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Saying NO to the WTO

Oread Daily
November 9, 2001

A couple years back 5000 delegates gathered for the World Trade Organization (WTO) meeting in Seattle. The meeting getting under way today in Doha, Qatar has only a few hundred conferees. The thousands who demonstrated on the streets of Seattle are represented by only a few in the Qatar lockdown. The already tight security was beefed up after a lone gunman died in an exchange of gunfire at a US airbase just south of Doha yesterday. The US diverted an amphibious assault ship with a contingent of Marines from the Arabian Sea toward Qatar to be ready "just in case." While there may be few demonstrators on the streets of Doha, protests are already occurring around the world in connection with the meet.

Thousands of Turkish workers marched through the capital Ankara today. Some 10,000 demonstrators - workers from both the private and public sectors as well as students - converged on Ankara's working Sihhiye district. They called on the government to step down and accused its members of blindly following International Monetary Fund measures to resurrect the economy. "We came to bury the government in the grave!" the demonstrators shouted. They also chanted: "Down with the IMF! Independent Turkey!" IMF officials are currently conducting talks in Ankara over Turkey's 2002 budget, which dramatically cuts state spending.. Many also expressed their opposition to the war in Afghanistan. "Everyone is saying no to war, but we are sending soldiers to Afghanistan," said Mustafa Ozgur Unal, a leftist demonstrator. "We want peace." The government deployed 5,000 riot police - including snipers on rooftops and officers on horseback- in case of trouble but there was none.

In Thailand this morning the US embassy was under heavy guard as more than 1000 people from a wide assortment of groups including Assembly of the Poor, NGO-COD, AIDS organizations, environmentalists, agricultural networks, and a variety of labor organizations marched on the complex. The coalition came together to press their demands on a range of issues, including farm products to drugs patents, that are due to be discussed at the WTO ministerial meeting in Qatar.

Around 500 people marched through central Johannesburg today to protest the Doha, meeting, the South African government's participation in it, and the effect of WTO-enforced neoliberalism on South Africa. The march was coordinated by the Johannesburg branch of the Alternative Information and Development Center (AIDC) and included activists from the Soweto Electricity Crisis Committee, Johannesburg Anti Privatization Forum, Kathorus Concerned Residents, Lekoa Vaal Community Forum, Inner City Community Forum, Kwa Thema Unemployed Association, Thembisa Concerned residents, Democratic Socialist Movement, and many other groups. The people came to protest the WTO's proposals to promote privatization of basic services, under the GATS treaty, and prevent the sale and distribution of cheap medicines, under the TRIPS agreements - a genocidal measure in a country like South Africa with a disastrous AIDS epidemic. In a separate protest, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) held a rally in the city, attended by upwards of 600 people, in which they voiced their opposition to the WTO and privatization.

In Melbourne, Australia, a march against war, nationalism, racism, privatization, capitalism and corporate rule took place. Demonstrators carried out a "die in" in front of the immigration and defense departments, and about 100 took part in a mass "fare evasion train jump".

Some NGOs and activists have managed to slip into Doha. Decrying what they called the fundamentalism of free trade, representatives of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) attacked the United States on Friday for seeking to equate the fight against terrorism with the fight for more open world markets. Noting that the policies pushed by Washington and the WTO have been a recipe for poverty and global inequality, Walden Bello, executive director of Focus on the Global South, a Bangkok-based research program commented, "? trade liberalization of the unrestricted sort creates precisely those conditions...that are a breeding ground for terrorism." Some activist groups called for world trade rules to put health before profits. A coalition made up of Oxfam, Medecins Sans Frontieres and Third World Network said 14 million people die each year from otherwise preventable diseases. ``The death toll could be reduced if low-cost drugs were available but (current intellectual property rules) will prevent poor countries buying low-cost drugs,'' they said in a statement. Greenpeace activists aboard their flagship, the Rainbow Warrior, arrived in Doha yesterday. "The WTO came to Qatar to escape the protesters . . . you can run but you can't hide," said Greenpeace International political director Remi Parmentier, adding, "We're here to voice the concerns of millions of people, so we're not going to stay quiet?The WTO wants trade law to supersede environmental law, and we want environmental laws to be on top of trade laws."

Demonstrations are planned in hundreds of cities throughout the world including within the US over the weekend. Sources: AFP, Reuters, South China Morning Post, The Nation (Thailand), Thai Labor Campaign, IMC, S11-Peace, AP, Guardian

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