[asia-apec 1327] Re: Antonio Tujan (IBON) on Alternatives To The APEC Agenda

[David E. Ortman]

FR: David E. Ortman, Seattle, WA  (APEC '93, NGO Coordinator)  (deom at JPS.NET)

CORRECTION:  Alternatives to APEC began with the Seattle, WA (USA) APEC
'93.  Labor, environmental and human rights groups joined together to
protest the "Hidden Costs of Free Trade".  A four issue ECO-APEC Watch was
published (e-mailable copies available).  East Timor people and their
supporters played a large part in raising human rights issues.  An NGO
delegation made up of labor, environmental and human rights organizations
demanded and got a two-hour meeting with the APEC Secretariat to present
our views.
===========
  


At 06:36 AM 9/20/1999 -0700, APEC Monitoring Group wrote:
>
>Alternatives to the APEC Agenda
>Antonio Tujan Jr.
>
>
>
>ALTERNATIVES TO THE APEC AGENDA
>
>At every APEC Leaders' Meeting from Bogor, Indonesia to the present here
in Auckland, New Zealand, the East Timor people and their supporters have
hounded the APEC leaders to protest and demand action on the issue of
Indonesian invasion and genocide in East Timor.  They have been told
instead that as an association of economies, the APEC involved simply with
economic matters and they should take their case elsewhere.
>
>We know, of course, that the issue of East Timor is not simply about
colonial expansionism and genocide, but is about economy.  The reason
behind the Indonesian occupation of East Timor is not to save East Timor
from the Portuguese or reclaim it, but the age-old reason behind colonial
expansion: to take control over the rich natural resources of East Timor.
>
>And what prevents the APEC powers from intervening in the issue in the
name of humanity is not respect for Indonesia's sovereignty, just as the US
did not bother to consider Yugoslavia's sovereignty in engineering a NATO
bombing and invasion.  It is hypocrisy to blame the so-called militias for
the carnage and wait for Indonesia's invitation when it is plainly clear as
confirmed by independent observers that the Indonesian military is
responsible for these militias and is directly involved in killing civilians.
>
>The reason for this is also economic.  APEC powers such as the US, Canada,
Australia and Japan, as well as New Zealand are keenly aware that their
billions of investments and trade with Indonesia could be jeopardized if
they should step on the toes of the Indonesian elite still dominated by
Suharto and the military bureaucracy.
>
>APEC is indeed not simply about economic concerns because the APEC agenda
for free trade and globalization affects our very lives and the fate of our
communities.  This agenda is putting the corporation and its greed for
profits over every facet if our lives.  APEC is putting the agenda of the
corporation to amass superprofits above the interests of the people, above
our welfare, social services and security.
>
>It has been often been mentioned how important the APEC is because of the
economic clout of the Pacific rim countries that comprise it.  Indeed, the
APEC brings into its fold many of the world's major economic powers and
emerging major economic players like China and the ASEAN. The Asia-Pacific
is a broad and complex grouping of diverse countries, a fact that makes the
APEC a challenging and formidable project, and at the same time, an
important international political economic instrument - whether for the
interest of developing economic cooperation between countries or something
more.
>
>Whatever were the intentions of the academics and technocrats who
conceptualized the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation as an international
organization, and the political intentions of the governments which
initiated it, economic and technical cooperation in the APEC soon gave way
to the exigencies of real politik in the Asia-Pacific.  The APEC became a
convenient counterfoil to an emerging Japan-ASEAN force in the Western
Pacific, in this manner serving US interests for hegemony in the Pacific.
>
>An effective tool for neoliberal globalization
> 
>Beyond the interplay of regional and interregional issues in the APEC are
the major issues that dominate the APEC: the promotion of free trade and
the whole program of neoliberal globalization and through this, the
promotion of the US agenda for hegemony in the Pacific. Ever since Seattle,
when the US altered the political and programmatic agenda of APEC along the
lines of free trade, the APEC has evolved into an important international
tool or mechanism for neoliberal restructuring of Pacific rim countries.
>
> The APEC has served to broadcast in its early years the powerful message
for globalization and the myth that this is an inexorable process brought
about by technological revolution.  The layman and even a number of NGOs
have bought this lie that since technology is for development and the
welfare of humankind, then globalization is good.  And since business
controls technology, then they must be given free rein to invest, trade and
supposedly develop our economies.  And There Is No Alternative.
>
> For many countries indebted to the IMF and the World Bank, globalization
was implemented through the Washington consensus that imposed policies of
liberalization, deregulation and privatization as components of the
Structural Adjustment Programs.  For many others, an elaborate campaign and
diplomatic offensive was utilized that used the example of the so-called
Asian tigers as an attraction, or used the example of the economic collapse
of the Soviet blocs countries as supposed proof of the superiority of the
market.  In most cases, the globalists just plainly threatened everyone
with even more crisis if they do not jump unto the globalization bandwagon.
>
> The APEC is an important mechanism to sustain a momentum for neoliberal
restructuring for an important economic chunk of the globe.  This is
achieved by creating an overall political atmosphere and pressure for
liberalization, especially in trade.  It has been effective in drawing in
such politically difficult countries like China and Malaysia and dealing
with regional economic interests of Japan, ASEAN or Australia.  Besides
such measures as insisting that it is an association of economies, the APEC
has achieved this by using herd tactics, actually calling working group
leaders as "shepherds" headed by a "lead shepherd".
>
>Additionally, liberalization is achieved through specific political
pressuring and commitments for sector liberalization and country programs.
The annual Leaders' Meetings provide an occasion and, in a sense, a
deadline towards hammering out specific agreements and commitments on
particular key issues such as country commitments in Manila, trade in
information technology and telecommunications in Vancouver or Early
Voluntary Sector Liberalization for a number of commodity lines in Kuala
Lumpur.
>
>Liberalization of the Asia-Pacific countries is also further achieved
insiduously through programs involving economic and technical cooperation
that are meant to ensure that protectionist policies are removed from
legitimate social and environmental concerns.  Such is the policy handling
of marine resources conservation, or promotion of small and medium
enterprises (SMEs) for example.
>
>Another aspect that makes the APEC distinct is its concern for trade
facilitation.  Beyond implementing economic policies, the APEC addresses
such issues as harmonization of standards and procedures among many others
that actually make the difference in realizing free trade.
>
>Finally, the APEC is more than just trade liberalization.  When it raised
the slogan of "APEC means business!" in 1996 in Manila, the APEC clearly
proclaimed its dictum of corporate rule.  The overall APEC objective is to
realize not simply the promotion of business among APEC countries through
increased trade and investment, but unabashedly uphold the primacy of
business interests in the formulation of economic policy.
>
>This is not to mean that corporate control has not been present in our
governments this century.  What it simply means, is that under
globalization, monopoly capital has become more aggressive and blatant in
exercising control over the state in order to erode social protection and
services over nations and peoples.
>
> Among multilateral and plurilateral organizations, only the APEC has so
far gone beyond the tenets of neoliberalism and exposed the hand of
monopoly capital in enshrining the concept of corporate-state partnership
through the ubiquitous role of the ABAC in its affairs.  The ABAC (APEC
Business Advisory Council) has become something of an arbiter of what
should be done and what is right in the various working groups and
committees of the APEC.
>
> The APEC has openly provided monopoly capital, in the guise of the ABAC,
direct hand in influencing or determining the policies APEC countries must
take in order to facilitate business.  In this way, the APEC becomes an
effective tool in harmonizing and restructuring countries in the
Asia-Pacific in order that monopoly capital realizes faster the benefits of
globalization.  Under the baton of the US, this can only mean providing the
US monopoly corporations the competitive edge in the Pacific rim.  Thus
trade facilitation over and above economic and technical cooperation makes
the APEC more powerful than simply implementing liberalization.
>
>Some quarters have opined that the APEC has lost its direction and has
reached a cul-de-sac in its development.  It may be true that the APEC has
failed in its principal mission of fastracking trade liberalization.  But
the US as the dominant force in determining the development of APEC remains
aggressive in pushing forward the agenda for liberalization in the APEC
member economies, as shown in its initiatives such as that on e-commerce,
IT products, and the EVSL (Early Voluntary Sectoral Liberalization)
initiative.  
>
>However, the APEC has not been able to follow the pace that the US wants
as its initiatives face the difficulties in the diversity of reactions and
complicated processes among member economies.  Furthermore, as an
organization for liberalization, economic cooperation and trade
facilitation operating in several sectors and issues or concerns as the
same time, the APEC has evolved into more than two hundred projects, many
of them overlapping, giving the impression of confusion.  But these
initiatives are all moving, albeit in extreme difficulty, in the direction
of of realizing the goals set forth in Bogor and Manila.  
>
> As the initiatives for expanding and accelerating the overall process of
neoliberal globalization moves to the Ministerial Meeting of the World
Trade Organization in Seattle this November, the APEC has not become lost.
It has simply taken a back seat to the WTO.  And the APEC continues to play
its supportive role in realizing the US agenda in the WTO.
>
> The Seattle Leaders' Meeting did not only bring forth a new APEC that put
Japan and Mahathir's Malaysia in its proper place under US Pacific
hegemony.  The APEC also became a foil that pushed the European Union back
to the negotiating table for the final Uruguay Round agreement of the GATT.
 Since then, the APEC continues to reflect the top issues in the US agenda
for the continuing process of globalization.  As the Seattle Ministerial
Meeting comes near, the APEC meetings increasing echo the forthcoming
issues in the effort to accelerate the process of liberalization in such
crucial areas as government procurement, e-commerce, investment, and
competition policy.
>
>The APEC cannot be reformed
>
> The APEC Leaders' Meetings have served the purpose of grandstanding the
APEC agenda for globalization as well as push for specific policy
initiatives for trade liberalization.  However, these media events have
also become an occasion that has drawn the various political issues in the
various APEC countries creating much political difficulty for organizing
these circuses.  The recent example in Auckland is the issue of East Timor.
 More importantly, these occasions have also provided the people's
movements in various APEC countries an opportunity to develop their
solidarity and raise an increasingly loud voice of protest that serve to
delegitimize APEC.
>
> The APEC is deceptive because of the agenda for economic and technical
cooperation and trade facilitation built into its program of
liberalization.  Furthermore, the APEC has responded into such social
concerns as the environment, migrant labor and women.  But in each case,
government-business partnership that makes the APEC has succeeded in
turning its supposedly egalitarian social and economic concerns into a
triumph of the market each time.
>
> The APEC must be junked as an instrument of globalization and corporate
power.  It is intensifying the people's difficult plight through its agenda
for monopoly capitalist profiteering in partnership with government.  It is
a tool to destroy the sovereignty of nations through various ways and
guises in advancing superpower domination.  Globalization and trade
liberalization continues to marginalize and impoverish our peoples,
destroying their jobs and livelihood.
>
> For example, the Philippines has been an exporter of sugar since the
nineteenth century.  This century it has been a major global exporter at
the rate of two million tons annually at its peak in the 1970s.  But
semifeudal conditions in the production of sugar have eroded this
productive capacity and now the Philippines is hardly self-sufficient in
sugar.  On the other hand, reduction of tariffs under the GATT and the AFTA
has resulted in the massive inflow of cheaper Australian and Thai sugar.
As a result, the hundreds of thousands of small and medium farmers are
facing bankruptcy while the even more numerous farmworkers stand to lose
their jobs.
>
> Another urgent issue is corn.  Corn has been left rotting in the fields
in Cotabato, south of the Philippines, in this year's harvest season.  The
reason being peddled in Manila is that there is a lack of postharvest
facilities since the warehouses are bulging with newly harvested stocks.
What is not being revealed is that livestock raisers are no longer buying
this corn since they have been allowed to import US corn at less than P5
per kilo, even lower than domestic production costs.  Warehouses are full
of newly harvested corn because no one is buying the more expansive local
yellow corn.
>
>New issues in the WTO Seattle Ministerial Meeting
>
>In the whole framework of trade liberalization and globalization, the APEC
is directly linked to the GATT Uruguay Round and the WTO.  As the
preeminent multilateral framework for trade liberalization, the WTO sets
general standards for liberalization in the APEC.  On the other hand, the
APEC helps pushes the US agenda in the WTO against EU and other countries.
Furthermore, the APEC can and does serve to protect and strengthen US
hegemony in the Asia-Pacific.
>
>The Seattle Ministerial Meeting of the WTO is exceedingly important
because of the EU and US agenda to push for a Millennium Round in order to
expand liberalization to new areas.  This is over and above their intention
to strengthen the effectivity of the current agreements covered by the
built-in agenda for review such as the Agreement on Agriculture, the TRIPS
and the General Agreement on Trade in Services.
>
>There is a growing movement among farmers and peasants all over the world
led by La Via Campesina demanding that the agriculture must be taken out of
the WTO.  Third World agriculture, in particular, has been ravaged  by
trade liberalization through the GATT Agreement on Agriculture.  Through
this agreement, self-sufficient agricultural systems in Third World
countries are being destroyed through competition from cheap subsidized
agricultural imports from the First World countries.  Furthermore,
transnational corporations like Monsanto and Cargill are creating massive
restructuring of agriculture, controlling inputs and trade and
marginalizing small farmers in the process and leading them to bankruptcy.
>
>There is also a growing global movement calling upon governments to reject
the US and EU pressures for a new so-called Millennium Round.  This round
must be prevented in order that their objectives to negotiate new
agreements are foiled.  Among these new agreements are the effort to bring
a multilateral framework on investment to replace the failed Multilateral
Agreement on Investment.  On this point alone, the Millennium Round must be
stopped.
>
>But other equally damaging agreements to expand the scope of trade and
investment liberalization are in the works.  The proposed agreement on
competition policy is not about curtailing global monopoly transnational
corporations of the First World, but about dismantling the effort of Third
World countries to temporarily cushion the impact of trade liberalization
by instituting controls such as import licensing.
>
>There are also negotiations towards a new agreement for the liberalization
of government procurement.  Previously privatization of the government in
utilities and infrastructure besides states assets and social services has
resulted in the megasales that have expanded the horizon for monopoly
capital investment, and added tremendously to the phenomenon of
commercialization under globalization.  Now, the proposed liberalization of
government procurement  will ensure that transnational giants are able to
wrestle their way into a major area for business transaction and trade in
the procure of government supplies and equipment like computers,
telecommunications and even office supplies.
>
>More agreements are being proposed, including an agreement into e-commerce
which would provide tremendous economic advantage to US corporations in
banking and finance as well as in the software and information trade.
Another one is also bring brought forward into the APEC and the WTO which
would ensure the free trade in products made from genetically modified
organisms or what is euphemistically called trade in biotechnology products.
>
>People's Alternatives to Trade
>
> Trade is necessary because of differences in our communities.  While New
Zealand produces dairy products, trade brings these products to the
Philippines where tropical conditions do not make it very efficient to
raise dairy cows.  On the other hand, the Philippines raises tropical
fruits like pineapples which would not grow very well or would have to be
grown under very inefficient utilization of energy in temperate New Zealand.
>
> Trade allows the equalization of these differences where trade is
conducted between communities and countries under conditions of equality,
cooperation and mutual benefit.  In this manner, trade not only directly
benefits the people who can enjoy these products but also can be made a
contributory factor for economic and social development.
>
> Trade, however, can also be made and has historically acted as a force to
perpetuate inequality among communities.  It has promoted this inequality
and has become an instrument for economic subjugation of weaker
communities, of colonization.  The principal reason for this is that trade
is not simply an egalitarian intercourse between communities most of the
time, but between merchants or by merchant entities who trade for profit.
>
> Under monopoly capitalism, trade becomes a powerful economic tool of
imperialism.  Free trade for monopoly capitalism means giving free hand to
monopoly capital to expand its monopoly and increase the extraction of
superprofits from the colonies and semicolonies.  Trade not so much about
exchange of commodities between countries as exchange of commodities
between transnational corporations which control a full two-thirds of world
trade.  And if we take into account the fact that one third of world trade
is conducted as intra-TNC transactions, then trade clearly takes on a new
dimension of corporate exploitation of labor and resources in weaker
countries.
>
>The APEC Agenda for Imperialist Globalization
>
> We all know that the APEC is not just about trade liberalization.  When
we planned for the APEC protests and conferences in Manila we decided that
APEC's agenda for imperialist globalization best captures the totality of
the issue that APEC means for the people of the Asia-Pacific.  But some of
us said that globalization, per se, is nothing new.  It has come in waves
of imperialist colonization since the 19th century.
>
> But what is new with this new wave of globalization is that it has a
neoliberal agenda to realize the objective of expansion of markets for
trade and investment and intensification of exploitation for superprofits.
This phenomenon can best be summed up in four points:  First, a global
crisis of overproduction that has reached critical proportions in the
devastating recessionary crises in the 80's provides the conditions for
intensifying competition among TNCs and the impetus to open up countries
for more trade and investment.
>
> Second, globalists have foisted new myths of neoliberalism to justify the
globalist economic policies.  These are the myths that would have us
believe that globalization is about technology and is good, that
globalization is about increased business and is absolutely necessary to
survive, that there is no alternative to the inexorable process of
globalization.
>
> Third, for the same objective to expand markets for goods and
investments, colonizers utilize new instruments of liberalization of trade,
investment and finance, deregulation and privatization.  Some have called
this process recolonization.  However, for the Maori and Filipino peoples,
for example, who have remained neo-colonized, this process is the
intensification of this neo-colonialism.
>
> Fourthly, this is the neoliberalism of monopoly capital for whom it
principally benefits.  Small and medium capitalists have been marginalized
or even dispossessed in the rapacious process of accummulation as a result
of the opening of markets and the resulting destruction of productive
forces in various globalized countries.  This neoliberalism is an oxymoron,
for these are monopolists utilizing liberal phraseology and policies in
order to remove barriers to their monopoly operations.  
>
>As a natural result, we are witness to a rapid process of even greater
concentration of wealth and resources in monopoly conglomerates.  Every
industry and sector of economic activity in the world today is monopolized
further by a smaller group of supermonopolies, so to speak, as mergers and
acquisitions continue everyday.  This also means the greater concentration
of power and greater danger of fascism in the world today.
>
>Alternatives to the APEC Agenda of Globalization
>
> Our response to neoliberalism cannot simply be a return to Keynesian
economics of greater state intervention to prevent unbridled monopoly
capitalism. Neoliberalism has in fact exposed in all its nakedness the
violence and greed of capitalism.  It is not our wont and interest to
strengthen capitalism through Keynesian neo-classical policies.
>
>Neither can our response be to seek narrow nationalist protection from
foreign inroads without critically pursuing equitable social benefits from
trade and other economic endeavors for our peoples and communities.   This
would simply be strengthening and protection our own bourgeoisie which are
actually tied to global monopoly capital and whose interest is simply
protecting itself while ensuring the opening up of other countries for
their own benefit.
>
> Governments and the elite talk about economic development or even
sustainable development as their goal.  We cannot disagree with this
although we would emphasize that sustainable economic development must
fundamentally be rooted in social development and the achievement of
equity, soveriegnty and liberation, even.
>
> They say the objective to achieve this goal is through continuous
economic growth while we say that the objective should be to ensure social
development, food security, social services and welfare and so on.  They
assume then that the key to continuous economic growth is business as the
engine of growth while we say that the key to social development is people
supported by a pro-people policy of governance.
>
> Naturally, if these neo-classical economists want continuous economic
growth through business development, then the problem lies in the lack of
efficiency in various economic sectors, an inefficiency that is also
brought about by protectionism.  We say this means colonization and
monopoly.  What is needed is the dismantling of monopoly and the
institution of social protection and welfare.
>
>We must fight for the people's alternatives to globalization.  I will not
go into specific models of the peoples' alternatives.  It is for us to
develop these models, to work on these models as we advance our resistance
to globalization.  In fact, this resistance stands as our first and most
important alternative to globalization.  
>
>Models for working alternatives to globalization are also drawn from our
own daily experiences and from that of our communities.  And finally, these
models are rooted in our histories as peoples and as communities.
>
>In developing these models, we draw guidance and inspiration from
fundamental principles that put the people first in our agenda and
underscore our opposition to globalization.  First is equality.  Our
economic alternatives must be founded on the objective to achieve equality
of access to resources, opportunity to livelihood and economic well-being,
and share in the social fruits of labor.
>
>Second is power.   Related to the issue of equality is the issue of
distribution of power over resources and production, and over the fruits or
bounty of society.  Related to this issue is the objective of achieving
sovereignty for the people and their empowerment in the society's economic,
social, political and cultural life. 
>
>Third is democracy.  The foundation of democracy is of course the people's
empowerment, that sovereignty resides in the people and not simply on
discrete political institutions of government.  And this is why I usually
talk of the myth of democracy, not only in Third World countries like the
Philippines which is obviously not democratic, but more so in the developed
countries in the Free World where democratic institutions supposedly exist
and the people enjoy democracy.
>
>Sovereignty rightfully resides in the people and therefore it must be
reclaimed, asserted and expressed by the people.  Assertion of the people's
economic sovereignty means reclaiming their control over the communities'
resources, ensuring the people's livelihood and economic welfare, achieving
economic development for our societies and implementing the equitable
redistribution of resources, opportunities and the products of society's
labor.
>
>Sometimes I wonder which country is more democratic.  Or maybe the people
in the First World enjoy only a little more democracy than the Philippines.
 Our country is so obviously not democratic that we do not take democracy
for granted and must fight for it all the time.  Thus our media is very
boisterous and also very precious for freedom-loving Filipinos.
>
>This is the reason why we have this funny concoction called "people power"
where if one feels oppressed then one finds recourse not so much in
government or the justice system but in the streets through militant
protest.  This situation has reached absurd proportions where government
officials who feel they have been wronged by higher officials resort to
"people power" by their supporters in order to find redress or even to
pressure higher offices of government to grant their demands.
>
>We now have the case of Charter Change which is a very big issue in our
country.  The democratic forces are fighting the government's effort to
globalize the Constitution and in the process extend the term of President
Estrada and his party.  I was asked in a forum by a fourteen year old high
school student why we should bother preventing charter change when the
constitution is not at all good and is not being respected in the first place.
>
>Indeed, the Cha-Cha as it is called in the Philippines, is not a grand
democratic process of fighting for a better, democratic Constitution.
Rather it is simply a political fight between neo-liberals who want to
globalize the Constitution and the progressive movement which is simply
trying to prevent the Estrada government from turning this Constitution
into a worse one.  In this way, we hope to protect what little
Constitutional or legal protection we still have for national patrimony and
the people's economic rights.
>
>For example we have an Indigenous People's Rights Act in the Philippines
which does not really give the indigenous peoples their democratic rights
and ancestral domain, but instead provides the opportunity for corporations
and individuals to legally take away the indigenous people's ancestral
domain from them.  Thus we have many cases of indigenous peoples such many
Manobo tribes in Mindanao which have decided not to deal with this law nor
with the government and would rather fight in the towns and in the forests
to keep their ancestral domain.
>
>Finally, we have solidarity.  A people's solidarity founded on equality
underpins our national and international relations and struggles.  This
solidarity can only be achieved until those who are dominant whether by
class, gender, race, ethnicity and so on recognize their dehumanization by
their dominance or are dethroned by those they dominate.  
>
>For example, many men activists in the Philippines fashion and call
themselves feminists in recognition of the gender issue and women
oppression.  I may be recognized as one of the foremost supporters of the
women's movement in the Philippines but I have come to realize in time that
I am only a theoretical feminist.  That one can become a true feminist if
one has fully understood and felt the pain in being a woman in this
patriarchal world.
>
>It is easy for us to talk about strengthening the public domain, or of
making public key industries, assets and enterprises for the public good.
But unless the foundation by which this public sector is based on genuine
solidarity and equality, is based on struggle to achieve that equality,
then what is made public simply becomes new structures for domination.
>
> Indeed, the struggle is also within ourselves.  But this struggle and our
objective can only be achieved as we struggle against all forms of
domination and subjugation, against colonization and imperialism.
>
>Auckland, 11 September 1999
>
>