A-Infos (en) Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade and the World Trade Organisation

[EW Plawiuk <plawiuk@junctionnet.com>]

 ________________________________________________
      A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
            http://www.ainfos.ca/
 ________________________________________________

 
Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade
 and the World Trade Organisation 

  From the 18th to the 20th of May 1998, heads of state and
  ministers from the whole world will meet in Geneva for the 2nd
  Ministerial Conference of the World Trade Organisation (WTO),
  and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the multilateral trade
  system (GATT and WTO), the main instrument of transnational
  capital for organising and enforcing global economic governance.
  This event will, in the words of its organisers, "celebrate the past
  while preparing the way for the future" of trade liberalisation - i.e.,
  of the destruction of rural societies, dignity in labour, the
  environment, cultural diversity and self-determination. 
                                                 From the 16th
                                                 to the 20th of
                                                 May, PGA
                                                 actions will
                                                 take place in
                                                 Geneva (&
                                                 other places) 


 The hallmarks of the alliance are: 

      1. A very clear rejection of the WTO and other trade liberalisation
      agreements (like APEC, the EU, NAFTA, etc.) as active promoters of a
      socially and environmentally destructive globalisation 

      2. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can
      have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in
      which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker 

      3. A call to non-violent civil disobedience and the construction of
local
      alternatives by local people, as answers to the action of governments
and
      corporations 

      4. An organisational philosophy based on decentralisation and autonomy
      These four points will be the basis of the discussions in February, the
      common positions on which we will construct the platform. They were
      developed in a discussion process among organisations from all over the
      world that included an international meeting in August 1997. In the
      following pages you will find the summary of the results of this
      discussion. 
        PEOPLES' GLOBAL ACTION MANIFESTO

                               

(Working draft - deadline for submission of comments and amendments: 30
April 1998. Mail your comments, if possible in English and Spanish, to
pga@agp.org or fax them to +41-22-344 4731)) 


We cannot take communion from the altars of a dominant culture
which confuses price with value
and converts people and countries into merchandise.
Eduardo Galeano 

If you come only to help me, you can go back home.
But if you consider my struggle as part of your struggle for survival,
then maybe we can work together.
Aboriginal woman 


          Introduction 

          Economic globalisation, power and the "race
          to the bottom"
          Exploitation, labour and livelihoods
          Gender oppression
          The indigenous peoples' fight for survival
          Oppressed ethnic groups
          Onslaught on nature and agriculture
          Culture
          Knowledge and technology
          Education and youth
          Militarisation
          Migration and discrimination 

          Part 2



                             I

  

     We live in a time in which capital, with the help of international
     agencies like the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the
     International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank (WB) and
     other institutions, is shaping national policies in order to
     strengthen its global control over political, economic and cultural
     life. 

     Capital has always been global. Its boundless drive for
     expansion and profit recognises no limits. From the slave trade of
     earlier centuries to the imperial colonisation of peoples, lands and
     cultures across the globe, capitalist accumulation has always fed
     on the blood and tears of the peoples of the world. This
     destruction and misery has been restrained only by grassroots
     resistance.
     Today, capital is deploying a new strategy to assert its power
     and neutralise peoples' resistance. Its name is economic
     globalisation, and it consists in the dismantling of national
     limitations to trade and to the free movement of capital. 

     The effects of economic globalisation spread through the fabric
     of societies and communities of the world, integrating their
     peoples into a single gigantic system aimed at the extraction
     profit and the control of peoples and nature. Words like
     "globalisation", "liberalisation" and "deregulation" just disguise the
     growing disparities in living conditions between elites and masses
     in both privileged and "peripheral" countries.
     The newest and perhaps the most important phenomenon in the
     globalisation process is the emergence of trade agreements as
     key instruments of accumulation and control. The WTO is by far
     the most important institution for evolving and implementing these
     trade agreements. It has become the vehicle of choice for
     transnational capital to enforce global economic governance. The
     Uruguay Round vastly expanded the scope of the multilateral
     trading system (i.e. the agreements under the aegis of the WTO)
     so that it no longer constitutes only trade in manufactured goods.
     The WTO agreements now also cover trade in agriculture, trade
     in services, intellectual property rights, and investment measures.
     This expansion has very significant implications for economic and
     non-economic matters. For example, the General Agreement on
     Trade in Services will have far-reaching effects on cultures
     around the world. Similarly, the TRIPs (Trade Related
     Intellectual Property Rights) agreement and unilateral pressures,
     especially on biodiversity-rich countries, are forcing these
     countries to adopt new legislations establishing property rights
     over forms of life, with disastrous consequences for biodiversity
     and food security. The multilateral trading system, embodied in
     the WTO, has a tremendous impact on the shaping of national
     economic and social policies, and hence on the scope and nature
     of development options.. 

     Trade agreements are also proliferating at the regional level.
     NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement) is the
     prototype of a regional legally-binding agreement involving
     privileged and underprivileged countries, and its model is sought
     to be extended to South America. APEC (Asia-Pacific
     Economic Cooperation) is another model with both kinds of
     countries involved, and it is being increasingly used to force new
     agreements into the framework of the WTO. The Maastricht
     Treaty is of course the main example of a legally-binding
     agreement among privileged countries. Regional trade
     agreements among underprivileged countries, such as ASEAN
     (Association of Southeast Asian Nations), SADC (Southern
     African Development Cooperation), SAFTA (South Asian Free
     Trade Agreement) and MERCOSUR (Southern Common
     Market), have also emerged. All these regional agreements
     consist of the transfer of decision-making power from the
     national level to regional institutions which are even more distant
     from people and less democratic than the nation-state. 

     As though this was not enough, a new treaty is being promoted
     by the privileged countries, the Multilateral Agreement on
     Investments (MAI) to widen the rights of foreign investors far
     beyond their current positions in most countries and to severely
     curtail the rights and powers of governments to regulate the
     entry, establishment and operations of foreign companies and
     investors. This is currently also the most important attempt to
     extend globalisation and "economic liberalisation". MAI would
     abolish the power and the legitimate sovereign right of peoples to
     determine their own economic, social, and cultural policies.
     All these institutions and agreements share the same goals:
     providing mobility for goods, services and capital, increasing
     transnational capital's control over peoples and nature,
     transferring power to distant and undemocratic institutions,
     foreclosing the possibility to develop community-based and
     self-reliant economies, and restricting peoples' freedom to
     construct societies based on human values. 

     TOP of the page

Economic globalisation, power and the "race to the bottom" 

     Economic globalisation has given birth to new forms of
     accumulation and power. The accumulation takes place on a
     global scale, at increasing speed, controlled by transnational
     corporations and investors. While capital has gone global,
     redistribution policies remain the responsibility of national
     governments, which are unable, and most of the times unwilling,
     to act against the interests of transnational capital. 

     This asymmetry is provoking an accelerating redistribution of
     power at global level, strengthening what is usually referred to as
     "corporate power". In this peculiar political system, global capital
     determines (with the help of "informal" and extremely influential
     lobby groups, such as the World Economic Forum) the
     economic and social agenda on a world-wide scale. These
     corporate lobby groups give their instructions to governments in
     the form of recommendations, and governments follow them,
     since the few that refuse to obey the "advice" of corporate lobby
     groups find their currencies under attack by speculators and see
     the investors pulling out. The influence of corporate lobby groups
     has been strengthened by regional and multilateral agreements.
     With their help, neo-liberal policies are being imposed all over
     the world. 

     These neo-liberal policies are creating social tensions at global
     level similar to the ones witnessed at national level during the first
     stages of the industrialisation: while the number of billionaires
     grows, more and more people around the world find themselves
     in a system that offers them no place in production and no access
     to consumption. This desperation, combined with the free
     mobility of capital, provides transnational investors the best
     possible environment to pit workers and governments against
     each other. The result is a "race to the bottom" in social and
     environmental conditions and the dismantling of redistribution
     policies (progressive taxation, social security systems, reduction
     of working time, etc). A vicious circle is created, wherein
     "effective demand" concentrates increasingly in the hands of a
     transnational elite, while more and more people cannot meet their
     basic needs. 

     This process of world-wide accumulation and exclusion amounts
     to a global attack on elementary human rights, with very visible
     consequences: misery, hunger, homelessness, unemployment,
     deteriorating health conditions, landlessness, illiteracy, sharpened
     gender inequalities, explosive growth of the "informal" sector and
     the underground economy (particularly production and trade of
     drugs), the destruction of community life, cuts in social services
     and labour rights, increasing violence at all levels of society,
     accelerating environmental destruction, growing racial, ethnic and
     religious intolerance, massive migration (for economic, political
     and environmental reasons), strengthened military control and
     repression, etc. 

     TOP of the page

Exploitation, labour and livelihoods 

     The globalisation of capital has to a very significant extent
     dispossessed workers of their ability to confront or bargain with
     capital in a national context. Most of the conventional trade
     unions (particularly in the privileged countries) have accepted
     their defeat by the global economy and are voluntarily giving up
     the conquests won by the blood and tears of generations of
     workers. In compliance with the requirements of capital, they
     have traded solidarity for "international competitiveness" and
     labour rights for "flexibility of the labour market". Now they are
     actively advocating the introduction of a "social" clause in the
     multilateral trading system, which would give privileged countries
     a tool for selective, one-sided and neo-colonial protectionism,
     with the effect of increasing poverty instead of attacking it at its
     root. 

     Right-wing groups in privileged countries often blame "social
     dumping" from underprivileged countries for the rising
     unemployment and the worsening labour conditions. They say
     that southern peoples are hijacking northern capital with the help
     of cheap labour, weak or non-existent labour and environmental
     regulations and low taxes, and that southern exports are forcing
     northern producers out of the market. While there is a certain
     degree of relocation to underprivileged countries (concentrated
     in specific sectors like textiles and microelectronics), the teenage
     girls who sacrifice their health doing unpaid overtime in
     transnational sweatshops for miserable salaries can hardly be
     blamed for the social havoc created by free mobility of goods
     and capital. Moreover, most relocation happens between rich
     countries, with only a fraction of foreign investment going to
     underprivileged countries (and even some investment flowing to
     the north from countries traditionally considered as
     "underdeveloped"). And the threat of relocation to another rich
     country (by far the most usual kind of relocation) is as effective in
     blackmailing workers as the threat to relocate to an
     underprivileged country. Finally, the main cause of
     unemployment in privileged countries is the introduction of
     "rationalisation" technologies, over which underprivileged
     peoples certainly have no influence at all. In short, increasing
     exploitation is solely the responsibility of capitalists, not of
     peoples. 

     Many advocates of "development" welcome the free movement
     capital from privileged to underprivileged countries as a positive
     contribution to the improvement of the living conditions of the
     poor, since foreign investment produces jobs and livelihoods.
     They forget that the positive social impact of foreign investment is
     limited by its very nature, since transnational corporations will
     only keep their money in underprivileged countries as long as the
     policies of these countries enable them to continue exploiting the
     misery and desperation of the population. The financial markets
     impose extreme punishments to the countries that dare to adopt
     any kind of policy that could eventually result in improved living
     standards, as exemplified by the abrupt end to the shy
     redistribution policies adopted in 1981 by Mitterand in France.
     Also, the Mexican crisis of 1994 and the recent crises in East
     Asia, although presented by the media as the result of technical
     mismanagement, are good examples of the impact of a corporate
     economic rule which gains strength every day both in
     underprivileged and privileged countries, conditioning each and
     every aspect of their social and economic policies. 

     Those who believe in the beneficial social effects of "free" market
     also forget that the impact of transnational capital is not limited to
     the creation of exploitative jobs. Most of the foreign direct
     investment (two thirds according to the United Nations) in both
     privileged and underprivileged countries consists of transnational
     corporations (TNCs) taking over national enterprises, which
     most typically results in the destruction of jobs. And TNCs never
     come alone with their money: they also bring foreign products
     into the country, sweeping great numbers of local firms and farms
     out of the market, or forcing them to produce under even more
     inhuman conditions. Finally, most of the foreign investment
     provokes the unsustainable exploitation of natural resources,
     which results in the irretrievable dispossession of the livelihoods
     of diverse communities of indigenous peoples, farmers, ethnic
     groups etc. 

     We reject the idea that "free" trade creates employment and
     increases welfare, and the assumption that it can contribute to the
     alleviation of poverty. But we also very clearly reject the
     right-wing alternative of a stronger national capitalism, as well as
     the fascist alternative of an authoritarian state to take over central
     control from corporations. Our struggles aim at taking back
     control of the means of production from the hands of both
     transnational and national capital, in order to create free,
     sustainable and community-controlled livelihoods, based on
     solidarity and peoples' needs and not on exploitation and greed. 

     TOP of the page

Gender oppression 

     Globalisation and neo-liberal policies build on and increase
     existing inequalities, including gender inequality. The gendered
     system of power in the globalised economy, like most traditional
     systems, encourages the exploitation of women as workers, as
     maintainers of the family and as sexual objects. 

     Women are responsible for creating, educating, feeding, clothing
     and disciplining young people to prepare them to become part of
     the global labour force. They are used as cheap and docile
     labour for the most exploitative forms of employment, as
     exemplified in the maquilas of the textile and microelectronics
     industry. Forced out of their homelands by the poverty caused
     by globalisation, many women seek employment in foreign
     countries, often as illegal immigrants, subjected to terrifying
     working conditions and insecurity. The world-wide trade in
     women's bodies has become a major element of world
     commerce and includes children as young as 10. They are used
     by the global economy through diverse forms of exploitation and
     commodification. 

     Women are expected to be actors only in their households.
     Although this has never been the case, this expectation has been
     used to deny women a role in public affairs. The economic
     system also makes use of these gender roles to identify women
     as the cause of many social and environmental problems. Hence,
     women having too many babies (rather than the rich consuming
     too many resources) is seen as the cause of the global
     environmental crisis. Similarly, the fact that women get low
     wages, since their remuneration are supposed to be only
     supplementary income for the household, is used to blame them
     for the unemployment of men and the reduction in their wage
     levels. As a result, women are used as scapegoats, declared
     guilty for creating the same misery that is oppressing them,
     instead of pointing at the global capital as responsible for social
     and environmental havoc. This ideological stigmatisation adds to
     the physical violence suffered on a daily basis by women all over
     the planet. 

     Patriarchy and the gender system rest firmly on the idea of the
     naturalness and exclusivity of heterosexuality. Most of the social
     systems and structures violently reject any other form of sexual
     expression or activity, and this limitation of freedom is used in
     order to perpetuate patriarchal gender roles. Globalisation,
     although indirectly contributing to the struggles for women's and
     sexual liberation by introducing them in very oppressive societies,
     also strengthens the patriarchy at the root of violence against
     women and against gays, lesbians and bisexuals. 

     The elimination of patriarchy and the end of all forms of gender
     discrimination requires an open commitment against the global
     market. Similarly, it is vital that those struggling against global
     capital understand and confront the exploitation and
     marginalisation of women and participate in the struggle against
     homophobia. We need to develop new cultures that represent
     real alternatives to these old and new forms of oppression. 

     TOP of the page

The indigenous peoples' fight for survival 

     Indigenous peoples and nationalities have a long history of
     resistance against the destruction provoked by capitalism.
     Today, they are confronted with the neo-liberal globalisation
     project as an instrument of transnational and financial capital for
     neo-colonisation and extermination. These new actors of the
     globalisation process are violently invading the last refuges of
     indigenous peoples, violating their territories, habitats and
     resources, destroying their ways of life, and often perpetrating
     their genocide. The nation states are permitting and actively
     encouraging these violations in spite of their commitment to
     respect indigenous peoples' rights, reflected in diverse
     declarations, agreements and conventions.
     Corporations are stealing ancient knowledge and patenting it for
     their own gain and profit. This means that indigenous people and
     the rest of humanity will have to pay for access to the knowledge
     that will have thus been commodified. Furthermore, the
     indigenous peoples themselves are being patented by
     pharmaceutical corporations and the US administration, under
     the auspices of the Human Genome Diversity Programme. We
     oppose the patenting of all life forms and the corporate
     monopolistic control of seed, medicines and traditional
     knowledge systems and human genomes.
     The fights of indigenous peoples to defend their lands (including
     the subsoil) and their forms of living, are leading to a growing
     repression against them and to the militarisation of their
     territories, forcing them to sacrifice their lives or their liberty. This
     struggle will continue until the right of indigenous peoples to
     territorial autonomy is fully respected throughout the world. 

     TOP of the page

Oppressed ethnic groups 

     The black communities of African origin in the Americas suffered
     for centuries a violent and inhuman exploitation, as well as
     physical annihilation. Their labour force was used as a
     fundamental tool for accumulation of capital, both in America
     and Europe. Faced with this oppression, the Afro-Americans
     have created community-based processes of organisation and
     cultural resistance. Currently the black communities are suffering
     the effects of "development" megaprojects in their territories and
     the invasion of their lands by big landowners, which lead to
     massive displacement, misery and cultural alienation, and many
     times to repression and death. 

     A similar situation is being suffered by other peoples, like
     Gypsies, Kurds, Saharouis, etc. All these peoples are forced to
     struggle for their right to live in dignity by nation-states that
     repress their identity and autonomy, and impose on them a
     forced incorporation into a homogeneous society. Many of these
     groups are viewed as a threat by the dominant powers, since
     they are reclaiming and practising their right to cultural diversity
     and autonomy. 

     TOP of the page

Onslaught on nature and agriculture 

     Land, water, forest, wildlife, aquatic life and mineral resources
     are not commodities, but our life support. For decades the
     powers that have emerged from money and market have swelled
     their profits and tightened their control of politics and economics
     by usurping these resources, at the cost of the lives and
     livelihoods of vast majorities around the world. For decades the
     World Bank and the IMF, and now the WTO, in alliance with
     national governments and corporate powers, have facilitated
     manoeuvrings to appropriate the environment. The result is
     environmental devastation, tragic and unmanageable social
     displacement, and the wiping out of cultural and biological
     diversity, much of it irretrievably lost without compensation to
     those reliant on it. 

     The disparities provoked within and between countries by
     national and global capital have widened and deepened as the
     rich spirit away the natural resources from communities and
     farmers, farm labourers, fishworkers, tribal and indigenous
     populations, women, the socially disadvantaged - beating down
     into the earth the already downtrodden. The centralised
     management of natural resources imposed by trade and
     investment agreements does not leave space for intergenerational
     and intragenerational sustainability. It only serves the agenda of
     the powers that have designed and ratified those agreements: to
     accumulate wealth and power. 

     Unsustainable and capital-intensive technologies have played a
     major role in corporations' onslaught on nature and agriculture.
     Green revolution technologies have caused social and
     environmental havoc wherever they have been applied, creating
     destitution and hunger instead of eliminating them. Today,
     modern biotechnology is emerging, together with patents on life,
     as one of the most powerful and dangerous weapons of
     corporations to take over the control of the food systems all over
     the world. Genetic engineering and patents on life must be
     resisted, since their potential social and environmental impact is
     the greatest in the history of humanity. 

     Waging struggles against the global capitalist paradigm, the
     underprivileged work towards the regeneration of their natural
     heritage and the rebuilding of integrated, egalitarian communities.
     Our vision is of a decentralised economy and polity based on
     communities' rights to natural resources and to plan their own
     development, with equality and self-reliance as the basic values.
     In place of the distorted priorities imposed through global
     designs in sectors such as transport, infrastructure and energy,
     and energy-intensive technology, they assert their right to life in
     the fulfilment of the basic needs of everyone, excluding the greed
     of the consumerist minority. Respecting traditional knowledge
     and cultures consonant with the values of equality, justice, and
     sustainability, we are committed to evolving creative ways to use
     and fairly distribute our natural resources. 

     TOP of the page

Culture 

     Another important aspect of globalisation, as orchestrated by
     WTO and other international agencies, is the commercialisation
     and commodification of culture, the appropriation of diversity in
     order to co-opt it and integrate it into the process of capitalist
     accumulation. This process of homogenisation by the media not
     only contributes to the breakdown of the cultural and social
     networks in local communities, but also destroys the essence and
     meaning of culture. 

     Cultural diversity not only has an immeasurable value of its own,
     as reflections of human creativity and potential; it also constitutes
     a fundamental tool for resistance and self-reliance. Hence,
     cultural homogenisation has been one of the most important tools
     for central control since colonialism. In the past the elimination of
     cultural diversity was mainly accomplished by the Church and by
     the imposition of colonial languages. Today mass media and
     corporate consumerist culture are the main agents of
     commodification and homogenisation of cultural diversity. The
     result of this process is not only a major loss of humanity's
     heritage: it also creates an alarming dependence on the capitalist
     culture of mass consumption, a dependence that is much deeper
     in nature and much harder to eliminate than economic or political
     dependence. 

     Control over culture must be taken out of corporate hands and
     reclaimed by communities. Self-reliance and freedom are only
     possible on the basis of a lively cultural diversity that enables
     peoples to independently determine each and every aspect of
     their lives. We are deeply committed to cultural liberation in all
     areas of life, from food to films, from music to media. We will
     contribute with our direct action to the dismantlement of
     corporate culture and the creation of spaces for genuine
     creativity. 

     TOP of the page

Knowledge and technology 

     Knowledge and technology are not neutral or value-free. The
     domination of capital is partly based on its control over both.
     Western science and technology have made very important
     contributions to humankind, but their domination has swept away
     very diverse and valuable knowledge systems and technologies
     based on centuries-long experience.
     Western science is characterised by the production of simplified
     models of reality for experimental purposes; hence, the
     reductionist scientific method has an extremely limited capacity to
     produce useful knowledge about complex and chaotic systems
     like agriculture. Traditional knowledge systems and
     knowledge-production methods are far more effective, since
     they are based on generations of direct observation of and
     interaction with unsimplified complex systems. Therefore,
     capital-intensive, science-based technologies invariably fail to
     achieve their goals in complex systems, and many times provoke
     the disarray of these systems, as green revolution technologies,
     modern dam technology and many other examples demonstrate. 

     Despite their many failures, capital-intensive technologies are
     systematically treated as superior to traditional, labour-intensive
     technologies. This ideological discrimination results in
     unemployment, indebtedness and, most important, in the loss of
     an invaluable body of knowledges and technologies accumulated
     during centuries. Traditional knowledge, often controlled by
     women, has till recently been rejected as "superstition" and
     "witchcraft" by western, mostly male, scientists and academics.
     Their "rationalism" and "modernisation" has for centuries aimed at
     destroying it irretrievably. However, pharmaceutical corporations
     and agribusiness have recently discovered the value and potential
     of traditional knowledge, and are stealing, patenting and
     commodifying it for their own gain and profit.
     Capital-intensive technology is designed, promoted,
     commercialised and imposed to serve the process of capitalist
     globalisation. Since the use of technologies has a very important
     influence on social and individual life, peoples should have a free
     choice of, access to and control over technologies. Only those
     technologies which can be managed, operated and controlled by
     local peoples should be considered valid. Also, control of the
     way technology is designed and produced, its scopes and
     finalities, should be inspired by human principles of solidarity,
     mutual co-operation and common sense. Today, the principles
     underlying production of technology are exactly the opposite:
     profit, competition, and the deliberate production of
     obsolescence. Empowerment passes through people's control
     over the use and production of technology. 

     TOP of the page

Education and youth 

     The content of the present education system is more and more
     conditioned by the demands of production as dictated by
     corporations. The interests and requirements of economic
     globalisation are leading to a growing commodification of
     education. The diminishing public budgets in education are
     encouraging the development of private schools and universities,
     while the labour conditions of people working in the public
     education sector are being eroded by austerity and Structural
     Adjustment Programs. Increasingly, learning is becoming a
     process that intensifies inequalities in societies. Even the public
     education system, and most of all the university, is becoming
     inaccessible for wide sectors of societies. The learning of
     humanities (history, philosophy, etc.) and the development of
     critical thinking is being discouraged in favour of an education
     subservient to the interests of the globalisation process, where
     competitive values are predominant. Students increasingly spend
     more time in learning how to compete with each other, rather
     than enhancing personal growth and building critical skills and the
     potential to transform society. 

     Education as a tool for social change requires confrontational
     academics and critical educators for all educational systems.
     Community-based education can provoke learning processes
     within social movements. The right to information is essential for
     the work of social movements. Limited and unequal access to
     language skills, especially for women, hinders participation in
     political activity with other peoples. Building these tools is a way
     to reinforce and rebuild human values. Yet formal education is
     increasingly being commercialised as a vehicle for the market
     place. This is done by corporate investment in research and by
     the promotion of knowledge geared toward skills needed for the
     market. The domination of mass media should be dissolved and
     the right to reproduce our own knowledges and cultures must be
     supported.
     However, for many children throughout the world, the
     commodification of education is not an issue, since they are
     themselves being commodified as sexual objects and exploited
     labour, and suffering inhuman levels of violence. Economic
     globalisation is at the root of the daily nightmare of increasing
     numbers of exploited children. Their fate is the most horrible
     consequence of the misery generated by the global market. 

     TOP of the page

Militarisation 

     Globalisation is aggravating complex and growing crises that give
     rise to widespread tensions and conflicts. The need to deal with
     this increasing disorder is intensifying militarisation and repression
     (more police, arrests, jails, prisoners) in our societies. Military
     institutions, such as U.S.-dominated NATO, organising the other
     powers of the North, are among the main instruments upholding
     this unequal world order. Mandatory conscription in many
     countries indoctrinates young people in order to legitimate
     militarism. Similarly, the mass media and corporate culture glorify
     the military and exalt the use of violence. There is also, behind
     facades of democratic structures, an increasing militarisation of
     the nation-state, which in many countries makes use of faceless
     paramilitary groups to enforce the interests of capital. 


     At the same time, the military-industrial complex, one of the main
     pillars of the global economic system, is increasingly controlled
     by huge private corporations. The WTO formally leaves defence
     matters to states, but the military sector is also affected by the
     drive for private profit.
     We call for the dismantling of nuclear and all other weapons of
     mass destruction. The World Court of The Hague has recently
     declared that nuclear weapons violate international law and has
     called all the nuclear-weapons countries to agree to dismantle
     them. This means that the strategy of NATO, based on the
     possible use of nuclear weapons, amounts to a crime against
     humanity. 

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Migration and discrimination 

     The neo-liberal regime provides freedom for the movement of
     capital, while denying freedom of movement to human beings.
     Legal barriers to migration are being constantly reinforced at the
     same time that massive destruction of livelihoods and
     concentration of wealth in privileged countries uproot millions of
     people, forcing them to seek work far from their homes.
     Migrants are thus in more and more precarious and often illegal
     situations, even easier targets for their exploiters. They are then
     made scapegoats, against whom right wing politicians encourage
     the local population to vent their frustrations. Solidarity with
     migrants is more important than ever. There are no illegal
     humans, only inhuman laws.
     Racism, xenophobia, the caste system and religious bigotry are
     used to divide us and must be resisted on all fronts. We
     celebrate our diversity of cultures and communities, and place
     none above the other. 

                            * * *

     The WTO, the IMF, the World Bank, and other institutions that
     promote globalisation and liberalisation want us to believe in the
     beneficial effects of global competition. Their agreements and
     policies constitute direct violations of basic human rights
     (including civil, political, economic, social, labour and cultural
     rights) which are codified in international law and many national
     constitutions, and ingrained in people's understandings of human
     dignity. We have had enough of their inhuman policies. We reject
     the principle of competitiveness as solution for peoples'
     problems. It only leads to the destruction of small producers and
     local economies. Neo-liberalism is the real enemy of economic
     freedom. 

     TOP of the page 

                             II

     Capitalism has slipped the fragile leash won through centuries of
     struggles in national contexts. It is keeping alive the nation-state
     only for the purposes of peoples' control and repression, while
     creating a new transnational regulatory system to facilitate its
     global operation. We cannot confront transnational capitalism
     with the traditional tools used in the national context. In this new,
     globalised world we need to invent new forms of struggle and
     solidarity, new objectives and strategies in our political work.
     We have to join forces to create diverse spaces of co-operation,
     equality, dignity, justice and freedom at a human scale, while
     attacking national and transnational capital, and the agreements
     and institutions that it creates to assert its power. 

     There are many diverse ways of resistance against capitalist
     globalisation and its consequences. At an individual level, we
     need to transform our daily lives, freeing ourselves from market
     laws and the pursuit of private profit. At the collective level, we
     need to develop a diversity of forms of organisation at different
     levels, acknowledging that there is not a single way of solving the
     problems we are facing. Such organisations have to be
     independent of governmental structures and economic powers,
     and based on direct democracy. These new forms of
     autonomous organisation should emerge from and be rooted in
     local communities, while at the same time practising international
     solidarity, building bridges to connect different social sectors,
     peoples and organisations that are already fighting globalisation
     across the world. 

     These tools for co-ordination and empowerment provide spaces
     for putting into practice a diversity of local, small-scale strategies
     developed by peoples all over the world in the last decades, with
     the aim of delinking their communities, neighbourhoods or small
     collectives from the global market. Direct links between
     producers and consumers in both rural and urban areas, local
     currencies, interest-free credit schemes and similar instruments
     are the building blocks for the creation of local, sustainable, and
     self-reliant economies based on co-operation and solidarity
     rather than competition and profit. While the global financial
     casino heads at increasing speed towards social and
     environmental disintegration and economic breakdown, we the
     peoples will reconstruct sustainable livelihoods. Our means and
     inspiration will emanate from peoples' knowledge and
     technology, squatted houses and fields, a strong and lively
     cultural diversity and a very clear determination to actively
     disobey and disrespect all the treaties and institutions at the root
     of misery. 

     In the context of governments all over the world acting as the
     creatures and tools of capitalist powers and implementing
     neo-liberal policies without debate among their own peoples or
     their elected representatives, the only alternative left for the
     people is to destroy these trade agreements and restore for
     themselves a life with direct democracy, free from coercion,
     domination and exploitation. Direct democratic action, which
     carries with it the essence of non-violent civil disobedience to the
     unjust system, is hence the only possible way to stop the mischief
     of corporate state power. It also has the essential element of
     immediacy. However we do not pass a judgement on the use of
     other forms of action under certain circumstances.
     The need has become urgent for concerted action to dismantle
     the illegitimate world governing system which combines
     transnational capital, nation-states, international financial
     institutions and trade agreements. Only a global alliance of
     peoples' movements, respecting autonomy and facilitating
     action-oriented resistance, can defeat this emerging globalised
     monster. If impoverishment of populations is the agenda of
     neo-liberalism, direct empowerment of the peoples though
     constructive direct action and civil disobedience will be the
     programme of the Peoples' Global Action against "Free" Trade
     and the WTO.
     We assert our will to struggle as peoples against all forms of
     oppression. But we do not only fight the wrongs imposed on us.
     We are also committed to building a new world. We are
     together as human beings and communities, our unity deeply
     rooted in diversity. Together we shape a vision of a just world
     and begin to build that true prosperity which comes from human
     empowerment, natural bounty, diversity, dignity and freedom.

Geneva, February-March 1998 

     TOP of the page 



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