By Nicola Bullard, Focus on the Global South
BANGKOK, 9 November - In one of the first protests on the international day of action against the WTO, more than 1,500 farmers, jasmine rice producers, trade unionists and HIV/AIDS activists marched from Bangkok's World Trade Centre to the US Embassy.
Watched by about 100 police and embassy security, the protesters called for the WTO to get out of agriculture and an end to patenting of life and drugs. Leaders from the Assembly of the Poor, Thailand's largest social movement, farmers organisations from around the country and the national AIDS networks, presented petitions to the US embassy representative Mr Win Dayton demanding US action on drugs and rice patenting, and a change to the US position on WTO negotiations.
Meanwhile, one well-known farmer leader speaking from the rally truck expressed his sympathy to the US for the loss of life on September 11, but said that the US has killed people everywhere. Patents on drugs kill people, he said, and patents on rice make the farmers suffer. "The US will create bin Laden allies in Thailand with its policies on drugs and rice," he warned.
Rice is the soul of Thai culture and sentiments here are running high since it was revealed that the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) had illegally given germ of Thailand's 'hom mali' (jasmine) rice to US researchers. Jasmine rice growers fear that if scientists patent a variation on the famous scented rice, their exports could suffer. Thailand currently produces 30 per cent of all internationally traded rice.
Pricing of HIV AIDS treatment drugs is also a hot issue. Only five per cent of Thailand's 750,000 AIDS sufferers can afford treatment, yet the government's efforts to allow the production of generic drugs have met with heavy diplomatic and economic pressure from the US, which has sent a string of trade envoys claiming that the changes breach bilateral agreements and are "unacceptable to the US."
Thai workers were also out in force. Over one hundred unionists from the national carrier Thai International were protesting at further privatisation of the airline. Khun Boonchuey, a ground-crew technician, said "When the companies privatise, people lose their jobs and in Thailand there is no job security, no social safety nets. We are left with nothing."
Junya Yimprasert, co-ordinator of the Thai Labour Campaign agreed. "Trade policies, she said, "do not protect the workers and they cause many people to lose their jobs." Hundreds of state employees, autoworkers, maritime, transport and services workers joined the rally, responding to the ICFTU call for an international day of action.
The US embassy is in the heart of Bangkok's financial and diplomatic district and one of the few tree-lined streets in the hot sprawling city. After several hours of standing, the workers and farmers settled in the shade to eat and drink, watched by well-dressed office workers and embassy staff. One man approached a group of protesters introducing himself as an American working for a TNC. "I have one question," he said. "Why do you think you can protest about patenting when Thailand has been violating copyright for years? You can buy a Harry Potter CD at the local market for 150 baht [about $4]. Tell me, what gives you the right to complain about copyright?"
Khun Kingkorn Narinthrakul, who works with peasants in the North of Thailand, wasn't surprised at this idiotic comparison between entertainment CDs, life saving drugs and farmers livelihoods and replied politely "Does this make anyone die? And besides, it's the only way the poor people can see Harry Potter."
Before marching off to Lumpini Park for an afternoon of music and speeches, villagers set off fire-crackers and burnt chilli and salt a ritual which locals believe brings bad luck to bad people. The smoke wafted into the embassy.
ends Focus on the Global South (FOCUS) c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University Bangkok 10330 THAILAND Tel: 662 218 7363/7364/7365/7383 Fax: 662 255 9976 E-mail: N.Bullard@focusweb.org Web Page http://www.focusweb.org -------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Paul Kingsnorth Date: Fri, 9 Nov 2001 15:03:54 +0000
SOUTH AFRICA SAYS NO TO WTO 9th November 2001
Around 500 people marched through central Johannesburg today to protest the Doha, Qatar, meeting of the WTO, the South African government's participation in it, and the effect of WTO-enforced neoliberalism on South Africa.
The march was coordinated by the Johannesburg branch of the Alternative Information and Development Centre (AIDC), which campaigns against the South African government's neoliberal economic policies, and the involvement of the World Bank, IMF and TNCs in South African affairs.
Activists from several grassroots organisations took part, along with hundreds of individuals. They included the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, formed to prevent the state electricity company, ESKOM, from cutting off the electricity of the poor in Soweto. ESKOM is preparing for privatisation by raising its prices beyond the reach of many people, whose living standards have not improved since the end of apartheid. Also marching were representatives of the Johannesburg Anti Privatisation Forum, which is made of up grassroots groups opposing the ANC government's neoliberal economic plan, GEAR (Growth Employment and Redistribution), which focuses on privatisation, attracting foreign investment and the usual array of neoliberal inducements to rich corporations. Since GEAR was introduced in 1996, unemployment rates have rocketed, as have electricity and water prices and inequality.
Other grassroots groups, including Kathorus Concerned Residents, Lekoa Vaal Community Forum, Inner City Community Forum, Kwa Thema Unemployed Association, Thembisa Concerned residents and the Democratic Socialist Movement were also involved, and marched with many other campaigners and individuals to protest at the WTO's proposals to promote privatisation of basic services, under the GATS treaty, and prevent the sale and distribution of cheap medicines, under the TRIPS agreements - a genocidal measure in a country with a disastrous AIDS epidemic.
South Africa president Thabo Mbeki is a keen supporter of the new world neoliberal order, and SA trade minister Alec Erwin is attending the WTO meeting in Doha to urge a new trade round and the speeding up of neoliberalism not just for South Africa but for w\the whole of the continent. Protesters here say the ANC government is betraying its people, and that further neoliberal policies will increase the misery, poverty and inequality of the mass of people here, for the benefit of foreign corporations.
To make their point they carried a huge cutout Alec Erwin through the Johannesburg streets, with a 'WTO hammer, falling heavily onto another cutout of Africa, stamped with the words 'for sale'. Placards condemned water privatisation, TRIPs, GEAR, the commodifying of public services and the selling-out of the people in the name of trade. Despite heavy police harrassment, the protesters managed to sing and dance their way to the regional trade and industry office, where they delivered the attached petition to Alec Erwin to enjoy when he returns from Qatar.
In a separate protest, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) held a rally in the city, attended by upwards of 600 people, in which they voiced their opposition to the WTO and privatisation.
STATEMENT OF JOHANNESBURG PROTESTERS AGAINST THE WTO
To Alec Erwin, Minister of Trade and Industry
c/o Dept of Economic Affairs Gauteng Province
On this day of the start of the WTO Ministerial in Doha Qatar, we of anti-WTO community organisations, NGOs and other like-minded organisations in Gauteng are marching to call for the shutting down of the WTO.
We say:
No to the WTO!
No to Trips and higher medicine prices! Not to GATS, No to Privatisation! No to the WTO tariff regimen, No to retrenchments and unemployment!
And we say:
NO TO A NEW ROUND OF NEGOTIATIONS!
We are very much aware of and appalled by the positions you have taken with regard to the WTO, looking to expand and strengthen an organisation with a track record of causing untold misery to workers and the poor across the world. We are also appalled at your tactics of attempting to coerce other African and less developed countries to your position and simultaneously portraying South Africa as a leader of Africa in this regard.
We are watching you, we are watching the undemocratic processes that are unfolding in Geneva in the run up to the meeting, and we will be watching the coercion in Doha, Qatar.
Today we are in the streets protesting the unsavoury things we have seen.
Alec Erwin, as Minister of Trade and Industry in South Africa, we have certainly expected a very different form of leadership.
We say to you, reconsider your position. Get in step with the needs of people in South Africa, the continent of Africa and the world.
STOP THE WTO!
Handed over on 9 November 2001
Signed: Gauteng Department of Economic Affairs
Signed: Gauteng Anti-WTO protest:
