Farmers, workers confront the WTO

Thousands converged in Hong Kong from around the world to protest the six-day meeting of the World Trade Organization which ended Dec. 18. After fierce battles in the streets surrounding the Hong Kong Convention Center where the meeting was held, police arrested and detained over 900 protesters. The Hong Kong People’s Alliance reports that some 60 demonstrators suffered injuries at the hands of the police; three were hospitalized.

Banner from Korean Peasants League.

According to Action Aid, the WTO “sets the rules of international trade and also acts as a policeman, forcing countries to open up their markets under the threat of economic and political sanctions.”

An eyewitness report from Pranjal Tiwari and David Solnit on Dec. 17 describes the protests as “the most intense street battle that we have ever seen.... Farmers, workers, women’s organizations, fisher folk, Hong Kong youth, migrants and other movement people from Korea, across Asia and around the world marched on, broke through several police lines to less than a block from the site of the WTO conference center and laid siege to it until we were dispersed with teargas and mass arrests tonight. ...

“Contrary to what media reports might say, the confrontations have been anything but chaotic. Korean groups led veritable battles against the police with their well-organized, incredibly courageous and militant resistance.... The police were out-organized, inexperienced, and unable to contain the huge numbers of people that broke through their lines on numerous fronts in the Wan Chai district.... Hong Kong residents, increasingly supportive of anti-WTO demonstrations throughout this week, lined the streets, some cheering, giving thumbs-up, and even handing out snacks and water to demonstrators....

“The migrant workers had a mobile sound system and alternately led chants and songs in Bahasa Indonesia, English, and Cantonese....The Koreans were tight units of seasoned activists, who had been involved in the fiercest and most militant worker, student and farmer struggles in the world over many decades. They were both intensely organized, like an army without the rigidity, and very politically focused - chanting and singing their message and wearing clear messages on their matching ‘WTO Kills Farmers’ vests, hats, headbands, and many with red signs attached to their front and back.”

Tiwari and Solnit’s report also includes text from a document handed out by the Korean Peasants League-“Citizens of Hong Kong! Food is not a commodity. Agriculture is not a business opportunity. If agriculture is liberalized, we will be pushed down the slippery slope of liberalizing education, services and everything people need to enjoy as basic rights will be taken away and provided only to the wealthy....Defending agriculture is the way to defend our collective future”-and the Assembly of the Poor in Thailand-“We are Assembly of the Poor, an alliance from Thailand representing 19 networks of struggling poor and urban people, farmers, fisherfolk, people living with HIV/ AIDS, workers, and landless peasants. We are affected by the trade liberalization and are made losers in the unfair game that those people in the convention center are trying to make even worse. We are in Hong Kong to make our voice heard and call for a fair world.... It is not easy for us to be here in Hong Kong; in a different climate, with a different language, leaving our families behind. We have no choice.... despite obstacles, we vow to move forward. We, Assembly of the Poor, will work together with La Via Campesina, to stop this unfair negotiation until the very end.”

In an attempt to prevent the collapse of talks that occurred at the WTO meeting two years ago in Cancún, Mexico, leaders of the richest imperialist nations made a few paltry concessions to poorer nations, their farmers and peasants, such as an agreement to get rid of tariffs or quotas on imports for 97% of goods from the world’s poorest countries. The 3% left out of this agreement, however, includes key products in many poor countries, such as cotton.

While the United States, European Union and Japan agreed to provide billions in development aid, most of the aid is in the form of loans, not grants, has in actuality already been promised, and will no doubt be tied to the WTO’s “restructuring” rules for the countries in need. And while the text on service privatization was scaled back somewhat thanks to the intervention of Venezuela and Cuba, it is predicted that the attempt to make privatization of services mandatory for most developing countries will be raised again at the next meeting in Geneva.

In a statement denouncing the meeting’s outcome, the South African labor federation COSATU said, “The developed countries once again failed to extend a hand of solidarity to the poor.... The situation will remain that it would be better to be a cow in Japan, subsidized for $7 per day, than to be a human being living in Africa.”