Posted on 8th November 2001

Trade Or Die

In a new twist on the most basic of motivations, survival, the whole issue
of opening up the world to private corporations under the cover of
free-trade has reached its inevitable climax. The latest WTO round is being
used as a bunker wherein world war III is being hatched - the war on public
assets and democratic administration of them. Below George Monbiot from The
Guardian newspaper spies on the plotters and uncovers the interesting twist
in the argument, trade or die; it really means if you don't allow us to
penetrate your economy and its markets, we'll kill your economy.

Monbiot* on Trade

Just as woodworkers used to drink in the Carpenter's Arms, or farmhands in
the Jolly Ploughman, the trade negotiators from the world's richest nations
have found their way to their own hallowed ground. When they gather in
Switzerland, they dine together in an exclusive restaurant on the shores of
Lake Geneva called the Pirate. It's here that the members of "the quad" -
the US, EU, Canada and Japan - study their maps and count their doubloons.

In Seattle in 1999, the world trade talks failed because the weaker
countries, excluded from the key negotiations, walked out. Now, we have
been promised, the rich world has learned from its mistakes. At the new
talks in Qatar on Friday, the nations of "the quad" will, they insist,
rescue the castaways of the new world order. But the progress so far
suggests that, instead of being allowed a share in the spoils of free
trade, the world's poor will be walking the plank. The draft declaration
due to be discussed this weekend was mostly written during two exclusive
meetings: in Mexico in August and in Singapore last month. Though the World
Trade Organisation has 142 members, only 21 nations, among them the world's
richest and most powerful, were permitted to attend. The documents the
meeting produced were then submitted to the other members for approval.
They were not permitted to make substantial changes.

As a result, the draft declaration contains almost none of the concessions
that developing countries, representing most of the world's people, have
requested. Powerful nations have refused to stop subsidising their exports
of meat, grain and sugar: by dumping them in weak countries at artificially
low prices, they destroy the livelihoods of local farmers. Britain and
Germany have insisted that they will not relax the laws governing the
patenting of drugs: poor countries facing public health disasters will
continue to be denied cheap medicine.

The poor world wants the rich world to honour the promises it made under
the last world trade agreement, before starting any new negotiations.
Instead "the quad" is loading the agenda with new and fiendishly complex
issues, such as investment, services and government procurement. At first
sight this approach makes no sense. Just as Presidents Bush and Blair
insist that the world's future prosperity, democracy and even freedom from
terror will depend on a successful new trade round, their negotiators
appear to be doing everything in their power to undermine it. But all that
has happened is that the powerful nations have abandoned the pretence of
seeking consent. Now they will simply bludgeon the developing world into
submission.

Last month in Geneva an African delegate to the World Trade Organisation
complained that, "If I speak out too strongly, the US will phone my
minister. They will twist the story and say that I am embarrassing the
United States. My government will not even ask, 'What did he say?' They
will just send me a ticket tomorrow... I fear that bilateral pressure will
get me, so I don't speak, for fear of upsetting the master. To me, that
threat is real. Because I am from a poor country, I can't say what I want."
If the poor nations complain, the rich nations simply withdraw aid or
freeze their exports. Now, as Christian Aid has revealed, some governments
are dispensing with negotiations altogether. Britain's Department for
International Development, run by Clare Short, has decided to bypass the
World Trade Organisation and apply direct pressure on poor nations to open
up their markets to foreign companies. The department has told Ghana that
aid money for a water project will be conditional on the country's
privatisation of its water industry. Without consulting its own people, the
government of Ghana has been forced to start raising the price of water by
between two and three times, to prepare the industry for sale to British,
French or US companies.

Though Ghana's water infrastructure is hopelessly inadequate, the
corporations bidding for the contracts appear to be under no obligation to
use their profits to invest in new pipes or treatment plants. They will
make millions, but already Ghanaians are being forced to draw their water
from polluted rivers and ditches, infested with cholera and guinea worm, as
they can't pay the new rates. But while quietly plundering the poorer
nations, our pirate states like to pretend that they are compassionate and
even-handed. Britain's Department of Trade and Industry, as its website
boasts, holds regular meetings with campaign groups such as he World
Development Movement, in order to "share information" and "gather views".
But, as a series of leaked documents shows, behind the scenes the British
government is doing all it can to undermine them.

The papers were discovered by members of the research group Corporate
Europe Observatory, who were investigating a powerful trade association
called International Financial Services, London (IFSL). The researchers
stumbled upon an unlinked page, accidentally appended to the lobbyists'
website. International Financial Services, London is one of several British
groups hoping that the trade talks can be expanded to cover a wide range of
service industries. The proposed new general agreement on trade in
services, due to be discussed alongside the other treaties in Qatar, could
oblige countries to privatise key public services such as health, education
and water. The leaked page contained the minutes of meetings held by the
secretive "Liberalisation of Trade in Services" committee set up to liaise
between IFSL and the British government.

British civil servants, the researchers discovered, were worried that
campaign groups opposed to the general agreement on trade in services were
becoming too effective. The minutes recorded that Matthew Lownds, from the
Foreign Office, "noted that the campaign by the World Development Movement
in particular was leading to a broadening of concerns... He also pointed to
the need to coordinate business responses to the NGO's allegations".
Malcolm McKinnon, a civil servant from the Department of Trade and
Industry, complained that the case for the general agreement was
"vulnerable" when campaigners asked for "proof of where the economic
benefits lay" for poor nations. The committee decided to spend £50,000 to
£70,000 to "counter the
NGOs."

More damagingly, the civil servants appear to have been passing critical
European Union papers to the business people on the committee, including
negotiating documents from other countries, which could be enormously
valuable to companies hoping to anticipate hostile positions. These papers,
the Corporate Europe Observatory points out, are unavailable even to
members of the European parliament.

So the UK government, while secretly colluding with corporate lobbyists,
has been double-crossing the public and undermining some of the poorest
countries on earth. Tony Blair and Clare Short call this process
"development". It is not development. It's piracy.

* www.monbiot.com