BANGKOK: Non-governmental groups have seized a prominent place at the UN Conference on Trade and Development (Unctad) following violent anti-globalisation protests at last year's World Trade Organisation summit in Seattle and the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland last month.
Activists now have a place at the table for the Unctad, a UN agency which seeks to promote trade as a tool for development in poor countries.
Activists from groups which helped sink the WTO attempt in November to launch a Millennium Round of trade talks gathered yesterday in Bangkok -- this time, not in the streets, but in something resembling the halls of power.
They demanded an end to attempts by rich corporations and nations to dominate trade and that the WTO be cut down to size. They will present their views to the conference's four-yearly meeting starting on Saturday.
Thousands of delegates are converging on Bangkok for the week-long meeting which will address the future of globalisation and the implications for Unctad from the collapse of the Seattle talks.
The think-tank Focus on the Global South, in an article published in the Nation daily newspaper said Unctad must exploit a "crisis of legitimacy" paralysing the WTO and the IMF to benefit the developing world.
Unctad should also forge a "New Deal" on agriculture for developing nations, shield the environment from free trade and seize a dominant role on global financial reform, the article said.
Thai authorities, worried about security, have set aside a small area for symbolic protests during the Unctad meeting but will require larger groups to gather at a park 2km away.
Secretary-General Rubens Ricupero says the meeting could bridge gaps between rich and poor countries and give a helpful push to the WTO, but leading activists yesterday said reform and tinkering with the US-dominated trade system wasn't enough.
Walden Bello, a veteran Philippine activist for the developing world, said the first thing to go should be Washington's dogma that the WTO was necessary to enforce a rules-based trading system.
"In the Nazi fashion of Joseph Goebbels, if you repeat a lie often enough, it gets believed," he said. "The necessity of the WTO is a lie."
The idea that global trade would enrich everyone was propaganda, noting that since the WTO was established in 1995, its rules have been used by rich nations to force open the markets of developing countries, while freezing out their imports, like agriculture and textiles.
Despite the WTO's claims to make decisions only by consensus of all its 130-plus members, Mr Bello said, consensus really meant only back-room agreements reached by the powerful players -- the US, the European Union, Canada and Japan.
He called the WTO and the International Monetary Fund -- widely viewed in Asia as making the recent economic crisis far worse than it had to be -- a pair of outmoded "Jurassic institutions" trying to direct and control everything under their purview.
What the new millennium needed, as shown by Seattle, Mr Bello said, was a system where the WTO and IMF were downsized and became smaller actors giving input to a system which would also heed groups representing poor nations and ordinary people.
World leaders recognise that the system took a serious beating in Seattle, Mr Bello said, citing his invitation as a long-time Third World crusader to last week's World Economic Forum in Davos as proof.
The annual gathering usually brings together the world's economic elite. US President Clinton and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain travelled to Davos. So did high-tech moguls Bill Gates and Steve Case.
All were worried, Mr Bello said, that the WTO was losing its authority.
Christophe Aguiton, an international officer of the French group ATTAC, said the situation at Davos was "morose" for the world elites that set the rules.
They realised that Seattle was a turning point, Mr Aguiton said, even if the line was being put out that the talks broke down because of rows between the European Union and the US.
"The perception of the world at large is that the setback was because of the protests," Mr Aguiton said.
The challenge was now for activist groups which hit the streets in Seattle -- from environmentalists to trade unions -- to find common ground and set a unified agenda.
One unifying theme was a rejection of growing inequality of wealth, both between the elite and ordinary folk in rich countries, and between wealthy and developing nations.
"We don't want all decisions to be taken by the rich, whether by trans-national corporations or a handful of rich countries," Mr Aguiton said.
At least 11 heads of state are expected, as well as UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, and the leaders of the IMF and the WTO.
NGO delegates will hold working groups on agriculture, debt, finance and other issues before presenting their statement to Unctad Secretary General Rubens Ricupero.
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