonesian Agrobusiness Foundation and in 1993 was made an advisor to the Indonesian Cooperative Council. He still holds all these positions. * Sanzo Hosaka: Japan's State Secretary for International Trade and Industry; Sanzo Hosaka was appointed a State Secretary in 1998. He has been involved in politics since 1971 when he was first elected to the Taito City Assembly. He was first elected to the House of Councillors in 1995. Other roles include; Director of the Taito City District Branch of the Liberal Democratic Party and Chairman of Tokyo Automobile Chamber of Commerce. * Andrei Shapovalyants: The Russia Federation's Minister for the Economy; Andrei Shapovalyants served as Deputy Russian Economics and Finance Minister, First Deputy Economics Minister, and Acting Economics Minister before being appointment Minister for the Economy. * Robert Mallett: United State's Deputy Secretary of Commerce, Trade and Industry; Mr Mallett was appointed as Deputy Secretary in September 1997. He plays a lead role in promoting full market access for American companies in countries around the globe. He is also responsible for the day-to-day operations of a very diversified cabinet-level Department within which there are nine agencies with collectively 40,000 employees. ENDS From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Mon Apr 26 16:30:10 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 19:30:10 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1089] APEC in Christchurch Message-ID: APEC-CHRISTCHURCH APEC DELEGATES START TO ARRIVE IN CHRISTCHURCH Christchurch, April 25, NZPA - The Apec roadshow rolls into Christchurch tomorrow. About 1000 people, including 19 ministers from around the Pacific, are expected for 10 days of meetings. Ministers, heads of economies, Apec secretariat and South Pacific Forum heads will be met at Christchurch Airport tomorrow by a fleet of 24 limousines. The VIPs will be driven by army drivers in civilian clothing. Deputy secretary of commerce Leith Comer said the drivers would not be armed. No delegate had requested to bring armed bodyguards, as all were happy with New Zealand police security arrangements. Other delegates will make their own way to the city centre, although there will be a reception centre at the airport. Christchurch drivers would not be inconvenienced and no roads would be closed, Mr Comer said. Security will be low key for the week, although The Press understands the elite military Special Air Service squad will be in Christchurch during the meetings. Mr Comer said a ``small army'' of liaison officers, officials, drivers, and school children performing at tomorrow's opening had been fully briefed by commerce staff. Organiser Tanya O'Malley said despite a hectic few days and many last-minute registrations, Christchurch was ready to host the Apec meetings. Formal proceedings would begin at 3pm with a powhiri by Ngai Tahu followed by addresses by Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and Enterprise and Commerce Minister Max Bradford. Christchurch mayor Garry Moore will host a cocktail function for Apec guests. The Minister of Business Development, Peter McCardle, and the Minister of Maori Development, Tau Henare, will also attend the conference. Ms O'Malley said a partners' programme hosted by Mr Bradford's wife Rosemary and Mr Moore's wife Pam Sharpe would take participants to Hanmer and Akaroa. NZPA CHP lb From cusothai at loxinfo.co.th Mon Apr 26 20:33:45 1999 From: cusothai at loxinfo.co.th (CUSO Thailand) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:33:45 +0700 Subject: [asia-apec 1090] PDA to PDI Message-ID: Dear Devlin, Met S this weekend. There is a witchhunt on inside PDA trying to find the source of the leak. Adamant that she not be identified in any way. She is out at the end of next month. Staff in charge of the project have been changed. Apparently PDA are considering a withdrawal of their name, but only to replace it with PDI, their international offshoot (I know only of projects in Indochina), which she says is registered in the UK. Such a move would be such a blatantly transparent attempt to hide their continued participation that I can hardly believe even PDA is that stupid. I note with some amusement that the IRRI stuff refers to NGOs in a way that clearly does not include PDA. At last, official recognition that PDA is no such thing. And I will write a letter to PDA and IRRI and Monsanto. There is a resolution to the CUSO AGM asking that CUSO publicly foreswear GMOs and actively oppose them. Cheers Alec From agr726 at hyd.zoooom.net.pk Tue Apr 27 03:21:20 1999 From: agr726 at hyd.zoooom.net.pk (Dr. Aslam Pervez Umrani) Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1999 18:21:20 -0000 Subject: [asia-apec 1091] Food Security, Pesticides & Environment Message-ID: <01be9011$950db5a0$0100007f@localhost> ************************************** S L A P Sustainable Livestock & Agriculture Production May & June 1999 Bimonthly-Newsletter of Progressive Agriculturist &Pastoralist Association http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3770/ ************************************************************** Content: Food Security Pesticides Use IPM as a tool Nutrient cycling *********************************************************** Food Security and Environment: Special Report: Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani & Syed Munawar Ali Shah Food security can be defined as the state in which all persons obtain a nutritionally adequate, culturally acceptable diet at all times through local non-emergency sources. Food security broadens the traditional concepts of hunger, embracing a systemic view of the causes of hunger and poor nutrition within a community while identifying the changes necessary to prevent their occurrence. Food security programs confront hunger and poverty. In many cases, the environmental price of food production is the loss of natural vegetation and biological diversity, soil erosion, and surface and groundwater depletion. Inevitably, there are divergent views about how land should be used, whether for industrial crops, food, nature conservation or industry. These conflicts exist for coastal and inland areas and common property resources such as forests, grazing lands and even oceans. Clearly defined procedures are needed to satisfy different needs and interests in society, not only of current generations but also taking into account future needs. This means involving stakeholders, farmers, local land managers, non-governmental and governmental organisations, consumers and others, and evaluating the environmental costs of different land use options. Democratic structures and public opinion on environmental issues help to identify preferences and set appropriate land use goals, including the need for access to food, and an adequate diet for a healthy, active life. Transformation of current and future food production systems requires a land or resource-use planning approach and the formulation of explicit goals for alternative land uses. Planning is also necessary to define incentives for sustainable use, and to promote changes of attitude and values toward improved land use options. Today's severe pressure on marine fish stocks is an example of how misguided policy and lack of planning can lead to indiscriminate use of a common natural resource. Particularly in Sindh, Pakistan, political and bureaucratic sharks have engulfed the marine resources of province on the name of so-called development. A consensus exists among non-governmental sector of the Pakistan that new approaches should be adopted for economic development with emphasis on food security, social development and environmental security. These approaches enable to reduce poverty and save the environment of Pakistan. Attainment of Sustainable-Development, however, calls for an urgent reversal of the current trends requiring: 1. Sustainable increases in agricultural productivity. 2. Harmonising population growth with the level of food production. 3. Better stewardship of the environment. 4. Better and equitable use of water. 5. Utilisation of Science and Technology in the promotion of Food Security and Sustainable Development. 6. Consciously integrating the environmental concerns into mainstream economic thinking and to reflect these concerns in the design and implementation of development programmes. 7. Develop indicators for the evaluation of development programs and policies achieving agricultural, demographic and environmental transitions. Experience has shown that countries in which there is good governance reap the benefits through more stable and sustainable economic growth. This involves promoting dialogue with all interest groups and sharing decision-making authority and control over resource allocation to district and local levels. A more enlightened role of government also implies working side-by-side with NGOs, farmers' associations and the private sector. The marginalisation of women from decisions and resources also has numerous negative effects on food production. Government is in the best position to assist women in sensitising them to environmental concerns by promoting interventions that improve their access to education and training, energy resources, and credit. Government must undertake the complex and difficult tasks of land tenure reform, channelling investment towards rural areas and enacting supporting policies that reflect a national ethic of sustainable development, reflecting, in turn, their circumstances. Present definitions of economic viability primarily consider productivity and profitability. They do not take into account sustainability. Neither are the costs of harmful effects on the environment included in the System of National Accounts, which countries use to measure their net economic gains and losses. The loss of environmental goods and services is particularly detrimental to poorer countries, whose economies are more dependent on natural resources and are thus more vulnerable to their loss. Intensive effort is needed to strengthen and test methodologies for national environmental accounting. This includes pricing the costs of soil and water degradation, of depletion of plant nutrients, loss of forest cover and biological diversity, practices that are economically and environmentally unsustainable. The environmental costs of producing different crops (i.e. the potential pollution or resource degradation intensity) also needs to be calculated in order to understand the conditions required for successful production. For example, agricultural income has to be adjusted to allow for various kinds of environmental damage, such as soil erosion, acidity, salinity and loss of plant nutrients, that arise from food production. Sustainable food security: requirements for a new era: The understanding of food security has evolved over the years through increasingly integrated attention to the social, gender, environmental, technical and economic dimensions of the problem. The challenge for the future will be to develop a peaceful, stable political, social and economic environment for Sustainable-Development. Also full and equal participation of men and women are also important for obtaining a food security and sustainable development ********************************************************************** Problems Associated with Pesticide Use & Misuse By: Dr Mushtaq Hussain Jokhio ********************************************************************** Pesticides are mainly used to control and eradicate disease vectors of desirable plant species, which in turn improve agricultural productivity. In today's world, particularly in developing countries, the use of pesticides have become so important that they are linked with improvement of human welfare (Otter et al., 1980). Because the losses of crops caused by pests are higher in developing countries, specifically under mono-cropping systems. Despite all the benefits of pesticides, there is world-wide concern about their use, because pesticides injure non-target organisms, such as human, livestock, wildlife, insects, birds, fish and plants. According to Monbray (1988) 600,000 tonnes of pesticides are exported to developing countries. Studies have shown that less than 0.1% of applied pesticides actually reach the targeted pests and remaining 99.9% have potential to move into soil, water and in atmosphere (Young & Weigniann, 1988). Therefore it is necessary to consider the negative effects of agricultural pesticides on human, livestock and other living organisms, also look at the ways to minimise the impacts of these negative effects. Effect of Pesticides on Humans: Pesticide poisoning in developing countries occurs in variety of ways. The group most at risk is farm worker, who mixes and applies pesticides in the field, also enters in the field after spraying. In 1976 massive poisoning among spray men of Malaria Control Programme occurred in Pakistan, and more than 7500 field workers were affected and five of them died (WHO, 1978). These injuries were result of mixing pesticides by hand and other poor practices (USAID, 1977). The contamination of wheat with Parathion group led to 100 deaths in South India. In 1980, 250 villagers were poisoned in North India due to wheat contamination with BHC, during storage. According one report from Philippine when farmers used Genochlorine pesticides, the death rate in newborn children increased by 27 times in countryside. In December 1987, pesticides poisoning in Hong Kong, due to eating Methamedophos contained spinach affected about 116 people. In California, hundreds of people were affected, when they ate pesticides treated melons. In south India, a mysterious disease affected 200 people in 40 villages, which began with intermittent pain in the hip and knee joints. This crippling deformity was linked with pesticide use (Bhat & Kirshan, 1977). Although there are no figures available about Pakistan, the newspapers report do indicates that pesticide's poisoning prevails in Pakistan. Effect of Pesticides on Livestock: Increasing use of pesticides has contributed in livestock diseases and mortality in rural areas of Pakistan. In December 1997, in Landhi Karachi, 40 buffaloes and cattle died due to unknown reasons. After laboratory tests it was identified that these animals died due to pesticide poisoning. After feed analysis it was found that their cotton seed cakes were contaminated with organo chlorine pesticide residue. In Tando Adam (Sindh), a herd of cattle and buffalo was affected due to pesticide poisoning, while the herd was grazing in fallow land besides cotton field, because cotton field was sprayed with pesticides. Effect of Pesticides on Environment: There are several processes that are active in transporting pesticides within or out of ecosystem. First process is volatilisation, in which pesticides evaporate in the air due to its higher vapour pressure. Second is movement of pesticides in dissolved state, this movement occurs in pesticides, which are water soluble in nature. Therefore, they leach out via macro-spores in soil, and contaminate ground water. Many pesticides transferred through air and during storms, pesticides can reach large urban cities, and cause eye problems and breathing problems in humans as well as in animals. Pesticides also kill beneficial insects and plants, which are essential for natural balance of our ecosystem. Conclusion: An organisation called Pesticide Action Network has prepared a list of hazardous pesticides. Eight of these hazardous chemicals are commonly used in developing countries. It is moral duty of developed and developing countries to ban all these chemicals. Some pesticides are banned in developed countries, but they are still sold and used in developing countries. Therefore it is the ethical duty of governments and researchers of developed world to stop all those multinational companies that are involved in such dirty business practices ************************************************************************ Integrated Pest Management (IPM): Components and Implementation By: Ghulam Hussain Mallah ************************************************************************ Pakistan is an agricultural country. More than 70% of the population is involved in agricultural related activities. Agriculture supplies most of the basic domestic food requirements plus 55% of the country's export earnings. In Pakistan human population is increasing at the rate of 2.9% annually; on the other hand, agricultural production worth of 2500 to 30000 million Pak rupees is lost annually due to plant pests and diseases. Therefore, pesticides use is increasing every year to reduce production losses. For example, total consumption of pesticides was 3404 tonnes in 1977, which increased to 5000 tonnes in 1982. Increasing chemical inputs is not the only solution to getting higher agricultural production; particularly, increasing net profit per acre. Every year increase in the use of chemical fertiliser and pesticides have resulted in lower net profits and caused serious damage to human health and environment. Looking at the above problems in our country and toxicity of pesticides. It is important that the use of all types of pesticides should be gradually phased out and replaced by plants resistant to pests and diseases. Till such time IPM can be used as a tool to control the pests and reduce the pesticides application. IPM is the best combination of cultural, biological, behavioural and chemical measures, which yields the most cost-effective environmentally friendly and socially acceptable insect, disease and weed management in given situation. In IPM, narrow range, selective, short-term pesticides are used to control pest population, if they are not controlled by other means. Components of IPM: 1. Cultural control 2. Biological control 3. Use of pheromones Use of microbial insecticides 4. Pest scouting 5. Rotational cropping Safe and efficient use of pesticides: 1. Continuos of pesticides causes an insect resistance problem, thus use them for limited period 2. Pesticides only used when pest population crosses thresh hold level. 3. Use right pesticide and full dose. 4. Well trained operator or technicians may be allowed to spray pesticides in the field Establishing the IPM Approach The use of IPM techniques require a good scientific knowledge in the following areas: 1. The plant growth pattern of locally cultivated varieties, distribution of the major pests and a destination part of the plant, which can be attacked by the pests 2. The effect of different planting dates on pest incidence 3. The major natural mortality factors regulating the abundance and population dynamics of the pests 4. The impact of the control procedures on the pests 5. Rotational cropping 6. Use of local natural chemical resources against pests (Neem Tree) It is therefore concluded that chemical method of pest control alone is not the only solution of the pest problem. There are several other alternatives to reduce the pest population. The concept of IPM is one of the important tools regarding controlling the pest population, which broadening the scope agro-ecosystem. IPM integrates several environmental friendly control methods and it does not entirely depend on use of pesticides. However, some times it is difficult to make balance between human food requirements and environmentally friendly methods to reduce pest attack and production losses. ********************************************************************** Livestock and nutrient cycling: Maintaining an ecosystem balance Dr Rashid Ahmed Nizamani & Dr Nasrullah Panhwer ********************************************************************** Crop farming takes out the soil nutrients, because farmers plant their crops, harvest the plants and typically cart them away to the homestead. After that the grain is removed, which is either eaten by the family or sold. The remains of the plant may or may not be returned to the fields. Obviously, there is a net loss of nutrients from the cropland, a loss that can be dramatic if crop residues are not returned to the soil. Inevitably, land that is cropped year in, year out without any nutrients being added will not continue to support the same yields, hence crop yields fall. The role of livestock in helping put nutrients back into soil is well known by the world's small-scale farmers and by soil and livestock experts. But in developed countries, where artificial fertilisers are abundant and affordable, this role of livestock is in danger of being forgotten. In the developed world, livestock are now seen as consuming resources and producing pollutants. The contribution that livestock make to crop production is strongly influenced by human population density, cropping intensity and climate. At one extreme, in arid lands unsuitable for cropping, pastoralism is the only option for sustaining livelihoods. With rising population density and higher rainfall, there is increasing interaction between livestock and crops-livestock come to rely on crops for part of their feed, while crops benefit from nutrients delivered as faeces and urine from the livestock. At the other extreme, in densely populated, intensively cropped regions, such as South-East Asia, livestock are highly valued by farmers as a means of producing fertiliser, converting plant material quickly and efficiently into a form that can be applied to the soil to maintain crop yields. Two routes from soil to soil Why involve livestock in cycling nutrients in crops back to soil? Why not just put the crop residues back on the land and let them decompose? There are several reasons why livestock are important to this process on small-holder farms. Firstly, cereal crop residues are often relatively slow to decompose Grazing cattle on crop residues in semi-arid West Africa. Livestock manure and urine are vital sources of nutrients for crop production in many parts of the developing world. Pose in soil, so it can be a long time before the nutrients in the crop residues become available to the subsequent crop. Also, while the soil microbes are breaking down the crop residues, they can actually tie up soil nitrogen for their own use, reducing the amount of nitrogen avail-able to plants. Thus, it may be months before the nutrients are available to plants. However, if one feeds crop residues to ruminant livestock, microbes in the animal's stomach break down the plant materials rapidly. The excreta, such as faeces and urine contain nutrients in forms that are more readily available to plants. The nutrients not excreted are converted to valuable animal products like milk, meat, fibre, tractive power etc. Livestock do more than speed up nutrient turnover through the process of digestion. As animals eat the palatable parts of the crop residues-the leaves for example-inedible fractions such as the stems are trampled underfoot (particularly if animals are stall-fed), where they mix with the faeces and soak up urine. Trampling by the animal breaks up the stover, speeding the decomposition process and increasing the capacity of the stover to absorb urine. Nitrogen in animal urine is commonly 'lost' through volatilisation, but using crop residues to soak up the urine improves nutrient 'capture'. 'Animal-processed' inedible fractions of crop residues compost faster, making the nutrients in them available sooner. The semi-arid zone includes parts of 48 developing countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, home to roughly one-sixth of the world's population. This is one of the most fragile, vulnerable agro-ecological zones. Its soils are sandy, contain little organic matter, are poorly structured and hold little water. Many of them crust over easily when they dry, making it difficult for seeds to germinate, and they are all easily eroded by water and by wind. Large parts of the world's semi-arid lands can only be used sustainably by ruminant livestock, and then only if their numbers are controlled and they are free to move over long distances, following the region's sparse and erratic rain. But increasing human population is reducing the freedom of livestock herders to roam and driving farmers to crop land that once was under permanent grassland, exposing the soil to erosion and depriving livestock of grazing. Even where cropping is feasible, the traditional fallowing system has broken down under the pressure to produce more food, hastening the decline in the already low soil fertility. The high price of inorganic fertilisers, inappropriate policies and difficulties in getting agricultural inputs to rural areas mean that few farmers use improved crop varieties or fertilisers. Manure is often the only fertiliser used by smallholder farmers in this zone. The easy answers, such as not to cultivate fragile land and to limit the number of livestock kept on the land, don't work in the real world. What farmers and livestock owners need are options that help them produce the food and income they need to provide for their families and to contribute to the development of their societies. One such option -indeed one of very few workable options-is to integrate cropping and livestock rearing in ways that allow each activity to support the other, minimising competition for resources. This is the approach needed in fragile areas. ********************** SLAP's Team ********************** Honorary Editor: Dr Aslam P. UmraniPhD in "Sustainable Agriculture" Assistant Editors:Ghulam Hussain MallahRashid Ahmed Nizamani Printing and Distribution: Syed Munawar Ali Shah Tariq Ali Baloch Arts and Design: Zulfiqar Ali Publisher: Shahnaz.Palijo Address: Editor SLAP: 60/ Al Abass housing society, New Wehdat colony, Hyderabad, Pakistan. Email: agr726@hyd.zoooom.net.pk Email list to join: sindhorg@egroups.com Internet site to visit: http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3770/ Dr Aslam Pervez Umrani (PhD in Sustainable Agriculture), Editor: Sustainable Livestock and Agriculture Production (SLAP), Address: House No. 60, Al-Abbas Housing Society, New Wehdat Colony, Hyderabad, Pakistan. Email: agr726@hyd.zoooom.net.pk http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/Canopy/3770/ From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Tue Apr 27 10:47:18 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 13:47:18 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1092] APEC in Christchurch - NZ Press Assn story Message-ID: APEC ACCELERATED TARIFF CUTS, FEWER TRADE RESTRICTIONS ON APEC MENU Christchurch, April 26 NZPA - The Government is pushing for accelerated tariff cuts and fewer trade restrictions in Pacific Rim countries as host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) summit. Prime Minister Jenny Shipley used her opening address at Apec's ministerial and business meetings in Christchurch today to encourage delegates to follow New Zealand's open markets philosophy. Mrs Shipley told about 1000 delegates, officials, and media in the Town Hall that New Zealand was a small, open economy that did not believe in handouts to business. ``We don't believe the answer lies in quick fixes or opening up a cheque-book for subsidies,'' she said. Her remarks came after protest group Gatt Watchdog released a Treasury advice paper that warned the Government parts of its agenda opposing industry assistance policies and export finance schemes ran counter to Apec's conference programme. The results of this week's meetings would need to be ``carefully managed'', the Treasury advice said. Backing up Mrs Shipley, Enterprise and Commerce Minister Max Bradford urged an end to obscure and complicated regulations that cost business. He said he hoped people would come to view business achievers in the same way as sporting heroes. In a nod to Apec's doubters, Mr Bradford said broadening support for Apec was one of the main themes of New Zealand's year in the Apec chair. ``Apec must be an open process driven by the needs of people in society and worked up in consultation with them,'' he said. The delegates have a lot to live up to. Christchurch Mayor Garry Moore dubbed the meetings ``one of the most significant events in the commercial history of this city''. He told the opening ceremony delegates had a huge responsibility in shaping the economic future of the region and the well-being of its people. He warned them not to forget the effect of their trade decisions on indigenous peoples. Mr Moore said Christchurch offered delegates some pointers, with an unorthodox approach that blended a vibrant economy, a sustainable environment, and ``economic and social justice''. The potential tourist spin-offs from Apec were not lost on organisers. Delegates filed into the Town Hall to the sound of native birdsong, while the stage was transformed into a West Coast rainforest. An audiovisual presentation showed waterfalls, lakes, snow-capped peaks, bungy-jumpers and sheep. An enthusiastic powhiri and dance spectacular by a Ngai Tahu performance group pinned delegates back in their seats while veteran entertainer Sir Howard Morrison joined hands with Mrs Shipley for a chorus of Pokarekareana. Meanwhile, about 30 people banged drums and blew whistles in an orderly but noisy demonstration outside the Christchurch Convention Centre during a mayoral reception for Apec delegates last evening. Police said the protest was well-behaved and there were no arrests. NZPA CHP kn reg 26/04/99 20-52NZ ENERGY-PYLONS (carried earlier) PAKEHA FARMERS BLAMED FOR PYLON SABOTAGE Christchurch, April 26 - Treaty activist and lawyer Annette Sykes has saluted the ``Pakeha farmers'' she believes are sabotaging power pylons. Attending an anti-Apec briefing in Christchurch Ms Sykes, of Ngati Pikiao, said it was Maori custom to pay respect to others' efforts when visiting another locality. She also saluted the Wild Greens group who destroyed an experimental potato crop at Lincoln recently. ``I salute anyone who takes action against injustice,'' she said. ``Genetic engineering is not good for the future of society and the privatisation (of electricity assets) is not good for the country.'' Asked how she knew Pakeha farmers were responsible for the damage, Ms Sykes said she assumed it was farmers because the pylons were on farmland. The damage was a protest by farmers at the way the Government had alienated public assets, she said. Although the pylons were still owned by the Government through the State-owned enterprise Transpower, they had been ``privatised'' because they were no longer owned by a public body, she said. A special police squad has been set up to investigate damage to about nine power pylons between Benmore and Cook Strait. Most of the sabotaged pylons are situated in the Canterbury area. The sabotage started in June last year. Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa spokesman Bill Rosenburg said the connection that appeared to be drawn between the pylon damage and anti-Apec activities showed the security hysteria such events generated. NZPA CHP reg From david at wacc.gn.apc.org Tue Apr 27 18:42:05 1999 From: david at wacc.gn.apc.org (david@wacc.gn.apc.org) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 09:42:05 +0000 (BST) Subject: [asia-apec 1093] Re: APEC in Christchurch - NZ Press Assn story In-Reply-To: Message-ID: Dear Sir/Madam, Please be informed that I've a new email address. Please forward all your message to my new address below from now on: Thank you very much for your attention and I look forward to be kept informed by your listserve. David --- David Lin WACC Regional Coordinator for Asia & Pacific Phone: 44 (171) 582-9139 FAX: 44 (171) 735-0340 Email: (NEW!!!) Webpage: ---------------------------------------------------------------- On Tue, 27 Apr 1999, Gatt Watchdog wrote: > APEC > ACCELERATED TARIFF CUTS, FEWER TRADE RESTRICTIONS ON APEC MENU > Christchurch, April 26 NZPA - The Government is pushing for > accelerated tariff cuts and fewer trade restrictions in Pacific Rim > countries as host of the Asia-Pacific Economic Co-operation (Apec) > summit. > Prime Minister Jenny Shipley used her opening address at Apec's > ministerial and business meetings in Christchurch today to encourage > delegates to follow New Zealand's open markets philosophy. > Mrs Shipley told about 1000 delegates, officials, and media in > the Town Hall that New Zealand was a small, open economy that did ..... ...... From panap at panap.po.my Tue Apr 27 16:22:09 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Tue, 27 Apr 1999 15:22:09 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1094] Cargill's plans for APEC Message-ID: For those of you who think APEC is dead, why are some of the world's largest corporations so interested in it? The news clipping below reveals a lot about the APEC process. Notice how Cargill's manager says that the Open Food System is expected to be the central trade issue during the summit. That would certainly make Cargill happy; after all, they and their policy advisors were the ones that actually drew up the plans for the system in the first place. For the full story see the article written by Brewster Kneen and myself (http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/laapec.htm) Best, Devlin APEC SUMMIT PLANS TO TAKE MEASURES FOR FOOD SECURITY by Rupa Damodaran (New Straits Times, Tuesday April 27, 1999, p.24) The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in New Zealand in September this year is expected to seek new measures towards achieving food security in the region. Cargill Holdings (Malaysia) Sdn Bhd cuntr manager James N. Reimer said the “Open Food System” intitiative is expected to be the central trade issue during the summit. Reimer, whose company is a member of the American Malaysian Chaber of Commerce, said countries like Malaysia could be a model for the Asean region. “This is especially seen in the agriculture food policy here where its rice imports have been increased and balanced with the domestic production,” he said in Petaling Jaya yesterday. Malaysia has already liberalised its trade policies and balanced its increased imports with higher value exports and has also developed high quality port and transportation infrastructure. Achieving food security through balanced trade and domestic production, he said, had broad benefits for all Apec members. The Apec Business Advisory Council had called on economic leaders for action in the food sector to achieve sustainable growth and development. Apec leaders have created a task force on food to study supply, demand and environmental parameters. The countries should implement a food system to achieve the most efficient, co-operative, reliable, safe and sustainable supply to the Asia Pacific region. Under an Apec open food system, emphasis is placed on infrastructure that promotes efficient processing of food between and within countries. “There will be an alignment of food prices with world market values and free trade in food as well as regional co-operation to ensure technological advances in production and processing reach all economies. Cargill is an international marketer, processor and distributor of agricultural, food, financial and industrial products in more than 1,000 locations in 65 countries. From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Wed Apr 28 07:37:40 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:37:40 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1095] New Zealand Press Assn on APEC Message-ID: APEC-GUNS PARLIAMENT PASSES BILL ALLOWING BODYGUARDS TO CARRY GUNS AT APEC Wellington, April 27 NZPA - Parliament tonight passed legislation allowing bodyguards of foreign leaders to carry weapons during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) summit meeting in Auckland in September. The Arms Amendment Bill passed its third reading 107-12 with only the Alliance voting against it. Police Minister Clem Simich said it would apply only during the Apec meeting. ``We have a heavy responsibility while they are here. We are recognising that responsibility and sending a message that New Zealand is not a soft target,'' he said. He said the security operation for the meeting, due to be attended by 21 leaders including United States President Bill Clinton, would be the most wide-ranging ever seen in New Zealand. He assured Parliament that under the bill foreign bodyguards would work closely with the police and would not have diplomatic immunity if any weapon was misused. Labour supported the bill and MP Rick Barker said it was a sensible measure to deal with a unique security situation. ``It will not usurp the authority of the New Zealand police, it won't allow Rambo types to run around Auckland,'' he said. Alliance MP Matt Robson repeated his previous objections to the bill, saying it did not apply only to presidents and prime ministers but to foreign dignitaries and their families. ``It permits a very wide range of people to have armed bodyguards ... it seems that demands from world leaders have been placed upon us,'' he said. Mr Robson argued that the police and New Zealand's military services had the ability to protect foreign leaders. NZPA PAR pw 27/04/99 20-05NZ APEC-CHCH-N/L APEC DELEGATES SEEK MORE GOVT SUPPORT Christchurch, April 27 NZPA - Apec delegates have criticised the hands-off approach to business of countries including New Zealand, calling for more support from the region's governments. While steering clear of any mention of handouts, business people in forums at Apec meetings in Christchurch today asked for central funding for start-up capital, education and training programmes, and common agreements on taxation, electronic commerce, and banking. New Zealand Government ministers at the conference have pushed the theme of creating an environment for business to help itself. Former trade minister Philip Burdon today echoed earlier statements by Prime Minister Jenny Shipley and Trade and Enterprise Minister Max Bradford ruling out Government assistance or protection for business. ``Preferential treatment can distort the marketplace and promote inefficient business,'' Mr Burdon said. Singapore-based consultant Laina (crrct) Greene said while big business often had the ear of government, their smaller colleagues were the backbone of the Asia-Pacific economy. The current business environment was not a level playing field and nations such as New Zealand and Singapore often confused regulation with support, she said. A middle-road approach was needed rather than extreme hands-off approach of some governments. Her comments were endorsed by delegates in other forums. Wendy Pye, chairwoman of the Apec education forum, said delegates wanted more involvement between business and education institutions and a say in curriculum development. A forum on electronic commerce heard that businesses in Asia were concerned they may be hit by New Zealand GST. One delegate said her company was faced with paying tax in three countries. She called for common tax laws, while another called for the abolition of GST. Internet fraud also concerned delegates, who spoke of safe havens for internet hackers if all Apec countries did not agree to a common approach to preventing it. Business delegates later made recommendations to the ministers of about 18 nations present at the conference including an action plan on trade barriers by next year to be posted on the internet. The plan includes: * Consistent accounting, tax, and banking systems; and * Common agreements on internet fraud, security, and dispute resolution. Speaking on behalf of the ministers, United States deputy secretary of commerce Robert Mallett said there was a great deal of consensus at an inter-government level about the problems smaller business faced. The issue was how to address them. He asked ministers to avoid the temptation to ``walk the walk and talk the talk, then go back to our own economies and do precisely what it was we were doing before''. Mr Bradford said most countries, including New Zealand, now recognised the importance of small business, and the necessity to do more to create a business-friendly environment. How this was achieved would be up to the leaders' summit later this year, although a joint communique from the Christchurch meetings would be issued tomorrow, Mr Bradford said. NZPA CHP reg 27/04/99 20-57NZ From gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz Wed Apr 28 07:47:04 1999 From: gattwd at corso.ch.planet.gen.nz (Gatt Watchdog) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 10:47:04 +1200 Subject: [asia-apec 1096] NZ - Roger Award Message-ID: <6c3e8e1w165w@corso.ch.planet.gen.nz> The Roger Award PO Box 1905 Christchurch Aotearoa/New Zealand Monsanto Wins Roger Award For Worst Transnational Corporation In NZ; Tranz Rail, Fletcher Challenge, Business Round Table Also Win The panel of judges for the Award was: Sukhi Turner, Mayor of Dunedin, Annette Sykes, Ngati Pikiao lawyer and Treaty activist, Moana Jackson, Director, Nga Kaiwhakamarama I Nga Ture (Maori Legal Service), and Maxine Gay, President, NZ Trade Union Federation. Sukhi Turner is announcing the Award at a function at 8pm today at the Trade Union Centre, 199 Armagh St, Christchurch. Tonight's award ceremony, organised by Corso, GATT Watchdog, and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa is part of a programme of events opposed to the APEC meetings currently taking place in Christchurch. The annual award is given to the transnational corporation judged to have had the most negative impact in New Zealand in each or all of the following fields: unemployment; monopoly; profiteering; abuse of workers/conditions; political interference; environmental damage; cultural imperialism; impact on tangata whenua; pursuing an ideological crusade; impact on women, and health and safety of workers and the public. An excerpt from the judges' report reads: "This US corporate giant is not only seeking to control and monopolise the production of agricultural produce in the global economy, it is also responsible for promoting research and development on a wide range of genetically engineered products that have the potential to irreversibly alter and damage the ecosystem of the planet and the food supply of future generations. This threat needs to be taken seriously by New Zealanders as Monsanto is already petitioning the Environmental Risk Management Agency (ERMA) to grow genetically modified Canola over several hundred hectares on North Canterbury and Southland farms to produce seeds for the Canadian market. Perhaps more worrying is the establishment of a Crown Institute/Monsanto quango, Gene Pool, with the backing of the Royal Society (representing the scientific establishment) to campaign for New Zealand to become a site in the development of genetic engineering. Such a strategy is also backed by Federated Farmers of New Zealand. It seems that just as the 1980s saw New Zealand become the testing ground for neo-liberalism or 'Rogernomics,' so the country is to become a laboratory for genetically modified organisms (GMOs) in the 21st century, the effects of which could be devastating for the environment, food supply, and population." The judges also gave Fletcher Challenge a 'dishonourable award' because of "the negative impact of the company's forestry and pulp and paper operations in the Central North Island which have inflicted so much damage on indigenous communities....[D]espite claims to the contrary, the sale of the former ForestCorp has led to many job losses in communities such as Rotorua, Kaingaroa, and Taupo". Tranz Rail receives a 'continuity award' for "the company's persistent failure to address its appalling safety record, for which it received the inaugural 1997 Roger Award". The other finalists were Independent Newspapers Ltd (INL), Carter Holt Harvey, and Telecom. Leigh Cookson, a spokeswoman for the Roger Award organisers, said: "In the year that the government hosts APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation), it is well worth noting that Monsanto actively participates in APEC's Agricultural Technical Cooperation Experts' Group Committee, especially in its biotechnology workshops. APEC is just one of the tools being used to expand the rights of corporations like Monsanto to maximise their profits regardless of the costs to peoples and the environment. The Roger Award is one way to hold big business accountable and generate some much needed debate about the role of transnational corporations in New Zealand". The three organisations behind the Roger Award have also created a new "Collaborator's Award" for the New Zealand individual or organisation which has collaborated most with transnational corporations. "The inaugural award goes to the the local mouthpiece for the interests of global capital in New Zealand, the Business RoundTable, for its ongoing political interference and its advocacy of profit-first, people-last policies at national and local government level,", says Ms Cookson. ----------------------------------------------------------------- From nacfar at mnl.sequel.net Thu Apr 29 07:55:19 1999 From: nacfar at mnl.sequel.net (by way of tpl@cheerful.com) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 06:55:19 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1097] NO TO FISH IMPORTS! Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990429065519.006a22d0@pop.skyinet.net>
ffff,0000,0000PROTECT OUR LOCAL PHILIPPINE FISH PRODUCERS, NO TO FISHERY IMPORTATION!
ffff,0000,0000
0000,0000,ffffA Declaration of Unity and Cooperation Against Fishery Importation by the ffff,0000,0000Network Opposed to Fishery Importations (NO TO FISH IMPORTS!)
We, fisherfolk leaders and representatives of the Philippine’s local fish producers believe that we all share a strong commitment to cooperate and struggle against a common problem that currently confronts our local fish producers and the whole fishing industry. We believe that under the fishery policy and program thrusts of the Estrada government to fully liberalize, as specified in its commitments to the World Trade Organization - General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (WTO-GATT) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC), our local fishing industry and local markets will only become a dumping ground of imported fishery products. Due to fast-tracked import liberalization dictated by globalization, our local fish producers are being injuriusly affected by undue competition brought about by the influx of heavily subsidized, cheap, surplus fishery commodities. We therefore express our utmost concern regarding the mounting surge of imported fishery products being landed at the Navotas Fish Port Complex (NFPC), which, as per record of the Philippine Fisheries Development Authority (PFDA) for the first two months of this year alone, reached 1.14 million kilograms or 5.26 percent of the total landings at the NFPC during the same period. Based on our findings, this quantity represents 44.19 percent of the total 3.02 million kilograms of imported fish landings at the NFPC for the whole previous year. This excludes other fishing ports which may have imported and we have reason to believe that the total imported fishery products that entered the country may run from three to five million kilograms. We manifest our objection to the unfair trading practices by foreign exporters and local importers that cause inequitable market conditions for our local producers who suffer from high production costs compared to low-cost imports that are being sold at prices below our productions costs. This clearly means a decrease in the income of local fish producers, millions worth lost to imports, and millions pocketed by unscrupulous importers and their foreign counterparts. We express disapproval over the current spate of imports that further drain the economy of valuable dollar reserves, rather than being utilized to boost our local producers and the local fishing economy. We express concern over the economic deception made by importers and their foreign counterparts that push Filipino consumers into buying surplus, overpriced and less quality fish imports. Intensification of fishery importations only create further conditions and justification to the lopsided governmental policy of “food security” that is heavily dependent on the capacity to import rather than the development of the local fishing economy’s efficient, sustainable, and equitable production and distribution for the Filipino people's benefit. We blame liberalization under WTO-GATT and APEC for prying open the local agricultural and fisheries economy to multinational corporations and heavily subsidized fishing enterprises of the First World. We have not benefitted from trade liberalization. Under GATT and APEC, our production and the prices of our products are only rendered uncompetitive by imports sold at prices equivalent to, or worse, below the productions cost of Filipino local producers. We criticize the government for its neglect in developing the local fishing industry, particularly its apathy to the small fisherfolk sector and its irresponsible and unconcerned commitment in opening the Philippine fishing economy to the unhampered entry of imported fishery products and commodities. Still, we appeal to government’s sense of sobriety and attention to the impact of import liberalization that currently works against the interest of Filipino fish producers and consumers. We believe that there is still time to prevent the collapse of the local fishing industry that would economically and socially displace more than one million direct fish producers and millions more who eke out their living in ancillary industries like netmending, netmaking, fish processing, canning, post-harvest storages, shipbuilding and others. Therefore, we who belong to the productive sectors of our population, we who contribute significantly to the Philippine economy, we who supply and provide vital and affordable protein food to millions of poor Filipinos, call for an immediate and unconditional stop to the reckless importation of fishery products. We also renounce government’s trade commitments to the WTO and APEC involving fisheries and agriculture. We want to get out of GATT and APEC before our local fishing economy comes into full collapse. # # # ====================================================== The Network Opposed to Fishery Importations or NO TO FISH IMPORTS! is a loose assemblage of legal and legitimate peoples organizations, enterprises and individuals representing the local fishing industry’s fish producers, primarily the traditional fisherfolk sector, the small, medium and large-scale commercial fishing sectors, and the aquaculture sector. The NO to FISH IMPORTS! acts on the basis of a vigilant, militant and learned opposition to the manifold effects of increasing importation of fishery products to local fish producers and the whole fishing industry. The Network Opposed to Fishery Importations or NO TO FISH IMPORTS! is currently composed of the following peoples’ organizations, fishing enterprises, and individuals: * Nationwide Coalition of Fisherfolk for Aquatic Reform (NACFAR) * Pambansang Lakas ng Kilusang Mamamalakaya ng Pilipinas (PAMALAKAYA) * Alliance of Philippine Fishing Federations, Incorporated (APFFI) * Chamber of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (CFAR) From bayan at iname.com Thu Apr 29 08:08:54 1999 From: bayan at iname.com (BAYAN) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 07:08:54 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1098] Bayan slams oil price hike Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990429070854.006a22d0@pop.skyinet.net> Government earns a lot from increased oil prices --- IBON By Danilo A. Arao The recent oil price hike has benefited not only the oil companies but also the Estrada government. IBON computations show that for every peso a jeepney driver shells out in buying diesel, government gets 20 centavos. The government also pockets 47 centavos for every peso a fisherfolk pays for regular gasoline. And as an urban poor buys kerosene, government gets nine centavos for every peso he or she gives to the retailer. Given that the country consumes about 60 million liters of oil per day, the government imposes varying specific taxes on oil products. Using Petron's current pump prices, the taxes range from 9% (kerosene) to 47% (regular gasoline). For the first six months of 1998, taxes on petroleum products already amounted to P15.6 billion. IBON computations show that the government stands to earn P71.3 million everyday from the taxes on premium, regular gasoline, diesel and kerosene. The four petroleum products already constitute 48% of total oil consumption. Allowing and defending the recent oil price hike, therefore, becomes beneficial to the government. Indeed, the oil industry has become a milking cow as the oil firms earn more and give government its share of the loot in the form of taxes. OIL PRICE HIKE: WHAT'S IN IT FOR GOVERNMENT? New Pump Prices a/ Taxes % share (peso per liter) (peso per liter) Premium 12.04 5.35 44% Unleaded 11.69 - - Regular Gas 10.29 4.80 47% Diesel 8.34 1.65 20% Kerosene 7.00 0.60 9% a/ Petron's pump prices as of April 21, 1999. Its prices were used as reference since Petron has the biggest market share of 42 %. Source of basic data: Department of Energy ============================================ MEDIA RELEASE 21 April 1999 Bayan slams oil price hike Unjust in the light of P1.7 billion overpricing last year BAYAN (New Patriotic Alliance) today expressed outrage over the 50-centavo oil price hike announced by Caltex saying that the three oil giants have overpriced consumers by P1.7 billion from January to December last year. ?Calling an oil price increase is simply unreasonable in the light of the P1.7 billion the oil cartel raked in through overpricing last year,? said Teodoro Casi?o, Bayan Deputy Secretary General. ?When no one was looking, the oil cartel had been busy manipulating their accounts, lowering prices much less than they should have. Now that they are raising prices, they are pointing at the series of price reductions they enforced since October last year but they are conspicuously silent as to how much profits they made last year,? said Casi?o. The combined profits of the three members of the oil cartel, Petron, Shell and Caltex increased by a whooping 1,060% from January to December last year. From their ?reported losses? of P4.5 billion in 1997, their combined earnings reached to P6.1 billion in 1998. Based on computations made by IBON Foundation, the three oil firms overpriced their products by P1.7 billion last year. Of this amount, P720 million, P551 million, and P414 million were accounted for by Petron, Shell and Caltex respectively. Casi?o said the incredible increase in profits is due to the full deregulation of the oil industry last year. Republic Act 8479, he said, is no different from the old deregulation law that gave the oil cartel absolute freedom in overpricing consumers. The Supreme Court struck down RA 8180 as unconstitutional in November 1997. ?The oil cartel can now freely dictate prices without the hassle of a public hearing and the intervention of a pseudo-regulatory body like the Energy Regulatory Board. It is now perfectly legal to jack up prices and earn more than the previously maximum allowable 12% rate of return base (RORB),? said Casi?o. IBON estimates also showed that the series of oil price rollbacks were not substantial based on the reduction of crude oil world prices and the strengthening of the peso vis a vis the dollar. ?The Big Three are still overpricing their products even as they claim that they were rolling back prices,? he added. Bayan said the only way to prevent overpricing is to dismantle the oil cartel, scrap the oil deregulation law and nationalize the strategic industry. ?The Estrada government should take serious steps to crush the cartel instead of colluding with the biggest thieves in the country to "delay" raising prices because it?s the President?s birthday,? said Casi?o. The group said the oil price hike will trigger increases in the prices of other prime commodities. ?People are worried about the immediate effect on prices of basic commodities especially foodstuff,? he said. ### From jaggi at tao.ca Thu Apr 29 10:59:06 1999 From: jaggi at tao.ca (Jaggi Singh) Date: Wed, 28 Apr 1999 21:59:06 -0400 (EDT) Subject: [asia-apec 1099] Vancouver against the WTO Message-ID: PLANNING AND INFO NIGHT To organize a local grassroots coalition against the WTO meetings in Seattle Tuesday, May 18 7pm La Quena Coffee House 1111 Commercial Drive VANCOUVER For more info, e-mail Uri at uri@interchange.ubc.ca or phone Nora at 604-430-8049. If you can't make the meeting, but would like to be involved in raising awareness and organizing against the WTO meetings in Seattle, please get in touch. **Childcare will be provided** **La Quena is wheelchair-accessible** -- BACKGROUND -- >From November 29 to December 4, Seattle will host a meeting of the trade ministers and many leaders of the 134 countries belonging to the World Trade Organization. The ministers will be negotiating the agenda for the "Millenium Round", a new round of negotiations which is expected to include some provisions from the much-loathed MAI (Multilateral Agreement on Investment), as well as new initiatives to further entrench the power of transnational capital. The meeting will be a large step towards achieving the grand vision of the WTO, a vision in which corporations plunder an increasingly impoverished world. An initial meeting of grassroots Vancouver activists was held on April 20 to kickstart a local movement to oppose the Seattle ministerial meeting. Though energy was high, the group felt that a more inclusive gathering was needed to set the stage for a representative Vancouver-based anti-WTO coalition. The gathering will take place at La Quena (1111 Commercial Drive) on May 18 at 7pm. There will be a presentation on the WTO, in the form of either a video or a panel discussion, which will be followed by a planning meeting, where vision and strategy will be discussed. All groups and individuals interested in raising awareness and organizing against the WTO in Seattle are welcome. [end] From panap at panap.po.my Thu Apr 29 13:37:45 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1999 12:37:45 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1100] MONSANTO, IRRI, and THAI NGO ALLIANCE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE? Message-ID: *FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE* *PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY* MONSANTO, IRRI, and THAI NGO ALLIANCE ABOUT TO COLLAPSE? PAN-AP update on Monsanto, IRRI project in Thailand April 28, 1999 On April 6, 1999 the Pesticide Action Network- Asia and the Pacific (PAN-AP) and BIOTHAI sent out a joint press release on the proposed project between Monsanto, IRRI, the Department of Agriculture and the Population and Community Development Association (PDA) to introduce industrial farming with Monsanto’s pesticides in Northeast Thailand through micro-credit. Subsequently on April 23, PAN-AP sent out copies of a letter from PAN-AP’s Executive Director, Sarojeni .V Rengam, to the Chairman of the PDA, Mechai Viravaidya. Since then, other concerned people and organisations have written to Mechai and IRRI sharing their concerns about the project (some letters may be viewed on our website, http://www.poptel.org.uk/panap/). The press release and letters have caused alarm among the project’s partners. In an E-mail memo from Ian Bevege (Principal Advisor for the Australian Centre for International Agricultural Research [ACIAR] and Member of the Task Force on Genetic Resources, Plant Resources Committee, SCARM) to Ken Fisher (Deputy Director General for Research of IRRI), Mr. Bevege states: “Obviously [the press release] has the potential to harm IRRI . . . The last thing we want is an anti-IRRI campaign among NGOs or among the luddites who are bent on capturing the biotech agenda. Nevertheless there may be real issues of equity and real concern here.” ACIAR, like IRRI, is a member of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research. Monsanto, IRRI, and the PDA are now looking at ways to diffuse public concerns about the project. It is possible that PDA may remove its name from the project and that its international division, PDI, may take over. There is also the possibility that PDA could continue to work with IRRI while another NGO could be brought on board to receive and distribute Monsanto’s technology. At present, sources in Thailand confirm that PDA has changed the staff working on the project in an effort to quash any leaks of information. There is also reason to believe that Monsanto will back down from the project in response to the public outcry over the project. Vasana Chinvarakorn from the Bangkok Post recently spoke to IRRI officials in the Philippines, who suggested that it was likely that Monsanto would pull out of the deal. -A Marriage of Convenience- In a conversation with Witoon Lianchamroon of BIOTHAI, Mr. Sarnya of Monsanto Thailand explained how the project had come about quite accidentally. It seems that Monsanto’s field workers were out promoting herbicide in the Northeast of Thailand when they bumped into IRRI and PDA workers. They discussed their work and immediately saw the benefits of collaboration. Soon after, Innovative Partnerships for Agricultural Changes in Technology (INPACT) was born. Other sources, however, say that it was IRRI that first approached the PDA about a year ago. Apparently, the Kenan Institute of Asia (KIAsia) will also be involved with funding, if the project ever gets started. According to its website “the overall objective of KIAsia is to promote mutually advantageous cooperative programs among US and Asian corporations, universities, government agencies, and assistance organisations.” KIAsia is funded by USAID. The participation of KIAsia adds one more link to the striking web of high-level interrelationships involved in the project: Paul Wedel, Head of KIAsia, and Mechai Viravaidya are the Secretary and President, respectively, of the same international school in Bangkok; Mechai Viravaidya is a board member of IRRI; and, Paul Teng, Director of Biotechnology for Monsanto and contact for the INPACT project, is a former high-level employee of IRRI. *** Please visit the PANAP website for more information -April 6, 1999 Joint Press Release from BIOTHAI and PAN-AP -Letter from PAN-AP to the PDA -Letters from Mae-Won Ho, Brewster Kneen, and Nettie Wiebe of Via Campesina -Background Information on R.I.C.E (Rice, IRRI, and Corporate Earnings) From bayan at iname.com Fri Apr 30 07:05:37 1999 From: bayan at iname.com (BAYAN) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 06:05:37 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1101] Junk VFA Movement gears for Philippine Senate showdown Message-ID: <3.0.3.32.19990430060537.0069be30@pop.skyinet.net> From: BAYAN JUNK VFA MOVEMENT MEDIA RELEASE 23 April 1999 Junk VFA Movement gears for Senate showdown Starting Sunday up to the day of the Senate voting on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA), calibrated protests will be staged by various groups under the Junk VFA Movement to culminate in a two-day nationally coordinated mass action and caravan. The Senate showdown, according to the alliance of anti-VFA groups, aims to show the people's broad opposition to the military agreement and convince the senators to reject it. ?In the past few weeks, people have been treated to a barrage of pro-VFA propaganda on television, radio and in the newspapers. While the government is squandering the people's money for such an expensive media blitz, we on the other hand, have the people behind us,? said retired Capt. Danilo Vizmanos, convenor of the Junk VFA Movement. ?Our battlezones will be in the streets,? he added. The anti-VFA countdown starts on April 25 with a fun run, dubbed as "Run for freedom! A race against the VFA.? Students, athletes, yuppies, artists, gays, TV personalities, professionals and a few lawmakers will run and walk from the Quirino Grandstand to the CCP Complex to show their opposition to the VFA. ?We want to provide a fun and popular venue for the people to express their sentiment against the VFA. We want to encourage everybody from all walks of life to manifest their opposition in whatever way they can,? said Vizmanos. In the morning of April 26, members of Bayan's NCR chapter will picket the Senate. In the afternoon, the Southern Tagalog anti-VFA alliance, Kalas VFA, will hold their own rally also in front of the Senate. Modern-day Gabrielas will take center stage on May 5, with an all-women chain stretching from the US Embassy to the Senate building. They will link arms with one another to prevent the ratification of the VFA that will again allow the entry of US military troops in the country. According to Gabriela, thousands of poor women were forced into prostitution during the long stay of US military bases in the country. The Senate Joint Committee Report claims that this will not be a problem since under the VFA, no bases will be established. However, the Junk VFA Movement pointed out that there is no limit as to how long US personnel can stay in the country. The ?short visits? may extend to weeks and months. During their stay, it is inevitable that so-called ?rest and recreation? establishments will mushroom. Migrant workers, fisherfolk, environmental groups, artists and other sectors will hold separate protests at the Senate. The series of protests will culminate in a nationally-coordinated protest action on the eve and the day of the Senate voting, including a caravan to the Senate from the Southern Tagalog, Northern Luzon and Central Luzon regions. The Joint Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense and Security, chaired by Sen. Blas Ople and Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former military general), has already submitted their report recommending the ratification of the VFA. To placate critics and sugarcoat some of the most onerous provisions of the VFA, the committee has recommended the creation of an oversight committee to monitor the implementation of the VFA. It also urged President Estrada to issue several executive orders to ensure the protection of the environment, to guarantee that tariff laws are not violated and to draw guidelines to avoid conflicts on criminal jurisdiction issues. Bayan Deputy Secretary General Teodoro Casi?o slammed the recommendations. He said these do not change the onerous and one-sided military agreement. ### ==================== MEDIA RELEASE 19 April 1999 BAYAN hits VFA senate committee report, serenade senators to reject VFA The Bagong Alyansang Makabayan today labeled the report of the Senate's joint committee on the Visiting Forces Agreement (VFA) as "a failed effort at damage control." The group, along with the alliance of artists opposed to the VFA, Kalag VFA, serenaded senators urging them to reject the VFA during today?s Senate opening session. Bayan said the recommendation of the Senate Joint Committee on Foreign Relations and National Defense and Security forming an oversight committee to monitor the implementation of the VFA and urging the President to issue several executive orders, were merely meant to placate anti-VFA opposition and did not in any way change the onerous and one-sided nature of the agreement. The recommendations are contained in the Final Report of the Joint Committee formally submitted to senators last Friday, April 16. ?We are not deceived. The recommendations do not resolve the bases of opposition of the people. The VFA should be rejected in its entirety,? he said. ?The Joint Committee report implicitly recognizes the faulty provisions of the VFA, that?s why the Senate did not simply concur but urged the President to enact some damage control measures. The irony is that while these executive issuances appear to give more teeth to the government in protecting national interest, the VFA has in fact, and in effect, already clipped such government powers. The VFA has rendered the government practically inutile in asserting the rights and interests of the people,? said Casi?o. The group scoffed at the Joint Committee?s proposal recommending the President to direct the Dept. of Justice ?to draw appropriate guidelines, in accordance with the VFA, that will prevent conflicts on jurisdictional issues.? ?What guideline is there to draw? Surrender of Philippine criminal jurisdiction is already spelled out in the VFA. In fact, almost half of the entire VFA text is devoted to this. Whatever ?exclusive jurisdiction? the Estrada government claims it can assert is removed in the succeeding pages through legal sophistry,? he added. Casino cited the recent cable car tragedy in Italy, where the US pilot responsible for the death of 22 Europeans was acquitted by US court, as an example of what could happen in the Philippines under the VFA. "If Italy, a fellow NATO member, failed to try the U.S. pilot involved in the cable car tagedy, what more in the Philippines, with a government subservient to the US?? he added. Casi?o said the Joint Committee missed the point in suggesting that the Bureau of Customs closely monitor the implementation of tax exemptions granted to the U.S. ?The point is not the possible circumvention of tariff laws but the onerous tax exemption itself. The country is losing billions of pesos every year due to tariff reductions under the WTO and most of the TNCs who benefit from these are American. Witness the number of cheap U.S. imports flooding the market. We find it totally unacceptable that while the Estrada government is planning to enforce new taxes on Filipinos, it is granting special privileges to the US,? he said. Bayan also assailed the report?s failure to mention the VFA?s implementing arrangements. ?Where are the implementing arrangements mentioned in the VFA? It?s like the people are being made to sign a contract where the specific provisions are unknown,? said Casi?o. The group also dismissed the Joint Committee?s recommendation urging the President to cause proper representations to the U.S. government about the Filipino World War II veteran?s equity claims, corrections of certain accounts on the Philippine-American War, the preferential treatment for Philippine products in trade and various quotas. "These are all sugarcoating for the VFA poison." ?It?s actually a bribe. It attempts to sweeten the VFA,? said Casi?o. ### From panap at panap.po.my Fri Apr 30 11:45:54 1999 From: panap at panap.po.my (PAN Asia Pacific) Date: Fri, 30 Apr 1999 10:45:54 +0800 Subject: [asia-apec 1102] PAN AP Press Release: Protests Over rBGH Use in New Zealand Message-ID: Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific Press Release --------------------------------------------------- Protests Over rBGH Use in New Zealand Activists Pledge to Take Action! The Steering Council (board) members of the Pesticide Action Network Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) discussed the application to the New Zealand government for the use of rBGH (recombinant Bovine Growth Hormone) in the Dairy Industry, at a recent meeting in Malaysia. Members from Malaysia, Indonesia, the Philippines, Japan, Korea and India representing networks of consumers, women's and environmental organizations across the region, strongly oppose the use of this growth hormone due to associated health effects - including breast and prostate cancer. "In the case of rBGH, the links to cancer, and other human health and safety concerns demands added vigilance. People have the right to know that they could be seriously jeopardizing their health, and that of their children", commented Anwar Fazal, PAN AP Steering Council Member, and Chairperson for the World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action (WABA). Since New Zealand dairy products are commonly sold and consumed in many of these countries, the organizations have pledged to organize actions - including boycotts of New Zealand dairy products - should the registration proceed. Currently, the application has been sent to the Animal Welfare Committee to identify any possible implications for animal welfare. Their report will be considered by the Animal Remedies Board (who registers animal remedies) on June 4th, 1999. A decision will be made on the basis of this report and on trade issues. The latter are likely to be the deciding factor. The Problem In many countries, New Zealand dairy products are marketed as "clean and green". The use of rBGH is not consistent with this "clean and green" image. rBGH is injected into cows to extend their period of lactation by several weeks, and thus to force them to produce more milk. Dairy cows injected with rBGH have been found to produce milk containing elevated levels of IGF-1. The IGF-1 in milk can pass into the blood stream of milk consumers. As reported in the LANCET (May, 1998) and SCIENCE (January, 1998), elevated levels of IGF-1 have been linked to increased incidence of breast cancer and prostate cancer in the U.S. In 1998, the use of rBGH was challenged in Canada. A secret study by senior Health Canada scientists concluded that important gaps in scientific procedures and data have left legitimate human health concerns about the Bovine Growth Hormone unresolved despite the drug's approval by the U.S. FDA. These scientists had charged that the original study, on which the U.S. FDA had based its approval of rBGH in 1993, was false. The Globe and Mail, Canada, on September 17 reported, the scientists had "been told they will be disciplined if they speak to the media", by Blair Stannard, vice-president of their union. "There is political and financial pressure to approve the drug despite the concerns of the scientists involved," Mr. Stannard said. Putting Trade and Politics Above Safe Food and People's Health? In the case of New Zealand, "trade issues are likely to be very contentious," states Meriel Watts, Vice President of the New Zealand Soil and Health Association. "On the one hand, the New Zealand government will have to take into account Asian people's concerns about rBGH, and therefore threats to New Zealand's Asian markets. On the other hand, there may well be the threat of trade sanctions by the U.S. if New Zealand does not register it." "Last week, the U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand, Josiah Beeman, appeared on national television and warned that if New Zealand tried to label genetically engineered food, trade sanctions might follow", Watts explained. This is no doubt in response to the decision by Health Ministers on December 17, 1998 to move towards the labelling of genetically engineered (GE) foods in Australia and New Zealand. At the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Council (ANZFSC) meeting in Canberra, the Health Ministers asked ANZFA (the Australia NZ Food Authority) to require labelling of genetically modified food. ANZFC consists of Health Ministers from the Commonwealth, each state and Territory and the New Zealand Associate Minister for Health. "Although ANZFA has come out in favour of labelling GE food, the New Zealand government has not committed itself to this decision. But the New Zealand public is demanding labelling, a moratorium on the growing of GE crops and a full Royal Commission of Enquiry. So far the New Zealand government has not agreed to any of these things, and it could be because of fear of offending the U.S.", explains Watts. "It is deplorable that the U.S. is undermining the New Zealand peoples call to label GE foods, and their right to know about food containing genetically modified materials" stated Jennifer Mourin, PAN AP Safe Food Campaign Coordinator. "This is not a trade issue but it is a matter of food safety and people's health. People have a right to know if potentially harmful materials are present in their food, and they have a right to choose not to buy genetically engineered products", she added. Another regional organization, Consumer International Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific (CI ROAP), have expressed concern about this issue and will be looking into the matter. "There is some evidence that cows treated with rBGH have suffered from increased udder infections (mastitis), severe reproductive problems, digestive disorders, foot and leg ailments, and persistent sores and lacerations, and ultimately live a much shorter life-span. After 4-5 years of producing extra milk, they end up as hamburgers. This is cruelty to cows!" states Dr. K Balasubramaniam, the Pharmaceutical Adviser of CI ROAP. This is surely something the New Zealand Animal Welfare Committee needs to take into account in their assessment of the drug. Additionally, consumers have every right to question the kind of foods produced from such diseased animals. Implications for Asia? There has been significant trade between many Asian countries and New Zealand, especially in terms of diary produce. "Should the application go through, and rBGH be used by dairy farmers, we will have to question the safety of dairy products that we buy from New Zealand" stresses Mourin. The decision by the Australia NZ Food Authority to label genetically modified food would give people in importing countries, like Malaysia, a chance to know if they were buying genetically modified food. "Many countries, like Malaysia, that do not have labelling requirements, will be allowing in genetically modified food products and materials - and consumers will not be able to make a choice on whether to buy or not. This was exactly the case with Roundup Ready Soyabeans", adds Mourin. Groups Take Action Concern for the health risks of rBGH has prompted action from a growing number of groups in several Asian countries. After being informed of this issue by PAN AP, the Malaysian Vegetarian Society (MVS) and ERA Consumer based in Malaysia were among the first groups to send their letters of concern to the New Zealand Minister of Food and Fibre, John Luxton, as well as Sarah Dennis, the New Zealand High Commissioner. ERA Consumer is the national coordinator on Food Security in Malaysia, and the vice Chair of the Southeast Asia Food Security and Fair Trade Council, composed of key NGO personages from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam. Other groups from countries including India, Korea, Japan and the Philippines are also primed to take action. For further information contact: Jennifer Mourin, Safe Food Campaign Coordinator, at PAN AP. Tel: (604) 657 0271/656 0381. Fax: (604) 657 7445 E-Mail: panap@panap.po.my Meriel Watts, Vice President, Soil and Health Association, Auckland, New Zealand. E-Mail: m.watts@auckland.ac.nz --------------------------------------------------------------- The PAN AP Steering Council members include: Ms. Sarojeni V. Rengam - Executive Director, PAN Asia Pacific, Malaysia - Board Member of, Rural Advancement Foundation International (RAFI), Canada; SoutheastAsian Regional Institute for Community Education (SEARICE), Philippines; Asian Regional Exchange for New Alternatives (ARENA), Hong Kong; International Babyfood Action Network (IBFAN), Malaysia Mr. Anwar Fazal - Chairperson, World Alliance for Breastfeeding Action, Malaysia Ms. Irene Fernandez - Director, Tenaganita (Women's Force), Malaysia - Chairperson, CARAM - ASIA - Director, People's Legal Resources, Malaysia - Executive Council Member, Parti Keadilan Nasional (National Justice Party), Malaysia Mr. Bishan Singh - President, Sustainable Development Network (SUSDEN), Malaysia Mr. Riza Tjahjadi - Coordinator, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Indonesia - Council Member, SEA FS & FT, Indonesia Dr. Romeo Quijano - President, Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Philippines - Associate Professor, Department of Pharmacology, University of the Philippines, College of Medicine, The Philippines Mr. Rene Salazar - Chairperson, Committee Biodiversity Development and Conservation Programme, Philippines - Member of the Board, RAFI, Canada, and SEARICE, Philippines Ms. Mika Iba - Director, Network for Safe & Secure Food and Environment, Japan - Member, Consumer Union of Japan, and the International Forum on Food and Agriculture Ms. Kim Jai Ok - Executive Director, Citizens Alliance for Consumer Protection of Korea (CACPK), Korea - Chair, Korea NGO - GO Environment Policy Committee, Ministry of the Environment, Korea - Lecturer, University of Duksung, Seoul, Korea Dr. Daisy Dharmaraj - Director, PREPARE, India - Secretary, Coalition for Protection of Rights of Women and Children - Member, International Advisory Committee, Women's Global Network for Reproductive Rights Ms. Meriel Watts - Vice-President, Soil and Health Association of New Zealand Pesticide Action Network (PAN) Asia and the Pacific P.O. Box: 1170, 10850 Penang, Malaysia. Tel: (604) 657 0271/656 0381. Fax: (604) 657 7445 E-Mail: panap@panap.po.my Homepage: www.poptel.org.uk/panap/ Pesticide Action Network (PAN) is an international coalition of citizen's groups and individuals who oppose the misuse and overuse of pesticides, and support the reliance on safe and sustainable alternatives. PAN Asia and the Pacific (PAN AP) is the regional office for Asia and the Pacific. PAN AP prescribes to the following development principles: a participatory holistic approach; a commitment to gender equity and genuine partnership; the need to confront social injustice and global inequities; the value of biodiversity, appropriate traditional and indigenous knowledge systems; and the recognition that our earth is one interdependent living system. PAN AP is especially committed to protect the safety and health of people, and the environment, from pesticides use. As part of our commitment, PAN AP coordinates the Safe Food Campaign. The Campaign emphasizes locally grown, seasonal, food through healthy and sustainable land use, and agriculture. It also calls for the production of food free from pesticides, antibiotics, and hormones. We support community-based food production that will protect the health, livelihoods and communities of rural, indigenous peoples, in agriculture - in particular women. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- More Information on the Bovine Growth Hormone When the drug was first introduced for use in the U.S. in 1993, even the country's Food and Drug Administration admitted that cows injected with rBGH could suffer from increased udder infections (mastitis), severe reproductive problems, digestive disorders, foot and leg ailments, and persistent sores and lacerations. FDA has also admitted that the use of rBGH in cows may lead to increased amounts of pus and bacteria in milk. Equally disturbing, the powerful antibiotics and other drugs used to fight increased disease in rBGH-injected cows may lead to greater antibiotic and chemical contamination of milk, and dangerous resistance to antibiotics in the human population. Further the U.S. FDA has released studies showing that milk from rBGH-treated cows could have more saturated fat and less protein that regular milk. Both the U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) and the Consumer's Union, publisher of Consumer Reports magazine, have warned of the potential hazards to human health caused by consuming products derived from rBGH-treated cows. Because rBGH injections can cause numerous ill effects in cows, veterinarians in Germany have refused to administer rBGH to cows on grounds that it violates their professional code of ethics, which forbids intentional harm to animals. Notwitstanding these concerns, the U.S. FDA went ahead and approved the use of this drug, concluding officially that milk from these hormone-treated cows is "safe for human consumption." According to a report by the American Broadcasting Corporation, twice a month, genetically engineered rBGH is injected into 3 million dairy cows in the U.S. The milk these cows produce is then shipped throughout the country as milk, cream, cheese and yogurt, and in baked and other goods. Products from cows that receive rBGH are almost never labelled as such. Subsequently, a consumer group called the Center for Food Safety (CFS) has begun legal action to have the hormone pulled off the market. CFS is charging that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ignored evidence of potential health hazards from rBGH", Sources of information in this Press Release: ABC-TV National News Story on rBGH Lawsuit December 12, 1998 also available via ABC's website: http://www.abcnews.com "Secret Canadian Govt. Study Reveals Serious Faults with BGH Research", Steve Wilson; The Globe and Mail, Canada, September 17, 1998; "Breast Cancer, rBGH and Milk", RACHEL'S ENVIRONMENT & HEALTH WEEKLY, #598, May 8, 1998, a service of the Environmental Research Foundation, Internet: erf@rachel.org. Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand, Press Release, April 26, 1999. See also: Rachels's Environment Weekly, http://www.monitor.net/rachel/ Campaign for Food Safety (formerly known as the Pure Food Campaign), http://www.purefood.org/index.htm Consumer Union Website, http://www.consumersunion.org/food/ Natural Food Commission, New Zealand, http://www.naturallaw.org.nz/genetics/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand Press Release 26 April 1999 Dairy Markets Threatened by GE Growth Hormone Food Minister John Luxton's cavalier approach to genetically engineered bovine growth hormone is already risking our Asian export markets, Green Party Co-leader Jeanette Fitzsimons said today. Leaders of a range of citizen movements in Malaysia, the Philippines, Indonesia, Japan, Korea and India who are part of the Asia and Pacific Pesticide Action Network (PAN) have pledged in a statement to boycott New Zealand dairy products if the use of rBGH (recombinant bovine growth hormone) is approved for use on our dairy cows. Late last month Ms Fitzsimons obtained information via a Parliamentary question that there were two applications for registration of this hormone currently before the Animal Remedies Board. The papers also showed that the Animal Welfare Advisory Committee would be consulted, but that there would be no process for checking human health effects. Ms Fitzsimons raised the issue because international studies have shown that in addition to adverse health effects on the cattle, including much greater incidence of mastitis, painful lameness, sores and shorter lifespans, drinking the milk was linked with higher rates of prostate and breast cancer in humans. John Luxton responded by calling the Green Party "factually modified" and "alarmist" and said there was nothing to worry about. "This is just another example of how our markets want clean green food. If we specialise in supplying that it will provide an economic bonus for the whole country. I find it hard to understand that a Minister of Food is prepared to undermine our food trade with Asia," Ms Fitzsimons said. Green Party of Aotearoa New Zealand > Green Library > Press Releases Jeanette Fitzsimmons, Green Party Co-Leader Tel: 00 64 - 4 - 470 6665 Fax: 00 64 - 4 - 499 2606 E-Mail: Ruth.Quirk@parliament.govt..nz