Update on events surrounding the G20 Ministerial Conference (18-19 March 2005) in New Delhi.
report by Kuruvilla, Focus on the Global South, Mumbai.
Chronology of events in New Delhi:
March 15, 2005:
Over 50 groups including farmers groups, social movements and NGOs from across India meet in New Delhi and propose a peoples agenda on the G-20. The resolution from the meeting demands a fundamental change in the G20’s approach to agriculture and calls the grouping to a) Reject the AOA paradigm b) Stand for the peasants of the south and c) Confront the agribusiness of the north. They also insisted that developing countries use Quantitative Restrictions to de-link their economies from the AOA and called for a GSTP (Global System of Trade Preferences) that would be derived from the basic objective of protecting and furthering the interests of their peasantry and preserving the food sovereignty of their peoples. S P Shukla, former trade ambassador to the GATT, cautioned that “An AOA led approach would lead to billions of people losing livelihoods in the agricultural sector because its basic approach is biased towards the interests of temperate zone, large scale, capital intensive, trade oriented, agribusiness centered, peasant insensitive and mass livelihood threatening agriculture”. “The 16000 farmer suicides witnessed in India last year are largely a result of the approach underlying the AOA framework. More than the WTO impacting us we’ve impacted it - peoples movements across the world have shamed the institution,” said Vandana Shiva. The groups resolved to work together in the run-up to the Hong Kong Ministerial to replicate the historic successes achieved by people’s movements at Seattle and Cancun.
March 17, 2005:
The Heads of Delegation meeting of the G-20 begins at 10 am at the heavily guarded Maurya Sheraton Hotel and Towers. At around the same time over 30,000 farmers from across rural India brave the Delhi heat and gather at the nearby Kisan Ghat (Farmers Ground) to protest against the WTO. These included the powerful Bharatiya Kisan Union (The Indian Farmers Union) and their affiliate organisations from different states in India. There was a 12,000 strong delegation of farmers, from the KRRS - Karnataka Rajya Raita Sangha (Karnataka State Farmers Association), who traveled nearly 2500 kilometers from southern India by train for justice from a government that was elected on a progressive pro-farmer platform. After a series of powerful speeches from the state leaders the rally begins to move towards the Indian Parliament. They are stopped just before the Parliament by a series of barricades (6 levels of fences, armoured trucks and vans). An argument ensues with the heavily armed Delhi Police and soon the first barricade is breached. The police soon get the upper hand and the fallen fence is put up. Finally at around 6 pm a 27-member team comprising representatives from different parts of India is allowed to hand a memorandum to the Prime Ministers Office. The memorandum calls upon the G-20 for the exclusion of the agriculture sector from the WTO purview, reimposition of Quantitative Restrictions, increase in duty in import of agriculture products and proper insurance cover for farmers. It also demanded promotion of small-scale industries based on agriculture for employment in rural areas.
At 7.45 pm a delegation of farmers groups and NGOs meet Clodoaldo Hugueney and US Bhatia, the Trade Ambassadors of Brazil and India. The Peoples agenda on the G-20 is presented to both Ambassadors. Amb. Hugueney says that in a 148-member organisation it is a given that small groups will negotiate on behalf of others and to this end the FIPS (Five Interested Parties) provides for the first time better representation for developing countries. On reimposition of QRs which was a demand of farmers groups across the developing world he said that it was administratively a complex issue. He mentions that the G-20 has attempted to get more developing country groupings on board like the G-33, ACP, Caricom, African group and the LDCs. The coordinators of all these groups were present at the G-20 Ministerial as observers. Amb. Bhatia agreed that negotiators are often not aware of the real impacts of trade commitments and it was an important learning for him to listen to farmers groups. “ The G-20 is being attacked by the big powers – we’re counting on the support of civil society,” says Amb. Bhatia in his closing remarks.
March 18, 2005
The Ministerial Meeting begins. The people’s agenda on the G-20 is sent to various Ministers in India and distributed among parliamentarians. The Indian Commerce Minister Kamal Nath claims “the gathering here today signals a coming together in the common cause of almost the entire developing world”.
March 19, 2005
At 12 Noon the Ministers address a press conference to release the G-20 Ministerial Declaration. Only accredited press is given access into the hall and farmers groups (from Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu) who gather outside the hotel asking to be allowed are refused entry even to the porch of the hotel. They unfurl a banner that reads “ G-20 get out of the WTO, Agriculture out of the WTO”. As the Ministerial Declaration is released and Ministers begin to congratulate each other, the group is asked to disperse by the police. They demand to meet the Ministers. As a huge crowd gathers outside the hotel the police call for reinforcements and in minutes over 200 policemen with automatic rifles surround the farmers. They turn on a water cannon in an attempt to separate the group but that doesn’t succeed. Copies of the Ministerial Declaration are burnt to loud cheers from the crowd. “The ministers inside claim to be negotiating for small farmers – we want to know why they have ignored our demands and on whose behalf they are negotiating” argued Chukki Nanjudaswamy of the KRRS, a member of the Via Campesina. Vijay Jawandhia of the Shetkari Sanghatana (Farmers Collective) in Maharastra said “ In the 10 years of the AOA we have seen thousands of farmers in India take their lives. The G-20 is not discussing real issues facing the farmer – it is a masquerade and their empty rhetoric should be exposed by farmers groups across the developing world”.
http://www.focusweb.org/main/html/Article598.html WTO: Call to G-20: Reject the AOA paradigm Stand for the peasants of the south. Confront the Agribusiness of the north
We, representatives of agrarian communities, social movements, women's groups, Dalit groups and other civil society organisations in India gathered in New Delhi on 15 March 2005 to deliberate on "A Peoples Agenda for the G-20" resolved to place the following resolution before the Ministerial Meeting of the G-20.
Recalling with pride the historic success achieved by the people's movements at the Seattle and Cancun Ministerial meetings of the WTO in 1999 and 2003 respectively;
Recognising that over the years the incidence of farmers' suicides in India and other developing countries has shown an alarming increase and the deepening and complex economic and social crisis in the farming sector is largely a result of the approach underlying the AOA framework.
Acknowledging the significance of the emergence of the G-20 in the context of the Cancun Ministerial of the WTO Welcoming the forthcoming G-20 Ministerial Meeting at New Delhi on March 18, 2005
We urge the G-20 Ministers to take note of our concerns and adopt a people's agenda as elaborated below for their deliberations and decisions.
We are convinced that the July framework agreement adopted in July 2004
1) maintains or expands the key mechanisms of "domestic support" or subsidisation of EU and US agriculture, the so-called Blue Box and Green Box;
2) creates a new restrictive category-that of "sensitive products"-to hamper market access for developing country products;
3) makes only conditional commitments to eliminate export subsidies;
4) pays lip service to the developing countries demands for the designation of "special products" and other forms of special and differential treatment and
5) Extracts market opening commitments from developing countries in agriculture as well as in NAMA (Non Agricultural Market Access) and Services.
We believe that the WTOs Agreement on Agriculture (AOA) is predicated upon the preservation and perpetuation of the domination of the agribusiness of the North. It was conceived and crafted in the interest of temperate zone, large scale, capital intensive, trade oriented, agribusiness centered, peasant insensitive and mass livelihood threatening agriculture.
In India and as in most of the G-20 countries, agriculture is the main source of livelihood for majority of the people. The process of integrating developing country agriculture with the world agriculture market is already proving disastrous for poor and vulnerable peasantry. Thousands of farmers, many of them among the world's poorest people, have lost their livelihoods as a result of this process of integration. The agrarian distress has reached serious proportions and the food security of billions of people is endangered.
The AOA paradigm visualises a kind of "final solution" to the agrarian question through the virtual extinction of the 3 billion strong peasantry of the third world. The functioning of the AOA so far and the manoeuvres witnessed during the pre and post Cancun period leave little doubt that the apparent moves by the US and the EU accepting a measure of discipline on export subsidies and domestic support are only a smokescreen to camouflage the prime objective of the so called global discipline on agriculture which is to capture the markets of the third world and to render the third world countries totally dependent on agribusiness of the North. This is being refurbished through the enforcement of the global discipline on protection of Intellectual Property Rights whose scope now extends to seeds, plant varieties, micro organisms, microbiological and non-biological processes of production of plants and animals. What is worse, the smokescreen is being used as a lever to extract concessions from developing countries in NAMA and the services areas of the negotiations.
This is unacceptable. It is time that peasants of the third world unite to expose this nefarious game. It is time that they repudiate the AOA paradigm and compel their governments to explore afresh an agriculture trade agreement derived from the basic objective of protecting and furthering the interests of their peasantry and preserving the food sovereignty of their peoples. Such an agreement should be part of a wider paradigm of economic cooperation among developing countries.
We therefore demand that the G-20:
1) Reject the July framework as the basis for agricultural talks in the run-up to the December 2005 Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting for the reasons stated earlier
2) Call upon Brazil and India to leave the non-inclusive grouping of the Five Interested Parties (FIPs) and work towards the disbanding of the FIPs. Instead they should work towards the consolidation of G-20 and its close coordination with G-33 and G-90 with a view to evolving strategic solidarity of the South as a whole in the WTO negotiations not only on agriculture but also in NAMA and Services.
3) Insist on the developing countries right to use Quantitative Restrictions (QRs) to selectively de-link their agrarian economies from the paradigm of AoA. Such a right must be built into the AoA in the same way as the right to use QRs was built into the GATT in order to enable the developing countries to secure their external financial position.
4) Launch forthwith a collective exercise to fashion an arrangement for promoting inter se agricultural trade of developing countries. It should be informed by the philosophy, approach and modalities of the Global System of Trade Preferences (GSTP) among developing countries. It should be derived from the basic objective of protecting and furthering the interests of their peasantry and preserving the food sovereignty of their peoples. It should explicitly take on board diverging tendencies and interests of all developing countries.
5) To be transparent in the negotiations and to take elected representatives, agrarian communities, social movements and other civil society groups into confidence at all stages in the discussions.
For achieving our objectives as set out above, we resolve to work with like minded groups and movements in the run-up to the Hong Kong Ministerial Meeting of the WTO.