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September 5, 2003 SEPTEMBER 8-13 - WTO MINISTERIAL
IN CANCUN, MEXICO SEPTEMBER 8-13 International Days of Action From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Workers, women, youth and students, farmers and political activists from across Mexico, the Americas and the world are converging in the resort city on the Yucatan Peninsula. Countless marches and protests, teach-ins and forums are also being organized worldwide to defend the rights of all. Centering on a worldwide Day of Action on September 13, all variety of actions are being organized as part of the ongoing fight against U.S. imperialism and its wars of aggression and occupation and all imperialist globalization. Fierce opposition is being mounted to the criminalization of dissent and all-out fascization of life taking place worldwide using the "war on terrorism."
The world’s people were inspired by the mass actions in Seattle in 1999, the last time the WTO met in North America, and have stepped up their efforts since that time. Countless expressions of the people’s rejection of the imperialist agenda of neo-liberalism, "free trade" and the destruction of national sovereignty have occurred and continue daily. The actions and discussions are advancing the necessity to end U.S. domination and stop new U.S. arrangements for plunder like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), and blocking the imperialists and their supra-national organizations like the WTO, IMF and World Bank. The rallying cry that Another World Is Possible continues to reverberate, alongside the peoples determined will to create it. Among the numerous calls for actions in Cancun, one said, "Ladies and gentlemen of the many-headed hydra of resistance, you are all invited to a celebration! We will be celebrating the possibility of another world that we hold in our hearts and are building together, today. In Cancun in September, tens of thousands of protestors will gather to express their opposition to the discredited economic policies formulated by the WTO, the global trade police who set the rules that nobody but they decide. ... The Road to Cancun is filling with a multitude of voices uniting in one single deafening roar of Ya Basta! Enough is Enough! Shut Down the WTO!" In Cancun, mass actions will take place throughout the week. With agricultural agreements a main item on the WTO agenda, tens of thousands of farmers and farm workers are expected in the city. They are organizing forums on the 8th and 9th and a day of action on the 10th, when they will deliver a declaration to the opening session of the Ministerial. Youth and student activists converging in Mexico are spear-heading street actions for the 9th. September 11 is being called as a day of mourning for victims of war and violence, marking the anniversary of the U.S.-backed coup in Chile in 1973 and the 2001 terrorists attacks in the U.S. September 13 will see a Mass March Against War and Free Trade. Non-governmental Organizations (NGOs) from around the world are organizing a People’s Forum to be inaugurated on September 9, and other fora are being organized throughout the week including an International Women’s Forum, a Farmer’s Forum, a Fisherman’s Forum and a Forum on Global Biodiversity. In the United States, activists and organizations are mobilizing for the vigorous participation of Americans in the September 13 Day of Action, with contingents traveling to Mexico and local actions being planned from coast to coast. Dozens of organizations issued a call for actions on the occasion, representing people active on a broad front of struggle. They included BAYAN International-USA, Global Exchange, International A.N.S.W.E.R., Mexico Solidarity Network, SUSTAIN (Stop U.S. Tax Aid to Israel Now) and United for Peace and Justice.
Actions are being planned from Portland, Washington to Boston, Massachusetts, from Dearborn, Michigan to Richmond, Virginia. Marches and rallies will be held on September 13, with numerous other actions planned throughout the week. An extensive calendar of U.S. events is available at www.unitedforpeace.org. In San Francisco, actions are being organized under the banner, "The WTO and the Pentagon: Making the World Safe for Corporate Power." In New York City, a parade and festival of resistance will stand against war and imperialist rule, targeting the U.S. monopolies and their crimes against the peoples. In San Antonio, Texas, actions will include a Women for Peace and Global Justice Teach-in, actions against the WTO on both September 9 and 13, and September 11 actions under the demand "Stop the War and End the Occupation in Iraq." Actions have also been called for the U.S./Mexican border at San Diego and Tijuana under the banner "The World Says No to the WTO!" Organizers have called on people to go all out for Cancun, while also organizing a week of actions on both sides of the borders to demonstrate the peoples standing as one against imperialist globalization. On September 13, Americans will march to the border at Larsen Field, San Ysidro while Mexicans rally on the other side. Other actions include a demonstration September 12 at the U.S. Federal Building in San Diego. On September 11 a vigil will be held for victims of U.S. oppression at home and abroad since 9-11, including the deaths of all those trying to cross the militarized U.S./Mexico border. Throughout the week, teach-ins will be held in Tijuana and in San Diego on topics including the impact of the proposed Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) and on the WTO. Together as one the peoples are mounting their resistance. One Humanity, One Struggle! [TOP] The World Says No To The WTO — Call of U.S. Organizations — From September 10 to 14, the World Trade Organization (WTO) will hold its Fifth Ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico. Pushed by multinational corporations, the United States, the European Union, and other developed countries are seeking to launch a new round of "free trade" negotiations and expand corporate globalization — further eroding human rights, workers’ rights, environmental protections, and democracy — in the interest of corporate control. Popular movements in Mexico and their international allies will mark these meetings with massive demonstrations to demand a world that puts democracy and human dignity ahead of corporate profits. Solidarity actions around the world will focus on September 13 as a Worldwide Day of Action Against Corporate Globalization and War. We call on people throughout the United States to join this global uprising for peace and justice by organizing events in your community throughout the week leading up to the WTO Ministerial and on September 13. Resist the WTO and the failed model of corporate globalization, and highlight the links between militarism and "free trade," through a wide variety of creative means: teach-ins, vigils, protests, direct action, street theater, festivals of resistance, cultural events, meetings with elected officials, public forums, and so on. These September actions to derail the WTO will kick off a powerful autumn campaign of action for peace and justice, involving major mobilizations for immigrant rights, against the Free Trade Area of the Americas, and against militarism and occupation. Whose Trade Organization? The WTO is designed and managed for the benefit of transnational corporations at the expense of most of the world’s population and the environment. The neoliberal agenda of "free trade," deregulation, privatization and special corporate protections enshrined in the WTO leads to greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality and indebtedness, while concentrating the world’s wealth in the hands of a few. The corporate agenda implemented by the WTO pits worker against worker and nation against nation in a race to the bottom.
The last time the WTO met in North America, in late 1999, tens of thousands of people converged on Seattle to expose the real agenda behind "free trade": devastating the environment and eroding basic rights, protections, and services for the vast majority of the world’s population. Four years after the historic showdown at the 3rd WTO Ministerial in Seattle, we live in a changed and even more dangerous world. Using the horrible terrorist attacks against the U.S. of 2001 as a pretext to invade Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration is on a reckless quest for empire, combining the global might of the United States military with the global reach of massive corporations. The Bush doctrine of preemptive strike and permanent warfare goes hand-in-hand with a program of economic domination through "free trade," and, not coincidentally, masks the woeful U.S. economic situation. The "Watchtower State" Under the rules of the WTO and proposed agreements like the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA), the government’s role in regulating the marketplace to promote fair labor conditions, access to basic services, safe products and a clean environment is strictly constrained. WTO rules provide a "security exception" that protects and fosters weapons manufacture and the arms trade. Under agreements being negotiated now, virtually all other governmental services — including schools, health care, public transit, water supply and other public utilities — could be subject to corporate takeover. Basic worker and consumer rights and environmental protections could be jettisoned as "unfair barriers to trade." The vision of government enshrined in the WTO and the FTAA is a "watchtower state" — a fortress security state on a permanent war footing. The Assault On Immigrant Rights Corporate globalization has destroyed the lives and livelihood of millions of workers and farmers throughout the world. Many are forced to leave their homes, their land, and often their countries in search of increasingly scarce jobs. Yet trade agreements that protect the flow of money and goods across borders don’t allow the free movement of people. Borders are militarized and immigrants are criminalized — even as millions of people are dislocated by "free trade." More than nine million undocumented workers who live in the United States today lack basic legal protections and human rights, living in constant fear of round-ups, detentions, and deportation. The WTO and FTAA would create new injustices for immigrants by giving corporations the right to import people to work in industrialized countries like the United States, while maintaining the low wages and minimal worker protections of their home countries, creating a system of legalized sweatshops. Another World Is Possible We have before us a choice: the world of militarism and corporate globalization, or a world built on global solidarity, rooted in a foundation of democracy, dignity, sustainability, and cooperation. This fall we have an opportunity to bring our vision to life, through a series of actions and campaigns that will build toward a better world. [TOP] Derail the 5th Ministerial of the WTO — Hemispheric and Global Assembly against the FTAA and the WTO —
We, the participants in this historic Hemispheric and Global Assembly against the Free Trade of the Americas and the World Trade Organization, held in Mexico City on May 11-12, 2003, declare our intention and commitment to derail the Fifth Ministerial of the World Trade Organization that will take place in Cancun in September of this year. The WTO Ministerial will take place in the context of escalating U.S. military aggression against the peoples and nations of the world. Washington’s invasion and occupation of Iraq is simply the latest and most outrageous case of the Bush administration’s unrestrained unilateralist foreign policy. The WTO is war by other means. The WTO represents the most ambitious effort to resubjugate the economies of the countries of the South to serve the interests of transnational corporations. The neoliberal, free-trade paradigm incarnated in the WTO subverts the interests of people both in the South and the North. Its legacy is greater poverty, inequity, gender inequality, and indebtedness throughout the world. It has also accelerated the destruction of the global environment. Today, the WTO, along with the other mechanisms of corporate control, notably the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, are suffering an historic crisis of credibility and legitimacy. Against the massive misery they offer, global civil society is coming together to forge creative alternatives to bring about a truly just global order. Against a future of war, injustice, and permanent crisis offered by the U.S., European Union, and the institutions of corporate rule, global civil society offers a future of justice, peace, and solidarity. But even as the WTO institutionalizes stagnation, injustice, and poverty, Washington is busy attempting to forge more corporate chains to subjugate the South by intimidating the governments of Latin America to sign on to the Free Trade of the Americas (FTAA). Enough. We say eight years of the WTO is enough. We say the last thing Latin America needs is the FTAA. We declare, instead, that another world is possible; and inspired by this vision, we call on as many people as possible from throughout the world to come and join us in Cancun in the week-long People’s Forum for Alternatives to the WTO on Sept. 9-14, 2003. We also call on people and movements in all countries to launch massive united and coordinated demonstrations on Sept. 9, the Day of Global Action against the WTO, and on Sept. 13, the Day of Massive Demonstrations against Globalization and War. United, the vast majority of the peoples of this planet say: No to War [TOP] Invitation of Via Campesina for Cancun WTO Out of Agriculture! Take Food Out of the WTO! No Patents on Life Forms! Organizations of peasants, indigenous peoples, family farmers, fishers, farm workers, migrants, landless workers, and rural women from various countries believe that: The "liberalization" of agricultural trade — the principle objective of the WTO — has exacerbated a crisis in rural societies and has worsened their living conditions. Hunger, unemployment, poverty, inequality and the degradation of natural resources are increasing in rural areas around the world. When considering the needs of the general population and rural societies the WTO Agreement on Agriculture has no legitimacy. Instead it serves the interests of large export companies that are supported by their governments. The USA and EU [European Union] have forced WTO rules that enable them to continue to dump their surpluses at very low prices. Meanwhile, developing countries are obliged to reduce their tariffs and eliminate protections for agriculture. One of the WTO’s priorities is to reduce agricultural prices — both in domestic and international markets — by reducing taxes on imports, and dismantling supply management and socially-just marketing structures. For farmers this leads to artificially depressed prices. The fall in agricultural prices has not benefited consumers and threatens the survival of peasants and small farmers everywhere. Transnational corporations are increasing their control over global agricultural trade. They flood markets with agricultural products and food at prices lower than the local cost of production which goes against food sovereignty. Through Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) transnational corporations gain ownership of biological resources and knowledge traditionally used by local farmers and indigenous communities. The WTO seeks the liberalization and privatization of public services. This will have a negative effect especially on the poor and marginalized in our societies. Agriculture is the most controversial theme on the agenda of the Fifth Ministerial Meeting of the WTO scheduled for September 10-14, 2003 in Cancun Mexico. Agriculture has been converted to currency and is being used in WTO negotiations to promote new issues like investment, competition, and government procurement. Negotiations on agriculture could define the results of the Cancun Round. Given the risks involved in these negotiations we urgently call on organizations of peasants, farmers, indigenous peoples, fishers, farm workers, migrants, landless workers, rural women, and all civil society organizations to mobilize to: - Stop the WTO Negotiations We ask all organizations and social movements to spread this invitation to action everywhere and join us in the International Peasant Forum that will be held in Cancun, Quintana Roo, Mexico from September 8-11, 2003.
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