FOCUS ON TRADE Number 150, January 2010
In this issue of Focus on Trade, Walden Bello analyses China's role in the Copenhagen climate talks, Shalmali Guttal takes the pulse of the WTO ten years after Seattle, and two participants report on the New Year Gaza Freedom March.
CHINA: PRINCE OF DENMARK
Walden Bello
AILING BUT ALIVE: THE WTO TEN YEARS AFTER SEATTLE
Shalmali Guttal
CALL FOR “SYSTEM CHANGE NOT CLIMATE CHANGE” UNITES GLOBAL MOVEMENT
Statement of Climate Justice Now! on the COP 15
LESSONS OF THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH
Walden Bello
THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH: IN THE MIDST OF A REGIONAL PANDEMONIUM
Javad Heydarian
CHINA: PRINCE OF DENMARK
by Walden Bello*
(First published in Foreign Policy in Focus, 20 January 2010)
Almost a month after the debacle at the United Nations climate conference in Copenhagen (Conference of Parties or COP 15), the question of who scuttled the talks elicits fury and derision.
In many accounts, President Barack Obama comes across either as a figure who valiantly tries to rescue a doomed conference or as a well-meaning head of state whose hands are unfortunately tied by the realities of US politics
As the villain of the continuing climate drama, Washington has been replaced in much of the media by Beijing . China did make mistakes in Copenhagen, but the media portrayal of it as the spoiler of the climate change negotiations is neither accurate nor fair. Like Hamlet, Shakespeare’s conflicted Prince of Denmark, China was caught in multiple crosscurrents in Copenhagen . Its failure to manage these led to one of its biggest diplomatic setbacks in years.
THE BRITISH J’ACCUSE
In the immediate aftermath of the talks, Ed Miliband, Britain’s secretary of energy and climate change, charged that China vetoed an agreement on a 50 percent global reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 or on 80 percent reductions by developed countries “despite the support of a coalition of developed and the vast majority of developing countries.”
Many climate activists would probably have taken Miliband’s statement as simply part of the blame game after the controversial ending of a critical conference had it not been seconded – and in detail – by Mark Lynas of the Guardian, a British newspaper that is usually critical of the policies of Washington, London, and other northern governments. Lynas described the scene at a key Friday night meeting of selected countries as the clock raced to the conclusion of the conference:
“What I saw was profoundly shocking. The Chinese premier, Wen Jinbao, did not deign to attend the meetings personally, instead sending a second-tier official in the country's foreign ministry to sit opposite Obama himself. To those who would blame Obama and rich countries in general, know this: it was China's representative who insisted that industrialized country targets, previously agreed as an 80% cut by 2050, be taken out of the deal. "Why can't we even mention our own targets?" demanded a furious Angela Merkel. Australia's prime minister, Kevin Rudd, was annoyed enough to bang his microphone. Brazil's representative too pointed out the illogicality of China's position. Why should rich countries not announce even this unilateral cut? The Chinese delegate said no, and I watched, aghast, as Merkel threw up her hands in despair and conceded the point. Now we know why – because China bet, correctly, that Obama would get the blame for the Copenhagen accord's lack of ambition.”
This account of a relatively low-ranking Chinese official vetoing the naming of unilateral cuts offered by heads of northern countries is indeed shocking. But there’s something the Guardian piece neglects to mention: the meeting was one of several unofficial meetings with a small number of countries that Obama had called, apparently with the support of host Denmark, in order to impose a deal on the climate conference, and the drafting of the declaration was, in fact, a violation of an agreed-on conference process.
WHERE CHINA WENT WRONG
Where China went wrong was not so much in opposing the listing of the emission numbers but in agreeing to attend these covert caucuses where Obama and a small group of other heads of state sought to unilaterally draft a declaration. China undoubtedly knew that these meetings, which included the leaders of selected northern countries – as well as those of Brazil , South Africa , and India – undermined the UN process. In the days leading up to Copenhagen, China had heard its allies in the developing world expose and denounce a covert effort by Denmark to convoke a parallel conference of over 20 countries to push through an unauthorised “Danish text” that advanced a climate agenda favoured by the developed countries.
It is perhaps not coincidental that most of the countries invited by Denmark were participants in the “Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate” first called by President George W. Bush, and re-launched before the Copenhagen meeting by President Obama, allegedly to “facilitate a candid dialogue among major developed and developing economies.” The real aim of both the Major Economies Forum and the Danish parallel conference was, in the opinion of some Southern observers, to drive a wedge between the more advanced developing countries and the poorer, least developed, and most vulnerable countries.
SECOND THOUGHTS?
Having joined the covert Obama caucuses, China probably realised that it could not lend too much legitimacy to a declaration that issued from them since this would anger the majority of developing countries excluded from the meetings, which resembled the notorious “Green Room” get-togethers of the heavy hitters of international trade during the ministerial conferences of the World Trade Organisation. This backtracking probably explains Prime Minister Wen Jiao Bao’s absence from the final caucus to finalise the declaration and his replacement by a relatively low-ranking official. This was the meeting witnessed by Mark Lynas. China blocked the declaration of voluntary emissions reduction figures – designed to give the big climate polluters the veneer of global responsibility without any significant obligations – because it did not likely want to give too much prominence to a document drafted at the margins of the conference.
By attending the caucuses and participating in the drafting of the unauthorised declaration, China laid itself open to a diplomatic fiasco. Eager to escape the blame for the collapse of what had been billed as the most important conference of our lifetime, the North could sanctimoniously point to China’s blocking the numbers to “prove” that it was the conference spoiler, which is precisely what Britain’s Miliband did. At the same time, many developing country negotiators and observers were confirmed in their suspicions that China has a self-serving agenda not consistent with that of the global South. After all, China joined the Obama caucuses and participated in the drafting of an unauthorised political declaration that the prominent Indian intellectual Praful Bidwai described as a “dirty collusive deal” between the US-led North and the China-led heavy polluters of the South. Despite Beijing ’s point-by-point responses to such accusations, the general perception took hold that it was to blame for the failed talks.
The Chinese leadership must find this billing as the villain of Copenhagen very frustrating. After all, right before Copenhagen, Beijing promised that it would reduce carbon dioxide emissions per unit of gross domestic product in 2020 by 40-45 percent compared to 2005 levels. Its automobile fuel efficiency standards are now stricter than those of the United States. It is a global leader in wind and solar energy development. Even Thomas Friedman, no China lover, talks about China ’s “Green Leap Forward” and how the government is determined to meet the energy challenge “with cleaner, homegrown sources so that its future economy will be less vulnerable to supply shocks and so it doesn’t pollute itself to death.”
THE REAL VILLAIN
If there was a government that sabotaged the meeting, it was the United States . US negotiators made clear to the world even before Copenhagen that Washington was not yet ready for binding commitments after having evaded the emissions cuts required by the Kyoto Protocol for over a decade. Using US Senate opposition as an excuse, Obama’s negotiators systematically dampened any hopes for the binding accord that the global public had expected Copenhagen would produce. After being shamed by the pledges of other countries, Washington ultimately committed to a 17 percent voluntary cut of greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels. But other countries viewed Washington ’s offer, which translated into an insignificant 4 percent reduction from 1990 levels, as a joke.
Whether Obama and his negotiators were right in fearing a backlash from the right wing if they made the United States appear too ambitious is a matter of debate. Nevertheless, Washington ’s diplomacy ensured that Copenhagen would be dead on arrival. It’s easy to imagine Beijing ’s resentment at Obama’s push to engineer a PR triumph via a declaration with high-sounding rhetoric laced with meaningless voluntary commitments and backed up by so little actual commitment.
CHINA’S GROWTH PROBLEM
Although China was not the villain of Copenhagen, it did play the role of accomplice. It participated in Obama’s unofficial caucuses of the rich and the powerful even as it sought to lead the “G77 and China ” grouping in the formal UN process. The conflicting demands of these two roles underline China ’s contradictory status in the world: it is simultaneously an economic superpower with a massive carbon footprint and a developing country. Its economic and ecological impact on the world is now greater than most developed countries, but its leadership and people continue to see themselves as belonging to the developing world.
In 2009, China displaced the United States as the world’s biggest automobile market and Germany as the world’s top exporter. China is expected to pass Japan as the world’s second biggest economy this year and overtake the US as the world’s largest by 2030.
So fast has China ’s growth been in the last two decades that, as analyst Zachary Karabell notes, “as many as 300 million people are middle class or upper middle class by any definition, and that number is equivalent to the population of the United States and of the European Union.” Yet hundreds of millions of rural Chinese are mired in poverty, earning an average of $285 a year. Moving up from poverty and hunger is their common aspiration, and Beijing fears that there will be hell to pay if this is thwarted.
Making more and more of its population middle class in order to stave off political unrest is thus the Chinese leadership’s overriding goal. It can only accomplish this goal, in its view, by continuing on a high-growth path that is dependent, at least in the short term, on coal. China is now the world’s number one consumer of coal and its use now earns it the dubious honor of being the world’s number one emitter of greenhouse gases. As Richard Heinberg has noted, “while China is quickly becoming the world leader in renewable energy technologies, it has no realistic prospect of phasing out coal without giving up its high GDP growth rates.”
China’s formal position, leading up to Copenhagen, was that the meeting should come up with a legally binding agreement committing the United States and other industrialised countries, which have contributed over 80 percent of the accumulated carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, to deep cuts in their greenhouse gas emissions while limiting action demanded from developing countries like itself to voluntary targets. Yet so destabilising is China’s coal-dependent high-growth strategy that even if COP 15 had produced an agreement specifying mandatory cuts from the developed countries, the pressure on Beijing to agree to similar obligatory cuts would grow as it overtook Japan as the world’s second largest economy and closed in on the United States. And the pressure would come not just from the North but the South as well.
Thus the single-minded dedication to high-speed growth, which is the axis around which both its domestic and foreign policies spin, has motivated China to put off as long as possible the day when it will have to agree to mandatory limits on its greenhouse gas emissions. As such, the weak, Obama-brokered accord that came out of Copenhagen and was mainly meant to accommodate the United States was also in synch with Beijing’s perceived interests.
The planet, however, cannot wait. And the idea that one can deliver a US-style middle-class lifestyle for the bulk of the world’s population without provoking a climatic crisis is a dangerous illusion. Until it finally gets up the courage to turn away from the globally destabilising high-growth development path pioneered by the North, Beijing will be condemned to play the role of Hamlet in global climate politics. It will continue to demand flexibility as a developing country while covertly colluding to defuse tough climate measures that might obstruct its rise as an economic superpower. The world cannot afford this tragedy to be enacted on the global stage.
*Walden Bello is a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines representing Akbayan (Citizens’Action Party), president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, a senior analyst at the Bangkok-based institute Focus on the Global South.
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STATEMENT OF CLIMATE JUSTICE NOW! ON THE COP 15
Call for “system change not climate change” unites global movement
Corrupt Copenhagen ‘accord’ exposes gulf between peoples demands and elite interests
The highly anticipated UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen ended with a fraudulent agreement, engineered by the United States and dropped into the conference at the last moment. The "agreement" was not adopted. Instead, it was "noted" in an absurd parliamentary invention designed to accommodate the United States and permit Ban Ki-moon to utter the ridiculous pronouncement "We have a deal."
The UN conference was unable to deliver solutions to the climate crisis, or even minimal progress toward them. Instead, the talks were a complete betrayal of impoverished nations and island states, producing embarrassment for the United Nations and the Danish government. In a conference designed to limit greenhouse gas emissions there was very little talk of emission reductions. Rich, developed countries continued to delay any talk of deep and binding cuts, instead shifting the burden to less developed countries and showing no willingness to make reparations for the damage they have caused.
The Climate Justice Now! coalition, alongside other networks, was united here at COP15 in the call for System Change, Not Climate Change. In contrast, the Copenhagen climate conference itself demonstrated that real solutions, as opposed to false, market-based solutions, will not be adopted until we overcome the existing unjust political and economic system.
Government and corporate elites here in Copenhagen made no attempt to satisfy the expectations of the world. False solutions and corporations completely co-opted the United Nations process. The global elite would like to privatize the atmosphere through carbon markets; carve up the remaining forests, bush and grasslands of the world through the violation of Indigenous Peoples' rights and land-grabbing; promote high-risk technologies to restructure the climate; convert real forests into monoculture tree plantations and agricultural soils into carbon sinks; and complete the enclosure and privatisation of the commons. Virtually every proposal discussed in Copenhagen was based on a desire to create opportunities for profit rather than to reduce emissions, and even the small amounts of financing promised could end up paying for the transfer of risky technologies.
The only discussions of real solutions in Copenhagen took place in social movements. Climate Justice Now!, Climate Justice Action and Klimaforum09 articulated many creative ideas and attempted to deliver those ideas to the UN Climate Change Conference through the Klimaforum09 People's Declaration and the Reclaim Power People's Assembly. Among nations, the ALBA countries, many African nations and AOSIS often echoed the messages of the climate justice movement, speaking of the need to repay climate debt, create mitigation and adaptation funds outside of neoliberal institutions such as the World Bank and IMF, and keep global temperature increase below 1.5 degrees.
The UN and the Danish government served the interests of the rich, industrialized countries, excluding our voices and the voices of the least powerful throughout the world, and attempting to silence our demands to talk about real solutions. Nevertheless, our voices grew stronger and more united day by day during the two-week conference. As we grew stronger, the mechanisms implemented by the UN and the Danish authorities for the participation of civil society grew more dysfunctional, repressive and undemocratic, very much like the WTO and Davos.
Social movement participation was limited throughout the conference, drastically curtailed in week two, and several civil society organizations even had their admission credentials revoked midway through the second week. At the same time, corporations continued lobbying inside the Bella Center.
Outside the conference,the Danish police extended the repressive framework, launching a massive clampdown on the right to free expression and arresting and beating thousands, including civil society delegates to the climate conference. Our movement overcame this repression to raise our voices in protest over and over again. Our demonstrations, organised together with Danish trade unions, movements and NGOs, mobilized more than 100,000 people in Denmark to press for climate justice, while social movements around the world mobilized hundreds of thousands more in local climate justice demonstrations. In spite of repression by the Danish government and exclusion by the United Nations, the movement for system change not climate change is now stronger than when we arrived in Denmark.
While Copenhagen has been a disaster for just and equitable climate solutions, it has been an inspiring watershed moment in the battle for climate justice. The governments of the elite have no solutions to offer, but the climate justice movement has provided strong vision and clear alternatives. Copenhagen will be remembered as an historic event for global social movements. It will be remembered, along with Seattle and Cancun, as a critical moment when the diverse agendas of many social movements coalesced and became stronger, asking in one voice for system change, not climate change.
The Climate Justice Now! coalition calls for social movements around the world to mobilize in support of climate justice.
We will take our struggle forward not just in climate talks, but on the ground and in the streets, to promote genuine solutions that include:
- leaving fossil fuels in the ground and investing instead in appropriate energy-efficiency and safe, clean and community-led renewable energy
- radically reducing wasteful consumption, first and foremost in the North, but also by Southern elites
- huge financial transfers from North to South, based on reparations for climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, progressive and innovative taxes, and debt cancellation
- rights-based resource conservation that enforces Indigenous land rights and promotes peoples' sovereignty over energy, forests, land and water
- sustainable family farming and fishing, and peoples' food sovereignty.
We are committed to building a diverse movement – locally and globally – for a better world.
Climate Justice Now!
Copenhagen,19 December 2009
www.climate-justice-now.org
and supported by the following organisations and individuals, as of 23 January 2010
Organizations:
Afrika Kontact, Denmark
Aitec-IPAM, France
Alianza Mexicana por la Autodeterminación de los Pueblos-AMAP, Mexico
Alternatives International
Anti Debt Coalition (KAU), Indonesia
Asamblea de Huehuetenango por la defensa de los recursos naturales, Guatemala
Asia Pacific Movement on Debt and Development/Jubilee South
Asia Pacific Research Network (APRN)
ATTAC Germany Working Group on Energy, Climate and Environment, Germany
Attac Malmö, Sweden
ATTAC, France
ATTAC, Germany
ATTAC, Japan
ATTAC, Switzerland
Balochistan Climate Change Alliance, Pakistan.
Belarusian Social Forum, Belarus
Camp for Climate Action, UK
Campaign Against Climate Change (CCC) Trade Union Group, UK
Carbon Trade Watch
Centre for Civil Society Environmental Justice Project, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa
Centre for Environmental Justice, Sri Lanka
Centro de Estudios Internacionales (CEI), Nicaragua
Climat et justice sociale, Belgium
Climate-change-trade-union-network, UK
Committee for the Abolition of Third World Debt (CADTM)
Confederazione dei Comitati di Base (COBAS), Italy
Consejo de los pueblos del occidente de Guatemala por la defensa del territorio, Guatemala
Convergencia de Movimientos de los Pueblos de las Américas (COMPA)
Corner House, UK
Corporate Europe Observatory
DICE Foundation, India
Down To Earth, Indonesia/UK
Energy and Climate Policy Institute (ECPI), Korea
Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance, Denmark
Escuela de Pensamiento Ecologista, Guatemala
ESK Sindikatua, Basque Country
Euromarches/Marches européennes
Europe solidaire sans frontières (ESSF), France
Fair, Italy
Family Farm Defenders, USA
FelS-Klima AG (Für eine linke Strömung), Germany
FERN
FOCO Foro Ciudadano de Participación por la Justicia y los Derechos Humanos, Argentina
Focus on the Global South, Thailand, Philippines and India
Food First/Institute for Food and Development Policy, USA
Friends of the Earth International
Friends of the Earth Sydney Collective, Australia
Friends of the Earth, Flanders & Brussels, Belgium
Friends of the Earth, Sweden
Galiza Non Se Vende
gegenstromberlin, Germany
Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA)
Global Exchange, USA
Global Forest Coalition and Friends of the Siberian Forests, Russia
Global Justice Ecology Project, USA
Greater Boston United for Justice with Peace (UJP), USA
Hacktivist News Service, hns-info.net
Hemispheric Social Alliance, the Americas
HOPE, Pakistan
Indian Social Action Forum (INSAF), India
Indonesia Fisherfolk Union/ Serikat Nelayan Imdonesia (SNI), Indonesia
Institute for Social Ecology, USA
Internationale Socialister, Denmark
Jubilee South - International
Jubilee South - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development (JSAPMDD)
Klimabevægelsen (Climate Movement), Denmark
KlimaX, Denmark
La Via Campesina
Labour, Health and Human Rights Development Centre, Nigeria
Les Amis de la Terre, France
Linksjugend['solid], Germany
Living Seas, Denmark
Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, USA
Massachusetts Forest Watch, USA
Mémoire des luttes, France
Movement Generation: Justice and Ecology Project, USA
Movimiento Mexicano de Afectados por las Represas (MAPDER), Mexico
National Fishers Solidarity Movement, Sri Lanka
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (NNIRR), USA
Otros Mindos Chiapas, Mexico
Pacific Indigenous Peoples Environment Coalition
Peoples Movement on Climate Change (PMCC)
Plymouth Trades Union Council, UK
Polaris Institute, Canada
projecto270, Portugal
Red Mexicana de Acción frente al Libre Comercio (RMALC), Mexico
Red Mexicana de Afectados por la Minería (REMA), Mexico
REDES/Friends of the Earth, Uruguay
Renewable Energy Centre (REC), South Africa
Rising Tide North America
SmartMeme, USA
Socialist Workers Party, Britain
Steering Committee of Green Left, UK
Sustainable Energy & Economy Network, Institute for Policy Studies, USA
Texas Climate Emergency Campaign, USA
Thai Working Group for Climate Justice, Thailand
The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination, UK
The Latin American Network against Monoculture Tree Plantations (RECOMA)/Red Latinoamericana contra los Monocultivos de Arboles (RECOMA)
The Respect Party, UK
Timberwatch Coalition, South Africa
Transnational Institute (TNI)
Union de Comunidades Indigenas de la Zona Norte del Istmo-UCIZONI, Mexico
United for Justice and Peace, Greater Boston, USA
Urgence Climat 13, France
Utopia, France
VOICE, Bangladesh
Walhi, Friends of the Earth, Indonesia
World Development Movement, UK
Zukunftskonvent, Germany
Individuals:
Alex Callinicos, Professor of European Studies, Kings College London, UK
Beth Adams, Massachusetts, USA
Chris Baugh, Assistant General Secretary, Public and Commercial Services union, Britain
Clive Searle, National Secretary, The Respect Party, UK
Corinna Genschel, Committee of Basic Rights and Democracy, Germany
Dave Bleakney, national union representative, Canadian Union of Postal Workers, Canada
David Hallowes, Durban, South Africa
Dr Isabelle Fremeaux, Birkbeck College, UK
Elana Bulman, UK
Francine Mestrum, Global Social Justice, Belgium
Graham Petersen, National Environment Officer, University and College Union, UK
Inger V. Johansen, Enhedslisten/the Red-Green Alliance, Denmark
Jessica Bell, People for Climate Justice, Canada
John Jordan, UK
Jonathan Neale, UK
Jurgen Kraus, coordination of the caravan from WTO to COP15
Kirsten Gamst-Nielsen, Denmark
Laura Grainger, Young Friends of the Earth
Marie-France Astegiani-Merrain, vice/Présidente d'ADEN, France
Matthew Firth, staff representative, environmental issues, Canadian Union of Public Employees.
MK Dorsey, Dartmouth University, USA
Nicola Bullard, Australia
Patrick Bond, University of KwaZulu Natal
Pete Sirois, Maine, USA
Professor Andrew Dobson, Keele University, UK
Rebecca Sommer, Representative of the NGO Society for Threatened Peoples International, in consultative status to the United Nations ECOSOC and in participatory status with the Council of Europe. Indigenous Peoples Department, USA
Richard Greeman (socialist scholar)
Roger Leisner, Radio Free Maine, USA
Ruth Reitan, University of Miami, USA
Tony Staunton, UK
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AILING BUT ALIVE: THE WTO TEN YEARS AFTER SEATTLE
By Shalmali Guttal
The 7th Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ended as it started: on a subdued and uncertain note. Statements about the importance of a speedy conclusion to the Doha Development Round (DDR) by some trade ministers and in the Chairman's Summary during the closing plenary, lacked conviction. What came through instead was nervousness among government delegates and WTO Secretariat staff about the credibility and relevance of the WTO and its programme of corporate driven globalisation in the face of deepening crises in the real economy, agriculture and climate. Every pat on the back that delegates and staff gave the WTO was tempered by statements about the need for WTO members to respect multilateralism, past commitments, the development mandate of the DDR, transparency, inclusiveness, and the special needs of Least Developed Countries (LDCs) and Small and Vulnerable Economies (SVEs).
Credibility, relevance and vision are actually what the WTO lacks at this juncture. Since its establishment in 1995, numerous farmers organisations, workers' unions, government officials, academics and civil society analysts have repeatedly pointed to the dangers of WTO-style liberalisation on local and national economies and the environment.
As world attention is focussed on the urgency of finding solutions to the multiple crises we face and tens of thousands gathered in Copenhagen to find ways to avert a climate catastrophe, the WTO comes up very short indeed. In that unchecked deregulation, liberalisation and export led production that WTO trade lock in are widely accepted as major reasons for the financial, economic, food and climate crises, the WTO is certainly not a credible place to turn to for solutions. It offers no alternative vision or paradigm of trade based on sustainable development criteria. And if one of the most powerful global institutions is unable to offer credible solutions to tackle the most intense crises of our times, how relevant is it?
Lack of confidence in the WTO trading system and the DDR to be able to pull the world out of crises has been expressed in different ways by government delegates, social movements and civil society analysts. “From the point of view of environmental sustainability, global trade has become deeply dysfunctional” noted Walden Bello of Focus on the Global South. “The WTO has been a central factor in increasing carbon emissions from transport... A successful conclusion to Doha will bring us closer to uncontrollable climate change.” (1)
According to Indra Lubis from La Via Campesina, “The food and economic crises strengthen Via Campesina's belief that global governance has serious problems. We have to change the system that has been ruling us through International Financial Institutions and the WTO—it is very destructive and completely wrong.”
In the Global Unions' statement of priorities for the 7th Ministerial Meeting the International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC) states:
“Despite the concerns expressed by millions of working women and men calling for trade justice worldwide there is still little on the table at the WTO for growth, development or the creation of full, decent and productive employment based upon the respect of workers’ rights and other human rights. The global financial and economic crises have raised further doubts as to the potential benefits of trade liberalisation and have generated well-founded concerns that liberalising in a period of increasing unemployment could further deepen the crisis and increase social hardship.” (2)
According to Nathan Urumba, Executive Director of Southern and Eastern African Trade Information and Negotiations Institute (SEATINI) and Uganda's Ambassador to the WTO from 1996-2004, “WTO trade cannot address the economic crisis with the current deals on the table. Countries should liberalise after they have reached a certain level of development and industrialisation; liberalisation follows development and not the other way round. For most African countries, development is a more important priority than a speedy conclusion of the DDR.” Urumba's views coincide with those of Hicham Badr, the ambassador of Egypt and coordinator of the Africa group, who said in an interview to IPS, "If we had to choose between a (quickly concluded) round and a successful round, we would prefer a successful round where the developmental aspect remains at the core of the package.” (3)
Developing countries constitute the majority of the WTO's 153 members and account for at at least 80 percent of the world's population. But to this day, the institution has shown itself to be politically and structurally incapable of responding to their diverse development priorities.
BUSINESS AS USUAL?
In his blog on the last day of the Ministerial Conference, WTO Director General (DG) Pascal Lamy wrote:
“Members of the WTO wanted a “normal” ministerial —they've had one. This conference was different from all previous ones. There were no surprises. It was not a big jamboree, with thousands of journalists, hugely costly arrangements and sleepless nights.” (4)
Well yes, in many ways the 7th Ministerial Conference was “normal.” Little seems to have changed in negotiating substance, politics and process since the WTO's establishment in 1995. Long standing development issues critical to developing countries (some tabled since 1997) and included in the Doha work programme continue to be sidelined, especially by the United States (US) and European Union (EU). These include implementation of commitments to redress past/existing imbalances, Special and Differential (S&D) treatment, resolution of subsidies and pricing in cotton, and particular provisions for LDCs and SVEs. Instead, developing countries are faced with excessive demands to provide market access to wealthy nations in the areas of industry, agriculture and services with hardly any reciprocity. In its November 29 Ministerial communiqué the G 33 noted:
“We express concern at recent trends to retract commitments made in a long, hard-fought, negotiated and balanced package that is now on the table. We also note that this package is already market access focused, particularly for those countries that are expected to provide leadership and which are still seeking a disproportionate number of flexibilities.” (5)
Also “normal” was who drives negotiations. WTO insiders pointed out that the Ministerial was non-negotiating because the US is not ready to negotiate; in the meantime, it continues to demand “meaningful market access” from developing countries in all sectors without cutting its own agricultural and export subsidies, or cutting back on the massive bail-outs to its financial corporations. The EU is doing the more or less the same; and as long as the US does not come back to the negotiating table, it can continue to demand market access through Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) and Free Trade Agreements (FTAs).
Urumba remarked that the WTO Secretariat and DG have also tried to drive trade negotiations since the time of former DG Mike Moore, under whose watch the DDR was launched. Subsequent DGs have wanted to be associated with either concluding a Round or launching a new one. “The WTO Secretariat has been postponing this meeting in the hope that a trade deal would be settled and the Ministerial meeting could be used to conclude the Doha round. But this has not happened and so this is a 'normal' ministerial meeting.” The ministers had to meet. The WTO's founding charter--the Marrakesh Agreement that established the WTO)--directs that a Ministerial Conference must be held at least once every two years.
But some civil society analysts pointed out that this Ministerial was necessary to make sure that developing countries do not abandon the negotiations because of popular pressure from domestic constituencies. Tony Clarke from the Polaris Institute observed, “The WTO does not have a whole lot to show for itself given the gusto with which it was launched by economic elites, it has failed to deliver on what it set out to do. The reason for this Ministerial is simply to shore up the confidence of Southern governments in the WTO in the midst of deepening crises. Lamy is trying to create the defences the WTO needs to keep governments in line and stay with the institution. He is trying to revive and rebuild ideological commitments of countries to capitalism and neoliberalism.”
But even if this Ministerial had been a negotiating one, trade ministers from developing countries would not be able to sell the current negotiating package back home. Faced with rising unemployment, increasing financial insecurity, fluctuating food prices and deepening agrarian crises, delegates cannot defend a new trade deal unless it protects domestic savings, jobs, food supplies, livelihoods and the environment from the dangers of unchecked liberalisation and deregulation.
The G20 and G33 Ministerial Communiqués expressed frustration at the continuing double standards between developed and developing countries on financial and economic policies, and the bending of WTO rules by developed countries to protect their economies even as they seek greater liberalisation and deregulation in developing countries. With regard to agriculture the G33 said:
“We urge WTO Members to remain cognisant of the subsistence nature of agriculture in most developing countries and therefore the need to ensure the livelihood of farmers. The present crisis has highlighted the vulnerability of agriculture system and the need for safeguarding the livelihoods of the poor and vulnerable in agriculture around the world. The crisis has also put the issue of food security at the top of the global agenda. Trade in agriculture has to be calibrated in view of pressure from highly distortive domestic supports and export subsidies.” (6)
The G20 in turn made a pointed reference to the vast differences in capacity between rich and poor countries in dealing with the economic crisis:
“The crisis has shown the risks of all forms of protectionist practices, including the substantial trade distorting subsidies provided by developed countries. Without the means to afford stimulus packages or bail-out programmes, developing countries are disproportionately affected and bear the consequences of any erosion of confidence in the stability of the multilateral trading system.” (7)
European civil society representatives pointed out that EU trade delegates would also have a hard time promoting a new trade deal in their respective countries. According to Alexandra Strickner of ATTAC Austria,“People are extremely disappointed with the lack of democracy in our countries. Billions of euros have been found in a very short time to bail out the banks, but governments claim that they have no money to address the issues that really matter to people, such as unemployment and public investment in health and education. People feel that elected representatives are not representing their interests, but the interests of the financial elites. More than a year after the onset of the financial crisis, we still do not have practical, operational, financial regulation.”
DEVELOPMENT: THE MISSING ELEMENT
In a bid to stave off further market access demands from developed countries and capture some benefits (however meagre) from the round, developing countries insist that development must remain at the heart of the DDR and that negotiations must deliver “balanced and pro-development outcomes.” But they are unwilling to acknowledge that development was never actually at the centre of the Doha Development Agenda.
The US and EU were unable to launch a new trade round at the WTO’s 3rd ministerial conference in Seattle in 1999 because of belated rebellions by developing country delegates against the Uruguay Round as well as massive street protests by farmers, environmentalists, workers, anti-HIV-AIDS activists, and other global civil society movements. The attacks on the World Trade Centre on September 11, 2001 provided the US and EU with the opportunity they needed to bamboozle WTO members into signing on to a new trade round. During the 4th Ministerial conference in Doha in November 2001, developing countries were subjected to tremendous moral pressure to stand “shoulder-to-shoulder” with the US against terrorist threats and rescue the global economy; some developing countries were also offered massive aid packages to agree to the launching of a new round, while others were threatened with punitive actions if they resisted. The result was the Doha Development Round, which, according to Bello and Malig, “had little to do with development and everything to do with expanding developed country access to developing country markets.” (8)
According to Clarke, “Doha was a completely controlled and inside operation. 9/11 did more to kills the massive resistance that was building against the WTO than anything else.”
Developing countries also agreed to launch a new round on the condition that their development issues would be addressed on a priority basis before negotiations on new market access commitments or new rules. The bitter experience of being railroaded, bribed and threatened into launching a trade round in Doha brought many developing countries together into alliances such as the G20 and G33, which in turn were formed coalitions with African countries and LDCs to mount effective resistance--at least for a while-- against the excessive demands and bullying tactics of the US and EU. The DDR stalled in 2003 as the 5th Ministerial Conference in Cancun collapsed, again as a result of rebellion from developing country delegates inside and massive popular protests outside. It was revived with a new negotiating package (the July Framework) and new negotiating tactics in July 2004 (in which India and Brazil played leading roles) that paved the way for the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting in December 2005.
The content of the Doha package has increasingly worsened since its launch in 2001, with the US and EU refusing to make significant cuts in their agricultural and export subsidies, blocking efforts by developing countries to use Special Safeguard Measures (SSMs) and Special Products (SPs) to effectively protect their agricultural sectors from import surges and at the same time, demanding greater market access in agriculture, industry (NAMA) and services. And as negotiations have proceeded, new WTO rules and market access requirements have thrown up more concerns related to development, adding to the store of outstanding, unresolved development issues that developing countries have long demanded attention towards.
According to Afsar Jafri of Focus on the Global South, "The conditionalities that have been slapped on the SSM through the December 2008 text are designed such that it makes them ineffective in case of import surges. The current SSM is an extremely weak 'safety net' for the millions of low income and resource-poor rural households who have very little ability to absorb price fluctuations and survive floods of subsidised imports of agricultural products. These condition-ridden provisions do not respond to the original demand of the G33 which asked for an “effective, flexible, practical and operable” special safeguard mechanisms. But developed countries have crafted a more flexible and practical special safeguard provisions (SSG) for themselves which does not have any such cumbersome conditions for its effective operation.”
Strangely, however, no developing country is willing to point out that there is in fact no “development” in the Doha Development Round and to walk away from the negotiations altogether. To do so would risk having to shoulder the blame for collapsing multilateral trade, a responsibility that no government is willing to shoulder.
THE PEOPLE VS. THE WTO
The establishment of the WTO in 1995 was heralded by the world's political and economic elites as the triumph of capitalism in a post Cold War era where corporations could go global without barriers and nothing could stop capital from moving where it chose to. The WTO had more teeth, clout and agreements than the GATT, and was designed to operate through a centralised decision making system that could be worked in favour of the trade majors. But the WTO has been far less effective than its creators envisaged because of the internal contradictions and limitations of capitalism itself, and equally, because of the refusal by people all over the world to let corporate capital rule their lives.
According to Lubis, “When the WTO came into being, Southern countries did not understand what they were getting into. Many delegates from the South (like the Indonesians) did not speak or read English and were unable to negotiate for their people. Now delegates know what is going on, they know how Northern countries will negotiate to get what they want.”
Lubis also points to the build-up of knowledge levels in farmers' movements that has been key to building popular resistance to the liberalisation of food and agriculture trade. “Ten years ago,Via Campesina had the strong belief that something was wrong with the global system and started demanding 'WTO Out of Food and Agriculture'. Then Via Campesina started educating itself about the global context and how international policies affect local and national conditions. As the negative impacts of neoliberalism started to be felt in different countries, the issues that Via was raising were understood by farmers' organisations and other social groups in many countries. People started to make the links between what is happening in their lives and WTO trade, and realised that they must come together to fight the WTO at the international level. They also decided that it was not enough to only fight against something, we had to also fight for something, and we chose the paradigm of food sovereignty.”
According to Clarke, resistance to the WTO in North America got a big boost from the successful campaign to defeat the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) in 1997-1998. “The MAI was a huge alarm bell, a wake up call that the architecture of the global economy in the post bipolar world was changing and that we had to link up internationally to gum up the works. People built on the victory against the MAI and got together to defeat the WTO in Seattle.”
These experiences are mirrored in social movements and civil society coalitions across the world. Not only did civil society actors and social movements educate themselves about the WTO, capitalism, neoliberalism, and corporate driven globalization, but also, they started to educate the public, elected representatives, legislators, policy makers and trade delegates. Today, societal resistance to the WTO and corporate driven globalisation is multi-level, cross sectoral, knowledgeable and strategic.
Extremely important elements of popular resistance to the WTO and corporate hegemony are actions by societal groups and constituencies to build democratic and sustainable alternatives to the dominant financial and economic systems. Farmers' and workers' organisations, citizen's groups, students, indigenous communities and social movements have come to the realisation that they cannot trust their governments to address the crises the world is facing. They must become directly involved in identifying and implementing solutions, and in doing the political work to ensure that these solutions are systemic, sustainable and just.
For Lubis, it is urgent that social movements start building systematic alternatives at each level. “We can't just wait for global institutions to change. People need change now. So in many places, Via Campesina members are already working on alternative economic and political structures and processes, for example, community co-operatives made up of producers and consumers. In Ecuador, Via members are in local and sub-regional official positions and are trying to put into place principles of social and economic justice.”
According to Strickner, there is growing awareness in parts of Europe that people in the North are over-consuming and taking away resources that are not rightfully their's, thus denying people and communities in other parts of the world the ability to survive. People, especially young people and students, are examining their lifestyles critically, their consumption of energy and food, and trying to come up with practical alternatives. “People in Europe are craving for a different economic and political system that is democratic and where they can participate in decision making. Building alternatives from the ground up helps people to understand how they can change systems and not go back to the stone age—they can also counter the false propaganda spread by proponents of the current system.”
But many civil society activists argue that the existing levels and forms of resistance must be scaled up, broadened across sectors and constituencies and intensified, given new challenges and threats. According to Clarke, “This is an incredible historic moment and peoples' resistance needs to measure up to this moment. We are at a stage now where capitalism is in serious trouble and institutions such as the WTO are also consequently in trouble. Capitalism is in crisis because of the crises it has precipitated; there is no way that capitalism can measure up to the climate crisis. If we can see the unleashing of resistance as we saw in 1999, we could see the possibility of a new world order.”
Ineffective and floundering as it may be, the WTO will continue remain a threat to the well-being of the world's people and environment as long as our governments continue to uphold the mythology that the WTO can provide a way out of the current crises and enable development. Not only is the WTO system incapable of fostering the creative thinking required to address the challenges of today, but worse, it will suppress the emergence of other, more appropriate systems, spaces and processes to fashion new ways of producing, consuming and living. It is time for our governments to shut the doors on the WTO and lay it to rest permanently.
* Shalmali Guttal is a senior associate with Focus on the Global South and was in Geneva for the WTO ministerial. She can be contacted at s.guttal@focusweb.org
Notes
1.http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5420
2.http://www.ituc-csi.org/IMG/pdf/Final_-_Statement-WTO-19-11-09.pdf
3.http://ipsnews.net/africa/nota.asp?idnews=49527
4.http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/minist_e/min09_e/blog_e.htm
5.http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refID=106985
6.http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refID=106985
7.http://www.tradeobservatory.org/library.cfm?refid=106987
8.http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/5441
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LESSONS OF THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH
By Walden Bello
This article was first published in Foreign Policy in Focus, January 2, 2010
At 8 am, on Wednesday, 30 December, I took my seat on a bus in downtown Cairo that was about to head for Gaza.
The evening before, Medea Benjamin, co-founder of Code Pink, the central organization in the Gaza Freedom March (GFM), had asked me to be titular head of a 100-person delegation that was representative of the 1362 people that had converged in Cairo enroute to Gaza. The reason for this “assignment” was my status as a member of the House of Representatives in the Philippines.
The original plan had been for all GFM participants to take part in a march organized by civil society groups in Gaza that would take place on Dec. 31. A few weeks before the scheduled march, however, the Egyptian government declined to give grant permission to GFM to enter Gaza at the Rafah crossing. To prevent the marchers from descending on Cairo, it cancelled all the GFM’s permits to assemble in different buildings in the city. The government’s motives were not very clear, but the refusal apparently had to do with the government’s not wanting to provoke Israel as well as its bad relations with the Hamas, the Islamist organization that controls Gaza.
The GFM had fallen victim to regional and international realpolitik.
COMPROMISE
Be that as it may, the organizers did not cancel the march but hoped that with the arrival in Cairo of the marchers from some 42 countries, the Egyptian government would relent and allow the them passage to Gaza. This proved to be a smart move. Two days of pressure, including a camp-out at the French Embassy that was tolerated if not covertly supported by the Embassy staff and a rally at the World Trade Center which houses the United Nations, pushed the Egyptian government to a compromise that was brokered by Susan Mubarak, wife of the country’s president: a representative delegation of 100 people would be allowed to cross the border into Gaza. Under the circumstances, many people, including myself, felt this was best deal we could get and people associated with Code Pink, the key group behind the march, began to pick 100 people to form the delegation, taking pains to ensure representation by country and organisation.
It proved to be too good to be true. The steering committee of the GFM initially endorsed the plan. However, in a meeting that went till 4am, December 30, the steering committee consensus fell apart. One of the reasons it did was the Egyptian foreign ministry’s releasing a statement characterising the 100 that were going as the “good elements” of the GFM while the “bad ones” were those left in Cairo. To some, this was government propaganda that needed to be taken in stride and not allowed to disrupt the Gaza mission. To others, it called into question the legitimacy of the convoy.
CONFUSION
It was, however, too late to get word of the lack of consensus to the handpicked 100 who had started assembling, along with others who still had hopes of getting into the buses, as early as 6am near the Isis Hotel at the foot of the October 6 Bridge near Tahrir Square. By 8am, a group had gathered at the departure point shouting epithets at those in the buses, calling us “divisive,” “traitors,” or “collaborators with the Egyptian government.” These participants in the Gaza Freedom March were demonstrating against those of us who were supposed to represent them in Gaza! The fact that we were a solidarity delegation who were part of an effort to break the siege of Gaza by Israel was completely forgotten. We were suddenly vilified as pawns of the Egyptian government.
I had seldom witnessed a more awful display of naive, misguided politics. These people actually thought that the 100 person delegation compromise was a sellout, and that by holding tough they could get the authoritarian Egyptian government to relent and allow all 1362 of us to march into Gaza. What planet did these people think they were in?
At that point came the collapse of leadership. Some organizers who just the night before had been recruiting us for the delegation were calling on us to get off the buses because the convoy did “not represent” the Gaza Freedom March. Things became even more surreal when important Gaza and West Bank-based leaders of the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS) and PENGO, the Palestinian Civil Society Collective, called in to dissuade the buses from going to Gaza because it would “divide the movement.”
Up till that point, I had been arguing with the hotheads bullying me to get off the bus, telling them that I was going to Gaza as an act of solidarity between the Philippines and the people of Gaza and Palestine. But when the leaders of the GFM in Cairo and their counterparts in Gaza turned their backs on us, I decided that going on the bus was no longer tenable. The convoy was orphaned, denounced by the GFM and disowned by some of its organisers, and the 65 who eventually left represented no one but themselves and they faced an uncertain reception in Gaza.
LESSONS
On December 31, the day that they were supposed to be marching in Gaza, the much reduced forces of the marchers were valiantly carrying out actions in different parts of Cairo that were easily contained by Egyptian security forces. Nevertheless, these demonstrations, which included a spirited rally of several hundred people at noontime in Tahrir Square and a candlelight ceremony at midnight, caught the attention of the international media and showed that the people of Gaza were not forgotten by the rest of the world. Indeed, with several marches taking place on the same day in Gaza itself, in Israel, and in a number of cities throughout the world, the “break the siege in Gaza day” was largely successful, despite the failure of the main action in Egypt, in highlighting global concern with the plight of the people of Gaza.
The GFM was an idea that inspired so many people in Gaza and throughout the world. People with the best of intentions and with great dedication came to Cairo expecting to be able to go to Gaza. Organisations like Code Pink performed herculean efforts to make the march a reality. Indeed, assembling 1362 people from all over the world in one place for a Palestinian solidarity event was an accomplishment in itself. And many of the marchers who came to Cairo did not feel their efforts were in vain since their mass actions, including the long campout at the French Embassy and a much publicised hunger strike, did help call global attention to the plight of the people of Gaza.
When all is said and done, however, the reality is that neither the international marchers nor their representatives were able to get into Gaza. Whatever its intentions were, the Egyptian government behaved terribly and, while arguing that it wanted to protect the Egyptian state’s interests, it ended up revealing its authoritarian visage, and this was not pretty. But one must also fault many of the key leaders of the march for failing to educate the marchers on the limits of civil society pressure in an authoritarian state, to teach them that the compromise of a 100 person delegation was not a sellout but the best deal possible under the circumstances. Instead of bravely taking on this complex task, most of the leadership unfortunately folded at a critical moment.
The GFM, which so many of us wanted to succeed, fell short of its goal. Yet from this outcome may come successful ventures in Palestinian solidarity in the future, provided we absorb the lessons of Cairo. One key lesson is that we must quickly shed political naivete and learn to balance adherence to principle and pragmatism, something that was sorely missing here. We must get rid of the “all or nothing” mentality that is often mistaken for principled progressive politics but simply leads to political paralysis.
* Walden Bello is a member of the House of Representatives in the Philippines representing Akbayan (Citizens Action Party) and a senior analyst at Focus on the Global South.
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THE GAZA FREEDOM MARCH: IN THE MIDST OF A REGIONAL PANDEMONIUM
By Javad Heydarian
Political stability is a scarce commodity in the troubled region of Middle East; henceforth, the ultimate priority of Mubarak’s government has essentially remained the same over the decades: to ensure minimum stability and preserve a semblance of domestic political consensus.
Nothing justifies or validates the overly ‘cautious’ and ‘restrictive’ response of the Egyptian authorities to the 1400 strong Gaza Freedom Marches from 42 countries, but one should still evaluate the overall socio-political context and discern the immense pressure under which the Egyptian government is forced to make decisions.
Although Israel controls most of the borders with Gaza, Egypt has a ‘qualified’ control over the Rafah border; nevertheless, there is a complex system of coordination between Israel and Egypt over Gaza. According to a former prime minister of the Palestinian authority during our recent talks, the Egyptians are extremely concerned with their image in the greater Arab world and deeply resent the fact that many view them as complicit in the Israeli siege on Gaza. At the same time, the Egyptian government is under immense pressure, especially by the US, to uphold the 1979 Peace Treaty vis-à-vis Israel.
Egypt is also extremely concerned with a potential mass exodus of refugees from Gaza into the Egyptian territory, once it opens its borders with Gaza. On the domestic level – as the next presidential election approaches - Egypt fears the resurgence of Islamist elements; as well as, the strengthening of the Hamas-Muslim brotherhood alliance that can seriously challenge the three decades reign of a secular authoritarianism led by Pres. Mubarak.
Since the ‘cold peace’ with Israel as a result of the 1978 Camp David negotiations, Egypt has avoided confrontation with arguably the most powerful military in the region; deepened its relations with the USA which helped them embark on a massive national reconstruction project, but all came at a considerable cost. Although the peace with Israel provided an ample amount of time for Egypt to rehabilitate its poverty-stricken and war ravaged country, on the political front Egypt lost the prestige it used to enjoy as the main revisionist power in the region – especially during Nasser’s presidency – and the vanguard of the Arab cause.
The ‘cold peace’ with Israel has endured even after Sadat’s assassination in 1981; as Israeli defense forces invaded Lebanon and Palestine over the following years and decades, Egypt stood still and refused to interfere despite the immense international outcry for Egypt to act and prevent the onslaught of innocent Arab civilians.
The Egyptian society is by no means monolithic; huge sections of Egyptian society – from Muslim brotherhood, wealthy businessmen and ordinary citizens – support the Palestinians cause and harbor strong feeling towards the ongoing protracted humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
Initially, after President Sadat finalised a deal with the Israelis, the Arab world vehemently attempted to isolate Egypt; but Egypt was just too big to ignore. Egypt is still the strongest Military power and the cultural centre of the Arab world, yet nowhere close to its former stature during the Nasserite period.
THE RISE OF NEW PLAYERS
When a profound problem arises – such as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict - and the traditional powers fail to act decisively, a fertile ground arises for the emergence of new political players. Iran has been the greatest beneficiary of American decline in the Middle East. By 2003, Iran - a country struggling for decades to survive severe sanctions and recuperate from eight years of crippling war that severely damaged its infrastructure - suddenly found itself in a very favorable strategic position. It relished the fact that Saddam and Taliban were dethroned while the US overstretched its battered hard power to maintain its strategic interest in the region.
In a matter of years, Iran became a pivotal player not only in Iraqi politics but also in Lebanon, Palestine and to a certain degree in Yemen and Afghanistan. Iran became the most vocal critic of the US while lambasting western allies like Egypt as a bunch of puppets that have betrayed the Palestinian cause and the will of their people. On the other hand, the tiny energy rich kingdom of Qatar catapulted itself to the apex of economic prosperity that precipitated major political dividends for a previously obscure country. Today, Qatar is the richest country on earth in per capita terms and enjoys an amicable relationship with both Iran and the US.
For instance Aljazeera news is a major global institution that is funded and based in Qatar, giving it a huge edge in info-politics, which is an immense source of soft power. What annoys the Egyptians, as an ambassador told us, is that in the last few years Qatar played a central role in leading initiatives that wished to resolve Palestinian-Israel and Syrian-Israeli conflict while Egyptians were relegated to the sidelines. These developments – the rise of a Shia powerhouse, and a tiny state in the Persian Gulf bypassing traditional powers in leading major initiatives- do not in any shape or form delight the Egyptian leadership.
RECONFIGURATIONS IN THE PALESTINIAN AND ISRAELI POLITICS
After the assassination of Prime Minister Rabin by an ultra-religious Israeli in 1995, the Oslo process and prospects for peace collapsed and both Israeli and Palestinian politics lurched to the right and the use of force and violence became the means of politics. In 1996, Likud party came into power and completely stalled the Oslo process. President Clinton failed to bring PLO and Israel to finalize a deal during the Camp David talks (2000) while Bush totally faltered in pushing the Saudi peace plan (2002) and the Geneva initiative accords (2003) to materialize during the 2007 Annapolis summit that brought together all players with the exception of Iran.
Today, a hard-line rightist political coalition headed by Netanyahu and Lieberman controls the Israeli government while Hamas boosted by the 2006 elections’ results – refusing to renounce violence against Israel - controls the Gaza strip and continues to challenge Fatah for Palestinian leadership.
While the war of words animate the daily exchanges between the Israeli and Palestinian leaders, there remains a real danger for a new round of military offensives and a total escalation of the conflict.
THE PRO-PALESTINIAN MOVEMENT AND THE GAZA MARCH
Unlike the ruthlessly efficient and effective Israeli lobby, the global pro-Palestinian movement is still in the process of consolidation and yet to become deeply entrenched in the politics and discourses of the west. The movement it seems is not immune to the cross-Atlantic divide. Many could attest to how there is a lack of consensus between American progressive elements on the one hand and the continental Europeans on the other. There is a striking divergence on a plethora of tactical and strategic concerns, including the varying approaches that could be taken by the activists towards the resolution of the Palestinian issue and battling the nefarious Israeli policies on multiple fronts.
Such divergence within the movement played into the hands of those Egyptian authorities that dubbed the overall march as a loose network of disparate civil society organisations; each having its own sovereign outlooks and opinions. It is noteworthy that the Egyptian authorities mistakenly, if not consciously, justified their crackdown by claiming that the more ‘militant’ elements were affiliated and embedded within the Gaza March coalition.
NAÏVE-POLITICS VS. PRAGMATIC IDEALISM
Idealism and pragmatics are two principles that should be carefully balanced, especially in a country like Egypt. Facing 1400 strong activists from 42 countries, the Egyptian authorities faced a major dilemma. If they allowed the marchers to push forward with their plans, there was always a possibility that such a historic march would inspire a critical mass of Egyptians to come to the streets and use the opportunity to express their own displeasure at the current Egyptian policy of collusion with US and Israel over the crisis in Gaza. The political consequence of such potential scenario is a huge risk, which they integrated into their over all strategic calculus.
On the other hand, completely disallowing the marchers from pushing forward with their plans as initially permitted by the Egyptian foreign and interior ministry, would cause an international uproar and seriously taint Egypt’s image as a “democratising” country and a state that is sympathetic to the plight of its fellow Arabs in the occupied territories of Palestine. All the while there were constant negotiations and dialogue between the leaders of the March - such as the Code Pink organizers, writer Alice Walker, Filipino legislator Walden Bello, former vice president of the EU parliament Luisa Morgantini - and Egyptian authorities; as well as, the UN representative in Cairo. Finally, with the help of a prominent Palestinian leader Nabil Shaath, a deal was negotiated with the First Lady Susan Mubarak, which President Mubarak eventually accepted. In a lot of ways it was a “reasonable compromise” with the Egyptian foreign ministry. The Egyptian government accepted the deal and allowed a ‘representative delegation’ of about a 100 people enter the Gaza territory.
The fissures within the movement reached its apogee when a number of disillusioned marchers described the deal as a betrayal of the overall mission and harassed the representative delegation to get off the bus before it left for Gaza. The result was a despicable scene of confusion, chaos and confrontation. A great number of delegates caved into the assault, which led to the collapse of the deal. Few delegates remained in the bus and eventually took off for Gaza.
For the next hours and days, the infighting and escalating tensions depicted a picture of a movement in total disarray, despite the relentless efforts of many organisers to hold the movement together and prevent further confrontation. In the final days, there were considerable attempts by Code Pink organisers as well as others to bring the movement together and remind everyone that all the efforts were meant to express our solidarity with the people of Gaza. As the New Year approached, a great number of marchers gathered in the Tahrir Square in Cairo and lit their candles in a vigil for the people of Gaza.
An atmosphere of serenity and sentimental sorrow was gradually greeted by a deep sense of hope as the marchers looked forward to a long battle for the freedom of Gaza and Palestine.
Relentless passion and commitment constitute the spirit of a movement but it is the lucid understanding of the political context, within which we operate, that defines the success of our mission. We may have a clear idea of what we consider as the ‘end’ and ‘objectives’, but we must explore the murky world of ‘means’ and ‘strategies’ with an open mind and profound wisdom.
In finality, a fine balance between inclusive coalition politics on the one hand and respect for political expediency on the other, would undeniably increase the overall efficacy and internal organisational cohesion needed for sustained action and effective advocacy. On a more optimistic note, what was achieved in all those nostalgic days in Cairo was a foundation for the future, where institutionalised networks of pro-Palestinian organisations, envoys and delegates could contribute to the resolution of the protracted humanitarian crisis in Gaza.
* Javad Heydarian participated in the Gaza Freedom March. He specialised in Middle East politics at the University of the Philippines and is presently a legislative aide to Rep. Walden Bello of Akbayan (Citizens' Action Party) in the House of Representatives of the Republic of the Philippines.
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Focus on Trade is a regular electronic bulletin providing updates and analysis of trends in regional and world trade and finance, the political economy of globalisation and peoples resistance, and alternatives to global capitalism. Nicola Bullard edits Focus on Trade. Your contributions and comments are welcome. Write to n.bullard@focusweb.org
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