Before we get started, what the hell is it? Well as far as we can make
out, the WTO is an international body made of 148 countries (with many
more like China and Russia queuing to join). It meets in secret to make
deals about trade, which can range from bananas to the right to own
patents on human tissue. Its decisions override the laws made by national
governments, and its 'free trade will save the world' agenda is firmly
dictated by multitudes of eager corporate lobbyists. Its 3rd major
meeting takes (or took) place in Qatar in early November, and plans to
launch a new 'trade round' to supercharge privatisation and calm jittery
world markets still reeling from the events of September 11th.
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| 1. |
Look who's dying now.
As the WTO enters another round of handing over
the sources of life, health and well-being to the multinationals, we can
be sure the basic rule of the market will be vigorously applied - if you
can't pay, you go without. Whether it's the crops you grow being
exported while you starve, dying of AIDS because you can't pay for the
drugs, or you're attacked by the state for drinking water out of your
own well, Capitalism constantly needs new markets to feed on, and peoples'
health and survival are about as tasty as it gets. |
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| 2. |
Most WTO delegates don't live
in caves.
They spend much of their time in
luxurious hotels. But now they plan to allow corporations to put the
squeeze on even tighter, with watch out, here comes another dodgy
acronym GATS, or the General Agreement on Trade Services. If passed,
GATS will allow companies free access to previously off-limits public
services like hospitals, schools and public transport. And it's these
same companies who will grab the big contracts when 'freedom' 'finally'
arrives in Afghanistan. For more on GATS, click here. |
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| 3. |
Flimsy Evidence
WTO boss Mike Moore and 'our own' Clare Short insist
that anyone who dares to oppose their 'free trade' agenda is a wealthy,
naïve westerner stealing prosperity from the mouths of the southern poor.
Actually, it was southern resistance movements that were carrying the
anti-capitalist torch long before the western media heard its own people
shouting 'Enough!' |
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| 4. |
We are all free traders now?
We are all free traders now? Capitalism's advocates would have us
believe anyone fighting the WTO and the rest of their rackets (IMF, World
Bank etc.) are the same as the dreaded Islamic fundamentalists. The fact
is that the fundamentalists, exactly like the West's rulers, are
capitalists. They all believe that ordinary people are there to be
exploited if possible, and killed if necessary. Anti-capitalists, on the
other hand, are working to end exploitation and war. |
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| 5. |
It's all so damn connected!
The WTO signs trade treaties that put
prices on everything: the natural world, human lives and human bodies.
Then they're sold off to the highest bidder with the lowest standards. In
the same way, a treaty supposed to deal with the effect of fossil fuel
abuse on the planet (Kyoto) becomes a deal which enshrines the right of
polluters to buy and sell the carbon they themselves pumped into the
atmosphere. |
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| We need to remind
ourselves of the fact that there was a before capitalism
and that there will without doubt be an after capitalism. |
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