AP Online / By DAVID THURBER
BANGKOK, Thailand -- For decades, poor countries have felt excluded from the closed-door meetings that set the direction for the world's trade agreements.
Nevertheless, most accepted the pacts, believing that free trade would help them develop and eventually join the ranks of the rich.
But with global poverty and income gaps worsening, a growing number of developing countries and activist groups are re-examining the agreements and saying they are no longer willing to be excluded from discussions during which global economic policies are set.
"Those who are affected need to have a voice, and so far their voice isn't being heard," said Philippine Foreign Secretary Domingo Siazon.
Third World governments and activist groups hope their voices will be heard at a meeting of the U.N. Conference on Trade and Development starting Saturday in Bangkok, Thailand.
Unlike last December's failed World Trade Organization talks in Seattle, which tried to push a new binding free-trade agreement, UNCTAD is a talk shop dominated largely by developing countries and focused on how trade can help poor nations grow.
The 135-nation WTO is widely perceived to be controlled by rich countries. Some African countries were so upset in December by being excluded from some negotiating sessions in Seattle that they threatened to walk out.
"The process was undemocratic," says Martin Khor, director of the Third World Network, a Malaysia-based advocacy group. "Most of the key meetings took place in secret, with only 10 to 20 mostly rich countries attending. That left a very bitter taste for the developing countries."
Delegates from poorer countries were angered by President Clinton's comment before the WTO meetings that trade sanctions should be imposed against countries that violate basic labor standards.
Poor nations saw that as an attack on one of their few economic advantages lower wages and pandering by Clinton to an important domestic lobby, U.S. trade unions.
Behind the growing Third World disenchantment over free-trade talks are signs that many of the poorest countries are being left behind by the tide of economic globalization.
A year ago, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that globalization might not benefit all countries, lifting the "yachts" while capsizing many "canoes."
A draft report prepared for the UNCTAD meeting concludes that Annan was right.
"The income gap between the developed and the developing countries has grown wider," it says. Many developing countries "have been unable to benefit from the globalization process."
Even worse, it says, income inequality has risen within developing countries while job security has fallen.
Third World groups say that's because rich countries have pushed trade agreements through the WTO that favor their own industries.
The UNCTAD report says many of the WTO tariff reductions favor industrialized countries, while a "significant" number of goods produced by developing countries remain blocked by high tariffs.
Thailand symbolizes other misgivings by developing countries about globalization.
It was the flash point of Asia's recent financial crisis, which has been blamed in part on overly hasty liberalization and massive, uncontrolled flows of capital.
Since the crisis, Asian countries have been hesitant to put their ravaged economies at the mercy of another binding world trade agreement. Many also fear that opening up their markets too rapidly will hurt their already suffering farmers and small businessmen.
In Bangkok last weekend, Thai farmers' groups said the concept of free trade is a figment of the imagination and if anyone benefits, it is big agribusiness, not poor and small farmers.
Khor said he hopes UNCTAD will become a forum in which Third World countries can rally together to create a world trading system that gives developing countries a greater chance.
But rich countries aren't eager to grant an enhanced status to UNCTAD, which hopes it can smooth out some of the differences raised at Seattle.
Despite calls from Thailand for high-level representation at the meetings, most Western nations will be sending junior-level officials. The U.S. delegation will be led by Harriet C. Babbitt, deputy administrator of the Agency for International Development.
"I have a hope that the rich countries will listen, but only a little one," Khor says. "Our suspicion and fear is that they want to continue to marginalize UNCTAD in favor of the WTO, which they now dominate."
Copyright 2000 Associated Press:
