International Trade Daily | November 1, 2001 | By Gary G. Yerkey
A broad coalition of nongovernmental organizations--from the AFL-CIO to Friends of the Earth and OXFAM--has planned a series of street demonstrations and other events in more than two dozen countries, beginning next week, to protest the expected launch of new global trade talks at the ministerial meeting of the World Trade Organization scheduled to be held in Doha, Qatar, Nov. 9-13, organizers said Oct. 31.
The organizers said that the groups, representing civil society, were being forced to take their "public action" campaign to other countries because the Qatari government prohibits public assembly.
Severina Rivera, a senior policy adviser at OXFAM America, said that the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, moreover, has warned NGO representatives in briefing that staging demonstrations in Doha would be ill-advised given the heightened security situation in the region.
"We were highly discouraged from conducting any kind of public action [in Qatar]," Rivera said. "We will have to be prudent about what we do."
A USTR spokesman had no comment.
Other NGO organizers, speaking at a news conference Oct. 31, said that about 100 NGO representatives from the United States will be traveling to Doha for the WTO meeting to argue that the WTO fails to address the needs of farmers, workers, and the environment. A USTR official, however, said that the number also includes private-sector business representatives.
WTO-Selected NGOs Voyage to Doha
WTO Director-General Mike Moore has said that one representative each from a total of 647 NGOs from around the world have been selected to attend the WTO meeting in Doha--the fourth since the organization was founded in 1995 to replace the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).
The last WTO ministerial meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., in November-December 1999, was marred by huge street protests that turned violent.
Rivera, of OXFAM, said that public protests this time will be held in some 28 countries around the world--from Australia to Sweden, from Bangladesh to the United States.
She said that a conference organized by the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU), which has designated Nov. 9 to be a Global Union Day of Action on the WTO, will be held in Doha on Nov. 8. The theme of the conference will be "Making Globalization Work for People: Development and Workers' Rights at the 4th WTO," she said.
Andrea Durbin, national campaigns director for Greenpeace, said that press conferences and other events will be held on the deck of the organization's flagship, Rainbow Warrior, which she said will be berthed in Doha, throughout the WTO meeting Nov. 9-13.
About 35 activists will be on board, other sources said.
"We are taking our ship to Doha to bear witness and provide a platform for NGOs--including local people and indigenous communities from five continents--to speak to how trade affects them, their health, their livelihoods," Durbin said.
She said that the WTO may have selected for its meeting a country that lacks a tradition of democratic openness and protest, "but it cannot hide."
NGOs Undaunted by Security Risks
Another NGO representative who will be traveling to Doha--George Becker, former president of the United Steelworkers of America, whose members were among the estimated 30,000 demonstrators who took to the streets of Seattle two years ago--conceded that there were certain "security risks" connected with a trip to the Middle East at a time when the United States was waging a military campaign in nearby Afghanistan. But he said that the cause was worth it.
Becker cited, in particular, the threat posed to U.S. trade laws that deal with dumping and subsidies in any future round of WTO trade talks. He said that the Bush administration has allowed the laws to be "put on the table" for discussion and possible revision in the WTO, which, he said, was unacceptable.
Thea Lee, chief international economist at the AFL-CIO, said that she will be in Qatar to protest the "backsliding" that has taken place since Seattle on the issue of workers' rights. She said that the so-called Harbinson texts, which set out a possible agenda for future WTO trade talks, devotes only three sentences to the issue and talks about the International Labor Organization being the "appropriate forum" for substantive discussion.
"This closes the door on whether the WTO is also a forum," Lee said.
Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said that the anti-WTO protests were being moved to cities around the world--other than Doha--because "physically" any significant demonstrations will not be possible in Qatar.
"Our message is, you can try to run but you can't hide," she said. "We'll bug you at home. ... The protests will be all over the place."
Other sources, who asked not to be identified, said that USTR plans to brief some 700 "cleared advisers" by means of interactive Webcasting from Doha at least once a day.
The briefings, the sources said, will be provided to members of the 35 private sector trade advisory committees that have been set up by Congress to ensure that U.S. negotiating objectives reflect commercial and economic concerns.
Members of the groups--ranging from the umbrella President's Advisory Committee for Trade Policy and Negotiations (ACTPN) to the Trade and Environment Policy Advisory Committee (TEPAC)--include representatives of business, labor, agriculture, environmental, and other private-sector interests.
Copyright c 2001 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc., Washington D.C.International Trade Daily:
