Hindustan Times | Nitya Chakraborty | December 4, 1999
Seattle - THE THIRD Ministerial conference of the World Trade Organisation collapsed today following after the developing nations unitedly protested against the lack of transparency and imposition of the views of the rich on the poor countries in the negotiations.
The chairperson of the conference, Ms Charlene Barshefsky, who is also the US Trade Representative, told a Press conference that the 135 nation-members were chasing too many complex issues in too short a time. The work of the ministerial conference, she said, had been suspended. It would resume as soon as the conditions became ripe, she said, indicating that the negotiations on agriculture and services would begin in January next year, as scheduled.
Ms Barshefsky virtually hijacked the process of negotiations at the Seattle meet and her strongarm tactics invited volatile reactions from many of the Trade Ministers participating in the discussions. In fact, she was quite candid in admitting that she was constantly in touch with the White House during the day and, before taking the decision to suspend the conference, she had spoken to the US President.
Never in the history of this global body, the successor of GATT, had there been so many walk-outs from meetings, including a walk-out by the Trade Ministers, as in the present one. The inaugural ceremony was disrupted for five hours and many delegates, including a Trade Minister, were roughed up by demonstrators near the conference venue.
A majority of the members came out with a statement in the evening, expressing their profound disagreement, anger and disappointment with the Seattle process. They noted that unless changes were made, no consensus would follow. They charged that no change was forthcoming, thus calling into question the validity of the Chairman's draft ministerial declaration.
Earlier, there were charges of contrived consensus against the WTO leadership, but never before had the developing countries demonstrated such solidarity against the lack of transparency in the deliberations and the changes in the draft documents. Trade Ministers of Latin American and the Caribbean countries said today that as long as the conditions of transparency, openness and participation of all members were not ensured, they would not join hands to provide the consensus required to meet the objectives of this meet.
The joint statement of these members even said that they were concerned that the working groups set up by the WTO had ended up as an exercise in pretence rather than transparency. In fact, the target of all dissidence and protests at the WTO meet was Ms Barshefsky, who conducted the proceedings like a bully, caring little for the views of the Asian, African and Latin American countries. Indian delegates too had a taste of her partisanship. She functioned as if her only responsibility was to carry out the personal agenda of Bill Clinton.
The US negotiators were ready at the conference with their impeccable legal brainpower. The extent of haggling over the wordage exasperated many delegates, who also contemplated allowing the US lobby to have its way so that the tortuous exercise of revising the drafts could be averted. The US strategy all through had been to keep the member countries divided. But despite its success in delinking the least developing countries from the general group of developing countries, it overshot its limits at the Seattle meet. This was amply reflected in the open opposition by a large number of Asian and African countries.
The US officials took all steps to recast the document to avoid a backlash from the powerful AFLCIO unions, ostensibly in view of the US presidential elections.
Ms Barshefsky had to admit at the Press conference that her new approach had failed because of the sheer volume of the issues and their complexity, forcing her to adopt the greenroom procedure on the conference's last day. Earlier, the US side was ready with the draft declaration and the Trade Ministers were categorically told by Ms Barshefsky to finalise a draft before afternoon. But as the developing countries from Asia, Africa and Latin America had not been consulted at all, there was a revolt and open statements were made announcing that they would not be a party to the consensus.
Despite all prodding by the US Trade Representative after this sudden development, the "contrived" consensus was not achieved. Soon after, she gave up attempts and allowed other senior ministers to undertake the task of evolving a consensus on the draft declaration.
The situation, by then, was completely out of control. By evening, it was clear that the meeting would end in a deadlock. It was then decided to suspend the negotiations without issuing any common declaration.
The immediate impact of the suspension of the WTO talks is that the so-called decision on the setting up of the working group to discuss the possibility of a group on trade, globalisation and labour standards now stands frozen.
Today's developments have vindicated India's stand on the labour standards as the US insistence on the issue angered other developing countries as well. Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran played a significant role in uniting the developing countries for an issue-based agenda.
