Robert Buddan THE PROTESTS against the World Trade Organisation negotiations in Seattle in 1999 and the recent protests against another WTO connivance in Cancun, Mexico, in 2003, are the beginning of a powerful movement against neoliberal globalization and a search for a more humane and democratic global order.
Perhaps the greatest lesson of the failure of the WTO/Cancun meeting is the success possible when global social movements and developing countries ally themselves to stop the bullying by developed countries. But another important lesson is the influence developing countries can have when they act together.
The issue therefore is not just about what happened at Seattle and Cancun but what has been happening for the past 50 years.
FROM BANDUNG TO CANCUN
Twenty-four developing countries first came together in 1955 at the Asian-African Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, to establish new principles of internationalism based on mutual respect, non-interference, equality and peaceful co-existence. This was their alternative to the militarism and power politics of the Cold War adversaries. Out of Bandung came the Nonaligned Movement in 1961; and in 1961 a proposal to link trade and development led to the formation of the United Nation's Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in 1964. Developed countries neither showed an interest in trade and development nor in UNCTAD. They preferred to work through GATT which they established in 1947 and which had already won a reputation of being the "rich man's club".
The Nonaligned Movement presented what became known as the programme for a New International Economic Order in 1973 and a series of conferences called the North-South Dialogue were held between developed and developing countries on the NIEO between 1975 and 1977. Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Guyana and Cuba were very active. By 1978, the dialogue had failed. This was confirmed at a conference at Cancun in 1980. Developing countries tried to restart the north-south dialogue but as Michael Manley put it, Ronald Reagan killed it with a smile. Attention shifted back to east-west (Cold War) issues.
PHASE TWO
A second phase begun with the developed countries in an unchallenged position. In 1989, the Soviet bloc was collapsing. In 1991, George Bush inaugurated an American New World Order, the programme for neoliberal globalization. In 1995, the WTO was formed to replace GATT and to press for neoliberal globalization.
The Caribbean was the first region to taste the bite of the WTO when the organisation supported a US appeal against the ACP banana market in Europe on behalf of American multinationals. The WTO supported the multinationals of the rich rather than the industry of the poor.
The unity of the developing countries had been broken after 1980 and Third World, Non-aligned Movement', 'UNCTAD" and "NIEO" fell out of fashion.
However, by the time of the Seattle round of WTO negotiations, a third phase seemed to be in the making. A worldwide movement had formed against what the WTO stood for, and confirmed at Cancun a few weeks ago. These protests have put the developed countries on the defensive and reunited the developing countries.
TWO PHASES: DIFFERENCES
We should note important differences between the phases. In the first phase, the movement for a better world order came from developing states without the benefit of the global social movements that now proliferate. These movements only began to make their voices heard at the UN Conference on Sustainable Development in 1992. By the time of Cancun in 2003, Oxfam collected four million signatures for a petition to the WTO to demand that trade rules and
practices be fair. At Cancun, 5,000 social activists organized their own forums to work out an alternative vision to the WTO-based world order. A Mexican activist put the cause succinctly: "We are at war against the rich countries and the transnational corporations that impose their interests on the rest of the world."
Another difference relates to the context for solidarity. Cold War and anti-colonial ideologies and conflicts dominated the first phase. The most active countries were more recently independent and militarily non-aligned, that is, mostly countries of Asia, Africa (and the Caribbean). Pro-American countries of South and Central America stood aloof.
However, the present alliance of developing countries is more truly global. In it are the ACP countries, the African Union, and the Less Developed Countries. There are 92 countries identified with the alliance, 61 of which are members of the WTO. Importantly, the countries of Latin America are now a central part of the alliance. Of the G-22 negotiating countries (representing all the developing countries), 13 are from South and Central America along with Cuba from the Caribbean.
LEADING VOICE FOR SOUTH
Large and populous countries like Brazil, India and China are in the alliance. South Africa (formerly of the western alliance) is a leading voice on behalf of the South. Although George W. Bush telephoned the leaders of Brazil, India and South Africa to get them to back away and although the US threatened other countries to prevent them from joining the G-22, the alliance remained strong. In fact, it was stronger than at Seattle and the member countries pledged to remain united in the future.
A third difference is that in the first phase there was a great divide between the peoples and states of the North and South. Although this divide remains between the states, it is less ideological and political and mainly trade-related; and there is some overlap amongst peoples of North and South. Many of the leading social movements protesting at Seattle and Cancun have included Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, and Public Citizen from the developed countries. They have taken passionate and risky positions on our behalf (while we were lost on statues).
There is another difference. In the 1960s and 1970s, Caribbean people were much more socially active on international issues. We have won many battles against colonialism, Cold War military adventures, and Apartheid. But a persistent problem demands continued struggle against unequal trade, uneven development and unfair trade rules and practices.
Jamaican and Caribbean people need to make the link between the local and the global. Issues of fairness, conscientiousness, economics and democracy are at stake.
Jamaica won't be a better place unless we can make the rules and practices under which we compete among countries of the world fair rules and practices. Developed countries provide massive subsidies to their farmers but insist that developing countries should not.
Developed countries maintain high tariffs on many goods from developing countries ( but lower tariffs on goods from other developed countries) while insisting that developing countries must virtually remove all their tariffs.
DUMPING SURPLUSES
Developed countries dump their surpluses on the markets of developing countries at cheap prices, driving down the earnings of farmers and even wiping out their business.
We must be concerned as a matter of conscience. After all, agriculture affects nearly half the world's population, some three billion people. Of this, 600 million suffer from hunger and malnutrition.We must see the connection between the prices of agricultural products and the subsidies, tariffs and dumping by other countries. The connections are there. We feel globalisation in our pockets every day. We can't have a better economy unless global rules are fair.
The WTO is an undemocratic organization. Its decision-making lacks transparency and is undemocratic in drafting agreements. Like GATT, it remains a rich man's club. Nobel Peace laureate, Rigoberta Menchu, believes the WTO should be dismantled and replaced by a different global organization in which NGOs have consultative status. Jamaica cannot be a better place if world organizations make life and death decisions affecting our producers and consumers without giving them a voice in those decisions.
A world order that is fair, conscientious, economically beneficial and democratic is necessary if Jamaica is to be a better place. We can change governments a thousand times but if we don't change the world order we will gain little. This is the lesson of the last 50 years.
Robert Buddan lectures in the Department of Government, UWI, Mona.
E-mail: rbuddan@uwimona.edu.jm.
