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An open letter to WTO director general Pascal Lamy and the ASEAN Heads of State Cebu City, Republic of the Philippines, 9 December 2006
We represent another group - a group that is never heard in the WTO or in the FTA negotiations - the "G" of the peoples.
Today we missed the opportunity to debate with WTO Director General Pascal Lamy, due to the postponement of the ASEAN Summit he was scheduled to attend.
We know what Mr Lamy would have said to the ASEAN leaders; he would have urged them to do their utmost to restart the Doha negotiations and to conclude the round as soon as possible, all in the name of "development".
No doubt the heads of state would have agreed with
Lamy, in spite of the opposition of millions of their citizens to the
Doha round and ignoring the clear evidence of the suffering and
exploitation caused by reckless and unfair trade liberalization.
If we had the chance to debate Lamy as planned, we would have
reiterated the demand that hundreds of social movements, trade unions,
and CSOs have expressed on countless occasions in every corner of the
globe: there is no "development" in the Doha round and it should be
buried once and for all.
We reject all attempts to revive the Doha round, knowing that in the
three major areas of negotiations -- agriculture, NAMA and services --
the majority of proposals under discussion are designed to protect and
promote the interests of the rich countries.
What's more, we would have insisted that developing countries should
not be railroaded and their interests should not be compromised, simply
to come up with a package that is "attractive" enough to persuade the
US Congress to extend the Trade Promotion Authority ("fasttrack").
If we had the chance to meet with the ASEAN heads of state, we would
have reminded them that they are members of the G20, the G33, the
NAMA-11 and the G90 and as such they should support and defend the
positions and interests of the developing countries. They should not
compromise or feel obliged to "save" the Doha round at any price. The
world will not collapse if the Doha round fades into history.
Furthermore, we would have called on the ASEAN heads of state to stop
the headlong rush into bilateral and regional free trade agreements,
including those packaged as economic partnership agreements. These FTAs
and EPAs are nothing more than "WTO plus" agreements that pose the
same, if not greater, threats to the people. In particular we would
have expressed our strong opposition to the upcoming EU-ASEAN and
China-ASEAN agreements on the grounds that both will subordinate the
peoples of ASEAN and their resources to the interests of corporations
and finance.
Our vision of a fair trading system is one built around the principles
of food sovereignty, decent work, job creation and secure livelihoods,
worker's rights, universal access to services, women's equality and
rights, the ethics of care/social reproduction, democratic
participation in decision making and protecting the environment.
This will be never achieved through the Doha round or the FTAs. These
flawed agreements must be buried. Its time to build a new trading
system built from the bottom up.
Signed:
Alliance of Progressive Labor
Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC), South Africa
ATTAC Japan
BMP (Solidarity of Filipino Workers)
Federation of Indonesian Peasant Union (FSPI)
Focus on the Global South
Freedom from Debt Coalition
FTA Watch Thailand
Globalization Monitor, Hong Kong
Institute of Global Justice, Indonesia
International Gender and Trade Network (IGTN)
Jubilee South - Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development
Kilusang Mangingisda (Fisherfolk Movement, Philippines)
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (Movement for National Democracy)
Migrant Forum in Asia
Monitoring Sustainability of Globalisation (MSN), Malaysia
Stop the New Round Coalition
Stop the New Round Coalition - Cebu
Transnational Institute
Womyns Agenda for Change, Cambodia
*to sign on to this statement, please email
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