ISGN > Publications > WTO and TRADE

THE WTO DEBACLE IN SEATTLE
(A Unity Statement of Philippine social movements, labor groups, people's organizations and NGOs)
December 10, 1999   Manila, Philippines

The Seattle events are a confluence of two politically significant factors: the massive and popular street protests that denounced the WTO and the whole "free trade" dogma; and the disunities and contradictions within the WTO itself that eventually led to the collapse of the trade talks.  In both counts, i.e. both inside and outside the WTO convention hall, the US failed to bully its way through.

Outside the convention hall, the US government and western media had difficulty downplaying the massive street protests.  They blamed the monstrous street riots to the handiwork of a few anarchists without saying
that on the first day itself of the WTO meeting, dockworkers and cabdrivers in Seattle were on strike, residents were pouring into the streets offering food and water to the embattled protesters.  Demonstrators in Seattle swelled to 70,000 while simultaneous rallies ranging from 50,000 to 70,000 were also happening in Paris, London, Geneva, India and other parts of the globe.

The "battle in Seattle" may not have directly caused the collapse of the trade talks but its political value lies in having stirred public consciousness on the evils of "free trade" and the WTO, which the general public previously thought to be a benign trade body.  It serves to inspire a resurgence of people's struggles worldwide even if Seattle was only a spontaneous convergence of diverse political initiatives. If there is one lesson to be learned from the Seattle street protests, it was the significance of diverse ideological groups coming together in a common trajectory of rejecting the WTO and exposing all its evils.  It is unfortunate for some Filipino groups to claim that the "battle in Seattle" was a mountain that grew out of a molehill, belittling all other groups' efforts while taking credit for everything.   

Inside the convention hall, developing nations were one in blaming the WTO trade regime of delivering more benefits to the developed nations than to developing and least developed nations.  Such collective dismay was to be fired up later by the US high-handed approach in introducing labor and environment issues into the domain of the WTO which developing nations view as a protectionist ploy intended to discriminate against third world exports.  Aside from disagreement on many issues, developing nations decried the lack of transparency in the meeting where substantive talks are taking place through "green room" negotiations without the knowledge and participation of most members.  The big players on the other hand (like the US, EU and Japan) were outdoing each other in protecting their own economies over agricultural subsidies and anti-dumping laws and eventually competing over who gets the bigger pie in a "globalized" economic order. Such contradiction among competing monopoly powers also contributed to the breakdown of trade talks in Seattle.  

Western media alleged that we, after having exulted on the success of frustrating the millennium round, were later sulking with the fact that labor and environment failed to be introduced into the WTO. This is completely misleading.  As far as we in the social movements, labor and environmental groups are concerned, we have always upheld the promotion of labor rights and welfare and protection of the environment as key issues in
>our advocacy against "globalization".  The logic of global corporate rule is to keep wages and labor standards low in developing countries to facilitate capital mobility and realize maximum profits from cheap and docile labor.  It is also in developing countries where global capital engage in extractive industries to supply them cheap raw materials causing irreversible destruction to the environment and natural resource base of the third world.  Clinton's agenda on these issues is hypocritical and a double-bladed weapon intended to give the WTO extra powers in micro-managing the economies of third world nations in addition to what the IMF and the World Bank have already been doing. 

The collapse of the 3rd WTO ministerial meeting is therefore more than a matter of Clinton being ill-prepared with his agenda nor a case of the Seattle mayor's mishandling of the street protests. More than anything else, the WTO fiasco surfaced the internal contradictions within the multilateral trading system and current crisis of the global capitalist system.  A contradiction of global corporate rule versus the workers and the masses of oppressed peoples; of global capital represented by governments of developed nations versus developing and least developed nations; and contradiction among competing global economic powers.  

Trade has been one major battleground so that global capital can conquer markets elsewhere while being able to protect their own home markets.  For this purpose, the WTO was created using "free trade" as a pretext to pry open the economies of the third world in accordance with the dogma of "globalization" where supposedly no country can exist outside a "globalized" world economy.  

The WTO fiasco proved the bankruptcy of the "free trade" and "globalization" ideology.  The magnitude of people's protests and the shaping up of collective resistance by third world nations signaled a renewed challenge to the dominance of global capital.

The battle in Seattle won political gains for the people's struggle against the WTO and global capital but the war is far from over.  The WTO is still in place and will resume talks on key areas like agriculture, services and intellectual property rights.  We should not let our guards down and vigorously oppose all attempts by the US to introduce new powers to the WTO.  We must support the call of peasant movements worldwide to get agriculture out of the WTO even as we find ways of diminishing the hold of the WTO on such key areas of the economy.  We should reject further liberalization of third world economies and work for a united front of all developing and least developed nations in fighting for their national economic sovereignty and genuine development. 

In the Philippines, we must continue to resist the Estrada government's plans of foolishly dragging the economy further to the control of foreign capital.  Our campaign against charter change is a campaign for national sovereignty that should be pursued more resolutely.  In the face of the WTO fiasco, we must urge the Estrada government to align itself with the growing anti-WTO sentiment of developing nations.  It must review its negotiating position in the WTO and reverse previous commitments that have proven to be detrimental to workers, farmers, local producers and the whole economy.  A legislative inquiry and review of the country's fate under the WTO must be supported.

"Shut down the WTO!" was the battlecry in Seattle that reverberated in all parts of the globe.   We, in the Philippine social movements, labor organizations, peasant associations, NGO's and other people's organizations are committed to pursue this battlecry in solidarity with other oppressed peoples and nations of the world.

Signed:

Eduardo Mora
Pambansang Katipunan ng Makabayang Magbubukid (PKMM, National Assoc. of Patriotic Peasants)

Sonia Soto
Kilusan para sa Pambansang Demokrasya (KPD, Movement for Nationalism and Democracy)

Cris Gaerlan
ALAB KATIPUNAN

Prof. Walden Bello
AKBAYAN

Joel Rodriguez
Management and Organizational Development for Empowerment (MODE)

Lidy Nacpil
Freedom from Debt Coalition (FDC)

Sonny Melencio
Sosyalistang Partido ng Paggawa (SPP, Socialist Party of Labor)

Arze Glipo
Integrated Rural Development Foundation (IRDF)

Primo Amparo
Manggagawa para sa Kalayaan ng Bayan (MAKABAYAN, Workers for Social Liberation)

Jaime Regalario
KATAPAT (Movement for National Patronage)

Eric Guitterrez
Institute for Popular Democracy (IPD)

Dr. Ruben Aspiras
Dept. of Microbiology and former Chancellor
University of the Philippines at Los Banos

Fr. Albert Suatengco
Philippine-Asia Jubilee Campaign Against the Debt (PAJCAD)

Alice Raymundo
PKMM-women's committee

Susan Granada
Philippine Jubilee Network (PJN)

Sr. Arnold Maria Noel, SSps
Association of Local Women Religious of the Archdiocese of Manila

Sr. Rosalima Ladrido, r.a.
Justice and Peace Desk, Assumption religious congregation

Naty Bernardino
International South Group Network - Manila (ISGN)  

Francisco Pascual
Resource Center for People's Development (RCPD)