[E-rundbrief] Info 304 - V�a Campesina against WTO-ministerial

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 304:  Vía Campesina prepares road from Geneva to Hong 
Kong (WTO-ministerial). The hurdles to participate in the meeting with Mr. 
Lamy within a context of ongoing exclusion of the social movements. Press 
Releases, Jakarta, October 28, 2005.

Bad Ischl, 30.10.2005

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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Vía Campesina prepares road from Geneva to Hong Kong

Press Release, Jakarta, October 28, 2005

Via Campesina delegates from around the world gathered in Geneva last week 
to prepare their action plan for the WTO ministerial in Hong Kong.

CPE/Via Campesina farmers from Europe, along with Via Campesina delegates 
from Mexico, Haiti, Korea, Brazil, Mali, Nepal and the United States met in 
Geneva to confront WTO officials with our message and to prepare for their 
December farmer and peasant mobilization in Hong Kong during the WTO 
ministerial meeting.

Alberto Gomez from UNORCA in Mexico explained: "It's urgent to inform the 
members of our farmers' organizations about the necessity to continue to 
prepare our forces to stop the WTO. We the farmers and rural workers, men 
and women, are essential to society, because it is our work and our 
families, and the accumulated knowledge that we transmit from generation to 
generation that helps get the crops harvested and the food to everyone's 
table. This will allow us to defeat the WTO in 2005."

Young Soo Lee from the Korean Peasants League (KPL) said: "Food and 
agriculture are more important than industrial products such as 
automobiles. Without industrial products, we are inconvenienced but we will 
not die. But people can not survive without food. Food and agriculture are 
our lives. We cannot trade away our lives. The WTO killed Korean farmer Lee 
Kyung Hae in Cancun and now it is killing many farmers across the world. We 
send a strong warning message: if the WTO will not respond to our 
legitimate voice, WTO will face a strong fight in Hong Kong, and in that 
case all responsibility will go to the WTO and Mr. Lamy for not listening 
to our voices. WTO kills farmers ! WTO out of agriculture !"

"Ten years of WTO has brought us increased economically-forced migration, a 
degraded environment, and an even larger gap between the rich and 
poor."  said Ingeborg Tangeraas of the Via Campesina International 
Co-ordinating Committee, who called for an analysis of the impacts of 
global trade under the WTO. "The powerful countries in the WTO are trying 
to use agriculture as a weapon to force smaller countries to open their 
markets, not only in agriculture but also for other goods as well as 
servicesincluding privatizing healthcare and education. Via Campesina 
supports the right of countries - like those in the G90 - to say no to 
deals that would hurt their people.

Via Campesina is a legitimate voice world wide of small farmers, indigenous 
peasants, and migrant rural workers. Food sovereignty should be the key 
principle for agricultural policies and the WTO should get out of food, 
agriculture, fisheries, public services and other essential public goods.We 
will continue fighting against the disastrous agricultural politics of the 
economically powerful countries, to stop the dumping of agricultural 
products, to achieve real agrarian reform, and for food and agriculture 
free from genetically modified organisms.

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The hurdles to participate in the meeting with Mr. Lamy within a context of 
ongoing exclusion of the social movements

Press release, Geneva, 28-10-2005

La Via Campesina, as an international peasant movement together with other 
social movements, articulates struggles and fights for changes that improve 
the livelihoods of peasants, landless, urban poor and other marginalised 
groups. In this struggle to increase pressure on governments and 
international institutions for change, to be heard and to bring our message 
to those responsible, we face a structural exclusion and marginali-sation. 
This exclusion expresses itself, among others, in "administrative" hurdles 
that concretely lead to the exclusion of meetings with officials, the 
instrumentalisation of a "dialogue" or  "multistakeholder dialogues" with 
certain actors of civil society in order to legitimise their policies or to 
engage organisations in lengthy, energy consuming "consultations" that do 
not lead to any real change.

In an increasingly aggressive neo-liberal context, tensions are increasing 
and social movements are continually facing these mechanisms of exclusion. 
For La Via campesina and other movements, however, it is crucial to 
overcome this situation and to increase the visibility and impact of La Via 
campesina's message on those who drive the implementation of the 
neo-liberal policies. As social movements emerge, occupy their own 
political space and address their structural exclusion, the role of NGO's 
will also need to change. These changes sometimes lead to tensions and La 
Via Campesina is committed to address this through a "constructive 
dialogue" in order to come to mutually re-enforce strategies with NGO's 
with whom we share long term goals.

In the meeting with Mr. Pascal Lamy at the WTO premises on the 17th of 
October in Geneva, La Via Campesina faced the inflexibility of the WTO that 
had put an unnecessary limit on the total number of participants (15) that 
could enter the building to participate in the talk. WTO even attempted in 
a last minute effort to reduce this number to 7.

When arriving at the WTO premises, only one representative of La Via 
Campesina from Norway was allowed to enter the building. It was impossible 
for the representative from Korea, his translator and a representative from 
the US to enter due to administrative hurdles put forward by WTO and 
unfortunately conveyed to La Via Campesina by the NGO's that operate in 
Geneva.

La Via Campesina recognises that in a former press release (17-10-2005) 
regarding this event, it erroneously targeted World Wildlife Fund and other 
NGOs as part of the cause that led to the non-participation of the La Via 
Campesina delegation.

At the same time the La Via Campesina delegation was disappointed by the 
lack of spontaneous response by the NGO's present to a situation created by 
the inflexibility of WTO. La Via Campesina did not immediately convey this, 
thus increasing the tensions with the NGO's.

In an assessment of this event between several of the NGO's present in the 
Mr. Lamy meeting and La Via campesina members it was concluded that 
pressure must increase, as well as coordination with the NGO's, in order to 
improve access for social movements to confront the WTO officials with 
their messages.


La Via Campesina
International farmers movement
Movimiento campesino internacional
Mouvement paysan international
secretaria operativa/operative secretariat:
Jin. Mampang Prapatan XIV no 5
Jakarta Selatan,
Indonesia
Tel/fax: +62-21-7991890
Email: viacampesina at viacampesina.org


Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
     Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
     Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
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