A Whiff of Democracy in Seattle

[Robert Weissman <rob@essential.org>]

A Whiff of Democracy in Seattle
By Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

Democracy was certainly in the streets of Seattle last week, and a whiff
-- perhaps carried by teargas -- even made it into the convention center
where trade ministers from the World Trade Organization (WTO) member
states met.

Many factors contributed to the collapse of the WTO talks -- an effort to
expand the scope of the trade agency's authority -- but there is no
question that popular protests played a central role.

Tuesday saw at least 40,000 people take to the streets to protest the
corporate tilt of the WTO. A stunning coalition of teamsters, consumers,
sea turtle protection activists, religious people, women's groups,
environmentalists, students and anti-corporate youth and many, many others
joined to "Just Say No to the WTO." 

Approximately 10,000 people -- primarily students and youth -- joined
together in an extraordinarily well organized and highly disciplined
direct action to block every access way to the convention center, stopping
most of the official and negotiating activities scheduled for the WTO
meeting's first working day.

Notwithstanding city efforts to clamp down on all public dissent in the
downtown area, protests continued throughout the week, with thousands
demonstrating at separate environmental, farmer, steel worker and women's
marches and rallies. Always on display were focused attacks on the WTO and
strident criticism of the corporations that have drafted and lobbied for
its anti-people rules. 

On Friday, perhaps ten thousand joined in a labor-led march -- organized
on about 24 hours notice -- to again protest the WTO and the city's
infringements on civil liberties through the creation of a "no protest"
zone.

Meanwhile, students and others in an overwhelmingly young crowd continued
civil disobedience and direct actions throughout the week.

Inside the convention center, where negotiations began on Wednesday after
riot-gear-equipped police and national guard forces cordoned off the
downtown from most protesters, turmoil was building as well. 

When separate working groups negotiating over a wide array of sectors
failed to produce compromise agreements, the United States sought to forge
a deal through the WTO's heavy-handed old-style tactics.

Charlene Barshefsky, the U.S. Trade Representative, and the rest of the
U.S. negotiating team picked a handful of countries to commence
negotiations in a closed "Green Room." The idea was for the arbitrarily
selected bunch to work out a comprehensive deal, and then present it to
the entire WTO membership as a fait accompli for adoption. But even the
Green Room gambit failed, and the talks ended in complete disarray.

The complexity of trade negotiations -- with compromises made in one
sector dependent on unrelated compromises in another -- means no single
factor can explain the talks' failure. But it is possible to identify many
of the key negotiating reasons for the collapse:

* The European Union and the United States could not work out an
agricultural accommodation, with the EU's commitment to export subsidies a
critical stumbling block.

* Many Third World countries revolted against the negotiating process, and
their complete exclusion from the Green Room discussions. More than 70
developing countries, primarily from Africa and the Caribbean, declared on
Thursday that they would not sign a final declaration negotiated in a
process from which they had been excluded.

* Many Third World countries resisted the U.S. call for formation of a
working group to study the relationship between trade and labor issues.

* A compromise deal that was floated early Friday morning would have
entailed politically unacceptable compromises on the key issues of concern
to U.S. labor unions -- anti-dumping (rules permitting countries to block
the import of below-market-cost imports) and some progress on rules to
promote adherence to core labor standards.

On each of these issues, the street protests helped heighten
contradictions and conflicts. The simple fact of preventing negotiations
on Tuesday helped impede agreement in the agricultural sector. As a
delegate from Zimbabwe explained, the street demonstrations emboldened the
Third World negotiators to object to the exclusionary processes inside the
WTO. And the demands from the U.S. labor movement -- backed by mobilized
rank-and-file members -- stiffened the U.S. negotiators so that they at
least refused to cave in on their minimalist labor rights demands.

For now, street heat has stifled the corporate elite. Just as they blocked
delegates from entering the convention center, so they blocked the
corporations' attempt to extend the WTO's reach even further into nation's
economies and societies. 

But as spectacular as was the Seattle victory, achieving the second half
of one of the week's primary slogans -- "No New Round, Turnaround" -- will
be even more daunting. Launching a new WTO negotiating round is nowhere
near as important to corporate interests as maintaining existing WTO rules
and the prevailing model of corporate globalization.

Still, a little bit of democratic empowerment can be a dangerous thing. If
the broad coalition that came together in Seattle can stay together -- a
big "if" -- it may eventually be able to force new rules for the global
economy, so that trade is finally subordinated to the humane values of
health, safety, ecological sustainability and respect for human rights,
rather than the reverse.


Russell Mokhiber is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based Corporate Crime
Reporter. Robert Weissman is editor of the Washington, D.C.-based
Multinational Monitor. They are co-authors of Corporate Predators: The
Hunt for MegaProfits and the Attack on Democracy (Monroe, Maine: Common
Courage Press, 1999, http://www.corporatepredators.org)

(c) Russell Mokhiber and Robert Weissman

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