Little joy for West on Seattle anniversary

BY PETER BOYLE

Hundreds of commemorations of the first anniversary of the Seattle protests against the World Trade Organisation (WTO) are being organised for around November 30.

In Seattle, the street protests outside, and the activities of delegates from Third World governments, inside forced the postponement of the new round of trade negotiations being demanded by the imperialist states.

It inspired a global movement of solidarity and opposition to capitalist globalisation, a movement that mobilised soon after in Washington, Melbourne, Prague and Seoul.

One year after Seattle, most Third World countries are standing firm and refusing further negotiations without a fundamental review of WTO agreements and its structures. The USA, Europe and Japan and other imperialist governments, including Australia, have not responded to these demands. They are united in pushing for a new round of negotiations in 2001.

Imperialist governments have been working to break the resistance to a new round in regional free trade bodies like the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum and Asia-Europe parliamentary meetings.

While the official spin on the recent APEC meeting in Brunei was that there was agreement to restart the WTO trade round talks in 2001, other reports suggest that this "agreement" was less than unanimous, with the Malaysian government leading opposition to the neo-liberal agenda.

The next WTO ministerial meeting is due at the end of 2001. It was to be hosted by Qatar, but it has withdrawn its offer. Thanks to the new global movement, WTO meetings have become a poisoned chalice.

A list of anniversary events can be found at <http://www.scn.org/wto/cal/>.

From GLW issue 429