|
Bloodshet mars cancun summit { September 11 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id=BF5339A7-F92D-4058-A341-BBE72DE57E13http://www.nationalpost.com/financialpost/story.html?id=BF5339A7-F92D-4058-A341-BBE72DE57E13
Bloodshed mars cancun WTO summit
Rich and poor countries squabble over farm subsidies as protesters clash with riot police
Ian Jack
Financial Post
Thursday, September 11, 2003
CANCUN, Mexico - Rich and poor countries were split over reducing subsidies while thousands of protesters clashed with riot police outside World Trade Organization meetings yesterday, in an echo of freer trade talks that collapsed four years ago in Seattle.
Thousands of Mexican farmers and other protesters marched outside the posh hotel zone in this beach resort, kept kilometres away from the delegates by metal barricades and row after row of riot police.
About two dozen anti-globalization protesters broke through the barriers and threw chunks of pavement at the police, who hit back with three-foot-long batons.
Dozens were injured and one South Korean was reported to have died from self-inflicted stab wounds.
Farm groups from poor countries say they have been the victim of a world trade system that has been unable to make rich countries -- primarily the United States and the European Union -- keep a promise to cut the approximately US$300-billion a year spent subsidizing farmers.
The Canadian government also wants to see cuts in those subsidies, which it has no hope of matching, as well as increased access to other countries' markets.
Agriculture is at the heart of these talks, which come two years after the WTO countries committed themselves in Doha, Qatar, to try for a new deal on liberalizing trade. It took two years after the so-called debacle in Seattle for countries to decide to try again, but little progress has been made since then.
Pierre Pettigrew, Canada's Minister for International Trade, said yesterday he would consider the five-day Cancun meeting a success as long as countries remain committed to continuing to try for a deal. In Doha, countries said they would be ready to sign a deal by the end of 2004, but that is now considered highly unlikely.
Mr. Pettigrew rejected the comparison with Seattle, where talks foundered after the developing countries said there was not enough for them. Rioting also lapped up against the conference centre itself in Seattle, forcing Mr. Pettigrew at one point to run for safety.
"It certainly doesn't feel like Seattle. I haven't had to jump a wall to get here," he said yesterday. "This is a mid-term review. We should not expect anything as dramatic as either Seattle or Doha, when we decided to launch the round."
He said this time ministers appear determined to try hard, but he cautioned the week is young.
"Anything can happen when you have 146 trade ministers together.
There have already been some doors slammed [in anger]," he said. "That balance [between rich and poor] has got to be found in the next few days."
There was an earlier, quieter protest yesterday at the opening ceremony as lobby groups for the environment, the poor and farmers slipped into the session and chanted anti-WTO slogans.
In the corridors, negotiators set out hard-line positions and began searching for soft spots in their opponents.
Once a club for big trading nations, the WTO has become a virtual replica of the United Nations, except there is no equivalent of the decision-making Security Council. Instead, all countries must agree before a deal is complete, and the surging membership from the developing world is beginning to wield the clout this gives them.
Four West African countries including Mali are pushing at these talks for the complete elimination of cotton subsidies by the United States in three years.
The U.S. government spends US$3.6-billion a year on its 25,000 cotton farmers, depressing the world price to the point the African countries cannot export their main crop at a profit.
On a larger scale, a bloc of at least 21 developing countries including the world's biggest -- China, Brazil and India -- are demanding more aggressive cuts in U.S. and EU farm subsidies than either trading bloc is willing to accept. They say without that they are not prepared to open their markets any further.
"It's clear the developing countries have the momentum. It'll be difficult for the U.S. and the EU to impose their will as they have in the past," said Mark Fried, Canadian spokesman for Oxfam International.
The EU and United States have offered little so far other than repeated defences of their current record of subsidy-cutting.
It is crucial for negotiators to make progress on agriculture in the first few days of the conference since talks on other issues are on hold in the meantime. Negotiators on services -- everything from telecommunications to banking -- have been told not to expect to meet before Saturday if at all, while talks on investment will not get serious until tomorrow at the earliest.
A deal to remove trade barriers could add more than US$500-billion a year to world income by 2015 and lift 144 million people out of poverty, the World Bank has said.
ijack@nationalpost.com
© Copyright 2003 National Post
|
|
