Guest Writer Fergus: A WTO Protester Diary. The Reasons Not to Support the WTO

Socio-Political Rants

Tuesday December 12th March: 11am starting Victoria Park.
For all events this week, including lectures and seminars: Anti-WTO Events

Video of 11th December Protest

No WTO : Stop Collusion between Government & Business Rally

01(11mb)
http://swtop.no-ip.org/1211rally01.wmv 

02(12mb)
http://swtop.no-ip.org/1211rally02.wmv  

As I have not much involvement or deep knowledge about WTO meetings as well as the protests I was very lucky to find a guest writer for the site. His name is Fergus and he’s one of the 10000 plus foreign protesters who have come to Hong Kong to speak for those people who are being affected by free trade but could never leave their villages.

Fergus is part of the Socialist "International Action" in Britain. Long ago I joined a protest of theirs in London but have no direct connection with the organization. The feelings, statements and politics of this writer is his alone, and will not reflect mine but I welcome his thoughts and passion on these pages no matter how similar or different. I want to learn more about this issue and this is really good chance to hear the thoughts of someone who won’t have this kind of airtime in the mainstream media.

Thank you Fergus for the "front line" reporting. 🙂

yan

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Yesterday saw Hong Kong really become ‘Asia’s World City’ as thousands of protesters from both within the SAR and from abroad came together to show there disgust at the upcoming World Trade Organization 6th Ministerial Conference which is due to start in Wanchai on Tuesday.  The diversity, colour and sense of fun that marked the demonstration will have shocked many Hong Kongers who have been bombarded with scaremongering journalism over the past few weeks.  None of the violence or destruction we were told we would cause came to light.  Instead people will have seen groups of Japanese Fisher folk, Thai farmers, Korean rice growers, domestic helpers, trade unionists, socialists and more come together to  fight against the violence spread across the globe by the WTO.

One of the most noticeable things about the demonstration was the number of Filipino and Indonesian migrant workers.  Choosing Sunday as the day for the protest allowed these women and men who live at the sharp end of globalization in Hong Kong to participate.  The Indonesian Migrants contingent on the demonstration was by far the biggest and brightest, they carried a huge inflatable monster representing the WTO, an organizer told me that there were over 1000 Indonesian migrants on the demonstration.  She was over the moon that these voiceless people who work in the backgrounds, leaving their friends and family for low wages and little respect had had their chance to show the world what they were thinking.

So what then are we all protesting against exactly.  Well, my week started on Sunday night when I went to a meeting hosted by Globalization Monitor from Hong Kong and the international organization Focus on the Global South, where Walden Bello explained what is being discussed at this ministerial.  The three key issues on the agenda will be services, agriculture and NAMA (non-agricultural market access).  Agricultural discussions at the WTO involve the attempt to open up all countries markets to international trade, however agriculture within America and the EU is often subsidized by the governments and so this allows cheap agricultural produce to be dumped on developing nations economies.  This therefore has lead to many peasant farmers across the world being under priced and forced off the land and into poverty. 

In terms of NAMA this is a new proposal being put on the table which is designed to open up all markets to free trade.  This means that tariffs on foreign trade and barriers to trade can be wiped away.  This type of decision will put the environmental and labour concerns within all industries to one side whilst the governments and corporations strive to be more internationally competitive and so to lower wages, increase job insecurity and remove any form of control people had over their economies and lives. 

The third issue being discussed is that of market access to services, we saw with GATTs in the previous round of the WTO how aid and developmental assistance was tied into opening up developing countries to private investment and control on their services, be they water, health care, education etc.  This scheme has lead to untold numbers of people unable to receive the basic human rights of drink water etc as they are priced out of the ‘market’.  Now the idea is to do this across the board.  This will probably be the issue which hits Hong Kong the hardest as whatever public control, accountability or right to access a service which Hong Kongers currently have, will now be taken away into corporate hands and run for profit. 

The range of concerns, leads to the range and diversity of the demonstrators.  Essentially everyone is affected by the decisions taken in Wanchai this week.  We want to have our say and show that another world is not only possible, but necessary.  By the end of the week I want to see the dissolution of the WTO and a change in the raining ideology that profit is right.  People’s rights should be put before the greed of corporate bosses.  This may sound like pie in the sky, but we beat them in Seattle, we beat them in Cancun and if we beat them again in Hong Kong then the whole process will be completely de-legitimized.  Everyone who can should come and be part of creating another sort of world, check out the website www.hkpa-wto.org for details of all the events, and get to Victoria Park on Tuesday to be part of the demonstration against the opening of the WTO 6th Ministerial conference.

Other WTO Protester stories:
The Radical "Target WTO" site
Green Peace Activist Blog

Offical WTO site

Google Search for WTO news Live Updates
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Today’s Protest

Mourn for the death, Stop WTO!

We are yelling for an action:
Date:
12 Dec., 2005 (Mon)
Gathering Point:
Hong Kong Covention and Exhibition Center – Bauhinia Square
(which will be a closed area with effect from 12 Dec 6:00 p.m.)

Schedule:
3:00 p.m. Yelling out for the Spirit
4:00 p.m. Mourn for the death, showing people solidarity