By Ramesh Jaura

Two major non-governmental organisations have criticised the U.S. and the European Union for their response to the plight of Africans dependent on cotton farming.

Faced by declining world market prices for cotton, a phenomenon that threatens the livelihoods of some 10 million people, four African states - Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad and Mali - have launched the so-called 'cotton initiative'.

In a significant move, government representatives from 146 member states of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) discussed at length the 'cotton initiative' on the very first day of the ministerial meeting that kicked off Wednesday. The discussions at the WTO ministerial session took place two days after 'World Cotton Day' was observed, with discussions among government officials and non-governmental organisations (NGOs).

The European Union (EU) in general and Germany's minister for economic cooperation and development, Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul in particular, backed the cotton day. "The American and European response was a cynical diversionary tactic," Oxfam International said in a comment on the Wednesday discussions at the WTO meeting. "This is the theatre of the absurd," Gawain Kripke of Oxfam told IPS. "While the two subsidy superpowers spend billions and flood the world market with cheap cotton, they bluster about the collapse of cotton prices being caused by good weather and people not wearing enough T-shirts."

The attitudes of the U.S. Administration and the EU boil down to saying that "the plight of millions of cotton farmers is everyone else's fault but theirs," he said. Kripke said the four West African countries had given the WTO its first opportunity in Cancun to show it takes the Doha Development Agenda seriously.

The agenda was agreed two years at a WTO ministerial meeting in the capital of Qatar. Commenting on the Wednesday WTO session, Ibrahim Coulibaly of the Malian cotton producers association said: "Here is a clear case of where the ministers can make a difference. If they fail to act, it threatens the credibility of the world trading system." According to Oxfam, U.S. cotton subsidies are destroying livelihoods in Africa by encouraging over-production and export dumping. Cotton prices have declined by more than 60 percent since 1995. U.S. subsidies to its 25,000 cotton farmers reached 3.9 billion dollars in 2001.

"Against this backdrop", Kripke said, "the West African proposal is a litmus test for the success of the Cancun ministerial. Unless the U.S. and EU start taking responsibility for their destructive trade policies, the credibility of the whole world trade system is threatened." The four African countries have submitted a proposal to the WTO that calls for an end to "unfair subsidies" granted by developed countries to their cotton producers. As an interim measure, they have also proposed that the least developed countries be granted financial compensation for lost export revenues due to those subsidies.

European Union (EU) Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy and Farm Commissioner Franz Fischler have expressed sympathy with the concerns of African countries about the low cotton prices and their impact. Another major NGO, ActionAid is accusing the EU and U.S. of pursuing an anti- development agenda and "making a mockery of Cancun." Adriano Campolina Soares, head of the ActionAid's international team at Cancun says: "The EU still claims that it wants this (the WTO ministerial session) to be a development round. Yet for all its fine language, the EU's proposals attack developing countries in every area of the talks."

According to Soares, internal EU documents seen by ActionAid confirm that the EU has prepared its own anti-development agenda for Cancun. "The omnivorous EU wants to have its cake and eat it - and then gets its hands on our cake too." Evidence of this, according to the two NGOs, is also EU Farm Commissioner Fischler's response to the G-20 developing countries' framework proposal.

Mexican newspaper El Economista's conference daily quoted Fischler saying Wednesday that the developing countries were "asking for the moon" by demanding elimination of subsidies. He warned them not to have "false expectations" about the results of the WTO ministerial conference in Cancun. "I know that the economic negotiations are not lacking in posturing and rhetoric, but you don't need to exaggerate," the newspaper quoted Fischler as saying. "When considering the recent extreme proposal sponsored by countries such as Brazil, China, India and other countries, I can't help but think that we are in different orbits entirely," Fischler said. "If they want to do business, they should put both feet on the ground." He added: "If they want to continue in their space orbit, they will not get the moon and the stars, but rather empty hands."

G-20 reactions to the comment were not available. However, G-20 diplomats said in private that they would continue in their efforts to achieve what they had set out for.

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