Printed from Urbana-Champaign IMC : http://www.ucimc.org/
UCIMC Independent Media 
Center
Media Centers

[topics]
biotech

[regions]
united states

oceania

london, ontario

[projects]
video
satellite tv
radio
print

[process]
volunteer
tech
process & imc docs
mailing lists
indymedia faq
fbi/legal updates
discussion

west asia
palestine
israel
beirut

united states
worcester
western mass
virginia beach
vermont
utah
urbana-champaign
tennessee
tampa bay
tallahassee-red hills
seattle
santa cruz, ca
santa barbara
san francisco bay area
san francisco
san diego
saint louis
rogue valley
rochester
richmond
portland
pittsburgh
philadelphia
omaha
oklahoma
nyc
north texas
north carolina
new orleans
new mexico
new jersey
new hampshire
minneapolis/st. paul
milwaukee
michigan
miami
maine
madison
la
kansas city
ithaca
idaho
hudson mohawk
houston
hawaii
hampton roads, va
dc
danbury, ct
columbus
colorado
cleveland
chicago
charlottesville
buffalo
boston
binghamton
big muddy
baltimore
austin
atlanta
arkansas
arizona

south asia
mumbai
india

oceania
sydney
perth
melbourne
manila
jakarta
darwin
brisbane
aotearoa
adelaide

latin america
valparaiso
uruguay
tijuana
santiago
rosario
qollasuyu
puerto rico
peru
mexico
ecuador
colombia
chile sur
chile
chiapas
brasil
bolivia
argentina

europe
west vlaanderen
valencia
united kingdom
ukraine
toulouse
thessaloniki
switzerland
sverige
scotland
russia
romania
portugal
poland
paris/�le-de-france
oost-vlaanderen
norway
nice
netherlands
nantes
marseille
malta
madrid
lille
liege
la plana
italy
istanbul
ireland
hungary
grenoble
germany
galiza
euskal herria
estrecho / madiaq
cyprus
croatia
bulgaria
bristol
belgrade
belgium
belarus
barcelona
austria
athens
armenia
antwerpen
andorra
alacant

east asia
qc
japan
burma

canada
winnipeg
windsor
victoria
vancouver
thunder bay
quebec
ottawa
ontario
montreal
maritimes
hamilton

africa
south africa
nigeria
canarias
ambazonia

www.indymedia.org

This site
made manifest by
dadaIMC software
&
the friendly folks of
AcornActiveMedia.com

Comment on this article | Email this Article
News :: Agriculture
World's Farmers Stand In Solidarity Against WTO Current rating: 0
29 Oct 2003
Subsidies paid to U.S. farmers were the big issue, but they are only a carrot held out to U.S. farmers to allow them to hang on. Their prices are so low, they are, in effect, giving their grain to Cargill and Bunge, who then use it to force the farmers south of the border out of business. The campesinos understand this, probably better than the U.S. farmers, who are as much a victim of the system as they are.
U.S. Trade Minister Robert Zoellick and European Union Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy were both feeling rather miffed after the World Trade Organization ministerial meetings in Cancun, Mexico, collapsed last month. It was all supposed to go their way, after all. They had always had their way; the economic power of the United States and European Union were not to be challenged. But the bullies lost their grip; their best-laid plans swept aside by the "G-20 " - a group of developing nations that said, "No more; listen to our needs," and then walked out of the meetings.

Robert Zoellick had held Mexico up as an example of a nation that had benefited greatly from global trade through creation of new jobs and increased incomes. I wondered whom he had heard that from. Did he ever talk to any of the Mexican campesinos that were kept miles away from him by the barricades? Did he ever talk to any of the Mexicans whose farms were lost because global trade allowed cheap grains to undercut their sales? Did he ever talk to any of the Korean rice farmers whose lives and culture had been ruined by imports from the United States? Did he ever talk to any grain farmers from the American Midwest who saw their prices falling year after year after year?

I doubt he ever saw or heard the little people, the campesinos who packed onto buses for the trip to Cancun. He never saw how they slept in the dirt around the Cultural Center while the air conditioner barely made a whisper in his five-star hotel room. He never saw the farmers that the WTO had supposedly pulled out of poverty scrambling for a plastic bag full of warm drinking water as they readied themselves to march on the barricades that separated him from them.

No, I doubt Mr. Zoellick and the Bush administration ever saw, much less cared; these farmers were expendable, mere cannon fodder for global trade and corporate profit. But they all underestimated the resolve of these farmers. Whether from the South, or the Far East, North America or Europe, the farmers knew, just like South Korean farmer Lee Kyung-hae knew, that the WTO was killing them. By intentionally driving grain prices down to gain trade advantage in the world market while at the same time forcing the world to accept its genetically modified grain, the U.S. government was using the WTO to control the world market.

Subsidies paid to U.S. farmers were the big issue, but they are only a carrot held out to U.S. farmers to allow them to hang on. Their prices are so low, they are, in effect, giving their grain to Cargill and Bunge, who then use it to force the farmers south of the border out of business. The campesinos understand this, probably better than the U.S. farmers, who are as much a victim of the system as they are. Well, some claim, the campesinos can get manufacturing jobs in the maquiladoras. But no, most of those jobs are moving to China since labor is even cheaper there. This is how the WTO works: create a world with no economic borders, with everything gravitating to wherever it can be grown, made or extracted the cheapest.

And so we marched. There were no differences in nationality between us as we marched down the streets of Cancun toward the WTO meeting place. We were not French, Mexican, Spanish, Brazilian, Argentinean, Korean, African, North American or Belgian. We were the campesinos, the farmers of the world; our messages were simple and clear. Our world was not for sale; we wanted fair trade, not free trade. We had globalized the struggle, globalized the hope.

We would march all the way to the convention center and confront the delegates to the WTO. But it began to fall apart, provocateurs began to throw rocks at the police, the barricades were overturned and Korean farmer Lee Kyung-hae killed himself while wearing a sign saying "WTO Kills Farmers." Although many of us witnessed his fall and saw him carried out, we did not learn of his death, nor his final words, "Don't worry about me, just struggle your hardest," until that night.

As the peaceful march fell apart and tear gas drifted through the air, the campesinos pulled back from the fighting and listened to statements made by farmers from all over the world telling of the devastation caused by unjust trade policies. Speeches were translated through several languages before everyone understood the literal meaning, but we all understood, we were all the same, all farmers.

The WTO is an ugly creature, the lapdog of corporate greed, but the campesinos saw through it, saw what it was doing to farmers around the world. Workers and environmentalists saw through it as well. They all came together in Seattle in 1999 and stopped it; every time the WTO gathered, protesters confronted it and slowed it down. In Cancun we stopped it again. Until governments begin to value people more than corporate profit, the protests will continue, the struggle will survive.


James Goodman is a dairy farmer from Wonewoc who participated in the campesino march in Cancun, Mexico, on Sept. 10.

Copyright 2003 The Capital Times
http://www.madison.com
Add a quick comment
Title
Your name Your email

Comment

Text Format
To add more detailed comments, or to upload files, see the full comment form.