[asia-apec 1205] NZ Media: Odd bedfellows among anti-Apec protesters

[Gatt Watchdog]

Evening Post, Wellington, New Zealand
July 20 1999

Odd bedfellows among anti-Apec protesters

In part two of a three-part series on the September Apec summit,
political reporter Guyon Espiner looks at who'll be protesting -
and why.

While the Government and the television advertisements tell us
it's all about trade, jobs and the opportunity to showcase New
Zealand, to some, Apec is a four-letter word.

The New Zealand Government is among the greatest cheerleaders of
trade liberalisation and as chair of the Asia Pacific Co-operation
group of 21 economies this year, the cheers are getting louder.

But the detractors, while small in number, are also capable of
making a big noise.

The heart of the opposition to Apec is the Apec Monitoring Group
and its best-known voice is Aziz Choudry, the anti-free trade
activist who became a minor celebrity after the SIS broke into his
Christchurch home during a 1996 Apec Trade Ministers meeting.

The blundered break-in - fellow free-trade opponent and Canterbury
University lecturer David Small caught the spies in mid-snoop -
triggered a law change giving secret agents powers to break into
homes and a lawsuit against the SIS.

But the "the grumpy geriatric communists who tuck our shirts into
our underpants and don't like Apec" - as Choudry recalls Labour MP
and World Trade Organisation aspirant Mike Moore describing them -
may have an odd bedfellow come September.

World leaders beware: the farmers are coming.

The spectre of tractors clogging up central Auckland streets at
the leaders' meeting in September is a real one, after the US
recently announced it would impose tariffs on New Zealand lamb.

Marlborough farmer Andrew Barker is organising a nationwide
tractor drive to protest the tariff decision, despite local police
warning he may spend the duration of the leaders' meeting behind
bars.

Labour agriculture spokesman Jim Sutton says after the lamb
decision US President Bill Clinton is not welcome at APEC, but
Federated Farmers president Malcolm Bailey wants him there.

Clinton should come and visit some sheep farms and see why New
Zealanders are "the best lamb producers in the world" and that to
impose tariffs on them is "stupid and unfair," he says.

While the farmers have their specific grievance, the broad,
philosophical opposition to free trade lies with the Apec
Monitoring Group.

Established in 1994 after an Apec meeting in Indonesia, the group
works closely with a number of others including Corso, Gatt
Watchdog and the Campaign Against Foreign Control of Aotearoa.

These groups highlight the downside of free trade, illustrated
again recently by the closure of Wellington-based light bulb
manufacturer Zelma which said its demise was linked to tariff
reduction.

The monitoring group put it this way during a protest against the
Women in Apec conference recently held in Wellington (which it
dubbed the Miss-leaders meeting): "Apec supports the agenda of big
business to make profits at any cost.  It is part of the
international network of treaties, forums and institutions that
seek to subjugate the many for the enrichment of the few."

But opposition to Apec has its limits, Choudry says.  "Everything
that we are planning is open, lawful and non-violent.  There may
be other organisations and groups that will be doing things in
relation to Apec but our main focus has been on education through
forums [and] through media."

Choudry says the anti-Apec groups are non-hierarchical and
comprise academics, union and community leaders who rely on
donations from individuals and organisations for financial
support.

Membership is "hard to quantify" but an anti-APEC meeting can draw
up to 300, he says.

Choudry believes opposition to APEC is growing after it moved from
"shooting itself in the foot to putting the gun in its mouth" over
the issue of US tariffs on New Zealand lamb.

"You've got the most powerful country in the world saying 'do as I
say, not as I do' and New Zealand is one of the true believers (in
free trade) squeaking on the edges saying 'follow us'," he says.

The APEC meetings being held in New Zealand are a really good
opportunity for people to be debating economic models.  We are
being told [there is] only one [option].  I'm sorry but to say
that there is no alternative is just childishly ridiculous."