Background
| First update | Second
Update
Sisal vs. Steel | Lee
Kyung Hae | "Blessings
Victory | To Presbyterians
| Ag Subsidies 101
September
8 ~ Fair Trade Fair and the WTO
Tomorrow
morning I fly to Cancun, not for vacation (alas), but to
participate in the Fair Trade Expo and Symposium, which
the PHP helped to finance. Your PHP is also providing scholarships
to bring the President, Zulema Mena de Gonzalez, of the
"New Life" Cooperative (Cooperativa Maquiladora
Mujeres de Nueva Vida) in Nicaragua - the makers of our
Sweat-Free T-shirts, and Mike Woodard from the Jubilee House
Community, the Nicaraguan faith-based community development
organization that has been assisting the women.
The
Fair Trade Fair will demonstrate to economic ministers and
the media from around the world a people-oriented, successful,
albeit fledgling, alternative to WTO-style trade, which
has tended to bolster the largest, capital-rich firms and
agribusinesses at the expense of smaller producers. The
advantages of WTO rules mostly accrue to richer countries,
and domestic protections - including environmental laws
and supports to less established businesses - are outlawed
and subject to rulings by an unelected WTO council.
[*
NOTE: As you know, the mainstream media tends to prey on
sensational acts like vultures to roadkill, so remember
the little you might see or hear about Cancun from your
newspaper or TV over the next week is heavily weighted.
As always, the peaceful and justice-loving throngs outnumber
the few violent provocateurs by thousands. http://www.tradeobservatory.org/News/
would be one good source for alternative news on Cancun.
Those who like the Utne Reader can read dispatches from
Cancun, also. www.utne.com
]
Fair
Trade producer groups from more than 100 countries will
be serving community and cooperative-made coffee, chocolate,
bananas, crafts, apparel, and on and on, while a three-day
symposium on Fair Trade and Sustainable Development brings
together great visionaries, such as Vandana Shiva and Nobel
Peace Prize Laureate Rigoberta Menchu, to chart out a path
to global economic justice.
As
PHP is a partner of the Rural Coalition and Agricultural
Missions, I will be meeting with those capable (and more
experienced than I at such mass gatherings) groups to strategize
ways to push for the removal of agricultural trade from
WTO jurisdiction, and to network with WTO official reps.
I also hope to meet representatives from SweatFree Communities,
Maggie's Organics and several PHP grantees involved in fair
trade - Coop America, TransFair USA, Peace Through Interamerican
Community Action, Center of Concern, National Family Farm
Coalition, Community Food Security Coalition, National Catholic
Rural Life Conference, Missouri Rural Crisis Center, and
the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy.
I
am credentialed to observe (participate?) in WTO Ministerial
meetings and hope to get a glimpse of the inner chambers.
An excellent overview with what's on the agenda for the
WTO in Cancun can be found on the Friends of the Earth International
site at http://www.foei.org/cancun/what.html
(For the WTO perspective on what the WTO is, see http://www.wto.org/english/thewto_e/whatis_e/whatis_e.htm)
I
will attempt to find a free computer in an internet cafe
to send you all an update or two during the events. Don't
feel at all obliged to read them, since they might be more
than you ever wanted to know about trade - fair or "free."
Yours
in Christ,
andrew
September
10 ~ First Update from Cancun
[Hi
all, the difficulty of getting around barricades and traffic
jams, and the busy schedule don't allow me to make it to
the NGO center to a computer often. This is my first time
since Tuesday.]
The
blistering wet heat of the day was finally relenting as
a Caribbean Sea breeze tossed the hair of about 400 people
on the roof of the Fair Trade Fair building here in Cancun
last night. Rigoberta Menchu was giving an impassioned speech
about the suffering of poor people due to World Trade Organization
rules that benefitted only large companies, the richer countries
and the rich within poor countries. The Foreign Minister
of Sweeden had finished speaking and the Foreign Minister
of Mexico hadn't yet smashed away at a giant piñata
filled with Fair Trade chocolate.
Yet,
I was feeling conflicted. Mark Ritchie, head of the IATP,
the main organizer of the event, had just announced the
sponsors of this historic Fair Trade Fair - the Ford Foundation,
Oxfam International, Denmark's Ministry for Foreign Affairs,
the Swiss Secretariat for Economic Affairs, the North American
Free Trade Agreements' (NAFTA) Commission for Environmental
Cooperation (CEC) and the PRESBYTERIAN HUNGER PROGRAM.
I
hadn't known they were soliciting funds from two of the
main purveyors of a development model and economic globalization
agenda that has contributed amply to the crisis of rural
families throughout the world - the World Bank and, since
1994, NAFTA (in this case, a kinder, gentler side of NAFTA,
the CEC.)
Here
in Mexico, NAFTA is credited with forcing as many as 2 million
farmers into bankruptcy as industrial corn growers in the
United States take advantage of the open trading border
and export millions of pounds of corn, where corn has been
the life-blood and cultural icon of the people. Doing the
math, for every 10 tons of corn we export to Mexico, two
farming families are displaced from their land. If they
don't end up searching for jobs in overcrowded Mexican cities
with tremendous unemployment rates, they brave the wide,
harsh desert to enter the U.S. - if they make it alive.
I was embarrassed to be announced and in the program along
with these entities.
But
okay, okay, Andrew. Alas, we live with contradictions and
compromise even our heart-felt values on a daily basis.
Indeed, the World Bank and CEC are getting public relations
points for their sponsorship. On the other hand, in this
case they are using a small amount of their funds for a
good cause. But, I thought, perhaps - in the program booklet
- they could have made the size of sponsors' logos based
on the proportion of our contributions to our budgets! PHP
would have been enormous; the World Bank would have been
the size of this sentence's period.
Shaking
these thoughts, I look around at the handfuls of trade ministers
and governmental delegates mingling among the great numbers
of people from non-governmental organizations from all over
the world. I see many from organizations that the PC(USA)
has partnered with (some I mentioned in my initial email).
And the symposium workshops were well attended and invigorating.
Already on its first day, the Fair Trade Fair and Symposium
has been a success
People
drinking, eating and networking stay on after the planned
ending time until a rain cloud blots out the moon and Mars
and drenches all without discrimination. Several of us use
the Fair Trade Fair banner as a group umbrella and enjoy
the crowded comraderie.
Soon
the rain lets up and I realize that Fair Trade is coming
of age. Never has it had this kind of exposure. I am proud
of the PC(USA) work to support this life-giving alternative
through Enough for Everyone and Joining Hands Against Hunger.
Finally,
the gorgeous sparkling ocean called yet louder, and brother
Stephen and a friend from Land Loss Prevention Project decided
to take the plunge - clothes and all. Well, Stephen had
has suit on underneath.
Sending
you hot regards from Cancun,
Andrew
P.S.
I just returned from one of the many parallel meetings and
conferences happening in the city of Cancun, where farmers
and students are camping - by the thousands - in parks and
a baseball stadium. I attended an outdoor forum sponsored
by another of our partners through the Environmental Justice
Office - the Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras,
heard horrifying sweatshop stories from workers in Mexico
and Central America.
Then
I stopped in the Casa de la Cultura where people had created
a beautiful circle and cross with a hundred or more candles
with the handsome photos of Lee Kyung-hae, the 55-year-old
former president of a Korean farmers' organization who committed
stabbed himself in the heart to express his outrage and
despair against the WTO. He climbed up onto the fence of
the barricade which kept the farmers from nearing the WTO
negotiations. His sign said, WTO Kills Farmers. I said a
prayer for him and especially for his three daughters and
wife. How very sad that a life-giving occupation - feeding
people - has been turned into a simple commodity. I vow
to attempt to buy all my food from local farmers, not from
the handful of supermarket chains that treat food as a profit-making
commodity.
September
11 ~ Second Update from Cancun
Friends,
I write to you now before the weekend, since by the time
Monday rolls around, the WTO negotiators will have achieved
their objectives or not.
However
they turn out, the impact - positive or negative - will
be tremendous, since the rules on trade being debated determine
the viability of common people's livelihoods - farmers,
consumers, other laborers and the unemployed. And people
who care about social justice and building a peaceable kingdom
on this precious planet of ours.
Here
in the NGO center computer room, the clatter of thousands
of keys is bright white noise, as reporters send stories
to their papers and organizational representatives send
the latest updates.
Outside,
the sun beats down relentlessly on the few tourists that
continue to brave the road blocks and long trips forced
by the high security. And it hits the trees shading the
students in hammocks waiting for the next march, street
drama and major wake memorial service for the Korean farm
leaders, Mr. Lee, whose self-immolation continues to resonate.
His expression, like the Buddhist monks who burned themselves
during the Vietnam War, has added gravity to the WTO proceedings
and opposing and alternative forums. These are life and
death issues.
The
sun strikes the permanent encampments of the 250 Korean
farmers, teachers and factory union members and leaders
in the traffic circle where Mr. Lee fell. The Koreans share
their food among themselves and others that come to offer
condolences and signs of solidarity. They maintain the altar
and hold constant vigil.
Yet,
the sun fails to reach the chilled hall of the convention
center - enclosed within fences of metal and iron - where
trade ministers meet and discuss their national positions
based on economic calculations that neglect social and environmental
costs.
And
the questions swirl around -
What
impact if any do the protests and marches have on the hearts
and minds of the trade ministers?
How
do WE reduce the suffering caused by so much of economic
globalization, which the WTO rules attempt to institutionalize?
And
who is WE?
Certainly
the skillful organizers of dozens of NGOs from around the
world working tirelessly day and night here to educate the
media and negotiators about the negative effects of corporate-controlled
globalization.
Certainly
the thousands of students and farmers who traveled - sometimes
for days on buses - to call for humane, democratic and just
policies.
Certainly
the religious folk here from all parts of the world who
have faith that God works through us to realize justice
and communion.
Certainly
you and me.
But
the "how" remains the challenge. How to stay true
to what we believe? How to live out our faith daily? How
to raise up our voices against the injustices and for a
vision of a just world as Christ did. As always, we must
make the road by walking it.
Let
the sun shine down on us and the path, and brighten all
of our hearts.
Warmly,
andrew
September
12 ~ Sisal vs. Steel
This
Saturday evening, I write to you with some trepidation since
my mind is fuzzy, my body sticky with sweat and dust, and
fatigue like I have not felt in years sets in, and I want
to skillfully convey the community that was built on the
streets of Cancun this day.
The
Fair Trade Fair and Sustainable Trade Symposium had finished,
so many of our new friends from the Fair had taken the hour-long
trip (usually 15 minutes if the police had not closed down
the main road up the peninsula) from the Hotel Zone to the
city center to march for non-exploitative trade agreements
and fair trade.
The
two thousand or so marchers amassed in front of the giant
barricades. Hundreds of students, farmers, workers and heaved
on the thick sisal rope, braided together with many shorter
and thinner strands. Indeed, this was a rope to bargain
with.
Yet,
the ten-foot tall barricades were ten foot tall, lashed
together with giant U-bolts and chains. And they were three
fences deep!
One
middle-aged Korean man, primarily, was commandeering the
positioning and tying off the two ropes at the top of strategic
sections. And after 20 minutes or an hour of preparation,
people would strain on the ropes, the metal would creak
and lift and usually drop down almost where it started.
But
they were persistent and kept at it for hours in the middle
day heat.
Twenty
yards down the barricade, which spanned a divided two-lane
highway and a wide grassy area, were half a dozen women
with wire and bolt cutters, who - chain link by chain link
- like tiny beavers, were creating holes. When almost through,
the lines of gray riot police with shields, masks and helmets
closed in and set up more barricades inside.
Behind
the workers, milled people from dozens of countries - while
there were numerous gray-haired folk, the average age was
probably 30 - there to express their opposition to an economic
governing body elected by no one, whose disputes are judged
by selected technocrats - the World Trade Organization.
As
I wandered and took photos, I met a staff person from Church
World Service, Maryknoll folk, Central American missionaries,
leaders of the National Catholic Rural Life Conference,
young Japanese from environmental groups, an former colleague
from Brazil, Mexicans, Canadians, Koreans, students from
the new U.S. United Students for Fair Trade, and so many
other new and old friends.
All
this time, the Korean farmers and workers kept at it, supported
by a myriad hands on the homemade ropes. Periodically, everyone
would raise their cheers as they pulled on the fence and
- piece by piece - the iron and steel gave with groans and
high-pitched squeels.
After
a good three hours, the fence - with many fits and starts
- gave way, almost dislodging the many media cameramen and
photographers from their perches on the barricade on all
sides.
Now,
the barricade was gone. Still, hundreds of riot police,
a tank-like vehicle with tear gas and water cannons, more
squadrons of federal police and riot police, and six and
a half miles of road peppered with four more manned barricades
lay between us and the WTO Convention Center. What to do.
The
anarchists, some with a telephone poll, others with metal
poles, all with helmets, pads and bandanas, certainly had
their agenda. But the Korean leaders were successful in
having a thousand or so of those up close sit as they and
others spoke of their opposition to the WTO´s agenda
to make the world safe for corporate rule.
To
make a long, long day´s story short, the entire crowd
and police were silent during a memorial for the farm leader,
Lee, who had given his life for the struggle - punctuated
by the occasional cell phone. Then a symbol of the WTO was
burned, the anarchists, yes, added a U.S. flag to the flames,
and the ceremonies were finished.
We
were not going in. And then the celebration began. Drummers
from many countries, a drum corp mostly from the U.S., with
jazzy trumpets and dancers played as they wound through
the crowds, and Korean cymbal players joined in the party.
People danced and laughed, a huge snake dance boggied to
the rhythm and tunneled through people with hands grasped
above them. Everyone was clapping, smiling, stomping and
playing.
The
sisal had vanquished the steel. The steel from which weapons
are made to take or protect, the steel that locks so many
out of the riches of the planet to which all should equally
have access, the steel fences within which the WTO officials
struggled to enforce their vision of a top-down global economy
- that steel was torn down. And all of us could see in.
The message seemed to be, we are vigilant and will not prevent
you from selling away our democracy, our faith in people,
and our hope for a just world.
We
were a community, there on the streets of Cancun, one I
can´t imagine any of us forgetting. A lump comes to
my throat, as I think of the many faces of people today
who love and care for the world so much that they would
give so much of themselves. I am sad, but also somehow feel
powerful and proud, as I think of Mr. Lee, who made the
ultimate statement and sacrifice. So clearly, from the crowded
wakes held and the respect it garned, his expression was
like a salve over all of us, helping us to remember the
value of life and what is truly important. Life with dignity,
life with hope, life with love. And this remembrance was
like thousands of threads of sisal, tying us to one another,
tying us together with all of our relations and all of those
we care about - a gorgeous web. A glimpse of the unity to
be found in God´s kin-dom.
andrew
September
14 ~ In Memory of Lee Kyung Hae
Dear
friends,
On
this Sunday morning, still in Cancun, I am attaching for
you a short piece which gives the farm leader´s final
sentiments. It is a powerful.
Peace,
andrew
P.S.
The WTO negotiations have been extended by a day as they
attempt to salvage the talks, primarily due to the gulf
between the US and European Union on one side, and the Group
of 22, led by Brazil and backed by the significant presence
of China and India, who demand cutting US and EU agricultural
subsidies, the bulk of which end up in the hands of huge
agribusiness.
"The
WTO Kills Farmers:"
In Memory of Lee Kyung Hae
Americas Program, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
www.americaspolicy.org
On
September 10, opening day of the Fifth Ministerial of the
World Trade Organization, Lee Kyung Hae climbed the fence
that separates the excluded from the included and took his
life with a knife to the heart.
Lee,
leader of the Korean Federation of Advanced Farmers Association,
had been excluded for most of his professional life. A farmer
working with farmers, he watched as hundreds of his neighbors
were driven off their lands and separated from the only
livelihood they knew. He spoke eloquently and passionately
of the death of hope in the Korean countryside, the sense
of impotence and the anger against policies that promoted
imports over national production.
So
Lee decided to fight that exclusion by going straight to
its source. Earlier this year, he staged a one-man hunger
strike in front of WTO headquarters in Geneva, in protest
of the draft proposals for the Cancun meeting. He was ignored.
Seven months later, he joined the march of over 15,000 farmers,
indigenous people, and youth in Cancun wearing a sandwich
board that read "The WTO Kills Farmers" and holding
a firm conviction in his still-beating heart. When the protesters
reached the point where they could go no farther, he plunged
a knife into his heart and was soon pronounced dead in a
Cancun hospital just miles from where WTO Ministers deliberated
on how to promote the same agricultural trade that drove
Lee, and hundreds more farmers in Korea, India, and other
developing countries, to such a drastic end.
But
it is a more fitting tribute to let Lee tell his own story,
from a statement he distributed in Geneva and later minutes
before his death in Cancun:
I
am 56 years old, a farmer from South Korea who has strived
to solve our problems with the great hope in the ways to
organize farmers' unions. But I have mostly failed, as many
other farm leaders elsewhere have failed.
Soon
after the Uruguay Round Agreement was sealed, we Korean
farmers realized that our destinies are no longer in our
own hands. We cannot seem to do anything to stop the waves
that have destroyed our communities where we have been settled
for hundreds of years. To make myself brave, I have tried
to find the real reason and the force behind those waves.
And I reached the conclusion, here in front of the gates
of the WTO. I am crying out my words to you, that have for
so long boiled in my body:
I
ask: for whom do you negotiate now? For the people, or for
yourselves?
* Stop basing your WTO negotiations on flawed logic and
mere diplomatic gestures.
* Take agriculture out of the WTO system.
* Since (massive importing) we small farmers have never
been paid over our production costs. What would be your
emotional reaction if your salary dropped to a half without
understanding the reasons?
Farmers
who gave up early have gone to urban slums. Others who have
tried to escape from the vicious cycle have met bankruptcy
due to accumulated debts. For me, I couldn't do anything
but just look around at the vacant houses, old and eroding.
Once I went to a house where a farmer abandoned his life
by drinking a toxic chemical because of his uncontrollable
debts. I could do nothing but listen to the howling of his
wife. If you were me, how would you feel?
Widely
paved roads lead to large apartments, buildings, and factories
in Korea. Those lands paved now were mostly rice paddies
built by generations over thousands of years. They provided
the daily food and materials in the past. Now the ecological
and hydrological functions of paddies are even more crucial.
Who will protect our rural vitality, community traditions,
amenities, and environment?
I
believe that farmers' situation in many other developing
countries is similar. We have in common the problem of dumping,
import surges, lack of government budgets, and too many
people. Tariff protection would be the practical solution.
I
have been so worried watching TV and hearing the news that
starvation is prevalent in many Less Developed Countries,
although the international price of grain is so cheap. Earning
money through trade should not be their means of securing
food. They need access to land and water. Charity? No! Let
them work again!
My
warning goes out to all citizens that human beings are in
an endangered situation. That uncontrolled multinational
corporations and a small number of big WTO Members are leading
an undesirable globalization that is inhumane, environmentally
degrading, farmer-killing, and undemocratic. It should be
stopped immediately. Otherwise the false logic of neoliberalism
will wipe out the diversity of global agriculture and be
disastrous to all human beings.
Laura
Carlsen <laura@irc-online.org>
is director of the IRC's Americas Program. She wrote this
commentary from Cancun, Mexico.
Counting
my "blessings"
14
September 2003
Yes,
I counted my blessings last night that I could go back to
a clean hotel room and cold shower, and sleep in relative
peace. Yet the irony did not escape me. In my email last
night, I spoke of the amazing community that was built.
But as we parted from the friends we shared dinner with,
the community shifted from something tangible to something
abstract.
Most
the students - at some point during the night - returned
to their shared hostel rooms with fans at best, or to sleep
in stuffy tents or on clammy tarps in a municipal baseball
stadium. If the mosquitoes let them sleep at all, they work
covered in sweat to the unrelenting tropical heat. Their
budgets allowed them to eat tacos in Palapa Park, so at
least no one went hungry. Food Not Bombs, also, was there
to help feed any pesoless folk. But today and tomorrow,
they will board dozens of buses to return to the schools,
while I sit in this air conditioned Cancun terminal, waiting
for my 3:45 flight.
On
the other hand, there are overlooked advantages on the other
side. While I went on about the community that was built
out in the streets during those hours taking down the barricade
and the celebrations that followed, those students and farmers
have been experiencing variations of community like that
ever since they started their grueling road trip from Mexico
City or Chiapas or many other locations.
In
fact, when we offered one of the young people our room's
extra bed, without hesitation, they turned us down, and
explained with a sparkle in their eyes that, while they
were nine people packed like sardines, it was wonderful.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If
you still want more, you can see a series of reports from
colleagues at the National Catholic Rural Life Conference,
which includes updates from brother Stephen Bartlett, a
couple of my reports, and reports from NCRLC staff. http://www.ncrlc.com/NCRLC-at-Cancun-for-WTO.html
The
daily reports from Food First staff are also very good -
http://www.foodfirst.org/wto/dailyreports.php
VICTORY
for Global Civil Society
Dear Friends,
This is my final email (which I'm sending prior to a couple
others since I prepared it first and wish to send it prior
to my computer crashing) with a statement by Lori Wallach
of Ralph Nader's Public Citizen, one of the main organizers
of the "inside" actions at the WTO. They have
lots of excellent information for further reading at http://www.publiccitizen.org/trade/wto/
Thanks for sticking with me on these!
Warmly, andrew
Sept.
15, 2003
Victory
for Global Civil Society, Developing Nations as U.S.-EU-Japan
Agenda for Major Expansion of WTO Corporate Agenda is Defeated
at Cancun WTO Ministerial
U.S.
and EU Intransigence Exposes WTO's Growing Crisis of Legitimacy;
Sends Debate on Future of Corporate Globalization and WTO
Home to Nations Worldwide
Statement
of Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen's Global Trade
Watch
The
WTO's ever-growing crisis of legitimacy has burst into public
view again as the WTO's Cancun Ministerial summit collapsed
this weekend when the United States and Europe stubbornly
rejected the demands of the majority of the organization's
signatory nations to make global trade rules fairer.
The
economic and environmental damage and social upheaval experienced
in scores of nations implementing the WTO rules over the
past nine years translated into a rejection of business-as-usual
at the WTO, with a majority of nations demanding negotiation
instead of dictation of WTO terms by the United States,
Europe and the WTO staff. Many U.S. civil society groups
sided with the poor nations, admonishing the United States
for bullying and threatening other nations and clarifying
for negotiators and the press that the Bush administration's
agenda at the WTO summit did not represent the interests
of most U.S. citizens, but instead suited the large corporations
bankrolling Bush's re-election effort.
The
Bush administration calls itself the great promoter of democracy,
free trade and the global trade system, but it just caused
the WTO summit to implode by rejecting the demands of the
majority of WTO signatory nations - which wanted a little
democracy, free trade and multilateralism - after those
countries refused to simply sign off on the corporate agenda
pushed by the United States and its small, rich-country
coalition of corporate shills.
The
United States, the EU, Japan and a few other developed nations
were seeking an agreement to launch negotiations to expand
the WTO's scope by adding a list of new WTO agreements that
now appear only in the North American Free Trade Agreement
(NAFTA) and that provide more privileges for foreign investors,
constrain countries' domestic procurement and food and product
inspection policies, and dictate other domestic policies
of WTO signatories. (For a full list of the proposed WTO
expansion agenda items, click http://www.publiccitizen.org/documents/Cancunchecklist.pdf.)
The majority of the WTO's signatories, which are developing
countries, in contrast demanded that the serious problems
in the existing WTO rules be the focus of future WTO negotiations.
Global civil society groups have called for the WTO to "Shrink
or Sink," demanding 11 transformational changes to
existing rules, including elimination of the WTO's inappropriate
one-size-fits-all rules that constrain governments' domestic
polices, and a rewrite of the trade rules to make them more
broadly beneficial.
Now
the fight goes to each country and the WTO's Geneva headquarters.
In nations around the world, elected officials and those
on the campaign trail - including U.S. presidential candidates
- will be asked what they intend to do to transform the
failed WTO rules and its version of corporate globalization
rejected in Cancun into a trade system that benefits the
majority of people worldwide.
Special
Message to Presbyterians
Good morning,
Below this initial message is a very short piece written
especially for those of us in leadership positions in the
PCUSA.
But before
that, on a related issue, I wanted to mention that I've
been asked to represent the PCUSA at a meeting in Niagara
Falls on Oct. 1-2 on the Churches Consultation on Globalization:
Just Trade Agreements?, which includes Canadian, US and
Mexican churches. This is a preparatory meeting leading
up to the Final Consulation in January 2004 to describe
and help bring focus to North American churches' educational
and advocacy plans around economic globalization and trade
issues.
I am very
eager to hear from all of you how unjust trade and economic
globalization is affecting communities and churches that
you work with. Stories from our church and community partners
are the most effective way to bring awareness, understanding
and action, so please let me know if you have any. These
can be stories from a rural church, groups dealing with
new immigrants, or overseas partner churches or communities.
Just steer me to them. Thank you!
*
* *
WHAT
TOOK THE WTO DOWN?
The
failures of this 5th WTO Ministerial are a strong blow to
the Free Trade Areas of the Americas. Hopes of a final FTAA
agreement in 2005 grew dimmer as positions hardened on both
sides, and the poorer countries came together as a block
in the Group of 23.
Washington
is scrambling to salvage what they can of the WTO and the
White House is threatening to remove preferential trading
status from Mexico and others in Latin America who opposes
the U.S. agenda.
Nevertheless,
the Republicans are wielding tremendous political power
recently, and if we are to help prevent our country from
pushing free corporate trade on the rest of the Americas,
we will need to deploy all the tools and resources available
to ensure that the failures of NAFTA are not institutionalized
in the form of an unjust trade agreement.
You
and I as Presbyterians, and especially as national leaders
of the denomination, have our education, access to alternative
media and analysis, and other opportunities to understand
the negative impacts of NAFTA, for example, and can predict,
based on the policies of future agreements, the impact those
will have.
And
like it or not, we are obliged by our choosing Jesus as
our Lord, to stand with the oppressed (even, ironically,
as we often stand on them!).
Here
is something I saw that relates to those voices which need
to be heard and echoed.
In
the Fair Trade Fair and Sustainable Trade Symposium were
people from producer groups in the Americas, Africa and
Asia. I spoke to many, especially from Mexico and Central
America, and heard about the conditions of poverty they
live in. The few who knew about the FTAA were adamant in
their opposition and in their understanding that their communities
would be impoverished further. But most didn't know about
the FTAA or had no idea about what the effects of NAFTA
have been; some didn't even know the WTO Ministerials were
happening just three miles down the peninsula!
These
coffee, tequila, blanket, crafts, tamarind jam, chocolate
producers and craftspeople understand so much about their
situation and usually have a very sophisticated analysis,
but many do not understand how FTAA would affect their communities.
All
this to say that we must raise our voices in a clear cry
for justice, care for creation and for moral trade. Plus,
our General Assembly has called on us to do so!
Agricultural
Subsidies 101
I'm attaching
this piece that I wrote on the plane between Cancun and
Atlanta. I believe it will give you a better feel for the
issue that was the center of what took down the WTO Ministerials.
Yours,
andrew
Agricultural
subsidies are at the core of the irreconcilable divide between
the rich and poorer countries. But let's take a quick look
at the issue.
For
many months, Kathy Ozer, director of the National Family
Farm Coalition, a long time partner of the PC(USA) Rural
Ministry Office and the Hunger Program, has been trying
to explain the subsidies issue to me.
Finally,
after more conversations and a presentation by Daniel de
la Torre Ugarte, a Peruvian professor at the University
of Tennessee - who together with colleagues just completed
an excellent study on the real impact of subsidies and the
impact on prices once they are removed - I think I got it.
It
can get complex, but let me try to explain it briefly. First,
let me say that if subsidies are not at the crux of the
debate, then they are a diversion from the real issue -
namely, the methods used by the oligopoly (for now defined
simply as when fewer than four companies control over 40%
of an industry) of agricultural corporations to keep
agricultural products below the price of production. When
these cheap goods are dumped on other countries, farmers
cannot compete and suffer or go bankrupt. So that is
one of the punch lines.
Why
subsidies alone are not the issue.
As background,
