[asia-apec 1371] unity statement of Philippine NGOs on the WTO fiasco in Seattle

[rcpd at mail.info.com.ph]

Dear Friends,

Below is a joint statement/analysis of various Philippine NGOs, social
movements, labor and people's organizations on the WTO fiasco in Seattle.
Please feel free to disseminate.  

For comments and responses, contact:
Resource Center for People's Development <rcpd at info.com.ph>
International South Group Network - Manila secretariat <isgn at tri-isys.com>


Apologies for cross-posting.
_______________________________________



THE WTO DEBACLE IN SEATTLE
(A Unity Statement of Philippine social movements, labor groups, people's
organizations and NGOs)
December 10, 1999   Manila, Philippines


The Seattle events are a confluence of two politically significant factors:
the massive and popular street protests that denounced the WTO and the
whole "free trade" dogma; and the disunities and contradictions within the
WTO itself that eventually led to the collapse of the trade talks.  In both
counts, i.e. both inside and outside the WTO convention hall, the US failed
to bully its way through.

Outside the convention hall, the US government and western media had
difficulty downplaying the massive street protests.  They blamed the
monstrous street riots to the handiwork of a few anarchists without saying
that on the first day itself of the WTO meeting, dockworkers and cabdrivers
in Seattle were on strike, residents were pouring into the streets offering
food and water to the embattled protesters.  Demonstrators in Seattle
swelled to 70,000 while simultaneous rallies ranging from 50,000 to 70,000
were also happening in Paris, London, Geneva, India and other parts of the
globe.

The "battle in Seattle" may not have directly caused the collapse of the
trade talks but its political value lies in having stirred public
consciousness on the evils of "free trade" and the WTO, which the general
public previously thought to be a benign trade body.  It serves to inspire
a resurgence of people's struggles worldwide even if Seattle was only a
spontaneous convergence of diverse political initiatives. If there is one
lesson to be learned from the Seattle street protests, it was the
significance of diverse ideological groups coming together in a common
trajectory of rejecting the WTO and exposing all its evils.  It is
unfortunate for some Filipino groups to claim that the "battle in Seattle"
was a mountain that grew out of a molehill, belittling all other groups'
efforts while taking credit for everything.    

Inside the convention hall, developing nations were one in blaming the WTO
trade regime of delivering more benefits to the developed nations than to
developing and least developed nations.  Such collective dismay was to be
fired up later by the US high-handed approach in introducing labor and
environment issues into the domain of the WTO which developing nations view
as a protectionist ploy intended to discriminate against third world
exports.  Aside from disagreement on many issues, developing nations
decried the lack of transparency in the meeting where substantive talks are
taking place through "green room" negotiations without the knowledge and
participation of most members.  The big players on the other hand (like the
US, EU and Japan) were outdoing each other in protecting their own
economies over agricultural subsidies and anti-dumping laws and eventually
competing over who gets the bigger pie in a "globalized" economic order.
Such contradiction among competing monopoly powers also contributed to the
breakdown of trade talks in Seattle.   

Western media alleged that we, after having exulted on the success of
frustrating the millenium round, were later sulking with the fact that
labor and environment failed to be introduced into the WTO.   This is
completely misleading.  As far as we in the social movements, labor and
environmental groups are concerned, we have always upheld the promotion of
labor rights and welfare and protection of the environment as key issues in
our advocacy against "globalization".  The logic of global corporate rule
is to keep wages and labor standards low in developing countries to
facilitate capital mobility and realize maximum profits from cheap and
docile labor.  It is also in developing countries where global capital
engage in extractive industries to supply them cheap raw materials causing
irreversible destruction to the environment and natural resource base of
the third world.  Clinton's agenda on these issues is hypocritical and a
double-bladed weapon intended to give the WTO extra powers in
micro-managing the economies of third world nations in addition to what the
IMF and the World Bank have already been doing.  

The collapse of the 3rd WTO ministerial meeting is therefore more than a
matter of Clinton being ill-prepared with his agenda nor a case of the
Seattle mayor's mishandling of the street protests.
More than anything else, the WTO fiasco surfaced the internal
contradictions within the multilateral trading system and current crisis of
the global capitalist system.  A contradiction of global corporate rule
versus the workers and the masses of oppressed peoples; of global capital
represented by governments of developed nations versus developing and least
developed nations; and contradiction among competing global economic
powers.   

Trade has been one major battleground so that global capital can conquer
markets elsewhere while being able to protect their own home markets.  For
this purpose, the WTO was created using "free trade" as a pretext to pry
open the economies of the third world in accordance with the dogma of
"globalization" where supposedly no country can exist outside a
"globalized" world economy.  

The WTO fiasco proved the bankruptcy of the "free trade" and
"globalization" ideology.  The magnitude of people's protests and the
shaping up of collective resistance by third world nations signaled a
renewed challenge to the dominance of global capital.

The battle in Seattle won political gains for the people's struggle against
the WTO and global capital but the war is far from over.  The WTO is still
in place and will resume talks on key areas like agriculture, services and
intellectual property rights.  We should not let our guards down and
vigorously oppose all attempts by the US to introduce new powers to the
WTO.  We must support the call of peasant movements worldwide to get
agriculture out of the WTO even as we find ways of diminishing the hold of
the WTO on such key areas of the economy.  We should reject further
liberalization of third world economies and work for a united front of all
developing and least developed nations in fighting for their national
economic sovereignty and genuine development.  

In the Philippines, we must continue to resist the Estrada government's
plans of foolishly dragging the economy further to the control of foreign
capital.  Our campaign against charter change is a campaign for national
sovereignty that should be pursued more resolutely.  In the face of the WTO
fiasco, we must urge the Estrada government to align itself with the
growing anti-WTO sentiment of developing nations.  It must review its
negotiating position in the WTO and reverse previous commitments that have
proven to be detrimental to workers, farmers, local producers and the whole
economy.  A legislative inquiry and review of the country's fate under the
WTO must be supported.

"Shut down the WTO!" was the battlecry in Seattle that reverberated in all
parts of the globe.   We, in the Philippine social movements, labor
organizations, peasant associations, NGO's and other people's organizations
are committed to pursue this battlecry in solidarity with other oppressed
peoples and nations of the world.

Signed:

Eduardo Mora 
Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM, National Assoc. of
Patriotic Peasants)

Sonia Soto 		
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD, Movement for Nationalism and
Democracy)

Cris Gaerlan
ALAB KATIPUNAN	

Prof. Walden Bello
AKBAYAN

Joel Rodriguez	
Management and Organizational Development for Empowerment (MODE)

Lidy Nacpil
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)

Sonny Melencio
Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP, Socialist Party of Labor)

Arze Glipo
Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF)

Primo Amparo
Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (MAKABAYAN, Workers for Social
Liberation)

Jaime Regalario
KATAPAT(Movement for National Patronage)

Eric Guitterrez
Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD)

Fr. Albert Suatengco
Philippine-Asia Jubilee Campaign Against the Debt (PAJCAD)

Alice Raymundo
PKMM-women's committee

Susan Granada 
Philippine Jubilee Network (PJN)

Sr. Arnold Maria Noel
Association of Local Women Religious of the Archdiocese of Manila

Naty Bernardino
International South Group Network - Manila (ISGN)   

Francisco Pascual
Resource Center for People's Development (RCPD)



Resource Center for People's Development
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telefax- (632)4361831 tel - 4350815
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