[E-rundbrief] Info 1665 - Action Week Against the WTO and FTAs.

[Matthias Reichl]

E-Rundbrief - Info 1665 - La Via Campesina: September 10, 2017, The 
International Day of Action against WTO and FTAs, December 8th to 15th 
2017, "Week of Action Against the WTO".

Bad Ischl, 11.9.2017

Begegnungszentrum für aktive Gewaltlosigkeit

www.begegnungszentrum.at

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September 10, 2017, The International Day of Action against WTO and FTAs

Today, La Via Campesina is calling upon social movements and civil 
society organisations of the world to mobilise and organise our 
resistances against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and Free Trade 
Agreements (FTAs), build solidarity alliances and prepare for a 
worldwide week of action in December, coinciding with the 11th 
International Ministerial that is scheduled to take place in Argentina.

For the first time since its inception, the World Trade Organization 
(WTO) is planning to meet in Latin America. From the 10th to the 13th 
of December, Mauricio Macri's government will host the WTO's 11th 
Ministerial Conference  in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Entrepreneurs, 
ministers, chancellors, and even presidents will be there. To do what? 
To demand more "freedom" for their companies, more "ease of doing 
business" for exploiting workers, peasants, indigenous people, and 
taking over land and territories. In other words, less "restrictions" 
on transnational wastage.

Since its beginnings in 1995 as derivative of General Agreement on 
Tariff and Trade (GATTs), the World Trade Organization has promoted 
the most brutal form of capitalism, better known as trade 
liberalization. At successive Ministerial Conferences, the WTO has set 
out to globalize the liberalisation of national markets, promising 
economic prosperity at the cost of sovereignty. In more or less the 
same terms, by its "liberalization, deregulation and privatization", 
which is called Package of Neoliberalism, WTO has encouraged the 
multiplication of free trade agreements (FTAs) between countries and 
regional blocs, etc. On this basis and by making use of governments 
that have been co-opted, the world's largest transnational 
corporations (TNCs) are seeking to undermine democracy and all of the 
institutional instruments for defending the lives, the territories, 
and the food and agricultural ecosystems of the world's peoples.

In the previous Ministerial Conference (MC) in Nairobi in 2015, WTO 
had made six decisions on agriculture, cotton and issues related to 
LDCs. The agricultural decisions cover commitment to abolish export 
subsidies for farm exports, public stockholding for food security 
purposes, a special safeguard mechanism for developing countries, and 
measures related to cotton. Decisions were also made regarding 
preferential treatment for least developed countries (LDCs) in the 
area of services and the criteria for determining whether exports from 
LDCs may benefit from trade preferences.

This year, with Macri Inc. in the Casa Rosada (Government House in 
Argentina), the coup leader Michel Temer in the Palacio del Planalto 
(the oficial workplace of the president of Brazil), and Brazilian 
Roberto Azevedo as its Director General, the WTO wants  to return to 
the subject of agriculture, to put an end to small-scale fishing, and 
to make progress with multilateral agreements such as the misnamed 
General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS). Notwithstanding the 
misleading protectionist statements coming from Washington and London, 
the WTO will meet again to try to impose the interests of capital at 
the cost of Planet Earth, of the democratic aspirations of the world's 
peoples, and of life itself.

During these 20+ years of struggle against the WTO, the world's 
peoples have resisted its attempt to globalize everything, including 
the food and agricultural systems, for the benefit of the TNCs. Our 
struggles have been the biggest impediment to the advance of the WTO, 
and there is no doubt that La Via Campesina has played a decisive 
part. Our resistance to market liberalisation under this neoliberal 
regime has continued since the Uruguay round conducted within the 
framework of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT). Ever 
since, La Via Campesina has  mobilised against almost all of the 
Ministerial Conferences since Seattle (1999) and Cancún (2003) – where 
our brother Lee Kyung Hae, holding a banner declaring that "The WTO 
kills peasants", sacrificed his own life – and up to Bali (2013) and 
Nairobi (2015).

This year, from the 8th to the 15th of December, a La Via Campesina 
international delegation will be in Buenos Aires to take an active 
part in the numerous civil society mobilisations, forums, and 
discussions. We will be there to identify the WTO as the criminal 
organisation that it is and to raise the flag of Food Sovereignty. We 
will call out all the Governments, who after having realised the 
weakening of WTO, have resorted to Bilateral and Regional Mega Free 
Trade Agreements, that threaten to annihilate our food systems, just 
like WTO has done it over the last two decades.

We are calling upon all of our member organisations – in each and 
every country – to mobilise during this "Week of Action Against the 
WTO" (from the 8th to the 15th of December); within their  social and 
political contexts, they should find the right time and form the best 
alliances in order to denounce the WTO and the numerous bilateral and 
regional Free Trade Agreements.

We insist that agriculture should not be part of any of the WTO 
negotiations!

We say once again:

NO TO WTO!

NO TO FREE TRADE AGREEMENTS!

FOR THE FOOD SOVEREIGNTY OF OUR PEOPLES!

GLOBALIZE THE STRUGGLE!

GLOBALIZE HOPE!

You can email the details of your solidarity actions to

lvcweb at viacampesina.org or tag us on our official Facebook or Twitter 
pages

facebook.com/viacampesinaOfficial

Twitter: @via_campesina / @via_campesinaES / @viacampesinaFR



-- 

Matthias Reichl, Pressesprecher/ press speaker,
Begegnungszentrum fuer aktive Gewaltlosigkeit
Center for Encounter and active Non-Violence
Wolfgangerstr. 26, A-4820 Bad Ischl, Austria,
fon: +43 6132 24590, Informationen/ informations,
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Ausgezeichnet mit dem (österr.) "Journalismus-Preis von unten 2010"

Honoured by the (Austrian) "Journalism-Award from below 2010"