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NGOs, protesters flock to
Cancun
By Diego Cevallos
MEXICO CITY - This week's World Trade
Organization (WTO) ministerial conference in the Mexican
resort of Cancun will also serve as a showcase and
podium for nearly 2,000 civil-society organizations from
83 countries, whose members have been flowing in by the
plane and busload.
The protesters are part of
the diverse international movement that is opposed to
the current model of globalization.
About
one-third of the non-governmental organizations (NGOs)
present this week in Cancun come from Canada, the United
States and Mexico, one-third are from the European
Union, and the rest are from Asia, Africa and South
America, said Melba Pria, the Mexican government
official in charge of relations with NGOs.
"Cancun will be a showcase for gauging the
weight of the NGOs and finding out if the governments of
industrialized countries and corporations are willing to
listen to them and accept some of their proposals," said
Adam Jones, with the political studies department at the
Mexican Center for Economic Research and Teaching
(CIDE).
The fifth WTO ministerial conference,
which will run Wednesday through Sunday in the resort
city of Cancun in southeastern Mexico, is crucial to the
future of the current round of multilateral trade talks
launched at the last WTO meeting, held in 2001 in Doha,
Qatar, that is to be concluded by January 1, 2005.
The talks have reached an impasse over many
issues, due mainly to discrepancies between rich
countries and the developing world, which already turned
the third ministerial conference, held in December 1999
in the US city of Seattle, into a fiasco.
The
meeting in Seattle, which ended without an agreement to
start a new round of talks, was marked by major clashes
between activists and police, and is regarded by many as
the starting point for the "anti-globalization"
movement.
But social researchers underline that
what happened in Seattle was only the most visible
expression of the movement up to that point, and that
the groups opposed to globalization in its current shape
and form have been holding protests since the early
1990s.
One of the first mobilizations of the
so-called "anti-globalization" movement was the
anti-APEC (Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum)
international day of protest held in November 1996 in
the Philippines.
The NGOs complain that the WTO
is dominated by the governments of the industrialized
world and large corporations, a situation that they say
translates into policies that act against poor
countries. While some of the groups are demanding the
"democratization" of the WTO and a shift in direction
for the international body, others want it to be
dismantled.
Taking part in the protests this
week will be delegates of a broad range of NGOs, from
groups that have consultative status with the United
Nations, such as the Association of World Citizens, an
international peace organization with branches in 50
countries, to radical groups known for their violent
tactics, such as Italy's Tute Bianche.
Of the
roughly 2,000 organizations that will be present, 980
are accredited with the WTO to participate officially in
the ministerial conference. Of the accredited groups, 30
percent are organizations of farmers and
campesinos, 20 percent are environmental
organizations, and 20 percent are groups that focus on
such issues as globalization, gender, human rights and
trade.
Some 300 business associations are also
taking part, but activists complain that they merely
represent the interests of transnational corporations.
The WTO and the Mexican government turned down
requests for accreditation from at least another 200
civil-society groups, arguing that their focus and
activities had nothing to do with the issues to be
discussed at the conference.
The representatives
of the 980 participating NGOs will share the Caribbean
resort's elegant hotels and take part in the meetings
with the ministers and officials of multilateral bodies
in the resort area of Cancun.
In the meantime,
the delegates of about 1,000 civil-society
organizations, mainly rural, indigenous, labor and
women's groups, as well as hundreds of independent
activists, will be camped out in parks, theaters and
sports clubs 10 kilometers away in the city of Cancun
itself.
The NGOs that received accreditation
from the WTO conference will be allowed to attend the
ministerial debates. They will also be able to broadcast
their proposals and suggestions free of charge on a
special television channel that will function during the
conference, and to post documents on the WTO website.
By contrast, the Mexican government will not
allow the organizations attending the parallel People's
Forum for Alternatives to the WTO to approach the
convention center where the trade ministers from the
WTO's 146 member countries will meet.
If the
participants in the People's Forum or protesters attempt
to press past special checkpoints set up along the only
road leading to the conference site, they will face more
than 1,000 police officers with strict orders to keep
them out.
Alejandro Calvillo, director of
Greenpeace Mexico, one of the groups that will take part
in the ministerial conference, said the NGOs are not
interested in using violence, "despite what some
governments want people to believe".
On the
contrary, "what we are seeking is dialogue, to set forth
proposals that have long been taking shape", he said.
"When clashes occur, due to the attitude of some police
or to a strategy of provocation by a tiny minority of
activists, enormous damage is caused to organized civil
society," he said.
Students from the National
Autonomous University of Mexico, who have admitted to
having ties with Tute Bianche, announced that they would
equip themselves with helmets, protective padding for
arms and legs, and baseball bats to confront the police
and clear a way through the cordon for groups that want
to reach the conference site.
Alvaro Lopez, with
Mexico's National Union of Agricultural Workers, said
members of his group and others would march toward the
meeting area, "and we do not rule out the possibility of
blood being shed".
More than 30,000 people from
every region and continent will be protesting
globalization in its current shape and form in Cancun,
and will "push for the failure" of the WTO meeting, said
Hector de la Cueva, spokesman for the Mexican Network of
Action Against Free Trade.
Among the Mexican
NGOs coordinating the protests and other events to take
place in the streets and squares of Cancun, whose
representatives have been in the city for over a month,
differences have arisen in the past few days with
respect to what format the protests should take.
"I believe the majority of the civil-society
organizations do not want to derail the meeting, but
would like to push the WTO on to a more equitable track
to ensure a globalization process that is closer to the
people," said Pria, the Mexican government official.
Spokespeople for conservative Mexican President
Vicente Fox say freedom of speech is guaranteed in
Cancun, but warned that any attempt to shut down the
conference would be blocked.
Jones, at the
Mexican Center for Economic Research and Teaching, said
most of the activists reject violence. But, he added, if
the clashes with police had not taken place in Seattle
and at later international meetings, "the governments
would not have felt the pressure and urgent need to
listen to these groups".
Most of the NGOs
describe themselves as "peaceful", and share the common
denominator of questioning the present model of
globalization, despite the fact that the tools the
activists have used to make their movement an
international one, such as the Internet, emerged from
the globalization process itself.
In the past 30
years, civil society has gone from being a mere concept
to an organized movement with enormous influence around
the world, Jones noted.
Many of the groups
present this week in Cancun have also regularly taken
part in the World Social Forum, which has drawn critics
of the current globalization model to the southern
Brazilian city of Porto Alegre in January or February
over the past three years to discuss alternatives to
unfettered neo-liberal capitalism.
"In the
constellation of NGOs, there are all kinds of interests
and strategies, but the ones that draw the most
attention from the media are certain violent groups,
which discredit the movement," said Jones.
(Inter Press Service)
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