MUMBAI RALLY AGAINST THE WTOs HONG KONG MINISTERIAL CONFERENCE at AZAD MAIDAN On 13 December from 3 pm

-10 years is enough! STOP the destructive advance of the WTO!
-No succumbing to the pressures of USA and EU!
-Affirm Indian solidarity with developing countries in the WTO!

Calling on citizens of Mumbai:
The city of Mumbai is reeling under the impact of neo-liberal policies being pushed by the proponents of the free market. Mumbai is an example of the excesses of neo-liberal globalisation, where de-industrialisation, a free market in land, and privatisation of education, health, power, infrastructure and civic services have resulted in massive displacement of the poor from the city. The neglect of public transport, lack of planning for public spaces, and the handing over of the city to commercial builders and the land mafia are creating a monstrous and non-productive city of malls and supermarkets. Mumbai is being re-shaped in the image of a global city in a developing country and has become the hunting ground for profits by both transnational and national corporations. The World Trade Organisation (WTO), the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the Asian Development Bank and other neo-liberal institutions are pushing this development paradigm in the entire developing world.

A fundamentally flawed institution
>From 13-18 December 2005, Trade Ministers from the WTOs 148 member countries will meet for intense negotiations in the city of Hong Kong. The Government of India is set to negotiate positions that will have far-reaching and disastrous consequences for the countrys economy and polity. The past 10 years have proved the predicted gains to India and other developing countries from the WTO to be empty promises. It is now widely acknowledged that the WTOs structure, rules, and processes are systematically biased against the interests of developing countries.

Indias negotiating stance is shaped through closed-door consultations with Indias elite professional and industrial lobbies, and so called experts. Indias negotiating stance has not even been debated in parliament by elected lawmakers. The views of those would bear the brunt of further liberalisation, for example, peasant and family farmers, artisanal fishers, workers, local small-scale service providers and retailers, small industries, and urban and rural poor are ignored.

Since the formation of the WTO in 1995 poverty and unemployment have increased across the world due to policies enforced by agreements in this institution. This has been due to A) removal of quantitative restrictions on imports and lowering of tariffs in agricultural commodities thereby deepening the agrarian crisis B) further limiting the scope for countries to determine their domestic legislation, through the Trade Related Investment Measures (TRIMS) and the General Agreement on Services (GATS) C) permanently consigning the technologically less advanced to further under-development by dramatically restricting access to technology, through the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights Agreement (TRIPS) and D) subordinating development concerns to free trade and free market principles favourable to private corporations.

If the developed countries and corporate lobbies have their way in Hong Kong, they will force developing countries to make further damaging commitments in agriculture, services and industrial goods. We need to remind Commerce Minister Kamal Nath and his delegation to Hong Kong to look at the evidence from the last 10 years before proceeding any further

Agreement on Agriculture: anti-farmer
The last 10 years have seen over 25,000 farmer suicides in different parts of India. The condition of even the relatively better off sections of farmers seeking higher returns by raising cash crops and generating marketable surplus of staple food-grains has deteriorated sharply due to their exposure to the volatile world agriculture market, steep policyinduced rise in cost of agricultural inputs, drastic reduction in the availability of credit and declining state procurement of agricultural goods at remunerative prices.

The WTO's Agreement on Agriculture (AoA) pushes farmers further on the road to ruin, biased as it is in favour of large scale, commercial agriculture in developed countries.  The AoA permits the US and EU to continue subsidies to their domestic agribusinesses, while compelling developing countries to open up their markets even further to highly subsidised and therefore artificially low-priced food and agriculture imports from developed countries. If India accepts this, its food sovereignty and security will be endangered, and its peasant producers and agricultural workers will be forced to surrender their sources of livelihood to the volatile dynamics of global agriculture markets and the increasing power of corporate agribusiness over which they have no control.

GATS  Global Agreement to Takeover Services! 
The key deal being pursued aggressively by rich countries for agreement in Hong Kong is the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). This facilitates the takeover of nascent services sectors of developing countries. GATS places over 160 services sectors on the table for liberalisation, and mandates that countries change national laws to ensure that foreign service-providers have equal access to local/national markets as domestic service-providers.  Services in the GATS include water, education, health, energy, transport, telecommunications, financial services, banking, travel and tourism, to name a few. If the proposals to be tabled in Hong Kong are passed, developing countries will not be able to develop their services sectors. Unemployment will increase, as existing service providers are forced out. Access to services, once liberalised, will be available only to those who can pay, and pay well. Shockingly, the Indian Government is breaking ranks with other developing countries by actively supporting the speeding up of negotiations since it will mean profits for big Indian companies and multinationals.

NAMA  signing away livelihoods
Another area that will be discussed in Hong Kong, is NAMA (Non-Agricultural Market Access). Developing countries, which can only protect their markets through higher tariffs, are being pressured to significantly reduce tariffs on industrial, fisheries and forestry products. This, as is being negotiated in NAMA, will lead to greater market access for the developed countries, and not for developing countries. Also, it has already accelerated the process of de-industrialisation, with many small and medium industries facing tough import competition. Especially affected will be fisheries and forests, in which WTO proposes to fully eliminate tariffs. These are sectors that provide livelihoods, basic nutrition and medicines for millions of people across the world. It could have extremely serious consequences, both through loss of access to, and through the destruction of the natural resources on which they traditionally depend.

No deal is better than a bad deal:
The WTOs powerful Dispute Settlement Mechanism renders commitments made in the WTO practically irreversible. Before such commitments are made, India must seriously and comprehensively assess the impacts of past liberalisation on the majority of its population, especially those who are most vulnerable to economic crises and shocks. The positions that the Government proposes to pursue at the Hong Kong Ministerial must be discussed and debated by the Indian people and by Parliament.

A minority government can have NO authority to take major trade policy decisions endangering the future of the Indian people!

No commitments in WTO without a national consensus!

Organisations which are organising the rally: 

All India Bank Officers Association, All India Bank Employees Association, All India Bank Officers Confederation, All India LIC Employees Federation, All India Port and Dock Workers Federation (Workers), All India Trade Union Congress, Brihan Mumbai Mahapalika Shikshak Sabha, Central Government Employees Coordination Committee, Centre for Indian Trade Unions, Focus on the Global South  India, General Insurance Employees All India Association, Hind Mazdoor Sabha, India Centre for Human Rights and the Law, National Alliance of Peoples Movements, National Union of Seafarers of India, Maharastra State Government Employees Confederation, Maharastra State Zilla Parishad Employees Confederation, Vikas Adhyan Kendra, YUVA, Vikas Adhyayan Kendra, IFTU, and others.

(to participate, for leaflets and other information)
Contact: Com Dhopeshwarkar, AIBEA,
Ph: 2288-6187