[E-rundbrief] Info 1272 - Via Campesina: No to WTO and Free Trade Agreements - Bali conference

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1272 - La Via Campesina: No to WTO and Free Trade 
Agreements - La Via Campesina will be in Bali to call for an End to 
the WTO and the Free Trade Regime.

Bad Ischl, 29.11.2013

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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No to WTO and Free Trade Agreements

La Via Campesina will be in Bali to call for an End to the WTO and the 
Free Trade Regime

     Published on Friday, 29 November 2013 20:04

La Via Campesina Media Advisory

http://www.viacampesina.org/en/index.php/actions-and-events-mainmenu-26/10-years-of-wto-is-enough-mainmenu-35/1529-la-via-campesina-will-be-in-bali-to-call-for-an-end-to-the-wto-and-the-free-trade-regime

(Bali, 28 November 2013) The international peasants' movement La Via 
Campesina, with over 200 million members in 70 countries, will 
organize in a massive way from Dec 1-6 2013 at the upcoming World 
Trade Organization 9th Ministerial meeting in Bali, Indonesia. It will 
bring in a large delegation of peasants from around the world to Bali 
in order to demonstrate its opposition to the World Trade Organization 
(WTO).

The WTO, the emblematic institution of free trade and corporate-led 
globalization has been trying to push for the expansion of its free 
trade rules through the Doha Round launched in 2001. After several 
collapses and stalemates in the negotiations, the WTO has found a way 
to revive not only itself but also to deepen the free trade 
liberalization agenda and expand into areas not previously covered by 
trade. Through the proposed Bali Package, the WTO is bringing life 
back to the negotiations by making empty promises of development to 
Least Developed Countries, a terrible deal on Agriculture to 
developing countries and in return, taking a legally binding agreement 
on Trade Facilitation. La Via Campesina denounces these efforts to 
revive the severely de-legitimized organization and calls for an End 
to the WTO and the free trade regime.

For La Via Campesina, 18 years of the WTO is enough. Small farmers the 
world over have suffered long enough. The WTO Agreement on 
Agriculture, for example, has allowed billion dollar subsidies to 
agribusiness, which has pushed small farmers out of their lands and 
their livelihoods. This market-oriented approach to agriculture is a 
serious threat to food sovereignty, public health and livelihoods. 
Developing countries have been demanding the right to support their 
small farmers in the interest of food security and public stockholding 
but the developed countries will not allow it. Instead, the rich 
countries are offering a palsy “peace clause” in the Bali Package, a 
temporary measure for developing countries like India, Indonesia and 
others, to provide support but under highly restrictive conditions.

La Via Campesina calls not only for the rejection of the Bali Package 
but a rejection of the whole WTO and the free trade regime. Only a 
grim future awaits on this path of free trade liberalization. Instead, 
La Via Campesina believes the time is now for Economic Justice, an 
economy based on equity and restores balance between humanity and 
nature and has at its heart the principles of food sovereignty.

La Via Campesina is not alone in calling for an End to the WTO. 
Together with Gerak Lawan (Indonesian Peoples Movement against 
Neocolonialism and Imperialism) and the Social Movements for an 
Alternative Asia (SMAA), a newly formed coordination of social 
movements in Asia, which includes the Migrant Forum in Asia, Jubilee 
South-APMDD, World March of Women, Korean Confederation of Trade 
Unions, Alliance of Progressive Labor, Focus on the Global South, 
water movements, climate justice movements and several others, more 
than 100 organizations and movements the world over, have signed the 
call for an End to the WTO.

These movements are also organizing an EndWTO Bali Week of Action to 
not only demonstrate the growing movement against the neo-liberal 
regime but also to highlight the proposals for alternatives from the 
different social movements and communities.

The EndWTO Bali Week of Action has begun with the departure of the 
Youth Food Movement Caravan from Jakarta last November 25. The Caravan 
will go through 7 cities in Java and will arrive Bali on December 1. 
The Week of Action then opens on December 1 with the social movements 
assembly and the welcome of the Caravan. It is then followed by an 
Economic Justice Assembly on December 2 which will challenge the 
mainstream notion that there is no alternative to neo-liberalism, it 
will highlight concrete alternatives on economic justice through 
speakers on food, trade, migration, climate and others. A massive and 
colorful mobilization for economic justice will take place near the 
Renon Park in Denpasar, Bali, on December 3, bringing together more 
than 2,000 activists from around the world. A People's Tribunal will 
take place on December 4, with eminent judges and lawyers that will 
carry out a public inquiry into the crimes against humanity and the 
planet by the free trade regime. Dec 5 and 6 will be the days of a 
Women's Assembly and several organizations will organize more than 15 
different activities- assemblies, roundtables and panels on different 
topics.

La Via Campesina and the members of SMAA and Gerak Lawan will also 
have a number of press conferences inside the official venue of the 
WTO Ministerial and outside at the Week of Action.

For more information on the Bali week of Action :

1. Information on the schedule of activities inside the WTO 
Ministerial NGO Centre in Nusa Dua, Bali:

December 3: 6pm-7:30pm: Press Conference: The end of growth and the 
future of the WTO. Evaluation and proposals

December 4: 3:30pm-6:30pm: The failure of the WTO and alternatives 
from the People for Economic Justice, Room

December 5: 3:30pm-5pm: The geopolitics of free trade: links between 
TPP FTA and WTO

December 6: 11:30am-1pm: Press Conference: The post-Bali Roadmap of 
the People

2. Information on the schedule of activities at the EndWTO Week of 
Action in GOR Yowana Mandala Stadium, Jl. Trengguli I, Tembau,South 
Denpasar, Bali: www.smaa.asia/endwto

3. Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/viacampesinaOFFICIAL

4. Twitter: https://twitter.com/via_campesina | 
https://twitter.com/via_campesinaSP | https://twitter.com/via_campesinaFR

5. Watch short videos on TV Via Campesina: http://tv.viacampesina.org/


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Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
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