----- Original Message -----
From: "Eubulides" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Friday, August 22, 2003 12:47 AM
Subject: South Africa: WTO strategy
> South Africa is likely to act in consent with two main groups in Cancun
> next month: it is a key player in both the African bloc and in the Cairns
> Group of agriculture exporting countries, which also includes Australia,
> Brazil and Chile.
The author of this article, Quentin Wray, is a classical SA hack, trained in
adulating corporate and state power during the apartheid era, with no change
in methodology since. My spin would be different:
FOCUS ON TRADE
NUMBER 90, AUGUST 2003
SOUTH AFRICA'S SUBIMPERIAL TRADE AGENDA:
Splitting Africa to launch a new multilateral round
Patrick Bond*
The September meeting of the World Trade Organisation (WTO) in Cancun will
again reveal how little the African continent has gained from trade
liberalisation.
This is not a short-term problem, but one that reflects durable problems
associated with globalisation. (1) It also reflects the contradictory
position of
South Africa, whose trade minister Alec Erwin has achieved an exceptionally
important position as a Third World negotiator working against the Third
World's
material interests. Erwin will, as in the previous WTO summit at Doha, be
actively
twisting arms and offering soothing commentary to the international media.
But
on most key issues, if the past few years are any guide, the United States
(US)
and European Union (EU) will bulldoze Africa, with Erwin pointing the way.
There is no debate about the magnitude of the problem, although
interpretations
differ markedly as to whether globalisation's ills are cured with more or
less
globalisation. Africa's share of world trade declined over the past quarter
century, while the volume of exports increased. No continent is as oriented
to
exports as Africa. 'Marginalisation' of Africa occurred, hence, not because
of
lack of integration (as is often alleged by neoliberals), but because other
areas
of the world--especially East Asia--moved to the export of manufactured
goods,
while Africa's industrial potential declined thanks to excessive
deregulation
associated with structural adjustment. (2) In the process, rapid
trade-related
integration caused social inequality, in a manner that is now widely
accepted
even by honest World Bank staff. According to the institution's main
econometrician of inequality, Branco Milanovic, 'at very low average income
levels, it is the rich who benefit from openness... It seems that openness
makes
income distribution worse before making it better.' (3)
Openness since the late 1970s has had a devastating impact. The decline in
the
price index for the main (non-fuel) commodities dropped especially
dramatically
from 1977 to 1982, while the export prices of developed countries increased
steadily. During the 1982-90 global expansion, the terms of trade of Third
World
countries still fell markedly, by 4% per year. Much of the decline was due
to the
drop in oil prices that began in earnest in 1986, but non-oil producing
Third World
countries also witnessed a negative 1.5% annual deterioration in the prices
of
their prices of exports relative to imports. This trend continued after the
1990-92
global recession, leaving commodity prices at their lowest levels since the
Great
Depression. (4)
In broader historical terms, the prices of primary commodities (other than
fuels)
have risen and fallen according to a deeper rhythm. Exporters of primary
commodities, for example, have fared particularly badly when financiers have
been most powerful. The cycle typically includes falling commodity prices,
rising
foreign debt, dramatic increases in interest rates, a desperate
intensification of
exports which lowers prices yet further, and bankruptcy. The trend to
declining
terms of trade was especially devastating because of the continent's
extraordinary dependence upon a few export commodities. The following
countries suffer from reliance upon a single product for at least 75% of
their
export earnings: Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Congo, Gabon, Guinea, Niger,
Nigeria, Somalia, Uganda, and Zambia. The only countries which diversified
their exports so that they claim at least 25% of their export earnings from
more
than four products are the Gambia, Lesotho, South Africa, Swaziland,
Tanzania,
and Zimbabwe. Generally, across Africa, four or fewer products make up
three-
quarters of export revenues. More than three-quarters of all Africa's trade
is with
developed countries.
Export-led growth strategies pursued since the 1970s by virtually all Third
World
countries meant that Africa's market share of world commodity prices also
shrunk drastically. In the 1970s and 1980s alone, the African market share
of
coca fell from 75 to 58%, of palm oil from 58 to 18%, of sisal from 48 to
36%, of
coffee from 35 to 20%, of crude petroleum from 15 to 8%, of cotton from 12
to 7%,
and of copper from 10 to 6%. The most far-ranging study of terms of trade
put the
income loss during the 1970s and 1980s at nearly 4% of GDP, about twice as
high as that of other regions. (5) Notwithstanding falling prices and market
shares, virtually no African economies made the necessary switch from
reliance
upon primary export commodities.
ALLIANCES FOR CHANGE IN TERMS OF TRADE?
In addition to African trade officials, there were others just as
concerned-many of
whom have taken to the streets at meetings associated with the General
Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) and then its successor the WTO. In
Bangalore, more than half a million peasants demonstrated in 1994 against
GATT provisions that would commodify their access to grain, and many 'IMF
Riots' occurred because of trade inequality and the overly rapid removal of
subsidies and protection against imports during the 1980s-90s. Tensions came
to a head at the WTO meeting in Seattle in December 1999. Not only were
concerns about democracy, environment, labour conditions, indigenous
people's rights and other social struggles not taken seriously by trade
negotiators, protesters alleged. So too were Third World delegates alienated
from the high-level 'Green Room' discussions conducted with a select group
of
influential delegates (from the US, EU, Japan, Canada, South Korea,
Singapore,
India and South Africa). (6)
In particular, disrespectful treatment of especially the African delegation
led to a
formal 'denial of consensus' by African and other Third World negotiators.
(7)
The Africa Group of ministerial-level negotiators used stern language about
the
lack of transparency, which Erwin managed to moderate slightly, although he
could not persuade the continent's delegates that his Green Room
negotiations
were in their interest. Erwin's final plenary statement at Seattle condemned
civil
society protesters as well as the US government, for its 'bad management.'
The
protests, he baldly and sarcastically misinterpreted, were 'designed (sic)
to give
us some insight into the pressures' on northern negotiators from their own
constituencies. (8)
Erwin was not the only irritable leader in Pretoria. As South Africa's
finance
minister Trevor Manuel told a seminar eleven months later, in a prepared
speech that reflected a distinct lack of understanding of the Seattle
conflict, 'If the
governments and civil society of the developed world are serious about the
fight
against global poverty, they should be more comfortable taking a dose of the
"free trade" medicine that they so liberally prescribe to the developing
world.'(9)
Tellingly, however, memories are selective on this point. Environment
minister
Valli Moosa claimed in a 2002 interview, 'Seattle clearly struck a chord
with many
of us in developing countries, even in government. Frankly, those people in
the
streets of Seattle were speaking for us.' (Moosa's intention was to
distinguish the
good Seattle protesters from the bad Johannesburg World Summit on
Sustainable Development protesters who 'were trying to replicate the
dramatic
events of Seattle in a completely wrong context.') (10)
The tension between Erwin on the one hand, and African negotiators and civil
society activists on the other, grew before and after Doha. (11) As Dot
Keet, trade
analyst with Cape Town-based Alternative Information and Development Centre
(AIDC) put it, Pretoria 'failed, within and after Seattle, to use its
political/moral
weight and democratic kudos to actively prioritise real institutional
reforms as an
essential pre-condition to any other discussions in or on the WTO.' Erwin
also
failed by accepting a 'Friend of the Chair' position within what Keet
described as
Doha's 'even more flagrantly inequitable and undemocratic processes.' (12)
An
African civil society summit declaration repeated this point in June 2003:
'The
manipulative and undemocratic practices initiated at Doha, such as the
appointments of Friends of the Chair in informal working groups, which make
undemocratic decisions on key issues, is being institutionalised at the WTO
in
the run up to Cancun.' (13)
As the November 2001 Doha conference agenda emerged, social movement
critics united with the more ambitious of African delegations. Erwin viewed
their
arguments with disdain: Africans and other Third World delegates 'merely
articulate extremely basic positions and very seldom get beyond that.' (14)
Pretoria chose to work most closely with Egypt, even though the more
aggressive--and reportedly most effective--African ministerial delegations
to the
WTO meetings were from Nigeria, Tanzania, Uganda, Kenya and Zimbabwe.
During the five months prior to Doha, several regional meetings were held in
which Erwin attempted to put forward the pro-WTO ('new round', or
'broad-based
agenda') position: Pretoria (Southern African Development Community trade
ministers), Zanzibar (LDC trade ministers), Cairo (COMESA trade ministers),
(15)
and Abuja (African trade ministers). (16)
There was some question, less than two months after the September 11
terrorist
attacks, whether Doha would even take place. The United States government
and its leading multinational corporations were willing to bend over
backwards,
stylistically, to maintain the pretense of international cooperation. But
with respect
to content, the Doha agreement amplified the free-trade agenda that had
generated such intense unevenness, inequality, eco-destruction and women's
suffering over the previous decades. SEATINI's Raj Patel explains that the
agreement--which adds many new areas of trade and investment
liberalisation--
will have the effect of bullying the world's weakest countries even more:
"In Seattle, Southern governments refused to sign a declaration not because
they opposed the entrenchment of neoliberalism and the elite class bias that
comes with it, but because they had been roughly treated. Delegates had not
been able to enter meetings, and the US negotiating team had rubbed Southern
inferiority in their faces...
"In Doha, by contrast, United States Trade Representative Robert Zoellick
was
a dealer, a broker of accord, a merchant of consensus. This new-found
humility
evidently pushed the buttons of the developing country elite. So they
signed.
This should come as no surprise. These are the elites that milk and pimp the
majority of people in their countries. It's hard to see why putting them in
five-star
accommodation and making them feel important might make them less venal."
(17)
Most developing country governments hadn't taken a principled stand against
neoliberalism. And yet their officials grappled with the issues and
repeatedly
pointed out the obvious: neoliberalism was killing their constituents. In
the run-up
to the ministerial summit, the Africa Group proposed that 'patenting of life
forms
would be prohibited' and that the Trade in Intellectual Property Rights
agreement
should not 'prevent Members from taking measures to protect public health.'
(18)
Thanks in large part to consistent grassroots activist pressure, the latter
demand
was, at least, grudgingly conceded by the US, EU and Japan. (19)
There was also an unsuccessful attack on the General Trade in Services
agreement. Officials from the Like-Minded Group (LMG), plus new friends
Cuba,
Haiti, India, Kenya, Peru and Venezuela, offered an eloquent critique of the
services agreement that is worth excerpting at length. It appears a rare
case of
Third World elites speaking truth to power (even if they crumbled under
pressure
in the final hours):
"Developing countries have clearly not received the benefits they thought
they
would. Developed countries continue to be heavily regulated in the form of
maintaining trade barriers especially in several sectors of interest to
developing
countries. For example, technical standards and licensing in certain
professional
services, is used to effectively restrict entry by developing countries into
the
industry...
"The regulatory initiatives taken by developing countries would already seem
to
be having a negative impact on them since many developing countries have
adopted regulations that have turned out to be more suited to the needs and
level of development of services industries of the developed countries...
"There is the danger that re-regulation as promoted in Article VI could in
fact
become deregulation [and that this] could be fundamentally incompatible with
the requirement or the desire of many governments to provide basic public
services for their people, especially since certain sections of their
population
may not be able to afford to pay market prices for these services...
"Many services markets are dominated by only a few large firms from
developed countries and a number of small players. The top 20 service
exporters are mainly from developed countries...
"Liberalisation under these circumstances of unequal competition has
aggravated the alarming divide in supply capacity between developed and
developing countries...
"Developing countries' small suppliers are also disadvantaged in other ways,
such as through discriminatory access to information channels and
distribution
networks...
"Under conditions of liberalisation, privatisation of services could very
easily
happen since foreign corporations which are more competitive are likely to
enter
the new market and take over from the local company. This could have
consequences on access to basic services for those who may not be able to
afford these commercial prices of services.
"In addition, investments, when they come in, have often not been in sectors
that
could most benefit the host countries...
"For the rural sectors in many developing countries, these basic services
may
not even be provided by the state, but by communities and local authorities
which use currently common resources, such as water, minerals, fuels...
"Through marketisation, previously available public goods are put out of
reach
of many when these are commodified in the process of privatisation. The
experience of several developing countries with structural adjustment
already
shows that large segments of the population are having serious difficulties
gaining access to basic commodities and services at prices they can afford."
(20)
Another fight picked, and lost, in Doha by the countries noted above, and El
Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Senegal and Sri Lanka--concerned
agriculture:
"These talks remain dominated by the EU on the one hand, and the US and
Cairns group of exporting countries on the other. As a result, these
negotiations
have ignored developing country concerns about the problems our small
subsistence farmers are facing... Since before Seattle, we have been pushing
for
a 'Development Box' to be included in the Agriculture Agreement, but our
proposal has been sidelined. The WTO is supposed to ensure equity in trade,
but the present agricultural trading system in practice legitimises the
inequities,
for instance, by allowing the dumping of agricultural products from the
North." (21)
The Third World bowed to its knees on this occasion, and indeed whenever,
subsequently, the US and EU held firm to unfair trading relationships. One
reason that, aside from the medicines concession (a pyrrhic victory for
South
Africa, as noted below), Doha provided systemic defeats for the Third World
was that Alec Erwin had acquired what the WTO's then director-general, Mike
Moore, termed 'very useful African leadership.' (22) Someone needed to
demobilise the vigorous organising by African state and civil society groups
against the draft text to be considered at the ministerial summit. (23)
Erwin openly
admitted, 'Our overall approach was to defend the overall balance in the
draft
text',(24) and he was made a Friend of the Chair for this purpose,
responsible for
negotiating WTO rules. Civil society critics called him one of five 'Green
Men,'
since the function of the WTO chair's 'friends' was to take the place of the
hated
Green Rooms.
Thanks to the WTO-pliant Green Men, the modus operandi had changed
somewhat from Seattle, but the insider-elite retained various sources of
power
against the world's majority. Dissenting delegates were threatened that
trade
preferences would be withdrawn. At one point, a live microphone picked up
Moore's discussion with the Qatari host trade minister about how to stop the
Indian delegation from taking the floor.
The main trade analyst at Save the Children UK, John Hilary, concluded that
'Bullying and blackmail have become and integral part of how the WTO works,
as we saw all too clearly at the Doha ministerial. Time and again,
developing
countries have been forced to abandon their negotiating positions as a
result of
economic, political and even personal threats to their delegates.' (25)
Aileen
Kwa of Focus on the Global South reports that "What broke Africa in the
final two
days, was when the US and the EU contacted heads of states such as President
Obasanjo of Nigeria and other African leaders. This led to delegations in
Doha
receiving calls from their capitals. While Nigeria had earlier been quite
firm in its
opposition, it suddenly went silent in the final 13th November meeting."
(26)
The ground had been prepared when Erwin met the African, ACP and Least
Developed Countries (LDC) group on the final day of the Doha negotiations.
According to Keet, he "advised them that they had no choice but to accept
the
text, which was 'the best possible outcome for them in the circumstances.'
According to participants and eyewitnesses, there were a number of angry
responses to the South African minister, some even asking rhetorically who
he
represented and whose interests he was serving... The joint meeting
dissolved
in disarray. This was the final maneuver that dissipated the resistance of a
major
grouping of developing countries that many had hoped would repeat in Doha
their role in Seattle. This was not to be. But all the pressures and
persuasions,
manipulations and maneuvers only managed to secure what one European
MEP characterised as 'a resentful acquiescence." (27)
SUBIMPERIAL SOUTH AFRICA
Erwin's own Doha agenda was first exposed to local audiences in the
Johannesburg weekly Mail and Guardian, which reported that although 'Africa
got a sop in the form of a promise to the developing world to help build
capacity,'
the overall outcome was negative. The appearance of subimperial manipulation
was even acknowledged at a Johannesburg think-tank notorious for egging
Pretoria into precisely that role, according to the Mail and Guardian:
"The original strategy of most African countries, along with much of the
developing world, was to block a new WTO negotiations 'round' until
issues--still
unresolved after the 1986-1994 Uruguay round and perceived as essential to
boost developing nations' interests in the world trade system--are
addressed.
But on the eve of the WTO's fourth ministerial meeting, held in Doha from
November 9 to 13, the South African government embarked on a broad drive to
get African countries to consider, after all, a new round of WTO trade
negotiations.
"The South African government managed to take the SADC along with it, but
failed to reach consensus with other African countries, says the South
African
Institute of International Affairs... This situation, says institute
researcher Carin
Voges, 'might signify to the Africa group of countries that South Africa, a
prominent leader of the continent, does not have their best interests at
heart,
thereby compromising the future of the African renaissance." (28)
Erwin, meanwhile, described the 'Doha Developmental Agenda'--for all
practical
purposes the 'new round' so strongly opposed by African and civil society
critics
of the WTO--as a 'fantastic achievement'. (29) This meant, according to a
fanciful
Business Day reporter, that 'South Africa is now part of the Big Five of
global
trade' (alongside the US, EU, Japan and Canada). (30)
In reality, Keet concluded, 'South Africa's role is not so much a bridge
between
the developed and developing countries, but rather as a bridge for the
transmission of influences from the developed to the developing countries'.
(31)
The pro-WTO analyst Peter Draper likewise warned of likely worsening
'African
suspicion' of Erwin in the run up to the next summit, Cancun, given
divergent
interests: 'It will be difficult for South Africa to cooperatively develop
and maintain
common African positions in the WTO negotiations.' (32)
US/EU GRATITUDE
Erwin's agenda was not, however, succeeding - even on its own limited terms.
Faced with a protectionist onslaught from the US mere weeks after Doha--huge
steel, apparel and footware tariffs and agricultural subsidies which negated
claims of progress at the WTO summit--Pretoria's trade minister announced an
alliance with Brazil, Australia, and the 18-nation Cairns group of food
exporting
countries: 'We will fight this out.' (33) Yet a year later, Erwin confessed
defeat:
'The position is not particularly favourable... I think we are heading for a
very
difficult time in Cancun.' (34) In 2002, other deadlines were also missed by
trade
negotiators concerning the 'special and differential treatment' required by
the
Third World, and the health sector's need for exemptions from Trade in
Intellectual Property Rights pharmaceutical patent provisions. Even in
mid-2003,
there were still no clear rules of procedure, a Cancun chairman's text was
being
foisted upon Cancun delegates (instead of the chair facilitating a member's
text),
and invitation-only mini-ministerials further eroded the legitimacy of the
decision-
making processes.
Difficulties with the US in particular were obvious throughout the post-Doha
period. US Treasury undersecretary John Taylor explained the Bush regime's
hypocrisy quite casually, 'You take steps forward and move back. That's
always
the case.' (35) Just before the G8 Summit at Evian, France, Bush and Blair
announced their opposition to host president Jacques Chirac's plan to halt
dumping of subsidised Western food in Africa. (36) Yet Bush proposed
increasing his own government's aid-related subsidies on agricultural
exports
and also argued that 'European governments should join--not hinder--the
great
cause of ending hunger in Africa,' by both dropping their internal
agricultural
subsidies and permitting trade in genetically-modified foodstuffs.(37)
As a result, according to six leading African Global justice movements that
met
near Evian, 'The 2003 G8 was ultimately a disaster for African farmers. It
failed to
adopt even limited proposals for a moratorium on reducing European and
American tariff duties and subsidies for US and European agriculture. These
policies are perverse. While millions of African farmers, most women's
livelihoods, are ruined by these policies, European livestock are ensured
major
state subsidies.' (38)
Another example of the Bush regime's imposition of unsustainable development
on Africa was the genetically-modified (GM) food controversy. The EU,
Australia,
Japan, China, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia (i.e., more than half the world)
had
banned GM trade and production, so Bush was clearly desperate for new
markets in Africa, as he revealed to the US-Africa Business Summit shortly
before his July 2003 trip:
"To help Africa become more self-sufficient in the production of food, I
have
proposed the initiative to end hunger in Africa. This initiative will help
African
countries to use new high-yield bio-tech crops and unleash the power of
markets
to dramatically increase agricultural productivity.
"But there's a problem. There's a problem. At present, some governments are
blocking the import of crops grown with biotechnology, which discourages
African countries from producing and exporting these crops. The ban of these
countries is unfounded; it is unscientific; it is undermining the
agricultural future of
Africa. And I urge them to stop this ban." (39)
The Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference replied, 'We do not believe
that agro-companies or gene technologies will help our farmers to produce
the
food that is needed in the 21st century. On the contrary, we think it will
destroy the
diversity, the local knowledge and the sustainable agricultural systems that
our
farmers have developed for millennia and that it will thus undermine our
capacity
to feed ourselves.' Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade
Watch,
interpreted, 'The Bush administration is not straightforward. It is not
poverty in
Africa that is the most important issue for the administration but business
considerations on behalf of the US technology and agricultural sector.' As
InterPress Service reported, 'Zambia, citing health concerns, rejected GM
corn in
both grain and milled forms. One year later, President Levy Mwanawasa
announced last week that this year Zambia will nearly double the 600,000
tonnes
of grain it harvested last season, providing new fuel to the argument that
GM
technology is not necessary for reducing hunger in Africa.' (40)
Bush continued his speech to the US-Africa Business Summit with a defunding
threat, insofar as 'money will go to developing nations whose governments
are
committed to three broad strategies: First, they must rule justly. Second,
they
must invest in the health and education of their people. And third, they
must have
policies that encourage economic freedom.' (41) The latter would trump the
first
two, it could be confidently predicted. Meanwhile, South Africa, under
Erwin's
direction, continued its irresponsible invitations to Monsanto and other
genetically modified food producers both to import and to grow the foods on
African soil.
TRADING LIFE AND DEATH
The most important example of how Northern-dominated trade rules generate
underdevelopment--indeed mass death--must be the corporate application of
intellectual property rights that prevent use of affordable medicines in the
South.
According to a Business Day report, Erwin conceded that 'a key issue for the
developing world was agreement to allow developing countries to import or
manufacture generic drugs to deal with major public health crises without
running
into patent problems. Erwin urged those pharmaceutical companies which were
applying pressure to block a deal to come on board. The US government is
holding up a deal, under pressure from its pharmaceutical lobby.' (42)
This was true, of course. Although Bush promised $15 billion in new AIDS
funding
from 2003-06, this would be mainly to the benefit of US pharmaceutical
corporations. In any case, Bush quickly backpeddled on his pledge by cutting
the 2003-04 allocation in half and underfunding the Global Fund set up to
combat
AIDS, malaria and TB by the United Nations. (43)
In May 2003, NGO critics accused the Bush regime of having 'an almost blind
belief in the Intellectual Property system, without regard for the reality
for patients
in desperate need of newer, more effective health technologies and access to
existing essential medicines. In view of the HIV/AIDS crisis, and the
massive
problems expressed by many World Health Assembly delegates in
guaranteeing equitable and sustainable access to affordable antiretroviral
medicines, this text gives the impression that the US has lost touch with
reality.'
While the US insisted that intellectual property protection was the best way
to
promote pharmaceutical research and development, according to NGO critics,
'Of the 1,393 new drugs approved between 1975 and 1999, only 16 (or just
over
1%) were specifically developed for tropical diseases and tuberculosis,
diseases that account for 11.4% of the global disease burden.' (44)
Equally, Erwin had lost touch with his own constituents, for he consistently
refused
to use his regulatory power in the 1997 Medicines Act to lower drug prices.
The
Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) accused him of failure to prevent the
'premature, predictable and avoidable deaths' of several hundred thousand
people who died of AIDS during the early 21st century. On Human Rights Day
in
2003, at the commemoration of 69 people shot dead at Sharpeville in 1960,
Erwin
and health minister Manto Tshabalala-Msimang were charged by TAC with
culpable homicide. According to the docket filed at police stations, 'During
the
period 21 March 2000 to 21 March 2003 in all health care districts of the
Republic
of South Africa, both accused unlawfully and negligently caused the death of
men, women and children. They also breached their constitutional duty to
respect, protect, promote and fulfill the right to life and dignity of these
people.'
Erwin, specifically, ignored 'repeated requests' to issue compulsory
licences for
anti-retroviral treatment and also 'to ask pharmaceutical companies to give
voluntary licences for the manufacture of generics.' Erwin 'consciously
ignored
the efforts of scientists, doctors, nurses, trade unionists, people living
with
HIV/AIDS, international agencies, civil society organisations, communities
and
faith leaders.' Instead, he and Tshabalala-Msimang 'repeatedly delayed the
implementation of the Medicines and Related Substances and Control
Amendment Act and its Regulations.' Erwin was 'aware of the measures
implemented in other countries like Brazil to increase access to essential
medicines, including anti-retrovirals, but has denied offers by such
countries to
transfer technology and provide other assistance.' Instead, he and
Tshabalala-
Msimang 'directed their will towards ensuring government policy is the non-
provision of anti-retrovirals. Accused knew and foresaw that this would
cause the
deaths of many people but remained undeterred by this probability.' Erwin's
'conduct in failing to make these medicines available to people who need
them
does not meet the standards of a reasonable person,' TAC concluded. (45)
Characteristic of the growing paranoia in Pretoria, the police did not take
the
case seriously, and instead clubbed peaceful TAC protesters in Durban, as if
Sharpeville Day was an excuse to remind the masses of the state's monopoly
on violence.
A WAY FORWARD-DEGLOBALISATION AND DECOMMODIFICATION
There appear no ways of changing the rules of the WTO from the inside and no
basis for trusting South Africa's subimperial government to use its
substantial
international influence in Africa's favour.
Is there an alternative? In 1985, Africa's leading political economist,
Samir Amin,
famously argues for a 'delinking' strategy that 'is not synonymous with
autarky,
but rather with the subordination of external relations to the logic of
internal
development... permeated with the multiplicity of divergent interests.' (46)
In 2002,
a restatement of Amin's delinking theme came from Focus on the Global South
director Walden Bello, in his book Deglobalization: 'I am not talking about
withdrawing from the international economy. I am speaking about reorienting
our
economies from production for export to production for the local market.'
(47)
In practical terms, there are numerous African activists committed to taking
forward campaigns against the WTO. The Africa Trade Network, for example,
has been active opposing AGOA. A well-organised movement in Mauritius
prepared a major protest against George W. Bush's attempt to establish free
trade with Africa in January 2003. Inequitable capitalist trade relations
are also
tackled regularly by an important NGO from Accra, Isodec, which is
affiliated to
the Penang-based Third World Network. The Southern African Peoples
Solidarity Network includes key participants-the African Organisation on
Debt
and Development (Harare); Africa Trade Network (Southern Africa);
Alternative
Information and Development Center; Associacao para Desenvolvimento Rural
de Angola; church and ecumencial groups from most countries; trade unions;
the
Gender and Trade Network (Southern Africa); Jubilee groups from Angola,
Malawi, South Africa and Zambia; Ledikasyon pu Travayer (Workers Education-
Mauritius); Mwelekeo wa NGO (Mwengo-Zimbabwe); the Swaziland Youth
Congress and Swaziland Campaign Against Poverty and Economic Inequality;
and the Zimbabwe Coalition on Debt and Development-which resolved at an
alternative trade summit in Windhoek in August 2000,
"that the governments of our countries have for long mainly engaged in
rhetorical
declarations about national development, and development cooperation and
regional integration, with few effective achievements;
are mainly concerned with preserving and promoting their own individual and
group status, power and privileges, and their personal and aspirant-class
appropriation of our nations' resources; and, for these reasons, are
frequently
engaged in divisive competition and even dangerous conflicts amongst
themselves at the expense of the interests of the people at national and
regional
levels;
are, at the same time, committed to supporting and defending each other
whenever the interests and power of the ruling elites come into conflict
with the
human rights, and the democratic and development aspirations of their own
populations; and are using SADC as a self-serving 'old boys' club' for such
mutual support;
are increasingly responsive and subordinate to external inducements and
pressures from governmental agencies in the richest industrialised
countries,
and their global corporations, banks and other financial organisations, and
the
'multilateral' institutions dominated and used by them."
The tough criticism is increasingly matched by active campaigning for
alternative politics, policies and development strategies. Resistance to the
commodification of nature and society appears to be advancing well in many
African countries, so that the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services-
which would privatise water, electricity, healthcare and many other
services-is
being repelled by mass-popular struggles (as well as the sheer difficulty of
extracting profits from the world's poorest people). According to the World
Bank,
private sector investments in Third World utilities dropped in 2001 to half
the $120
billion level of 1997. 'We have agreed to take the commercial risk, but it
is the
political risks that kill you,' according to Mike Curtin of Bechtel Group
(which
suffered such large losses in the April 2000 anti-privatisation revolts in
Cochabamba, Bolivia). 'My fear is that the private sector is being driven
out of
the water sector.' (48)
In Africa, the key sites of these struggles are Ghana (where a Campaign
Against
Privatisation of water has extensive popular support) and South Africa.
(49) The
latter hosts active movements aiming for free access to lifeline water,
electricity,
anti-retroviral medicines, education, housing, land and even a 'basic income
grant' (of $12 per month). The debt-cancellation movement Jubilee continues
to
organise, and reparations lawsuits against firms that profited from
apartheid
investments and loans have begun to worry the global elites--especially the
South African branch. During an April 2003 parliamentary discussion, Erwin
pronounced that Pretoria was 'opposed to and contemptuous of the litigation'
against apartheid profiteers, and any findings against companies 'would not
be
honoured' in South Africa. (50) When 20,000 people marched against the World
Summit on Sustainable Development and Nepad in August 2002, in spite of the
banning of the march until the last moment and periodic South African state
repression of non-violent protest during prior weeks, it confirmed that the
'anti-
capitalist' global movements for justice had arrived in Africa. (51)
In recent years, Egypt, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Senegal, Zambia and
Zimbabwe have also witnessed conflicts between popular movements and
ruling parties. The continuation of IMF Riots suggests that both local
grievances
and the leftist critique of neoliberalism remain crucial to Africa's future.
(52) The
continent's increasingly desperate labour movement is also becoming more
militant. (53) Some of the most impressive recent upsurges of protest have
been
in areas of what can be termed environmental justice. Illustrative examples
come
from Nigeria's Delta region, where in mid-2002, women conducted sit-ins at
the
local offices of multinationals just prior to the World Summit on
Sustainable
Development, and in early 2003, oil workers revolted at several Delta
platforms
over wages and broader community demands, and took hostage numerous
multinational corporate managers. South Africans in the Environmental
Justice
Networking Forum and far-sighted NGOs like groundWork work closely with
counterparts elsewhere over environmental racism, dumping of toxics,
compensation for asbestos, anti-incinerator campaigns and air pollution.
If the nascent African Social Forum continues to draw together some of the
continent's leading activists, especially in regional and national
formations that
allow the Social Forum phenomenon to reconstitute from the bottom-up, it is
quite
likely that an 'African People's Consensus' will emerge organically from the
cutting-edge struggles against the commodification of life. The WTO, Nepad
and South African subimperialism together represent a formidable array of
opponents to African activists, but a prior alignment of US-EU economic
power
with the white minority regime in Pretoria was also a seemingly invincible
force. If
the struggle against racial apartheid was successful on the basis of
combined
local revolt and internationalist solidarity, so too must Africa's battle
against
global class apartheid succeed, if the continent's people are to attain any
kind of
dignity. (54)
* Professor, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg and Visiting
professor, York University, Toronto. <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
NOTES
1. I make this argument in more depth in Bond, P. (2003), Elite Transition:
From
Apartheid to Neoliberalism in South Africa, London, Pluto Press and
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press; Bond, P. (2003), Against Global
Apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance,
London, Zed and Cape Town, University of Cape Town Press; and Bond, P.
(forthcoming), Sustaining Global Apartheid: South Africa's Frustrated
International Reforms.
2. Arrighi, G. (2002), 'The African Crisis: World Systemic and Regional
Aspects,'
New Left Review 2, 15; Saul, J. and C.Leys (1999), 'Sub-Saharan Africa in
Global
Capitalism,' Monthly Review, July.
3. Milanovic, B. (2002), 'Can we Discern the Effect of Globalisation on
Income
Distribution?, Evidence from Household Budget Surveys,' World Bank Policy
Research Working Paper 2876, April.
4. Barratt-Brown, M. and P. Tiffen (1992), Short Changed: Africa and World
Trade,
London, Pluto, p.3.
5. Elbadawi, A. and B. Ndulu (1996), 'Long-run Development and Sustainable
Growth in Sub-Saharan Africa,' in M.Lundahl and B.Ndulu (eds), New
Directions
in Development Economics: Growth, Environmental Concerns and Governments
in the 1990s, London, Routledge, p.6.
6. Tandon, Y. (1999), 'A Blip or a Turnaround?,' Journal of Social Change
and
Development, 49, December.
7. The story is told in detail in Keet, D. (2002), South Africa's Official
Role and
Position in Promoting the World Trade Organisation, Cape Town, Alternative
Information and Development Centre.
8. Erwin, A. (1999), 'Statement to the World Trade Organisation Plenary',
Seattle,
December 1.
9. Manuel, T. (2000), 'Address to the Seminar on South Africa's Relations
and
Creation of National Wealth and Social Welfare,' Rand Afrikaans University
Centre for European Study in Africa, Johannesburg, 20 October.
10. New Agenda, 8, 2002.
11. Further coverage of Erwin's negative role at Doha can be found in Bond.
P
and M.Manyanya (2003), Zimbabwe's Plunge: Exhausted Nationalism,
Neoliberalism and the Search for Social Justice, London, Merlin Press,
Pietermaritzburg, University of Natal Press and Harare, Weaver Press,
pp.142-
145.
12. Keet, South Africa's Official Role and Position in Promoting the World
Trade
Organisation, p.23.
13. The Nation, 19 June 2003.
14. New Agenda, 3, 2001.
15. At the COMESA meeting, Erwin successfully requested of the chair that
all
African NGO delegates be excluded (Keet, South Africa's Official Role and
Position in Promoting the World Trade Organisation, p.26).
16. The Abuja meeting included an incident described by Keet, South Africa's
Official Role and Position in Promoting the World Trade Organisation (p.28):
'In
their determination to prevent African trade officials and ministers from
hearing
the views of NGOs, members of the SA delegation were openly hostile towards
the NGOs present. This included a direct personal attack on internationally
recognised NGO expert on the WTO, Martin Khor, director of the Third World
Network based in Malaysia, who had actually been invited by the OAU to
provide specialist advice to the African trade officials.'
17. http://voiceoftheturtle.org/articles/raj_doha.shtml
18. Africa Group (2001), 'Proposals on TRIPS for WTO Ministerial,'
http://www.twnside.org.sg, 19 October.
19. http://voiceoftheturtle.org/articles/raj_doha.shtml
20. Cuba, Dominican Republic, Haiti, India, Kenya, Pakistan, Peru, Uganda,
Venezuela and Zimbabwe (2001), 'Assessment of Trade in Services,' Special
Communication to the World Trade Organisation, 9 October.
21. Friends of the Development Box (2001), 'Press Statement,' Doha, 10
November.
22. Business Day, 12 February 2002.
23. Hormeku, T. (2001), 'Text a Slap in the Face for African Countries',
Business
Day, 8 November.
24. Cited in Keet, South Africa's Official Role and Position in Promoting
the World
Trade Organisation, p.35.
25. Cited in Lynas, M. (2003), 'Playing Dirty at the WTO,' Third World
Network
Features, Penang, Malaysia, June.
26. Kwa, Power Politics in the WTO, p.24.
27. Keet, South Africa's Official Role and Position in Promoting the World
Trade
Organisation, p.35.
28. Mail and Guardian, 16 November 2001.
29. Business Report, 16 November 2001.
30. Business Day, 7 March 2002.
31. Keet, South Africa's Official Role and Position in Promoting the World
Trade
Organisation, p.44.
32. Draper, P. (2003), 'To Liberalise or Not to Liberalise? A Review of the
South
African Government's Trade Policy,' SA Institute of International Affairs
Working
Paper, Johannesburg, p.18.
33. http://enn.com/news/wire-stories/2002/05/05222002/reu_47285.asp
34. Business Day, 20 May 2003.
35. New York Times, 1 June 2003.
36. That plan failed, in any case, to gain even EU support. According to
George
Monbiot (The Guardian, 3 June 2003), 'Chirac's proposals addressed only part
of the problem, but they could have begun the process of dismantling the
system
which does so much harm to our pockets, our environment and the lives of
some
of the world's most vulnerable people. We might, then, have expected Tony
Blair, who created a major diplomatic incident last year when he rightly
savaged
Chirac for refusing to budge, to have welcomed the lost and heavily
subsidised
sheep into the free-market fold. But our prime minister, instead, has
single-
handedly destroyed the French initiative. The reason will by now be
familiar.
George Bush, who receives substantial political support from US agro-
industrialists, grain exporters and pesticide manufacturers, was not
prepared to
make the concessions required to match Chirac's offer. Had the EU, and in
particular the member which claims to act as a bridge across the Atlantic,
supported France, the moral pressure on Bush may well have become
irresistible. But as soon as Blair made it clear that he would not back
Chirac's
plan, the initiative was dead. So, thanks to our conscience-stricken prime
minister, and his statesmanlike habit of doing whatever Bush tells him to,
Africa is
now well and truly stuffed.'
37. The Guardian, 23 May 2003.
38. African Womens Communication and Development Network, African
Womens Empowerment Network, Congress of South African Trade Unions,
Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa, Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition and Mwelekeo wa NGO (2003), 'Joint Statement: G8
Summits 2002 to 2003: From a Trickle to a Drop,' Geneva, 3 June.
39. Bush, 'Remarks by the President to the Corporate Council on Africa's US-
Africa Business Summit.'
40. InterPress Service, 19 June 2003.
41. Bush, 'Remarks by the President to the Corporate Council on Africa's US-
Africa Business Summit.' This bullying was not uncommon; see Tibbett, S.
(2003), 'The Spoils of the War on Poverty: The West's Rhetoric about Foreign
Aid Conceals a Greedy Self-Interest,' The Guardian, 2 July.
42. Business Day, 20 May 2003.
43. Business Day, 3 July 2003.
44. Medecins Sans Frontieres, Health GAP, Health Action International, ACT
UP
Paris, Peoples Health Movement, Oxfam (2003), 'Joint NGO response to US
proposal on Intellectual Property Rights, Innovation and Public Health at
the 56th
World Health Assembly,' Geneva, 21 May.
45. Treatment Action Campaign (2003), 'The People's Docket: Indictment
Against South African Government Ministers, Cape Town, March 21.
46. Amin, S. (1985), Delinking: Towards a Polycentric World, London, Zed
Books.
47. Bello, W. (2002), Deglobalization: Ideas for a New World Economy,
London,
Zed Press.
48. Bloomberg, 7 March 2003.
49. Bond, P. (2002), Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development
and
Social Protest, London, Merlin Press and Pietermaritzburg, University of
Natal
Press.
50. For coverage, see, e.g., Financial Times, 19 May 2003.
51. Bond, P. and T.Guliwe (2003), 'Nepad and the World Summit on Sustainable
Development: South African Civil Society Critiques and Advocacy,' in
O.Edigheji
and G.Mhone (Eds), Governance and Globalisation, Cape Town, University of
Cape Town Press; and Munnik, V. and J.Wilson (2003), The World Comes to
One Country, Berlin and Johannesburg, Heinrich Boell Stiftung.
52. Ellis-Jones, M. (2003), 'States of Unrest III: Resistance to IMF and
World Bank
Policies in Poor Countries,' London, World Development Movement, April.
53. Fisher, J. (2002), 'Africa,' in E.Bircham and J.Charlton (Eds)(2002),
Anti-
Capitalism: A Guide to the Movement, London, Bookmarks; Zeilig, L.
(Ed)(2002),
Class Struggle and Resistance in Africa, Cheltenham, New Clarion.
54. Bond, P. (2003), 'African Anti-Capitalism,' in R.Neumann and A.Hsiao
(Eds),
Anti-Capitalism: A Field Guide to the Global Justice Movement, New York, New
Press.
*************************************************
Focus on Trade is a regular electronic bulletin providing updates and
analysis
of trends in regional and world trade and finance, the political economy of
globalisation and peoples resistance and alternatives to global capitalism.
Your
contributions and comments are welcome. Focus on Trade is edited by Nicola
Bullard ([EMAIL PROTECTED]).
Focus on Trade is translated into Spanish and Bahasa Indonesian. If you
would
like to receive these editions, contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Please contact us c/o CUSRI, Wisit Prachuabmoh Building, Chulalongkorn
University, Bangkok 10330 Thailand. Tel: (66 2) 218 7363/7364/7365, Fax: (66
2)
255 9976, Website: http://focusweb.org. Focus on the Global South is an
autonomous programme of policy research and action of the Chulalongkorn
University Social Research Institute (CUSRI) based in Bangkok.
Focus on the Global South (FOCUS)
c/o CUSRI, Chulalongkorn University
Bangkok 10330 THAILAND
Tel: 662 218 7363/7364/7365/7383
Fax: 662 255 9976
E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web Page http://www.focusweb.org
