This past week political elites, powerful corporate heads, NGOs, representatives of both powerful and small countries, South Korean farmers, Mexican campesinos, feminists, students, the media and many more all converged in Cancun, Mexico. Unfortunately, this diverse group did not meet on equal footing. While monetary and military resources were pooled to keep one side from expressing its opinion to the other outside the conference building, even behind the walls inequality persisted. Developed and developing nations have never been on an equal plane within the World Trade Organization or within the realm of international trade agreements in general. Those with the money have made the rules-perhaps until now. In the face of these inequalities a coalition of developing nations have grown, the G-21, and they have numbers on their side. On Sunday afternoon, the G-21 nations walked out of negotiations and the WTO talks in Cancun, Mexico officially collapsed without reaching any formal agreements.
The collapse is a key victory for developing countries standing united in the face of strong pressure, which made them known as a powerful voice. For the first time, developing countries have taken a stand and refused to be bulldozed by the interests of the United States and the European Union. The G-21 (Argentina, Bolivia, Egypt, Mexico, Nigeria, China... ) stood united on a series of issues including agricultural subsidies, dumping and export subsidies. G-21 countries walked out of talks Sunday afternoon in protests over the push of developed countries to negotiate the \Singapore issues"" and a late night ""green room"" meeting that took place Saturday night.
The ""Singapore issues"" were carried over from the last WTO meeting in Doha, India and include investment, competition policy, government procurement and trade facilitation. The United States and European Union want WTO rules and policies toward the issues clarified or adopted. Since Doha, many developing countries have formally declared that they want the ""Singapore issues"" to be further clarified by break-away groups and not to be a focal point of the talks until after agreement on agricultural issues could be reached. Despite these protests, the issues remained on the agenda of the Cancun meetings. At midnight Saturday, a secret meeting of selected countries from the G-21, and the United States and European Union was held in an attempt to tear apart the coalition of developing countries, ""Green rooms are the closed meetings where the European Union and the United States use high pressure tactics, bribes and threats to force less powerful countries into submission."" However, they remained united in the face of what, for many of the world's people, are emergency issues.
While NGOs and activists declared victory, the United States decried the multilateral process and placed blame on countries more interested in ""making a point than making an agreement."" In a press conference shortly following the collapse U.S. Trade Representative, Robert Zoellick declared, ""The U.N. general assembly has its role; it's not an effective model for trade negotiation in my view... Some countries will need to decide where they want to make a point or make an agreement ... Unfortunately, many smaller developing countries followed this lead. As a result many walked away empty-handed."" There have been rumors that the United States may pull out of the WTO entirely and resort to formulating solely bilateral trade agreements. In a press conference by G-21 representatives they declared a victory in terms of recognition and that they did not believe a collapse of the WTO was imminent. They also stated that they would continue to work in future meetings.
The recent events have proved in many cases to illustrate the problems protesters have had both with the WTO and free-trade agreements, in general. The WTO is and undemocratic, untransparent, and neocolonial group that is weighted in favor of developed nations and multinational corporations. These political elites squabble and grow rich while the poor die of hunger. The ""green room"" meetings and an agenda focused on the Singapore issues clearly point to the fact that the WTO is merely a farce-a justification for developed nations to wield their economic power and influence. As in colonialism, as soon as the less powerful find a way to make the system work to their advantage, the elites change the rules!
Protests against the WTO began in the mid-to-late 90s, shortly after its formal creation in 1994, culminating in the 1999 ""battle for Seattle"" when the talks collapsed and parts of the city shut down. Since Seattle, protection for WTO meetings has increased ten-fold and the massive protests that greet each meeting, as well as astronomical security costs, are now considered part of the routine.
For the participants and those affected across the globe by the trade deals that are negotiate, they are anything but. The policies decided mean life or death for small farmers, developing nations and many other people who do not come directly to mind when theoretical economic decisions are made. In Cancun, thousands of citizens and activists have converged to voice their dissent through song, art and the reclamation of public space. The protests are not for fun: they are ultimately about survival of ways of life and of individuals.
Wednesday, a South Korean farmer and activist, Lee Kyung-hae, stabbed himself in the chest after holding a sign reading ""the WTO kills farmers."" Kyung-hae was a former president of the Korean Advanced Farmer's Federation and his note talked of the ""waves that destroyed our lovely rural communities."" In the past decade the number of small farmers in South Korea has decreased from 10 million to three million. Many of the ex-farmers were forced to flee to urban slums to work low-wage, high labor jobs.
Currently, one of the most pressing issues at hand is that of farm subsidies. Both the European Union and the United States subsidize their farmers with billions of dollars-in some cases up to $200 an acre. Subsidies in combination with U.S. agribusiness give small farmers in small nations no hope of competing. In non-industrialized countries the collapse of agriculture means not only food shortages but the rise of sweatshops and urban slums. The G-21 wants an agreement to end or decrease the subsidies to give them a chance.
The problem with an aristocracy is that the people have no voice and with no voice, no hope. Democracy is meant to create a society where all have an autonomous voice (the poor of the world do not have a voice in the WTO), and when an activist like Lee Kyung-hae kills himself in desperation we must listen:
""I am crying out the words to you that have boiled so long time inside my body.""
