By R.C. Longworth
Chicago TribuneAugust 20, 2001
In a step that could signal a more unified opposition in the battle over globalization, non-governmental organizations are considering creating an "all-star" team to replace the babel of protest groups that have produced noisy and often violent backdrops to recent global economic meetings. The idea is one of a flurry of countermeasures to make their voices heard. It was born of necessity after the World Trade Organization severely cut the number of unofficial observers and protesters who will be allowed at the next big WTO meeting in the Persian Gulf state of Qatar in November.
The collaboration of non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, all opposed to unregulated globalization but in the past each pushing its own agenda, could be a crucial step toward a unified movement protesting government and corporate control of globalization. "This would be a civil-society delegation," said Mark Ritchie, president of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, a Minneapolis-based NGO that came up with the idea. "It's complex and it has never been done, and we don't want to make any wrong moves, but it could be the wave of the future."
After the WTO's last big meeting, in Seattle in late 1999, collapsed in the face of mass protests and street riots, the group scheduled its next ministerial meeting Nov. 9-13 in Doha, the capital of Qatar, an isolated and easily defended peninsula jutting from the east coast of Saudi Arabia. The choice of Qatar has since become an embarrassment for the WTO. Qatar has no tradition of democracy and little tolerance for dissent. It also is a tiny place, with barely 700,000 people, and has insufficient capacity to handle all the government delegations, news media, NGOs, protesters, experts and technicians who flock to big international meetings.
Just how restricted that capacity is became clear last week when WTO Director General Mike Moore sent a letter to the 647 NGOs that had requested accreditation, telling them they each could send only one delegate. Given Qatar's ability to close its borders, that means the 30,000 to 50,000 protesters and unofficial delegates that came to Seattle and to later global meetings in Washington, Quebec and Genoa, Italy, would be replaced by 647 people. In fact, there will be room in Qatar for only 4,400 delegates and other participants. By contrast, Seattle drew about 7,200, a figure that includes 2,990 official delegates from governments and international organizations, 2,700 journalists and 1,500 NGO delegates, not counting the tens of thousands of outsiders who descended on the city to protest, peacefully or violently. Seattle brought so much attention to the WTO that more thousands certainly would come to Qatar if not for the lack of hotel rooms and other facilities.
A crippling restriction
Most NGOs travel light, but even these typically cash-strapped organizations need analysts, spokespeople, secretarial help and other aides to keep track of the WTO meeting, mount effective opposition and communicate all that to the media. With only one delegate per NGO, such work would be crippled. Ritchie, who proposed the "all-star" idea, argued that 647 one-person delegations would be 647 different versions of ineffectiveness. Instead, he issued a plea to each of the organizations to put their individual accreditations into a pool. Each organization would have a vote to elect a committee of trusted NGO leaders, who then would choose a unified delegation. This delegation, he said, would be carefully balanced so the many NGO interests--such as environment, labor, food groups, public health, Third World issues, education--would be represented. At the same time, he said, technicians and other aides could be included to build an effective delegation. So far, he said, about 20 percent of the NGOs have turned him down but about 50 percent have said yes. He said he would be satisfied with a "civil-society delegation" of about 50 groups.
"This is an excellent idea," said Anuradha Mittal, co-director of Food First, an Oakland-based NGO. "We're going to give up our slot. This is a whole new form of organization. It takes us beyond single-issue advocacy, past the time when we focused on just one issue, say, agriculture." Global Trade Watch, a Washington-based arm of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen and one of most visible NGOs dealing with trade issues, indicated sympathy for the idea but wanted to hear more before deciding to go along. "More people are getting more creative in getting our message home," said Margrete Strand, field director at Global Trade Watch. "Doha makes it clear that you have to think about pooling. In fact, ever since Seattle, there has been an increased focus on the need for cooperation and joint strategy." But Global Trade Watch hopes to have its own delegate in Doha, she said, and it won't make any decision on joining a unified delegation "until we hear more."
Steve Kretzman, an analyst with the Institute of Policy Studies in Washington, expressed skepticism. "The devil is in the details," Kretzman said. If a unified delegation is to work, he said, its selection "must be as transparent as possible. It needs to be handled in an extraordinarily careful way by the NGOs."
Even WTO supportive
Ritchie said the WTO was surprisingly sympathetic to his idea. "They know they're going to look bad" at Qatar, he said. "So they see some positive benefits from this." The biggest problem, one source said, is persuading national governments to trim their delegations. About 170 governments will be represented in Qatar and some, including the United States, usually bring delegations of 150 or more. The WTO, he said, cannot order nations to cut delegations, "so it's going to be a diplomatic chore to cut them back."
With most protesters locked out of Qatar, other demonstrations around the world are scheduled, including protests in New York City, a parade in London and a World Forum on the WTO in Beirut. Some NGOs are even talking about a "free-trade flotilla" of ships from Beirut and India to Qatar that would anchor offshore and provide living space for protesters.
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