|
|
| |
|
The Streets of Cancun
Saturday, September 13th
Br. Dave and I began the day with intentions to participate
in discussions on genetic engineering and privatization of water
at a venue in the town of Cancun. Organizers of these symposiums
included Friends of the Earth, Public Citizen and the Polaris
Institute. But when we arrived at the meeting site, everything
was postponed and everyone was invited to join the people’s
march to Ground Zero. This is the 0 Kilometer mark that begins
entry into the Hotel Zone and where the anti WTO demonstration
took during the opening day of the ministerial meetings. It is
also the site with the Korean trade union leader committed hari
kari, a supreme act of sacrifice for a cause.
While Br. Dave stayed with a group of Maryknollers who had
come from various parts of Mexico, I joined others who came from
Canada, Denmark and various parts of the United States. We
joined into the march with a sizeable group from South Africa
who handed out T shirts saying "Africa is Not for
Sale". They also sang beautifully. Just ahead of us was a
group of Sandinistas, or so I was told, and they had drums and
nice beat going. Behind us were a group of Mexican workers in
white caps who chanted slogans and waved to everyone.
After arriving at Ground Zero, the marchers paused for
several minutes. We all needed a water break and a bit of shade.
At the same time, preparations were being made to approach the
barricades a couple hundred yards away; that was where the
military police had stopped all traffic and pedestrian flow into
the Hotel Zone and WTO meeting area. A sudden downpour came, but
if anything that refreshed the several thousand marchers and
demonstrators.
The barricades were a double row of fences, almost like cages
set in a straight line from one end of the boulevard to the
other. Mangroves and mud prevented anyone from going around
these. While drummers kept up a constant beat, the people began
to clip away at the fencing. For reasons not clear to me, only
young women seemed to be working on the chain link fences
stretching away the grassy meridian. But they were snapping the
wires and slowly making their way the first row. While wandering
through the crowd who could only watch, Br. Dave and I spotted
some of our friends from the Rural Coalition and our Midwest
family farm network. We saw our friends from Agricultural
Missions and the Presbyterian Hunger Program. There was also
Peter Rosset from Food First!, Mark Ritchie from IATP, Pat
Mooney from ETC Canada. Of course, it easy enough to start a
conversation with anyone since we all wanted to know where we
came from and what exactly brought us to this place and moment.
At the double fencing blocking the street, a combination of
Koreans, Mexicans and anyone else who cared to join in tied
large ropes to the barricades. By the fifth or sixth try, they
had torn away the metal fences and hauled these away into the
mangrove swamp. But this was a day for the Koreans ... the
Korean Confederation of Trade Unions ... and they made it clear
to the demonstrators and the military police now facing each
other that this as far as anyone would go. Speaking to the crowd
in a series of Korean, English and Spanish translations, the
organizers explained why we wanted "WTO down, down,
down". Two effigies were raised to symbolize the powerful
WTO interests who negotiated against the wishes of the people.
These were set on fire. The crowd chanted and raised their
fists. But the crowd cheered loudest when an American flag was
set on fire. There was no feeling in my mind that I, as an
American, had anything to fear from anyone here. And indeed it
was a day of singing and festivities as much as chanting and
protests.
The last symbolic act was the raising of white flowers. I did
not see these handed out, but suddenly they sprouted from the
people in the street who had spent the last four hours tearing
down the barricades. One last song was sung and then dancing
began, people hand in hand forming large circles. It was a sign
of hope. "We are everywhere" is our global strength.
A solemn postscript: Later that evening, a handful of people
gathered for a simple remembrance of Mr. Lee, the Korean union
leader who committed hari kari four days before. Br. Dave and I
were the few non-Koreans there. At the spot of Mr. Lee supreme
sacrifice, as many called it, a few words were spoken by the
Korean people, an anthem was sung, a chant with raised fists,
and that was it. The skies were clouding up again.
Robert Gronski
National Catholic Rural Life Conference
Cancun update 9/14/03
Please regard my (Brother Dave) and Bob Gronski's messages as
joint partnerships, since we are often attending the same events
and our reports would otherwise tend to overlap. Today, Sunday,
the 14th was to be the last day of the World Trade
Organization's ministerial meetings. In Seattle, WA the meetings
had to end without a conclusion because the space was reserved
for a new group. Such is not the case here in Cancun, and it has
been announced that at least one additional date will be added
to the meeting...so, at this point the concluding ceremony is
scheduled for a day later than previously announced. The big
hold-up here is agriculture, as it has been all along. The draft
text was released with only one major supporter of it, the USA.
I (Brother Dave) just attended a briefing from the Third World
Network (alliance from around the world with specialists on
Asia, Africa, Latin America) The consensus with them was that
the draft text for agriculture was not acceptable...African
civil society produced a press release denouncing the draft, the
Africa specialist of the Third World Network cautioned that
there are political forces at work in the African
positions...South Africa has most of the powerful cards, it has
since Doha been trying to act as a bridge builder between blocs,
but was, according so some, stabbed in the back by the USA and
EU...and is floundering to reestablish its position and find a
new political ground. With another possible 2 days for the
agriculture text to be negotiated, the export fundamentalism of
the US is the dominant voice. The fact that the USA has not
accepted the African position on cotton, asking for special and
differential treatment, the African countries that produce
cotton are also among the poorest countries...the slapping down
of them by the leaders of the WTO has created a new solidarity
in African and among Africans and others...So, South Africa can
play a key role in these talks. For Latin America, Brazil and
China have combined to counter the US and EU. They are part of
the Group of 21 who are holding the fort against the trade
liberalization efforts of the US and EU. So, we don't know what
will happen with Brazil which is playing a role in the whole
Latin America agenda setting, they could move in a new direction
with Lula's presidency, or they might remain on the same path as
before. They have three representatives here in Cancun: the
agriculture minister who is pro-export, agribusiness; the
agrarian reform minister who will be sensitive to the concerns
of small farmers, and a political representative. With Central
America, the US has strong leverage and the CAFTA negotiations
basically are on track with some saying that the governments of
Central America are run out of their US embassies. The image in
the world press seems to have changed from a focus on anti and
proglobalization to a recognition that this is really a
challenge between the rich and the poor. The moral evaluation of
the world press seems to be doing a better job of "getting
it". We hope that everyone who reads these words thinks
about the implications on a world scale of NCRLC's refrain:
"Eating is a Moral Act." See our website: www.ncrlc.com, and our
cards on this theme. God Bless, we'll continue to keep you
posted as long as we are here. Bob and I are scheduled to leave
Monday afternoon...a lot can happen.
Brother Dave
Yesterday afternoon, Sunday, September 14, the feast of Santa
Maria, wife of Saint Isidore, patron of farmers and the NCRLC
proved to be the undoing of the WTO in Cancun, I attended the
WTO NGO briefing at 2:00 pm in the afternoon, one that had been
delayed since 9:30 am, and found that there was little the
briefers had to tell, and we could appreciate that the Group of
21, leaders of the developing world block, led by Brazil, India,
Egypt, China...was holding out against the EU and US. The issues
being discussed were the so called "new issues" or the
Singapore issues, not the problematic farm debate. These were
four issues: transparency in government procurement, investment,
competition policy and trade facilitation. The large scale
liberalization of trade in national and local economies in these
areas would force developing countries to relinquish many of the
economic development tools that industrialized countries used to
build their economies and create or hold onto jobs. The WTO
foundered on the Singapore Issues, so identified from the 1996
Singapore Ministerial Conference. Just consider the investment
issue...the direction proposed by USA and EU was to expand the
existent multilateral agreement on investment policy TRIMS,
which elaborated on existing GATT provisions prohibiting
government requirements TO PURCHASE INPUTS LOCALLY OR TO SELL
THEIR OUTPUT DOMESTICALLY RATHER THAN EXPORTING IT. Thus, an
export economy or scale economy was favored by treaty over local
development or a local economy, the standard of living of local
communities were placed on a less important scale of values than
the export profits from local resource extraction. The current
law or agreement on investment depends upon bilateral agreements
through government to government contacts rather than to
multilateral frameworks. Currently there are 2,100 such
bilateral agreements. In Doha in 2001 there was made a case for
constructing a multilateral framework to secure transparent,
long term, stable and predictable cross border investment,
particularly for long term investment. The developing countries
wanted to incorporate a development dimension into any
prospective agreement. In the mid 1990s the OECD proposed a
multilateral agreement on investment MAI, at the WTO the
explicit agreement was that this had no place in the current
negotiations...but of course it is the same principle. In the
1940s, the NCRLC published the results of a study on corporate
farms and family farms in California which found that the
corporations acted as the GATT agreement suggests, no local
inputs, no local or domestic circulation of benefits...all was
focused on profits and internal well being of the corporation.
In the 70s, 80s, and defensively in the 90s the NCRLC has
promoted and supported the anti corporate farming laws in the
Midwest and local control provisions ...in light of the
recurrent positive research that such provisions support local
communities and local economies. Foreign direct investment with
no local or domestic community or standard of living relatedness
involves resource extraction without corporate responsibility to
local economies. This is why at home or abroad, these types of
economic schemes deserve to be opposed both by developing
countries and by local communities in the north...including the
heartland of America. You can read about the growing poverty in
agricultural communities by looking at the Center of Rural
Affairs new report entitled Swept Away. Also, you can find
points of significant agreement in the US and countries of the
south by attending NCRLCs Bi National Farm Forum on October 13th
in Des Moines, Iowa check our website www.ncrlc.com.
There Mexican and US farmers, journalists, and scholars will
compare impacts of agricultural trade on their sectors....and we
will discover common concerns. This issue of investment, one of
the Singapore issues, is one upon which this WTO foundered, they
didn't even get to the highly contentious issue of agriculture.
Best wishes to all, thanks for reading our dispatches. Watch for
more in the future as we at NCRLC attend a meeting on trade in
Mexico City at the end of this month with the Mexican bishops,
and as we prepare for our farm forum in October during the week
of the World Food Prize and as we prepare for the Free Trade of
the Americas ministerial in Miami at the end of November. By way
of preparation too, you might consider attending our national
meeting in Albany, New York November 7 and 8, Rural Life Change
and Challenge. Again, check our website. On November 9 to the
11th the US Bishops should be issuing a national statement on
agriculture issues. NCRLC has been a consultant on that over the
last three years. So, we've got a lot on our plates, stay tuned
to www.ncrlc.com.
Best wishes, again, Brother Dave
|
|
