The New York Times | By ELIZABETH BECKER and GINGER THOMPSON | September 13, 2003
A compromise proposal issued at the meeting of the World Trade Organization here today rejects most of the pleas for change in agriculture from the developing world, including African cotton producers, and generally allows the United States to maintain its billions in annual subsidies.
The proposal, which had been prepared to help narrow the differences that have stalled progress on a global trade agreement, was met with disappointment by several of the developing nations that formed the so-called Group of 21 to stand together against the world's economic heavyweights, the United States, Europe and Japan.
Celso Amorim, the Brazilian minister of foreign affairs, said in an interview that the compromise draft offered "much less than we would expect."
"The changes for us are very modest, but if not for the G-21 we would have gotten nothing," he added.
Nevertheless, Mr. Amorim said the coalition of developing nations would not be divided by the setback.
"We are alive and fighting," he said, "not in a confrontational way but with dialogue."
Under the proposal, Europe would begin eliminating export subsidies for agricultural goods. In exchange, the W.T.O. would broaden categories covered by trade rules, to include investment. Developing countries do not want the rules expanded in such a fashion, for fear that the trade laws will undermine their national laws covering labor, human rights and environmental protection. Environmental groups say the proposal could erode current environmental protections in favor of foreign investment. Negotiators have until Sunday night to amend the proposal, and then accept or reject it.
This round of trade talks, begun two years ago in Qatar, was called to help developing countries and was expected to produce a big reduction in the $300 billion paid every year to farmers in the world's richest nations. Those subsidies, which have undermined the lives of millions of farmers in the world's poorest nations, have been deemed unfair by the World Bank.
Robert B. Zoellick, the United States trade representative, said in a short statement that he found the new proposal "constructive."
The proposal offered a reprieve to American cotton farmers, some of the most heavily subsidized in the world. And it urged beleaguered African farmers to plant other crops. There is no mention of paying compensation for the losses to the farmers, as requested.
Chanting "Down Down W.T.O.," some 2,000 protesters tore down fortified barricades today that had been erected by the police to keep demonstrators away from the talks. Some protesters rolled a battering ram cobbled from garbage cans and a tree trunk, vowing to "tear down the barriers of imperialism."
Dozens of women carrying wire cutters began slicing holes into the tall chain-link security fence. Meanwhile other protesters, led by a group of South Korean activists, tied rope to the frame and pulled the fence to the pavement.
Police officers made minimal effort to stop the protest. And after accomplishing their goal, W.T.O. opponents from at least 20 countries, many of them students, sat in the street and applauded their solidarity. There were no clashes between the protesters and the police.
Globalization opponents said the demonstration was the climax of a week of action intended to draw attention to the people and places they say have been harmed by existing free-trade treaties and unfettered foreign investment. Parallel to the trade organization's meeting, nonprofit organizations from around the world have held forums to present alternative economic development strategies that they say would put poor countries on a more level playing field with the United States, Europe and Japan.
Protests -- some playful and others deadly serious -- have tried to dramatize the plight of millions of small farmers who cannot compete with subsidized products from the United States and Europe that flood world markets. Demonstrators threw corn on speakers at news briefings by the United States and took off swimsuits to spell out "No W.T.O." with their bodies in the sand.
On Wednesday, a march by several thousand farmers turned violent when a few dozen protesters broke through barricades and lobbed sticks and pieces of concrete at police. In the heat of the fighting, a South Korean farmer, wearing a sign that said "W.T.O. Kills Farmers," climbed to the top of a barricade and fatally stabbed himself. "Sometimes violence is the only choice of the poor or the weak," said Kim Seok, a South Korean demonstrator.
Newspapers here ran almost daily warnings of terror by the protesters. Authorities transformed this resort into a bunker, with thousands of federal police manning roadblocks and navy ships floating off the coast.
But the protests in Cancun have not escalated to the violence that marred the WTO meetings in Seattle in 1999. Protesters acknowledged that their attitudes had been tempered by international terrorism and their opposition to the war against Iraq. Still, they said, their commitment to the cause remained strong.
"We believe that people on an international level are gaining a real conscience of the problems of agriculture," said Rafael Alegria, the leader of an international farmers' organization called Via Campesina. "We feel that the people are supporting us in our just demands."The New York Times:
