[L-I] Cancun Meet of WTO More Sinister Attacks in the Offing

Cancun Meet of WTO
More Sinister Attacks in the Offing
The recent WTO Ministerial Meeting, held from 10 to 14
September in Cancun, Mexico, witnessed an
unprecedented polarization between developed and
developing countries. This meeting, where trade
ministers from 146 member-countries, including Arun
Jaitley from India, participated, had the professed
goal of paving the way for a new trade agreement by
2005 that would further advance globalization — with
profound implications for the common man.
Unlike Seattle where talks collapsed mainly due to
infighting among the developed countries, this time,
the USA and European Union, in particular, had patched
up their bitter trade conflicts before the meet, to
jointly confront the developing countries with their
demands. From the very outset the clash of interest
between the developed and the developing countries was
reflected in their contradic-tory agenda. The
developing countries wanted to discuss the question of
the huge agricultural subsidies by the USA, the EU and
Japan and lack of access to these markets. But the USA
and EU instead demanded new and deep cuts in import
tariffs on non-agricultural goods by the developing
countries. The imperialist powers, with the aim of
ensuring freedom for their capital — or ‘free flow’ of
capital — and removal of all trade restrictions,
wanted to take up such issues for ‘negotiation’ as
investment ; competition policy; transparency in
government procure-ment and trade facilitation etc. 
However, the interests of the developing countries are
far from being homogenous either. Their conflicting
interests, partly stemming from the fact that the more
developed countries among them try to dominate over
less and least developed ones in their region — as
India, for example is doing — has also found
reflection in the proliferation of different groups in
Cancun. To mention but the G-21 — a Group of 21
developing countries, with India, Brazil and China at
its core, possessing relatively greater bargaining
power, which presented an alternative draft on
agriculture.  In view of the promise, made in Doha,
that developing countries could be given “differential
treatment”, another Group of about 30 developing
countries, including Indonesia and the Philippines,
demanded exemption from WTO rules and regulations for
certain sensitive products, such as rice which should
be declared as special products (SP), as well as the
right of developing countries to apply special
safeguard measures (SSM) against dumped agricultural
products. In particular, from Africa, where 10 million
cotton farmers are being ruined as a result of cheap
and very heavily subsidized cotton being dumped by
USA,  four small countries — Burkina Faso, Mali, Chad
and Benin — asked for com-pensation against unfair
dumping. 
Whereas the WTO decisions have far-reaching global
impact on common people, the negotiations are shrouded
in secrecy and take place largely in closed-door
meetings with individuals and groups, under US and EU
domination. Yet the outcome goes by name of
‘consensus’. So, in the final ‘consensus’ draft
presented at Cancun, all the suggestions and issues
raised by the developing countries were simply brushed
away, while the African countries were advised to
diversify. The draft highlighted the agenda of the
advanced capitalist countries and was emphatic about
their demand that the developing countries commit
themselves to make deep tariff cuts, among others.
Even the clause that provides immunity for the rich
countries from lawsuits on agricultural subsidies, was
extended! In the resulting standoff between developing
and developed countries, talks collapsed even as
thousands of protestors staged anti-WTO demonstrations
outside the venue.

Suicide at Cancun
Just how the WTO rules affect the lives of the people
was brought home glaringly through the suicide
committed by an anti-WTO protestor in Cancun. It was
an action of anguished protest over the agricultural
policy of WTO that is killing farmers and their
agriculture worldwide in developing countries. It is a
grim reminder of the utter helplessness and despair
not only of ruined farmers but also of unemployed
workers thrown on the streets as a result of
globalization, who feel their only option is suicide.
Not to speak of developing countries, even in
developed countries, where exploitation has become
more cynical with extreme flexibility and speed up of
production, the number of workers committing suicide
under unbearable stress, is on the rise. As for our
country, the fact that even in a state like Karnataka
90 peasants committed suicide alone in the short
period between 1 August and 5 September this year, (as
reported in The Hindu, Sept. 6, 03), is a pointer to
the total devastation they suffer in the prevailing
situation. And that is the official figure, which does
not convey the real picture. 
It is in this background that fierce protests against
WTO, from Seattle to Cancun, against the policy of
globalization, liberalization and privatization have
sprung up in country after country, throughout the
world, by people demonstrating in hundreds of
thousands for the last ten years. In Latin America
such protests have even caused some governments to
fall, to name but Bolivia and Argentina.

WTO agreement on agriculture ruins farmers  
It was in the name of ‘free trade’ and ‘economic
reforms’ — so pleasing to the ear — that the
imperialist powers, headed by the USA, using the
policy of stick and carrot made the developing
countries yield to the policy of globalization,
liberalization and privatization.  The imperialists,
while eulogizing ‘free trade’ as a panacea for all the
economic ills plaguing the developing countries that
had lost the benefit of liberal aid and assistance
with the fall of socialist countries and free access
to those markets, got them to sign the GATT Agreement
in 1994.
Almost 10 years have rolled by since then. The
imperialist powers had held out the bait of access to
their own markets to the developing countries in
return for opening up the economy. However, while
pushing the developing countries into the trap of
opening up their markets by liberalizing rules and
slashing tariffs, the imperialist powers, themselves
have kept up their own protection. They have succeeded
in doing so with the help of extremely variable
tariffs, as well as through quotas and on various
pretexts, including dumping charges if they find any
import item would create an adverse impact on their
home economy. Thus, developed countries have kept up
high tariff barriers against 97 % of the agricultural
export products of developing countries and 63 % of
all industrial export items of these countries.
Moreover, the rich countries, on paper, were obliged
to reduce their agricultural subsidies more
drastically than the developing countries. But in
reality just the opposite happened. The developing
countries reduced subsidies, with disastrous effects —
compounded by TRIPS-induced steep price hike of
agricultural inputs. But the USA, Japan and the EU —
lorded over by Germany, France and Britain — could
easily evade their responsibility by taking advantage
of loopholes in the treaty on the basis of their
technological superiority and different structure. Not
to speak of reducing their subsidies by 20 per cent,
as stipulated in the GATT agreement, these imperialist
powers actually increased their agricultural subsides,
which are now exceeding the staggering figure of  $
300 billion annually. The USA, in particular, has
doubled its agricultural subsidies in the last ten
years. (As individual farmers are practically extinct
in the USA these subsidies go to huge agri-business
corporations, employing agricultural labourers —
largely immigrants and prisoners — who work long hours
for a pittance)  And again the USA plans to steeply
hike subsidies. As a result of all these, agriculture
throughout the developing world is in crisis, and the
distress of ruined farmers loosing their land,
especially the small and medium farmers, is simply
beyond imagination.  
Just as the imperialist powers, headed by the USA, use
their technological superiority and might of finance
capital in the agricultural sector to establish global
domination, so also they do in other spheres. This is
especially prominent in case of intellectual property
rights. 

TRIPS, Patent Laws and GATTs, etc. — tools for
neo-colonial exploitation
Thus with the help of their technological superiority
and might of capital the imperialist powers and their
MNCs make use of TRIPS (Trade Related Aspects of
Intellectual Property Rights) and Patent laws to bring
science and knowledge under their monopoly
stranglehold, extending it to every sphere of human
production. Not only do they amass super profits in
this way, but TRIPS and Patent laws have turned in
their hands into a tool to subjugate the developing
countries by obstructing development of their
indigenous technology, causing production costs to
shoot up steeply, and through use of monopoly rights
over marketing to secure markets for themselves in
these countries. Even over essential drugs the
pharmaceutical MNCs — which have the highest profit
rates among all other sectors of industry — secured a
monopoly stranglehold, as a result of which prices of
essential and life saving drugs have spiralled beyond
the reach of common people, depriving the poor of
getting medicines, especially in AIDS afflicted
Africa. 
Just before Cancun, concerning the demand raised by
developing countries centring round the manufacture
and import/export of cheaper generic drugs instead, an
‘agreement’ was reached. But that agreement contains
such provisions as to effectively scuttle the deal - a
fact widely acknowledged. Hence in this regard too,
the sole ‘redress’ the developing countries obtained
was of mere verbal nature. As to the question of
bio-piracy indulged in by the imperialist powers, it
seems, this has not even come up for discussion.
Similarly the imperialist powers use WTO provisions of
GATS to penetrate the service sector, through
privatization, and liberalization of trade in service
sector, including banking, insurance, electricity,
health, hospitals, etc. and even education to
establish their monopoly over the new markets thus
opening up for services in developing countries. In
our country they do so hand in glove with domestic
finance capital. In this way essential services and
sectors like insurance — essentially a welfare service
— are turned into mere products to be traded for
maximum profit. The government is shaking off even
minimum social responsibility, and people are being
deprived more and more of whatever little of social
services, like minimum health care was there. Today
with growing advance of the liberalization process,
vast masses of people, here as elsewhere, are finding
to their horror that, not to speak of health care,
even education is getting completely beyond their
reach. And the more the imperialists penetrate this
sector, the more ruthless becomes the exploitation of
and attacks on people in every sphere of life and
work. And still more sinister attacks are in the
offing, as further liberalization rules are being
negotiated, in secret. Attempts are on to remove any
obstacle, such as social and environmental criteria,
for trade that is to encompass all spheres of the
human activities, and all the resources of the planet.
 To mention but the fact that the USA imperialists are
agitating against fixation of minimum wages,
considering these as potential ‘technical obstacles
for trade’ to be removed, as revealed in a leaked WTO
document. 

Liberalization of trade and investment leaves
developing countries without protection against
imperialist sharks
While the imperialist powers insist that the
developing countries adhere to the rules of
multilateralism for global economic integration, they
themselves do not practice what they preach. They
themselves form competing regional trade blocs, which
include lesser developed countries over whose economy
they establish total control. The extension of NAFTA
to include Latin America and Caribbean countries into
FTAA, and expansion of EU to include some weaker
countries, are telling examples. But in this context
even the comparatively more developed among the
developing countries too are doing the same, to ensure
for themselves some sort of reserve markets. With the
result that intense rivalries over such reserve
markets are on the rise not only among the developed
but the developing countries themselves. 
Again in the name of economic integration, the USA and
G-7 are pressing the developing countries for more
cuts in import tariffs. But the rich countries not
only developed under tariff walls, they are still
protecting themselves with various measures of tariffs
and non-tariff restrictions, as mentioned before. Some
economists have pointed to the fact that multilateral
trade under WTO auspices is good only for those
countries that have clear-cut global comparative
advantages. And this is the reason that many poor
countries have seen a decline in their growth rates
after having embraced globalization. Growth rates in
India too have been lower in the post-WTO period than
before economic reforms. Thus, in this background a
further cut in industrial tariffs and removal of other
forms of trade protection as demanded at Cancun, would
lead to further de-industrialization or decline in
manufacturing industries in developing countries in a
situation where liberalization of foreign trade and
investment under TRIM (Trade Related Investment
Measures) have already caused small, medium and many
big indigenous industries to close down, unable to
survive competition with MNCs. It may be recalled,
that even before globalization industrial production
was in the doldrums and unemployment high in the
developing countries. Now as a result of globalization
unemployment is increasing by leaps and bounds, and
with no social security to fall back on, the majority
of unemployed are without means of subsistence, while
farmers who constitute about two-thirds of the
population are increasingly ruined, as seen before.
And worse is yet to come as imperialist sharks are
trying to enforce unrestricted freedom for their
finance capital worldwide — under the cloak of ‘free
flow of capital’  -and removal of all restrictions on
trade, infringing even on the sovereign rights of
governments to frame their own rules. This is to
ensure complete freedom for their MNCs for free entry
and exit in any country, to invest in any sector they
choose, withdraw investment any time, and remit profit
abroad. Of course they do so with the argument that
free flow of capital and global economic integration
would “enhance economic growth of poorer countries”. 
But the South Asian crisis of 1998 serves as a grim
reminder of what happens when foreign investments, for
whatever reason, are suddenly withdrawn ; the affected
countries go bankrupt overnight. At that time India,
Malaysia and China were not affected, because they
still had kept intact controls over monetary flows.
Recently Kenneth Rogoff, IMF’s chief economist, in the
Financial Times, admitted the negative effects of the
free flows of capital on the fortune of developing
countries, and point out “that it is precisely those
countries that made the effort to become financially
integrated that, in general, faced more instability.” 
Yet not only do the imperialist powers want to secure
precisely such complete freedom for unhindered entry
and exit of their MNCs, to invest and own capital,
natural resources and land anywhere they like, but
they demand that the MNCs are treated at par with
national producers. No obstacle whatsoever can be
allowed to stand in the way of MNCs earning maximum
profit, no government regulations, or subsidies for
socially needed services or sectors as that would
amount to ‘unfair’ competition. Nor can any human,
environmental or any other consideration be allowed to
undermine the ‘sacrosanct’ right for maximization of
their profit, not even international treaties. 
Already under WTO provisions the MNCs obtained
substantial benefits and freedom to operate.  Now on
the agenda of the imperialist powers is the attempt to
ensure absolute freedom and every right for their MNCs
and their finance capital but without even minimum of
responsibility. This is neo-colonial exploitation at
its worst. It undermines national sovereignty and
seeks to remove the last constraints on the unlimited
power of the MNCs, some of whose annual profits are
reportedly more than the national income of most of
the poor countries.  
Such being the dismal picture and prospects for the
developing countries, what kind of effect does
globalization — so much tilted in their favour — have
on the imperialist countries themselves? Today where
is the promised prosperity and greater incomes for the
people in developed countries? With the drastic
reduction in people’s purchasing power on a global
scale the world market has further contracted, and the
capitalist crisis of market intensified. Unemployment
has become endemic and is growing in all the advanced
capitalist countries. And so is homelessness — a
phenomenon once thought to belong to the distant past.
In these countries too, the people are getting poorer,
their incomes shrinking drastically. The gap between
rich and poor has become gigantic and goes on growing
fast. In fact, people in the developed countries are
weighed down by immense insecurity. They look with
deep apprehension to the future: under globalization
nothing is safe from the ravages and attacks that have
multiplied: neither their savings, if any, nor
pensions, not even existing jobs, nor even their
already curtailed rights at the workplace, for social
benefits and civil liberties. In mounting movements
the toiling people in country after country are
fighting for survival and against growing attacks on
age-old  rights and benefits.   

Unite to stop liberalization
Yet still more sinister global attacks on people are
in the offing. It is the people will have to find the
way out from this dismal situation.  But to do so the
people in the developing countries first need to find
the answer whether the national bourgeoisie, who are
at the helm of affairs in the their countries, can be
counted on to stand their ground in the confrontation
that has developed between them and the imperialist
powers in Cancun, and to protect the people from
further attacks. Is the contradiction between
developing and developed countries of fundamental
nature, or is it just a question of bargain between
the two sides? Is it not a fact that in their
eagerness to obtain some access to the world market
they signed on to globalization — though it was quite
apparent that the WTO regulations were tilted heavily
in favour of the advanced capitalist countries —
thereby betraying their own people? They showed least
concern for the people and did not hesitate to place
the burden on them. So it is quite obvious that their
confrontation in Cancun is not of fundamental nature,
but is a standoff to obtain a better bargain. If they
get some minor concessions they will succumb to the
dictates of the imperialists. Having least concern for
people the national bourgeoisie will pass the
additional burden on to the common people of their
countries. 
The same holds true for our country too, where the
national bourgeoisie eagerly signed on to
globalization and liberalization solely in order to
get a share of the world market as junior partner of
imperialist powers. While the press has tried to
project Arun Jaitley, the trade and commerce minister,
as a hero standing up for developing countries in
Cancun, the fact remains that India has never truly
championed the cause of developing countries, though
it had many opportunities to do so. Instead it has
played among the many contradic-tions solely in order
to serve its own interests and get the best bargain.
Cancun is no different. So the only way for the people
of the developing countries is to stand united and
force their governments not to succumb to the dictates
of the imperialists, com-promising the legitimate
interests of the people, and to stop the policy of
liberalization and privatization. 
To carry out this task a vigorous movement is the need
of the hour. But for such a vigorous movement to take
off, the pseudo-left forces, the social democrats —
like the CPI and CPI(M) in our country, for example —
who talk against  liberalization, but in reality
themselves implement liberalization wherever they are
in power, who obstruct, trick and  backstab such
movements, while paying lip service — these forces the
people have to isolate politically. And making common
cause with people from developed countries who are
also being pauperized and under attack, let us forge
unity and build up powerful movements to stop
liberalization, with the ever new slogan: workers of
all countries unite.
Published in Proletatian Era, the Central organ of
SocialistUnity Center of India( S.U.C.I)  15 th Oct.
Issue  



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