Global Policy Forum

By Gustavo Capdevila

The outbreak of a war against Iraq could weaken the bargaining position of developing countries in the World Trade Organisation (WTO) multilateral trade talks with a view to the ministerial meeting in September in Mexico, warned activists at the World Social Forum taking place in this southern Brazilian city.

There is no doubt that a United States victory in what many see as an impending military strike on Iraq would have a dramatic effect on the WTO talks and other regional or bilateral negotiations, said Paul Nicholson, with the Spanish branch of Via Campesina, an international network of peasant, small farmer and indigenous organisations.

The difficulties facing developing countries in the run-up to the WTO ministerial meeting in Mexico were discussed by Nicholson and other experts in a panel Saturday, the third day of the World Social Forum (WSF) which has drawn tens of thousands of activists and left-leaning politicians and intellectuals to Porto Alegre from Jan 23-28.

Keeping a close eye on and protesting the war would consume a large part of the energy of civil society, said Martin Khor, with the Malaysia-based Third World Network.

Khor said a war on Iraq would divert the attention of developing countries from the WTO negotiations ahead of the September ministerial meeting in the southwestern Mexican resort town of Cancun.

That could enable the United States, the European Union and other industrialised nations to force the rest of the world's governments to accept the start of negotiations on new issues in the WTO, he predicted.

The WTO, which coordinates the multilateral trade system, is involved in talks aimed at the further opening up of the world's markets.

The main negotiations are focusing on trade in agricultural products and services, as well as the question of enforcement of prior agreements and the developing world's demand for special and differential treatment to compensate for the smaller size of their economies.

In Cancun, the 145 WTO member countries are to reach a decision on the industrialised world's goal of starting talks on investment, competition and government procurements -- the three ''new issues'' mentioned by Khor.

The countries of the North are also applying pressure to reach agreement on new WTO standards that would strengthen the power of transnational corporations and their attempt to absorb small and medium farms as well as industry in developing nations, said the activist.

At the last WTO ministerial conference, held in Doha, Qatar in late 2001, the United States was able to ''use the events of September 11'' (the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington that year) to press the rest of the nations to accept its proposals, argued Khor.

Stanley A. Gacek, with the U.S. AFL-CIO labour federation, called for a consolidation of the coalition of ''progressive forces'' that has emerged in the United States and Canada against the threatened war against Iraq.

The warmongering of the U.S. government of George W. Bush has strengthened civil society and public opinion in the United States, according to Gacek.

The panel of experts meeting at the WSF in Porto Alegre also discussed the relationship between the WTO talks and the negotiations for the creation of a Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA) among 34 nations -- all of the countries in the hemisphere except Cuba.

Gacek observed that the process of creating the FTAA, in which investment and trade interests have predominated so far, could see a shift now that leftist former steelworker Luiz Inácio ''Lula'' da Silva is president of Brazil, given his emphasis on an integration process that would also put priority on political and social aspects.

Khor underlined that there are similarities between the FTAA and WTO negotiations, and recommended that civil society and developing countries closely follow both processes.

As the Cancun conference approaches, civil society should alternate the strategy of lobbying with protests and demonstrations to press the demands of the developing South, said U.S. activist Lori Wallach with Public Citizen, the consumer advocacy organisation founded by Ralph Nader.

Civil society in each country must determine the methods with which it will carry out its campaign of opposition to the new WTO reforms, said Wallach. The aim is to check the WTO, and keep things from getting worse, she added.

Alejandro Ramos Hernández, with the committee set up in Cancun to welcome civil society organisations planning to take part in the ''anti-globalisation'' protests surrounding the upcoming WTO conference, said the Mexican government had already begun making arrangements to keep demonstrators from approaching the site of the meeting.

Mexican authorities are also planning on building a barracks to house special federal police contingents, he said, adding that special police agents who have been dubbed ''robotoks'' can already be seen on the streets of Cancun, even though there are still eight months to go before the conference.

Wallach called on activists who planned to travel to Cancun to use an application form available on the WTO web site (http.www.wto.org) to seek accreditation for attending the ministerial conference.

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