Global Grassroots Organizations to Challenge Corporate Power
at the WTO Meeting in Seattle Nov 29-Dec. 3
Faceless in Seattle

The awesome power of the World Trade Organisation to rewrite national
laws to favour global business is being challenged at the grass roots. Andy
Rowell reports from the frontline of protest

Wednesday October 6, 1999
The Guardian (UK)

The party of the millennium is not, contrary to popular thinking,
happening
on New Year's Eve. It's occurring just over a month earlier in Seattle,
where environmental, human rights and labour organisers are planning a
ding-dong of a protest.

Last month, the cream of the American direct action community held a
five-day strategy meeting at Pragtri Farm, a 25-acre small-holding in
the
foothills of the Cascade Mountains, north of Seattle, on America's
Pacific
Coast.

The protesters' aim is to stop the third ministerial meeting of the
World
Trade Organisation (WTO) in Seattle in late November. John Sellers,
director
of the Ruckus Society, organisers of the strategy meeting, says: "I feel

like we have all the ingredients to create a defining political moment."

There is a similar feeling in European cities, where environmental and
other
protesters are planning their own "parties".

The WTO was set up in 1995 at the formal end of the Uruguay round of the

General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). It is now the most
powerful
trade body in the world, with some 134 member nations and a further 33
wanting membership. WTO trade agreements provide legally binding rules
for
international commerce and trade policy. Trade disputes are settled by
three
unelected bureaucrats, operating in secret.

At Seattle, the delegates will be discussing a new round of trade
liberalisation talks - called the Millennium Round - in areas such as
investment, agriculture, forest products and government procure ment. In

Europe, where the EU is pushing in favour of the new round, discussions
are
about to start as to what negotiating line to take.

What happens in Seattle will help to define the trade, environmental,
development and health agenda into the new century. In Britain, it may
change the future of public education, the minimum wage and the NHS,
which
could face anti-trade rulings by the WTO.

"It is the policy of industry lobbyists to press for liberalisation of
health care," argues David Price, research fellow at Northumbria
University.
"Conditions are being created to pressurise the government to privatise
health services."

The WTO is accused of being a faceless, undemocratic organisation which
puts
the interests of corporations above everything else. "The WTO has the
right
to completely rescind any law passed by the citizenry to protect the
environment, health and labour rights," says Kelly Quirk, head of the
Rainforest Action Network, co-sponsors of the Ruckus camp. Every
environmental or public health law challenged at the WTO has been ruled
illegal.

"What is wrong with the WTO is that it is totally representative of the
interests of corporations and money and the richest one-tenth of 1% of
people on the planet" says David Korten, author of When Corporations
Rule
the World, who spoke at the camp. "In that sense, it is contrary to
life,
the principles of life and everything we need to get a world that works
both
for people and planet."

Activists point out the record of the WTO on dolphins, sea turtles as
well
as the three Bs - bananas, beef and Burma. The WTO ruled in favour of
commercial interests against dolphins protected by the US marine mammals
act
and turtles protected under the US endangered species act. It ruled in
favour of US banana interests in Central America which objected to
Europe
buying bananas from small-scale Caribbean producers. It ruled against
the
EU, which did not want to import US hormone-treated beef because of its
links to cancer. And a law passed in Massachusetts against working with
companies investing in the repressive regime in Burma
was also attacked at the WTO.

Another 'B' could be added to the list, as biotechnology will be one of
the
main issues discussed at Seattle. Any measures by Europe to stop the
import
of GM food will be ruled as a violation of trade.

Worried that it is losing the argument, the WTO is fighting back with a
PR
offensive, saying that nation states, not them, are to blame. Mike
Moore,
former New Zealand prime minister who is the new head of the WTO, also
believes that everyone can benefit from free trade. "People who march in

Seattle will be marching against opportunities for poor people to sell
their
products and
services," he says.

But the protesters won't only be marching. At the Ruckus training camp,
direct action techniques were taught. Workshops were held in political
theatre and WTO delegates will be greeted by an array of thousands of
colourful puppets. Activists were taught about the ethics of
non-violence,
and practised de-escalating violent situations.

They also learned from their British counterparts. In the early 1990s,
British activists took the philosophy of Earth First in the US and
imported
it over here. Mass direct action and protest was born and redefined on
the
roads schemes at Twyford Down, Newbury and the M11 in east London. Since

then, groups like Reclaim the Streets (RTS) have turned protests into
mass
parties of resistance.

Dave, from the Art and Revolution collective in San Francisco, says:
"RTS
has influenced and inspired a lot of activists in America." And John
Sellars
adds: "The great challenge for us in the US is to start putting up the
same
numbers of people protesting against globalisation that we have seen in
Europe and in the global south."

A debate raging within direct action communities is whether property
destruction is a legitimate form of non-violent protest. "One thing that
has
happened in Europe, which I very strongly believe will not play here, is

mass demonstra tions that lead to some sort of property destruction,"
says
Kelly Quirk. "Private property is God."

Another reason for the Ruckus camp was alliance building. John, from
RTS,
says: "There is more of a willingness to make broad-based alliances in
the
US. To see steelworkers, reformists, anarchists, peace activists and
environmentalists all sitting around the campfire was amazing."

"For years, unions have tried to stand on their own," says Ron, one of
the
steelworkers, "but it doesn't work. The corporations used to tell their
workers that if you get involved with environmentalists they will come
and
shut your plant down. We have found that that
is not true and they will help you with your job." Environmentalists and

steelworkers have formed the Alliance for Sustainable Jobs and the
Environment.

Celia, a consultant to the steelworkers, believes that the growing
labour
and environmental alliance is one of the strongest cards that the
opposition
has in the run-up to Seattle. "Because labour and environmentalists are
both
strong constituencies that have to be listened to, the idea that they
are
singing the same song is really scary to a lot of policy makers," she
says.

Indeed, a comprehensive alliance has formed to fight the WTO. Over 1,000

organisations from 87 countries have signed a statement opposing the
Millennium Round and any further liberalisation. "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" says the statement.

They are joined by an array of interests, from international churches
and
unions to Indian peasants and French farmers.

The protesters definitely feel that the momentum is behind them with two

recent significant anti-free trade victories. They felled the ill-fated
multilateral agreement on investment (MAI) and in the US they stopped
Bill
Clinton's "fast track" of the North American Free Trade Agreement. "I do

think it is a strategic moment in an on-going confrontation between
civil
society and corporate rule," says Mike Dolan.

"I think there is a definite possibility that the WTO will be defeated
after
Seattle, so what do we do then?" asks John, from RTS. "We have to
remember
to go for the heart of the beast, which is capitalism itself."

Many environment and social justice groups say the WTO undermines
national governments and threatens people as well as nature. This week,
the
Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) argued that WTO rules were threatening
seven
hard-won treaties and were being used to prevent new environmental laws.

Two new treaties are at risk: WTO rules would take precedence over the
proposed Persistent Pollutants Agreement, seeking to curb toxic chemical

pollution; and the Biosafety Protocol on the trade in GM organisms has
all
but collapsed because rich countries want weaker WTO rules to govern the

trade.

Strengthening existing treaties could also be threatened: the Convention
on
Biological Diversity is at risk because WTO rules on intellectual
property
conflict with the convention's aims to help developing countries patent
local knowledge; and, WWF says, the Montreal Protocol on ozone
depletion,
the Kyoto climate change convention and the Basle convention banning the

export of
hazardous waste to countries where it cannot be properly managed could
all
be challenged.

The WWF wants an agreement implemented to exempt environmental trade
measures from challenge by the WTO. "Every time an agreement is seen to
threaten economic interests, WTO rules are invoked to weaken the
proposals,"
says Nick Mabey, of WWF.

Andy Rowell is a freelance journalist who attended the Ruckus camp as
a
guest.


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

NEW CITIZEN'S GUIDE TO THE WORLD TRADE ORGANIZATION!
On the Internet at http://www.tradewatch.org/publications/gtwpubs.htm
FOR MULTIPLE COPIES CONTACT PUBLIC CITIZEN 202-588-1000 OR GO TO
http://www.citizen.org/newweb/publicat.htm

**********************************
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed
without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving
the
included information for research and educational purposes.

Margrete Strand Rangnes
MAI Project Coordinator
Public Citizen Global Trade Watch
215 Pennsylvania Ave, SE
Washington DC, 20003 USA
mstrand@citizen.org
202-454-5106
202-547 7392 (fax)

To subscribe to our MAI Listserv send an e-mail to mstrand@citizen.org,
or
subscribe directly by going to our website,
www.tradewatch.org (Please indicate organizational affiliation if any,
and
also where you found out about this listserv)

Search the MAI-NOT & MAI-INTL archives at http://lists.essential.org/