A World Manipulated
Book Review of “Behind the Scenes at the WTO”
Authored by Fatoumata Kawara and Aileen Kwa
2003. London: Zed Books

Representatives of developing countries are asking for a change in rules – rather, that rich countries stick to the WTO rules as set forth. But developing countries are not galvanized enough to muscle through such position. They are weakened and divided even more not only because of their economic vulnerability but also by the manipulative tactics of the Quad countries.

By Bobby Tuazon
Bulatlat.com

The scene was a stark contrast to the year 1995 when globalization got a boost with the formation of the World Trade Organization (WTO). Back then, the architects of globalization promised a regime of freer and fairer trade for the developing countries under the WTO regime. In mid-January this year, tens of thousands of people from all over the world gathered in Mumbai, India with anger in their fists in protest over the devastation that globalization has wrought to their lives – whole economies ruined, millions of jobs lost, the poor suffering in sheer hopelessness.

Those who assembled for the Mumbai Resistance (MR) 2004, including a number from the Philippines led by the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan), called for the WTO’s junking altogether even as they pledged to resist the wars of aggression that the same architects of globalization are waging all over the world. A tamer but admittedly larger gathering – the World Social Forum (WSF) – stopped short of what MR stood for. Its slogan, “Another world is possible,” painted a flicker of hope in a world dimmed by the adverse impact of trade liberalization but could not simply point the way how to get there. The entire world is seeking radical alternatives to the WTO and the WSF – or at least its organizers – is asking for “reforms.”

Part of the reasons why the push for globalization is being stopped on its tracks – in the anti-APEC campaign in the Philippines in 1996, Seattle in 1999, in Cancun last year – is that the developing countries have no voice in the WTO. Trade ministers and other representatives from the developing countries who make up four-fifth of the WTO’s current membership of 146 are left out from the decision-making process and those calling the shots are the same countries that authored globalization – the United States, Japan, European Union and Canada.

Real world

Shedding light on this controversy is a recent book that came out during the convening of the WTO ministerial conference in Cancun, Mexico late September last year. “Behind the Scenes at the WTO,” written by Fatoumata Jawara and Aileen Kwa, deals on the “real world” of international trade negotiations. Jawara is a freelance international trade and development analyst and worked as adviser to the Municaland Development Association in Zimbabwe. Kwa is a trade analyst with Focus on the Global South, a policy research and activist organization.

What “Behind the Scenes” reveals about the arm-twisting and unfair lobbying taking place at the WTO’s ruling bodies, chiefly by the so-called Quad or quadrilateral group composed of the United States, EU, Japan and Canada affirms what had been suspected all along by many anti-globalization activists. But Jawara and Kwa go farther by enriching such affirmation with investigations, paper trail and interviews with trade ministers, members of the WTO’s governing General Council and Secretariat staff.

The authors take the reader to the WTO’s inner sanctum which unveils itself as the complete opposite of what the organization publicly espouses – a regime of democracy, consensus and transparency. Far from being what it claims to be, the WTO serves as a field for the politics of domination wielded by the major capitalist countries in the world economy. The secrecy and the classic divide-and-rule and carrot-and-stick pressure tactics mastered by the Americans, for instance, are used to hammer through policies and decisions favorable to the rich countries. Decisions are already concocted in “green room” meetings even before the ministerial conference – supposedly the highest policy-making body – takes place. The ministerial conference is held once every two years.

As simple as that

“Developed countries are benefiting from the WTO, as are a handful of (mostly upper-) middle-income countries,” Jawara and Kwa write. “The rest, including the great majority of developing countries, are not. It is as simple as that.”

The WTO is plainly a part of the broader pattern of neocolonialism in the global economy. And pressure and pay-offs in trade negotiations are the negotiating armory of the imperialists to continue ruling the world. The authors quote Robert Cooper, a foreign policy adviser of UK's Prime Minister Tony Blair: “When dealing with the more old-fashioned kinds of state outside the postmodern continent of Europe, we need to revert to the rougher methods of an earlier era – force, pre-emptive attack, deception…The opportunities, perhaps even the need, for colonization is as great as ever was in the 19^th century…What is needed then is a new kind of imperialism.”

Under pressure by anti-globalization activism and concerned that their own governments may not last amid the poverty and unemployment spawned by their own compliance to trade liberalization rules, representatives of many developing countries including India, Brazil and Malaysia have been putting some brakes to liberalization targets. For instance, they want the Quad countries to remove farm subsidies in order to make the developing world’s own farm products competitive in the world market and to mitigate the influx of cheap imports from rich countries. Cunningly, the United States and EU countries are using such concern as a bargaining chip for pushing a new round of talks that would open up the developing countries’ economies for greater foreign investment and services. This contemplated regime is just like – in the Philippines – extending the neocolonial parity rights of the Americans to the Japanese and European capitalists.

The strategy of manipulation takes place outside the formal ministerial summits and other WTO structures. To push their agenda, representatives of the Quad countries initiate mini-ministerials and “green room” meetings where delegates from developing - preferably influential - countries are invited selectively. Mini-ministerials have nothing to do with the WTO but they have been institutionalized and so have become part of the WTO process. In these secret negotiations, representatives of developing countries are cajoled to support the Quad proposals. In using their arsenal of dirty tricks, the Quad members, particularly the U.S., also use a wide array of bilateral threats and promises against the developing countries.

“Favorite instruments,” according to Jawara and Kwa, are “the promise of benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (by the USA toward African countries), limited concessions on trade restrictions directed toward individual countries (notably on textiles), debt reduction (e.g., the sudden completion of Tanzania’s long-overdue debt reduction under the HIPC initiative soon after Doha) and aid (offered to Pakistan, for example). Many of the promises were fulfilled; others either were quietly forgotten or turned out to be worthless.”

Representatives of developing countries are asking for a change in rules – or rather that rich countries stick to the WTO rules as set forth. But developing countries are not united enough to muscle through such position. They are weakened and divided even more not only because of their economic vulnerability but also by the manipulative tactics of the Quad countries.

Is there hope in the WTO? Jawara and Kwa realize that majority of the developing countries believe there is need for the WTO and that reforms are needed to make it more responsive to the needs of the developing world. Both authors warn however that the anti-democratic processes practiced by the Quad are eroding the WTO’s legitimacy. Expect, they say, the increase in the global resistance to the WTO with all people disenfranchised by this unequal globalization moving on to a “larger stage.” Bulatlat.com / Book Review

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