Citizens' Voice #11

SPEAKERS with widely separated points of view formed a panel on Tuesday September 11 to help participants learn more about the WTO -- what it does, why Australia belongs, who gains, who loses.

The speakers were Nicky Cusworth (Chief Economist, WA Chamber of Commerce) and Industry, and John Croft, analyst of alternative economic systems. Rodney Vlais (Stop-MAI) introduced the subject and moderated the discussion.

The WTO was set up in 1995. Its 143 member countries (about two-thirds of the world's nations) must abide by an array of tight, comprehensive agreements designed to remove barriers to global 'free' trade.

These agreements sometimes have the effect of overriding federal, state and local government measures which protect environment, public health, human rights, labour conditions and local culture -- when such measures tend to restrict free flow of goods and services between countries.

There are widespread fears that a government can be forced to amend its laws or be obliged to pay exorbitant financial penalties as a result of adverse rulings by WTO dispute settlement panels.

Rulings are handed down by tribunals which do not permit public attendance or scrutiny. The agreements that make up the WTO are also negotiated and adopted by bureaucrats with little public consultation.

In the Arab sheikhdom of Qatar from November 9-13, the WTO's wealthier nations and blocs will seek a mandate for a 'new round' of negotiations aimed at de-legitimising remaining barriers to cross-border trade. Opponents say that poorer nations can be bribed and/or blackmailed into concurring and that non-business advisers and opinions will carry no weight.

This vital public forum, on the anniversary of the World Economic Forum in Melbourne and attendant protests, invites considered analysis and discussion from speakers for and against the WTO -- and the merits of the drive for further trade liberalisation.

Download audio of the forum. It's 60 minutes long, featuring the full presentations of the three speakers. (If you want to save it, allow at least half an hour for the 14mB to download.) For higher quality audio on CD, contact Quinton or Glenn at virglen@iinet.net.au

STOP-MAI WA is seeking to raise $3000 to place an advertisement in The West Australian newspaper to draw public attention to the dangers posed by the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS).

So far, some $1300 has been raised. To place the advertisement before the November WTO meeting in Qatar in which binding decisions could be made, it will be necessary to reach $3000 by the end of September.

For inclusion in the advertisement, sponsoring individuals are asked to contribute $25 or more, and organisations $100. Details and progress reports can be found on the Web at http://members.iinet.net.au/~jenks/gatsAdvt.html and in a flyer accompanying this issue of Citizens' Voice. [Download a printable rtf of the flyer and the draft advertisement]

NEOLIBERALISM might have gutted the social infrastructure, trashed the environment, devastated job security, but at least it stimulated growth, right?

Well maybe it didn't do so much for the richer countries but it is lifting the poorest countries from poverty isn't it? Tony Blair said as much and told the Genoa protestors not to be so selfish.

On the eve of the Genoa talks, the UN Development Programme (UNDP) reported that according to its criteria, combining per capita income with such indicators as infant mortality, life expectancy, empowerment of women, literacy, there had been 30 years of unprecedented growth in the developing countries.

But a group of Washington researchers have just published the results of a detailed survey using the UNDP's own criteria, and they have shown a dramatic slowdown of growth during the neoliberal experiment. The key was in the periods of comparison.

Comparing 30 years ago with now obscures major changes that took place about a third the way into that period, so the researchers compared the period from 1980 to 2000 - when the drive for capital deregulation, privatisation, and the lifting of barriers to international investment was at its height - with 1960 to 1980 when most countries had a more restrictive economy.

The researchers found that the poorest countries went from a per capita growth rate of 1.9% annually in 1960-1980 to a decline of 0.5% a year between 1980 and 2000. The middle group of countries did worse, dropping from annual growth of 3.6% to growth of just under 1% after 1980. The world's richest countries also showed a slowdown.

[After the Genoa meeting, British Development Minister Clare Short depicted the protesters as middle-class European meddlers in contrast to informed African leaders. The informed leaders of 30 African countries had just signed a declaration in Addis Ababa rejecting new powers for the WTO. We are publishing several items on the impact of global corporate control on third world countries.]

WITHOUT exception - be it in Latin America, Africa, Russia or Asia -countries that had turned to the IMF emerged poorer and in a pathetic state, wrote Hardev Kaurr in the New Straits Times (Malaysia).

They had been worse off, not better, after the IMF had administered its prescription, Mr Kaurr wrote.

The remedies had crippling effects, among others, on the economies of Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Bolivia, El Salvador and Mexico.

Similar IMF riots had been triggered by policies of the Bretton Woods institutions - the bread riots in Jordan, Bolivian riots over water prices last year, the riots in Ecuador over the rise in cooking gas prices - and it "messed up" the Turkish economy.

The most recent "IMF riots" in Indonesia had been prompted by a 30 per cent increase in fuel prices demanded by the IMF which together with a 2.5% increase in the value added tax would send inflation as high as 13 per cent.

In short, the World Bank is a group of five agencies that finance major works and also lent to restructure countries' economies through "structural adjustment programmes" (SAPs) and the IMF (International Monetary Fund) preys on countries with short-term balance of payment difficulties -- lending them money in return for their compliance with SAPs (See Page 4).

Joseph Stiglitz is the former World Bank chief economist and chairman of the US President's council of economic advisers who broke ranks and told The Observer (London) and Newsnight about the inside workings of the IMF, the World Bank, and the bank's 51% owner, the US Treasury.

FROM confidential documents (not supplied by Stiglitz) and with Stiglitz' help it was possible to extract the IMF's technique for ruining Third World countries.

The World Bank's officials make a cursory "investigation" of a struggling country's social and economic structure in order to come up with a "country assistance strategy". The country's finance minister is handed a "restructuring agreement" pre-drafted for "voluntary" signature. The "restructuring agreement" -- the same for every country despite the pretended investigation -- contains a four-step programme.

STEP ONE is privatisation. There's a nod and a wink for corrupt local politicians to collect backhanders while selling their country's assets such as electricity and water companies. The palm oil suppresses any stirrings of patriotism. In this way, a fortune went into Russian President Yeltsin's election campaign so Russia suffered the double blow of losing its assets and gaining Yeltsin. As a result Russia's industrial assets were stripped and national output fell to just over half.

STEP TWO is capital market liberalisation. Cash comes in for speculation in real estate and currency, then flees at the first whiff of trouble. A nation's reserves can drain in days whereupon the IMF demands that the country hike interest rates to absurd levels to win their own currency back again. Property values, industrial production and national treasuries plummet.

This sets the country up for STEP THREE: market-based pricing . Prices of food, water, and cooking gas soar, and this leads, predictably, to Step-Three-and-a-Half: what Stiglitz calls 'the IMF riot'.

Secret inside documents obtained by Newsnight show that the riots brought on by social distress are expected and allowed for. (Palast points out that by "riots" is meant peaceful demonstrations dispersed by bullets, tanks and tear gas). These cause new flights of capital and government bankruptcies, and foreigners can pick off assets for a song.

Time then for STEP FOUR: free trade. The victim country has to open its markets while tariffs and subsidies protect US and EU markets against the Third World 's agriculture. Stiglitz has likened this to the Opium Wars.

Under the guiding hand of IMF structural 'assistance' Africa's income dropped by 23%.

A solution proposed by Stiglitz is radical land reform: an attack on the 50% crop rents charged by the propertied oligarchies worldwide. The World Bank and IMF didn't want to know: it would have meant breaking the power of client elites.

Compromised politicians like to tell protesters in Europe, North America and Australia that this is a "rich country" fad and they don't think that way in the poorer countries.

A partial list gives 109 protests against IMF/World Bank in the global "South" from 1976 to 2001. Details and references available from Citizens' Voice.

In our March issue (No. 9) we gave a summary of the story of Mahatir's successful defiance of the finance lords. The story has been retold in much more detail and can be read on the South African SANE-News site at http://mail.unwembi.co.za/mailman/listinfo/sane-views

When Argentina agreed to accept an $8 billion IMF loan, the terms were widely reported in the corporate media. But the daily anti-IMF demonstrations before and after the loan agreement, by tens of thousands, got no mention.

Left unsaid, of course, is that Argentina, by faithfully following IMF loan conditions, crippled its economy and public well-being, but left banks in the North considerably richer. See Geov Parrish's column: http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=11812

Letters to the Editor

With China poised to bring its vast near-slave labour force into the WTO, the following two letters are especially apposite:

#!$*# %!^^#$ writes:

Should we believe the OECD?

I find it quite amazingly coincidental how we start getting rosy economic figures just before an election is due. Especially when there is every reason to believe that there is a groundswell of discontent about globalisation, that is likely to see a pro-globalisation government tossed out of office. Even though the (likely to be elected) Opposition is also an economic rationalist one.

The timing of such OECD justification serves very nicely to keep the issue of Globalisation from becoming a major election issue that might see a bleed off of votes to minor parties who are opposed to globalisation.

I think we would be fools to believe that those who prepare OECD figures are not the same people who have hitched their careers and future prospects to keeping up the momentum of globalisation. Therefore they have a vested interest, if not a duty, to come to the rescue of governments in parts of the world, that could be volatile to changing attitudes. Especially in small nations that are becoming unreasoningly aware that the promised Utopia of 'world economic rationalism' is not going to, nor is likely to, eventuate for them.

Australia, with its underlying ("let's kick over the traces") attitudes, is just the kind of country that could cause problems by demonstrating a rebellious attitude in its voting patterns. A trend that could prove infectious to the many other similarly situated nations around the world.

August figures showed a drop of 12,800 jobs with a record 79,200 drop in full time jobs, yet OECD figures are telling us that "Australia is predicted to lead Western nations in economic growth next year".

Would such a respected body as the OECD knowingly lie to us? What do you think?

GRAHAM PALMER writes:

Sowing the Wind

Over the last 15 years the democracies of the West have invested huge amounts of capital to develop and enrich the economy of China.

This has allowed China to modernise its armed forces to the extent that in the eyes of America and its allies China is now a real cause for concern as it threatens both American interests and regional security.

The new rounds of WTO trade agreements will no doubt continue to help China's growing economy to generate more and more of the surplus funds needed for its expanding military programs.

Programs such as defending China's territorial claims over Taiwan and the Spratley Islands.

It seems strange that the USA actively encourages business investment and free trade with a military dictatorship that it considers a nuclear threat.

Considering that George Bush's latest Star Wars program is widely believed to be a military counter to the expanding military might of "Red China" his Administration's international free trade agenda seems to be in conflict with his own defence policies.

Rather than supporting the economic expansion of the natural enemies of democracy maybe George Bush should try promoting the globalisation of freedom and democracy first.

Perhaps someone should remind George about sowing the wind.

MORE than 160 trade union delegates from Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal and India took part in the four day seminar in Delhi last month to develop a regional stance against IMF and World Bank policies that reduce jobs and make sacking workers easier.

The All India State Government Employees Federation (AISGEF), which organised a one-day strike against the government's mass privatisation plans, hosted the Delhi meeting.

"The only way we can stop these institutions [the IMF and World Bank] shoving their policies down our throats is if workers of the South Asian region speak in one voice that they will not accept their policies," Sukomal Sen, AISGEF general secretary, told BBC News Online.

WHILE the trade liberalisation industry preaches against "protectionism" which impedes the global race to the bottom, protection enforced by governments is alive and well when it benefits large multinational drug and publishing companies.

Workers who make personal sacrifices to equip themselves to produce good quality goods and services, and farmers who invest in their farms, might appreciate the protection accorded these companies which have sunk money into research or advances to artists and desire a return free of price competition.

"Patents and copyrights obstruct the working of the free market by assigning a government-enforced monopoly to patent and copyright holders. Anyone who attempts to produce a drug subject to patent protection without the permission of the patent holder or to distribute music subject to copyright protection without permission of the copyright holder is subject to arrest, fines, and even imprisonment. This is not a free market.

"There is an obvious rationale for patent and copyright protections: they provide an incentive to innovate and carry through research in the case of patent protection, or to undertake creative and artistic work in the case of copyright protection. But, the fact that patents and copyrights have an economic rationale doesn't mean that they're not forms of protectionism. In fact, they are tremendously costly forms of protectionism. It is unusual for current day tariffs or quotas to raise the price of products by more than 15-20 per cent. By contrast, patents or copyrights can raise the price of products by several hundred or even several thousand per cent. Many drugs subject to patent protection would sell for one or two dollars per prescription in a free market; their patent protected price can run into hundreds of dollars per prescription. Similarly, music or videos that could be costlessly transferred via the Internet in a free market can instead sell for $10-30 if they are subject to copyright protection.

"The fact that advocates of trade liberalisation insist on treating these forms of protectionism as an integral part of their agenda points to the lack of honesty and intellectual rigour in the public debate over this agenda."

The following is excerpted from an article by HOLLY SKLAR, co-author of the new book, "Raise The Floor: Wages and Policies That Work For All Of Us" (www.raisethefloor.org). She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com

As America celebrates Labor Day, Americans on the minimum wage receive just $10,712 a year, a third less than their counterparts 30 years ago -- adjusting for inflation.

A couple with two children would have to work a combined 3.3 full-time minimum wage jobs to make ends meet.

In the richest nation on earth millions of workers Americans make wages so low they have to choose between eating or heating, health care or child care.

They are health care aides who can't afford health insurance. They work in the food industry, but depend on food banks to help feed their children. They are child care teachers who don't make enough to save for their own children's education. They care for the elderly, but they have no pensions.

If wages had kept pace with rising productivity since 1968, the average hourly wage would have been $24.56 in 2000, rather than $13.74. The minimum wage would be $13.80--not $5.15.

By contrast, domestic corporate profits rose 64 per cent since 1968, adjusting for inflation. CEO pay also went up. In 1980, the average CEO at a major corporation made as much as 97 minimum wage workers. In 2000, they made as much as 1,223 minimum wage workers.

A REPORT by the UK Food Standards Agency revealing a risk of antibiotic- resistant gonorrhoea from Monsanto GM cotton was buried for more than a year.

Dr Mae-Win Ho, of ISIS, the Institute of Science in Society, asks why this important scientific advice from UK Government scientists was kept in the archives for more than a year before it was published.

"It could have, and should have, prevented millions of hectares of transgenic cottons from being planted."

The gene aad, which confers resistance to the antibiotics streptomycin and spectinomycin, is present in both Bollgard (insect-protected) and Roundup Ready (herbicide tolerant) GM cottons.

The bacterium responsible for gonorrhoea, Neisseria gonorrhoeae, could acquire the aad gene from GM plant materials during infection of the mouth and small and large intestine as well as the respiratory tract.

No one has checked if such cotton contains DNA, for example in entrapped seeds which have survived the manufacturing process.

The EU finally banned the two products, but both are being grown in millions of hectares in the United States and China, and exported to other countries. They are also planted to a smaller extent in Argentina.

And Monsanto is trying to introduce them into Bolivia and other Latin American countries as well as India and Thailand.

Closer to home, illegal plantings of at least 500 hectares have already been discovered in Indonesia.

Because of the contamination from global Frankenstein companies like Monsanto, all cotton goods are now suspect, and ISIS urges that to avoid the spread of super-gonorrhoea all cotton crops should be destroyed, and no more should be planted.

Meanwhile, ISIS warns, people should avoid using GM cotton products, especially in tampons, babies' nappies and wound dressings. GM cotton seeds certainly should not be used in food or feed.

Open field trials of genetically engineered (GE) rice containing human genes are being carried out in the heart of California's traditional rice growing region, according to Greenpeace.

According to the information submitted by the company Applied Phytologics Incorporated (API) to the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), eight of the nine compounds produced in its field trial come from humans, in other words from rice engineered with human genes.

A potentially lethal hybrid virus for which there was no vaccine or treatment could have infected research staff at a leading London university, had the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) not intervened to shut down the experiment, a court has been told.

The "seriously flawed" approach to health and safety at Imperial College could have released a genetically modified (GM) combination of hepatitis C - which can be fatal - and dengue fever into the open. Imperial College was fined �25,000 and ordered to pay �21,000 costs.

Serious threat to Qatar plans Janice Graham of the Mai-Not newsgroup has posted some breaking news which suggests that a looming North-South dispute poses a serious threat to the planned WTO Ministerial conference at Doha, Qatar, in November.

This can be viewed in the Mai-Not Library at http://mai.flora.org/forum/29665 to http://mai.flora.org/forum/29669 and still coming. The new developments throw doubts on the prospects of this grabfest launching a new round of negotiations to advance corporate control of both "North" and "South".

WEST Australians are to be invited to participate in a concentrated and decentralised festival of events to challenge corporate globalisation and the WTO.

November Magic, to take place in November during the first major World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference since the failed 1999 talks in Seattle, is envisaged as an innovative, diverse and creative festival of events on the theme "PEOPLE'S GLOBALISATION, NOT CORPORATE GLOBALISATION".

Organisers state that, drawing upon decentralised and non-hierarchical approaches to organising action, a 'new' paradigm of protest is required that:

"We are not proposing a single huge event at a particular time and location. Rather, we will co-create a web of events in Perth that spans dozens of locations and times. By coming into contact with numerous nodes and edges of this concentrated and decentralised festival of events, people will naturally feel moved to share their encounters with work colleagues, friends, family members, etc ... because everyone would know that everyone else would have similar encounters to share.

"Through public forums, street theatre, conversation groups, street-level strategic questioning, agitprop puppetry, information products and stalls, creative art installations, letter-writing campaigns, independent and mainstream media, union-environmentalist collaborations, culture jamming, organarchy gigs ~ in total happening on hundreds of occasions at a range of locations during these five days ~ thousands of West Australians will be exposed to and interact with the festival energies ... without the need for us to directly engage the meme-production factories of the Industrial Growth Trance (television, marketing companies, etc)"

In a shock announcement on August 28, French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, said that France supports the Tobin tax, a small-rate tax on currency transactions, and will support a Belgian initiative for an EU push.

Mr Jospin used his first television broadcast since the summer break to make his surprise move. He said, "the Belgian presidency plans to submit the question of the Tobin tax in the European framework. I support the idea that France proposes that the EU takes an initiative on this in international bodies."

War on Want's Senior Campaigner said "This is excellent news, it's what we've been waiting for. The French are the key to turning the idea of the Tobin tax into a reality. If we can find wider support then we really can change the lives of millions in the developing world by raising some serious money and calming world markets at the same time".

Since then Mr Jospin, President Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder have discussed the need to meet objections to globalisation.

Mr Schroeder said that Europe with its more collectivist traditions was in a better position to address concerns than the USA or Asia.

Critics say Mr Schroeder's expressed concern is mere jockeying for position between Germany and France.

However, this attests to the effectiveness of anti-globalist campaigns in alerting the world to the dangers of corporate globalisation.

NOW AVAILABLE at only $2 per copy:

The Case for Fair Trade: A Citizen's Guide to the World Trade Organisation

A 16-page booklet with glossy colour cover, published by the Australian Fair Trade and Investment Network (AFTInet).

This is essential reading and reference material for all Australians wishing to be informed about the impact of the WTO and globalisation on our lives.

Written by Dr Patricia Ranald, a keynote speaker at the N25 Convention in Perth, November 2000, this booklet has up-to-date summaries of the key issues, including 'snapshots' of protests against the MAI, the WTO in Seattle, the IMF and World Bank in Washington and the World Economic Forum in Melbourne.

There is information about the various WTO agreements including Services (GATS), Intellectual Property (TRIPS), Investment Measures (TRIMS), Agriculture, and Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures. Also covered are the Disputes Panel system and its rulings in the Howe Leather Case and the dispute over importation of disease-prone uncooked Salmon into Australia.

StopMAI (WA) has purchased a large bulk order of this essential booklet and is passing on the saving to WA readers at only $2 per copy (normally $3).

Copies can be collected at StopMAI meetings (details) or by post. Send cash or cheque (with $1 extra for postage and packing) to

Treasurer, StopMAI (WA)
42 Central Avenue
BEACONSFIELD WA 6162

Stop-MAI WA meetings: held 2-4 pm on the last Saturday of each month. All welcome.

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