as the latest WTO round closed in Bali this week, we are cross-posting the declaration which came out of the Peoples’ Global Camp.
We, representatives of people’s organizations, social movements and political forces come together in the People’s Global Camp (PGC) in Denpasar, Bali on December 3-6, 2013 to collectively expose, resist and call to junk the renewed neoliberal offensives of the World Trade Organization.
We bring the experiences of struggles from Australia, Bangladesh, Cambodia, Fiji, Germany, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Nepal, Norway, Pakistan, the Philippines, Slovakia, Sri Lanka, Sweden, Switzerland, Taiwan, Thailand, Timor Leste, Vietnam, and the United States, to further advance the people’s rights and to affirm our collective resistance against the new round of deception and maneuverings pushed by the WTO in this 9th Ministerial Meeting.
The WTO Bali conference is the latest imperialist effort to revive the failed neoliberal paradigm. As the multiple crises continue to reverberate around the world, impacting the poorest both in developed and developing countries, imperialist powers led by the US, European Union and Australia are desperately pushing a new wave of neoliberal globalization through the so-called ‘Bali Package’ and on the set of issues identified as the post-Bali agenda.
This round of negotiations is a critical arena for monopoly capitalists to circle around, if not dismantle, the roadblocks to further neo-liberal globalization.. As WTO Director-General Roberto Azevêdo puts it, “it is all or nothing now. We must tie the package up once and for all.” Imperialists block proposals that ran counter to its interests, and use media to portray India as the culprit for preventing consensus on the Bali Package, although the India-led G33 proposal does not respond to the demands for food sovereignty.
The Bali Package further brings down barriers to liberalization, deregulation and privatization while attempting to lull opposition through vague and non-binding measures purportedly supporting Least Developed Countries (LDCs). Even the so-called “Peace Clause” is a pitiful trade-off as it is only temporary, and comes with difficult conditions to actually provide any protection at all for developing countries.
But even if the WTO fails to deliver on the Bali agenda, monopoly capitalism will find other, more insidious ways to advance their neoliberal agenda through bilateral and regionally negotiated trade agreements.
Neoliberal globalization, imposed through neocolonial dictates or outright coercion, opens the natural and human resources of countries to plunder, and precludes self-reliant and sustainable economic development responsive to the peoples’ interests. Rather than mitigate the effects of the global capitalist crisis, the neoliberal regime aggravates the severe impoverishment, exploitation, displacement and repression of the working classes and the rest of the people.
Everywhere, workers face depressed wages and erosion of labor rights, peasants are driven out of their lands, Indigenous Peoples’ customs, practices, rights to land, territories, resources and self-determination is violated, fisherfolks lose the riches of the seas and their livelihood, women and children suffer rampant oppression in all spheres and become more vulnerable to violence, youth are denied access to education and jobs, urban poor communities suffer from massive unemployment and are demolished with residents forcibly evicted from their homes and deprived of livelihood, many people are deprived of the basic social services like health, for example people living with HIV/AIDS accessing medicine; and even the middle class are driven into poverty. Tens of millions have been forced by desperation to find work overseas and be treated as commodities and modern-day slaves.
From Seattle, to Hong Kong and now in Bali, people’s movements have consistently resisted neoliberal globalization’s attacks on people’s rights through militant struggle. We asserted the principles of sovereignty, human rights and justice to counter attempts to defend the system that favors monopoly capitalists and the local exploiting classes in our countries.
We in the Peoples’ Global Camp, uphold the Bandung principles on international relations based on human rights, solidarity, equality and cooperation set sixty years ago. The Asia-Africa Conference of 1955 in Bandung, Indonesia rejected attempts by major powers to deny the independence of other nations through colonial and neocolonial means or by fostering various forms of dependence. The Bandung Declaration reflects the people’s aspirations for genuine socio-economic development as the material basis for national sovereignty.
We, participants of the Peoples Global Camp, call for a just framework for trade and development that is geared towards the realization of peoples’ economic, political, social, and cultural well-being.
Grassroots organizations and peoples’ movements across the world representing those suffering from the unjust trade system set up by the WTO have called for the complete rejection of the WTO and its promotion of trade liberalization and the neoliberal agenda.
We have had enough of misleading platitudes and false solutions. The WTO is not the answer to address the multiple crises caused and aggravated by neoliberal globalization. Towards our goal for a system change and sustainable development for all, there is no other just, right and immediate call but to JUNK WTO!
Trade and genuine sustainable development for the people and the planet, not for corporate profits!
Development justice NOW!