Cancun Files: WTO Opens to Tragedy and Protest - Ritual Suicide by Farmer

[eablair3]

I guess this is one way to get attention. Many won't forget this. Anyone know of any good sites for following the happenings in Cancun?

I believe Kucinich said one of his first moves would be to pull the U.S. out of the WTO. Is he the only candidate that has the nerve to come out and say that? Isn't Dean, Kerry, Edwards and Gephardt just wimps and wafflers on these issues? Lieberman probably likes the WTO.

Cancun Files: WTO Opens to Tragedy and Protest

By Tom Hayden, AlterNet
September 11, 2003

Tom Hayden reports from the WTO ministerial conference in Cancun each day. Read yesterday's report.

CANCUN, Sept. 10. – A South Korean farmer, Kun Hai Lee, committed ritual suicide during the WTO's opening day to protest the organization's agricultural policies.

Witnesses said Lee stood in front of police lines, declared that "the WTO kills farmers," and then slashed himself to death with a blade. His suicide came on South Korea's Day of the Dead.

snip

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=16755

[DemBones DemBones]

1. WTO and NAFTA were Clinton's biggest mistakes. Looks like

alternet is covering it well. I saw an article by Naomi Klein earlier -- I think it was in the Guardian. It doesn't seem to be on her site yet but keep checking because she's in Cancun and she's always excellent.

http://www.nologo.org

And YES, Kucinich is the only candidate who pledges to get us out of NAFTA and WTO as soon as he becomes president!

The farmer's suicide is a tragic reminder of the harm that has been done to human beings around the world in the name of free trade and globalization. Those who support this should be ashamed.

[DemBones DemBones]

2. There is some very GOOD news in the alternet article, too.

Argentina's Kirchners is fighting back against IMF by fighting for the people and the EU's high court ruled that European countries CAN ban foods containing GMOs, denying Bush* and the big corporations like Monsanto their move to force Europeans to buy GM foods. Great news.

<snip>


In addition, the impact of the movement gathered here has greater influence than ever before. For example, five years ago, Argentina was a poster-child for corporate globalization before its economic collapse. In response, social movements began blocking roads, taking over factories, besieging banks, and forming popular neighborhood assemblies to reclaim their lives. Unexpectedly, this year they elected a populist president, Nestor Kirchner, who, on the eve of the WTO's conference opening, dropped a bombshell by refusing to pay a $3 billion loan to the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Heeding the social movement, Kirchner refused the IMF's demands that he slash social programs, increase middle class taxes, allow foreign-owned utilities to raise rates, and banks to foreclose on homeowners without savings.


It was a dream come true for the anti-globalization movement – all because of an election that the cynics dismissed as meaningless. The Argentina developments followed on the heels of the election of Lula in Brazil, and other populist victories across Latin America.


In an another victory for the movement, on the day the Cancun conference opened, the European Union's high court ruled that European states can ban genetically-modified foods for health reasons, delivering yet another blow to U.S. chemical companies, agribusiness, and the WTO.

<snip>

[eablair3]

6. Kirchner

I hadn't been too aware of Kirchner before.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Here's the link to Naomi Klein's Cancun piece in "The Guardian"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1040412,00.html

Lest anyone think Cancun doesn't relate to them, note how she ties globalization and Iraq together:



" . . . when Washington started handing out reconstruction contracts in Iraq, veterans of the globalisation debate spotted the underlying agenda in the familiar names of deregulation and privatisation pushers Bechtel and Halliburton. If these guys are leading the charge, it means Iraq is being sold off, not rebuilt. Even those who opposed the war exclusively for how it was waged (without UN approval, with insufficient evidence of WMDs) now cannot help but see why it was waged: to implement the same policies being protested in Cancun - mass privatisation, unrestricted access for multinationals and drastic public sector cutbacks."

[eablair3]

5. thanks for that

I knew that companies like Halliburton and Bechtel were getting the big "reconstruction" contracts, but hadn't quite thought about the "new economic order" that will be imposed on Iraq. I know that public education, even through the university level, was free in Iraq before. Health care was, too.

That will all end with the imposed "new world order" where these private corporations will take over public services. Haven't they sold off the phone company rights already. Got to create a bunch of monopolies for these corporations to profit from, i guess.

thanks for posting that one.

[xchrom]

4. the perfect storm

wto and nafta are creating the future slaves of the corporate facist state.
that doesn't mean all the slaves like it.

[papau]

7. Cancun Day 1, and EU is already accused of backtracking -nice Brit story

Cancun Day 1, and EU is already accused of backtracking
By Philip Thornton in Cancun 11 September 2003

The British Government was embarrassed at the high-profile world trade talks by the disclosure that the European Commission was backtracking on plans to cut its massive farm subsidies.Brussels is apparently seeking to water down promises it made last month in a joint proposal with the United States in an attempt to break a stalemate at the World Trade Organisation. All 142 members of the WTO signed up to an agreement at its meeting in Doha, Qatar, two years ago to phase out farm subsidies as part of a package of measures aimed at benefiting the poorest countries.

According to a draft document, seen by The Independent, references to "phasing out" farm supports have been removed. It also put extra emphasis on the need to open talks on a global set of rules governing foreign investment something many developing countries bitterly oppose. The European Commission is not thought to have discussed the changes with Britain at the talks in the Mexican beach resort of Cancun. The British delegation was taken by surprise when the plans leaked out on Tuesday night. Yesterday, minister tried to distance themselves from the proposals. Margaret Beckett, the Environment Secretary, said: "The status of the document is wholly unclear."

Non-government organisations in Cancun seized on the document. John Hilary, a policy analyst at ActionAid, said: "This takes us back four years, even before Doha. Everything that we won there we are having to fight for again." But Ms Beckett said: "No doubt people are exploring ideas, but if you look at the text on subsidies and phasing them out, that remains, as far as I understand it."
There were further problems for the EU negotiators yesterday. More than 20 countries, which include more than half the world's people and almost two thirds of all farmers, formed an alliance to push for steeper cuts in farming subsidies and tariffs. The G20, which includes farming countries such as Brazil and Argentina and poorer states such as Libya and Egypt, said it wanted a "substantial contribution" from developed countries. "Export subsidies must be eliminated," it said yesterday. <snip>

The central issue and the biggest stumbling block in the talks is the need to draw up plans to cut the immense subsidies the world's richest nations hand their farmers.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=442198