Worldview gap erupts in Seattle
By ARTHUR JONES
NCR Staff
For those wearing the business suits to Seattles World Trade
Organization meeting, the most serious challenge is to make the existing system
work, said Franciscan Sr. Mary Plante, who is attending the conference.
But in terms of solving global economic disparities, the more
serious problem in Seattle in November, she said, was the gap between the
worldview of the nongovernmental organizations -- NGOs -- marching on the
streets and that of top World Trade Organization --WTO -- officials inside the
meeting.
It was a gap best summarized, said Plante, by WTO Director General
Michael Moores casual dismissal of nongovernmental organizations at an
opening symposium.
We werent listened to, we were talked to, said
Plante, a full-time staffer with the Franciscans International NGO, based in
New York. Moore, in effect, told us, Weve heard nothing new,
go back to your countries.
NGOs are legally accredited public interest groups that try to
influence policy at the United Nations and other international bodies.
But when the international NGOs do go home, said Plante,
theyll have new names in a network determined to open up the WTO to the
worsening world impoverishment its policies are creating.
Those names were of the people by the thousands who attended
sessions at the nearby Methodist church, who sat in on Womens Caucuses
and who joined in marches urging WTO attention to the implications for poor
people of the policies it adopts on behalf of the worlds multinational
financial, industrial and services corporations.
Said Alexandra Spielboch, in Seattle with the Washington,
D.C.-based Center of Concern group, and panelist at a Dec. 1 Womens
Caucus session, Americans have a tendency to focus on U.S. market
problems, but those pale compared to issues raised by caucus
panelists such as women from banana farms in the Caribbean, maquiladoras on the
Mexican border and indigenous groups in the Philippines.
The Center of Concerns Adrian Dominican Sr. Maria Riley,
providing a backgrounder to the World Trade Organization meeting, assessed the
inequality built into the WTO system this way: The smaller countries have
the access to WTO, but they dont have the means to influence it. Some
simply dont have the technical know-how.
The U.S. mission, meanwhile, said Riley, is full
of trade lawyers who can cover every WTO committee meeting to press the
U.S. preferences.
The United States likes to say that a rules-based system
creates a level playing field, Riley said. The field may be level,
but its like sending in your Little League team to play baseball against
the World Series winners. There is no leveling when resources are so unevenly
distributed.
This small country inequality, she said, is one of the moral
issues the religious NGO community faces; another, she said, concerns the
patenting of life forms.
Nationwide, Catholic groups analyze various aspects of WTO
activity with dismay. Dolores Brookes of the religious community-funded Eighth
Day Center in Chicago, brings WTO close to home. WTO power affects local
decisions. If Chicago has a law that a certain percentage of contracts should
go to women and minorities, a particular country could challenge that and
abrogate it.
The U.S. had high standards for oil clean-up, Venezuela low
standards. Venezuela sued, and now U.S. corporations changed to the lower
standards, she said.
Another issue, said Brookes, is secrecy. You have hard
fought-over environmental decisions, like [turtle-safe fishing nets], and a
three-man group meeting in secret can make the declaration -- [you must] abide
by their rulings or be heavily fined. This is not the democratic way to do
things.
Riley said the nation-states going into Seattle faced many highly
unresolved issues and little unanimity of view.
WTO was incomplete at the start, explained Riley. Several
agendas -- agriculture, services and parts of the TRIPs, Trade in Intellectual
Property Rights -- were unfinished at the time of the signing of the Uruguay
Round in 1994 that created WTO, she said.
The global South says there are so many problems with
implementing WTO that review, correction and reform of WTO is needed. The
benefits of global trade, they say, have to be more equitably shared.
The U.S. absolutely says no, we cannot open up any of the
agreements, because they were very balanced-off agreements. They
may have been trade-off agreements, continued Riley, but they
certainly have not proved to be equitable.
The rich United States and the poor South are pitted against each
other, said Riley, on environment, labor and textiles, for example. The
global South has a legitimate concern, I believe, said Riley, that
the U.S. has used its internal anti-dumping laws as a means of protectionism.
There are unresolved questions about patenting life forms -- some poor nations
dont even have a system for classifying their plants.
Further, textiles are important to the South, because
theyre labor intensive, require relatively simple technology and are easy
industries for the South to put in place. But while the U.S. follows the letter
of the law, it doesnt follow the spirit in opening up the U.S. market.
For example, theyve removed [textile] quotas from countries that
werent filling their quotas anyway.
Back in Seattle, Plante said NGOs, because they were so diverse in
their interests, were sending mixed messages both to the World Trade
Organization and the public. But the issue is that WTO officials are
basically trade ministers. They are not connected with social issues or people.
They dont know how to deal with a democratic process; theres no
place for the NGOs, for the peoples input. The real concerns are
basically not getting heard.
The World Trade Organization did attempt to treat the accredited
NGO delegates in Seattle fairly. The NGO delegates received the same box of
wine and free umbrella the WTO officials received, and were invited to the same
cocktail parties.
But while WTO officials stayed in hotels like the Westin, where a
single room with a king-sized bed goes for $300-plus a night, the NGO delegates
were lobbying on behalf of people for whom $300 is their annual per capita
income.
National Catholic Reporter, December 10,
1999
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