From September 10th to 14th 2003 the World Trade Organization (WTO) plans to hold its fifth Ministerial Meeting in Cancun, Mexico. The WTO will be discussing four controversial Singapore issues - investment, competition, transparency in government procurement and trade facilitation. Moreover, it will also make important decisions on key agricultural issues. The WTO has already increased food insecurity, landlessness, indebtedness and privatisation in Asia. There can be no doubt that the decisions to be taken will go against the interests of the people of Asia and the masses of people everywhere.
The WTO is an undemocratic and illegitimate institution that is built in the interests of Transnational Corporations. Through the WTO, imperialists seek to further commoditize the world and profit from its peoples. Because of the WTO our food security has been endangered. People especially peasants are becoming landless and marginal farmers because of dumping of agricultural products from MNCs and industrialist countries. Consequently the peasants are not getting a reasonable price for their farm products. Peasants are losing their patent rights over bio-diversity. On the other hand, given the heavy subsidization to agro-producers in the northern developed countries its direct impacts on the south is articulated with heavy reduction in productivity in agriculture. That is why, we want the abolition of the WTO.
The WTO Ministerial in Seattle 1999 turned out to be a disaster for the proponents of capitalist globalization, and for the first time the mainstream media could no longer remain silent about the global protests against neo-liberalism. The WTO then went to hide in the desert in Doha, Qatar, and Cancun might now be a second Seattle (in spite of its inaccessibility for so many millions who would like to protest at the ministerial). Around the world organizations and grassroots' movements are mobilizing to derail the WTO!
In Asia, as elsewhere there has been incredible resistance to capitalist globalization. Hundreds of thousands have protested against the WTO agreements, against privatization, against the Structural Adjustment Programs of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, against militarization and war from Bangalore to Bangkok and from Dhaka to Manila. Earlier this year in India a wide variety of peoples' movements traveled the length of the subcontinent to connect with countless peoples' struggles and together proclaimed their rejection of neo-liberalism, ommunalism, feudalism, fundamentalism, patriarchy and war!
Indigenous peoples have mobilized to reclaim their lands; peasants and landless and agricultural laborers have fought TNCs such as Coca-Cola over the right to use theirnatural resources; farmers have protested (with some success) against the sale of genetically engineered seeds/foods that will increase the power of agribusiness TNCs over the world's food supply; women's organizations in South Korea and the Philippines have mobilized against war; the landless people in Bangladesh have mobilized to establish their land rights; the common people in Bangladesh are still fighting to protect their natural gas from the grip of US oil companies, and to protect the industries and agriculture that are threatened by the policies of the World Bank and IMF; in countless villages and urban neighborhoods around Asia people are resisting the impacts of capitalist globalization and all forms of domination.
Many different sectors will continue their struggles against capitalism in diverse ways: peasants, indigenous, dalits, trade unionists, students, youth groups, women's movements and environmental organizations are taking to the streets and paths this September in response to the call for action issued by the PGA Asia convenors and other calls issued in Asia. We call for decentralized actions everywhere during the WTO Ministerial in Cancun from September 10th until 14th. At the same time we want to celebrate as a sustained global movement. We want to continue our search, asking questions like the Zapatistas, towards a different world here and now.
We want to question the patriarchal capitalist logic of war. Not only during summit protests like in Hyderabad, Geneva, Seattle, Prague, Bangkok, Quebec, Genoa, Quito, Buenos Aires and everywhere - but also in our everyday life we want to creatively turn our anger into resistance. Together with many grassroots movements active within the Peoples' Global Action (PGA) framework, we say: Ya Basta! Enough!
Shut down the WTO!