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WTO talks collapse amidst protests in Cancun
By Eamon Martin
Cancun, Mexico, Sept. 15 (AGR)— Small farmers, peasants,
and global justice activists on the streets of Cancun, Mexico were jubilant
on Sunday, Sept. 14, when it was announced that the Fifth Ministerial
meetings of the World Trade Organization (WTO) taking place in the city
had abruptly imploded. A united front of 21 poorer, developing nations
involved in the talks, outraged over the evasiveness and inflexibility
of the United States’ and European Union’s positions had walked
out, stopping the meetings a day ahead of schedule, and preventing a
planned formal agreement from being made. The news came after a week
of dramatic anti-WTO protests struggled to be heard inside the highly
militarized, elite vacation destination where a rare constellation of
activists had gathered. The demonstrations were a mixture of both peaceful
and violent confrontations with the suicide of a South Korean farmer
and sabotage sustaining a general mood of high-pitched emotion.
Since it’s inception in 1995, the WTO’s closed-door panels
have ruled against an array of nations’ health, safety, labor,
human rights and environmental laws, which have been directly challenged
as “barriers to trade” by governments acting on behalf of
their corporate clients.
As a result, these standards and protections — and by extension,
whole indigenous cultures — have been negated, crippled or rendered
vulnerable to becoming disposable to the whims of international finance
and global, corporate expansionism.
The WTO existed in obscurity until Nov. 30, 1999 when international
activists shut down their Third Ministerial in Seattle, Washington.
That action, accompanied by the rampant vandalism of corporate property
targeted by black-clad anarchists, was followed by three days of police
repression including mass arrests and martial law within residential
city neighborhoods. The world took notice.
At the heart of the WTO’s failure in Cancun was the WTO’s
Agreement on Agriculture, which has forced poorer nations to “liberalize”
agriculture, allowing Northern-based agribusiness corporations to dump
their products in Southern countries’ markets. As a result, subsidies
going to export-oriented industrial farms have skyrocketed while millions
of small farmers have suffered from imports wiping out their traditional
livelihoods and incomes as multinational companies gained control over
their domestic agriculture and food supply.
The movement against this form of “neo-liberal” economic globalization
is made up of a broad range of civil society groups representing women,
farmers, students, anarchists, environmentalists, human rights defenders,
and others.
But this week the WTO even provoked criticisms from the likes of United
Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who, himself blamed the rich countries
for the problem of continued unfair trade.
“We are told that trade can provide a ladder to a better life and
deliver us from poverty and despair... Sadly, the reality of the international
trading system today does not match the rhetoric,” Annan said in
statement delivered to the opening session of the five-day conference.
Meanwhile, as the WTO delegates safely disputed their concerns inside
Cancun’s luxury hotel district secured by a 20,000-strong deployment
of Mexican police and military, Annan’s sentiments were severely
amplified by activists and members of civil society outside.
Though a lengthy, cage-like fence kept most activists five miles away
from the WTO convention center, throughout the week the structure itself
became a focal point for some 7-10,000 demonstrators offended by their
exclusion.
No greater symbolism illustrated this frustration than on Sept. 10,
when at the very outset of the demonstrations, 56-year-old Lee Kyang-Hae,
former leader of the South Korean Advanced Farmers Federation, in an
act of protest climbed the fence and committed suicide by stabbing himself
in the heart. Before his collapse, Lee clutched a sign reading: “WTO
Kills Farmers”.
The Korean delegation later argued that his death could have been avoided
if the Mexican authorities had permitted them to bring their message
to the meetings.
His death fell symbolically on the day of Chusok, one of the largest
national Korean holidays when family and friends gather to give thanks
to their ancestors for the food they have harvested.
Lee’s act occurred not long after his delegation had led a march
of thousands of Mexican farmers, students and internationals to the
fence and began attacking it in varying degrees.
Large sections of the fence were demolished by internationals, students,
and anarchists, many of whom used pieces of the fence itself as weapons
against baton-wielding riot police standing behind its gates. With the
playfully militant Infernal Noise Brigade marching band from Seattle
drumming defiantly at their backs, the crowd upended a section of the
heavy barricade while rocks and smashed concrete were hurled at police,
some of whom threw the objects back at the crowd.
“It’s time to step out of our safety-comfort zones,”
said Will Levin, age 50, a chef who had traveled from Portland, OR.
“This is a choice between stepping into a culture of life or a
culture of death.”
By day’s end, at least 40 demonstrators and 20 police had been
injured and Lee Kyang-Hae’s political suicide had made him a martyr
and a rallying spirit for those in Cancun who had come to stop the WTO.
In the evening, a series of ceremonies were held honoring Lee, infused
with both somber tribute and passionate resolve to confront the WTO.
At the first homage, Lee’s delegation representing the Korean Confederation
of Trade Unions (KCTU) sat on the streets in a candle-lit vigil in front
of Cancun General Hospital to mourn and also speak with the press.
After they conducted a string of quiet Korean hymns and passionate orations,
the KCTU accepted tribute from a diverse gathering who had come to pay
their respects. After a group of Mexican Tzotzil Mayan women recited
a traditional prayer, the KCTU warmly received a black banner as an
offering on behalf of the anarchist Black Bloc of Cancun, honoring Lee
as a martyr.
On the banner, written in Spanish and in English above and below a large
circle “A” anarchy symbol, were the words: “With Love
and Respect, In Solidarity, The Struggle Continues Onward”.
Then, while holding the banner aloft, the leader of the ceremony then
commenced an extensive fiery sermon against the WTO, pledging Korean
solidarity with global activists and anarchists, shouting, “Our
world is not for sale!”
Lee “committed suicide not only for himself but for all of us,”
he cried.
The vigil closed with Koreans, Mexicans and internationals singing the
hymn to the Zapatistas, the autonomist and insurrectionist indigenous
movement based in the nearby Mexican state of Chiapas.
In the following days, Subcomandante Marcos of the Zapatista National
Liberation Army sent a message of solidarity read to the protesters
in Cancun.
“Not far from where you are meeting, a handful of slaves to money
are negotiating the ways and means of continuing the crime of globalization,”
Marcos. “We have in our hearts a future to build. They only have
the past, which they want to repeat eternally. We have hope. They have
death. We have liberty. They want to enslave us.
“This is not the first time, nor will it be the last, that the
people who think themselves the owners of the planet have had to hide
behind high walls and their pathetic security forces in order to put
their plans in place.”
Later ceremonies headed by Via Campesina, an international umbrella
network of small farmers, and the KCTU concluded with a small march
to the site of Lee’s death at the fence where a minor stand-off
with police ended with an impromptu camp-out by Koreans and their supporters.
The following night, a celebratory march of about 1,000 people —
some carrying torches, others banging on pots, pans and oil drums —
continued to protest, as well as to honor Lee.
Along the way, graffitti blossomed with phrases such as “Viva Lee”.
Then the spirit of the march only intensified when dancing anarchists
sabotaged the upstairs patio of a Pizza Hut franchise, smashing windows,
destroying tables, and spray-painting phrases such as “No WTO”
and “Assassinate Capitalists” on the walls to the roaring
cheers of the crowd below.
Minutes later, the march reached an emotional peak, ending with a rally
in a nearby park where hundreds danced, drummed and yelled out into
the night.
The following morning, WTO trade ministers were greeted by a small team
of Argentines who had hung a huge banner reading “Que les vayan
todos/WTO Go Home!” on a giant crane outside the conference center.
Later that day, over 300 activists disguised as tourists actually penetrated
the zone of the convention center and disrupted traffic outside of it
for more than three hours. Some protesters sat in the road and sang,
while earlier, another group of six Mexican activists blocked traffic
with the aid of their car.
The demonstrations wound up the following day when thousands of protesters
led by a contingent of Mayan, American, African, and Asian women marched
to the barricades, then, using bolt cutters and ropes pulled them down.
Immediately afterward, rather than engaging an army of riot police amassed
before them, the demonstrators sat down and then maintained a sustained
act of silence.
The next day, the unified group of 21 developing nations had effectively
killed the WTO discussions.
Additional information: Cancun Indymedia
Iran given seven weeks to answer nuclear
questions
By Rupert Cornwell
Washington, DC, Sept. 13— A showdown over Iran’s
suspected nuclear weapons ambitions moved closer yesterday when the
United Nations’ (UN) atomic watchdog agency handed Tehran a seven-week
deadline to co-operate. The Iranian delegation staged an angry walkout
in response.
Ending a week-long meeting in Geneva, the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA) demanded that Iran offer “accelerated co-operation”
so uncertainties over its nuclear program could be cleared by the end
of October.
The agency also urged Tehran to fulfill its reporting obligations under
the statutes of the IAEA, of which Iran is a member, and to suspend
all uranium enrichment operations. This includes the shipment of nuclear
materials to the Natanz plant south of Tehran, where inspectors this
year found traces of weapons-grade enriched uranium. Tehran insists
its nuclear programs are for generating electricity and says its equipment
was “contaminated” by a previous owner.
Mohamed ElBaradei, the IAEA chief, toured Iran’s nuclear facilities
in February, including the incomplete plant in Natanz. He was said to
be dismayed by the advanced stage of a project using hundreds of centrifuges
to enrich uranium.
ElBaradei expressed confidence that Iran would comply with the agency
before he reports to the board at its next meeting in November. He said:
“[The board] is sending a very powerful message to Iran that they
need to co-operate fully and immediately and show complete transparency.”
The IAEA’s decision raises the real prospect of Security Council
action against Iran, including sanctions, if the clerical regime does
not comply before the November meeting.
Last night that seemed the most likely outcome, after Ali Akbar Salehi,
the chief Iranian representative to the board, used the walkout to launch
a fierce denunciation of the US.
Salehi said the pressure was part of Washington’s grand design
to remake the Middle East. Nothing would satisfy the US’s “appetite
for vengeance”, short of confrontation and war.
He said: “It is no secret that the [Bush administration] entertains
the idea of invasion of yet another territory, as they aim to re-engineer
and reshape the entire Middle East region.”
Salehi said that Iran would review its co-operation with the UN agency
in light of the resolution. Kenneth Brill, the chief US delegate to
the IAEA, said of the threat: “I think that suggests they have
something to hide that they do not want to come to light.”
Washington has pressed for UN sanctions since 2002, when George Bush
included Iran alongside Iraq and North Korea in an “axis of evil.”
This time it failed to secure an explicit threat from the IAEA. But
Iran’s behavior has convinced many US allies it is secretly developing
nuclear weapons.
Israel is watching closely too. In 1981 Israel destroyed the Osirak
reactor near Baghdad, the centerpiece of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear
program.
Source: Independent (UK)
Greenpeace obtains smoking-gun memo:
White House/Exxon link
Sept. 9— Did conservative elements in the White House
provoke an Exxon front group to sue the Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to suppress a report on climate change? That’s the question
that two State Attorneys General have asked US Attorney General John
Ashcroft to investigate, after Greenpeace uncovered a routine email
in a Freedom of Information Act request.
In the email, Myron Ebell of the Exxon-funded Competitive Enterprise
Institute writes to Phil Cooney, a senior official at the White House
Council for Environmental Quality. He describes his plans to discredit
an EPA study on climate change through a lawsuit. He states the need
to “drive a wedge between the President and those in the Administration
who think that they are serving the president’s interests by publishing
this rubbish.” He notes his group is considering a call for the
then-head of the Environmental Protection Agency, Christine Todd Whitman,
to resign, and openly suggests that she’d make an appropriate “fall
gal” if the administration is serious about getting back into bed
with conservatives opposing action on climate change.
His memo to the US government official begins “Thanks for calling
and asking for our help.”
That statement, and the cozy, conspiratorial tone of the document was
enough to make Richard Blumenthal, State Attorney General of Connecticut,
and G. Steven Rowe, State Attorney General of Maine, demand an investigation
by US Attorney General John Ashcroft into whether Cooney or other officials
in the Bush administration solicited the Competitive Enterprise Institute’s
filing of the new lawsuit, as the memo certainly makes it appear.
The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) received nearly a half million
dollars in funding last year from Exxon/Mobil, the world’s largest
oil company.
According to the two State Attorneys General, the email obtained by
Greenpeace “reveals great intimacy between CEI and [Bush Administration
official Cooney] in their strategizing about ways to minimize the problem
of global warming. It also suggests that CEQ [the Council of Environmental
Quality] may have been directly involved in efforts to undermine the
United States’ official reports, as well as the authority of the
EPA Administrator.
“We are concerned that the new litigation is an improper product
of that close relationship, and we therefore ask that you investigate
this.”
Bush administration admits climate change is real
At the end of May 2002, the United States submitted a report to the
United Nations on Global warming. The report, the National Assessment
of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, was
written by scientists from government, industry, universities and non-governmental
organizations. While supporting President George W. Bush’s position
of inaction against Carbon Dioxide emissions, it marked a stark departure
in its description of the problem. The report forecast major impacts
on the continental United States as well as the submersion of barrier
islands, and called for action to minimize the economic consequences
of these events, while saying it was simply too late to stop them through
a program of rigorous emission reductions.
But in the view of Exxon and its pals, the report’s conclusion,
that climate change posed a significant risk and was caused by man-made
emissions, was at odds with their agenda to sell more oil. The government
report caused a media storm with headlines across the world like “Climate
Changing, US says in report” from the New York Times, which clearly
caused the call for help from the White House to the CEI.
When Exxon talks, Bush listens
Two days after the memo from Ebell was received, Bush repudiated the
report as having come from “the bureaucracy.” This was a further
blow to embattled EPA chief Christine Todd Whitman, who announced her
resignation in May of this year.
The Bush administration is still trying to say that “the science
on climate change is inconclusive.”
It certainly isn’t inconclusive to climate scientists. The National
Academy of Sciences said in 2001 that “There is general agreement
that the observed warming is real and particularly strong within the
past twenty years.”
No credible scientist today questions that climate change is happening
or that atmospheric carbon dioxide is the major contributor.
Despite Bush’s refusal to submit the Kyoto treaty for ratification,
his efforts to undermine other country’s support for the treaty,
and his failure to take any meaningful action whatsoever on climate
change, he still hasn’t done enough for the CEI/Exxon agenda. CEI
complains that:
“[The Bush Administration] has managed, whether through incompetence
or intention, to create one disaster after another and then to expect
its allies to clean up the mess.”
Source: Greenpeace
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