Darwin protests against APEC

Darwin protests against APEC

DARWIN — Media mongrels, APEC staffers and plainclothes police watched
guardedly as 60 people gathered in Raintree Park on June 7 in a lively
protest action against the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation meeting of
trade ministers. The APEC meeting was the largest meeting of trade ministers
since the Millennium Round of trade liberalisation talks was abandoned
in the wake of mass demonstrations in Seattle in November.

The trade ministers, representing 21 countries in the region, pressed
the World Trade Organisation for an early relaunch of the Millennium Round,
although they bickered about what exactly should be discussed within it.
The protesters outside, however, rejected the call for a new round, saying
that the "free trade" policies enforced on poor nations by previous rounds
had damaged the environment and undermined democratic rights and workers'
living standards.

The NT Environment Centre's Mark Wakeham spoke told the protesters about
the many environmental protection laws that had been undermined by WTO
agreements, and Peter Johntson from Action in Solidarity with Indonesia
and East Timor said that the trade ministers' meeting symbolised what was
wrong with trade liberalisation. It hands power to unelected and unaccountable
elites and bureaucracies, he argued.

Other speakers included representatives from the Democratic Socialist
Party, Resistance and the International Women's Day Collective. Fair Trade
hosted a "Fair trade, not free trade tea party".

From GLW issue 409