LL:ART: EDITORIAL: "DEMOCRACY" IN SEATTLE

[Communist Party of Australia]

Editorial: "Democracy" in Seattle

The following article was published in "The Guardian", newspaper
of the Communist Party of Australia in its issue of Wednesday,
December 8th, 1999. Contact address: 65 Campbell Street, Surry Hills.
Sydney. 2010 Australia. Phone: (612) 9212 6855 Fax: (612) 9281 5795.
CPA Central Committee: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
"The Guardian": <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Webpage: http://www.cpa.org.au>
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"This is American democracy" said American leaders to the world
as the anti-WTO demonstrators first appeared on Seattle streets,
in Washington state, last week. But the word "democracy" was
heard no more when the demonstrators surrounded the WTO meeting
place and prevented delegations from attending what was to have
been the opening session.

At this point the real face of capitalist class rule came onto
the streets in the form of riot police dressed in black from head
to foot, with gas-masks, batons, pepper spray and other weapons.
Special army units which had been trained in crowd control, were
called in.

Capitalist slogans of freedom and democracy are first and
foremost the right and freedom of capital to rule and to exploit
the people. This is what is sacred for capital. Over the years
some democratic rights have been wrenched from the reluctant
ruling class but these rights are always qualified and limited.

Whenever the interests of capital become seriously threatened the
forces of the state - police, army, state troopers, national
guard, etc - which have been created to protect the rule of the
capitalist class, are brought out in full force. This is what
happened in Seattle.

Though the many contradictions which arose at this conference are
yet to be examined in detail it is apparent that the US, which
tried to use it to advance the interests of its big corporations
and the US objective of world domination, did not get their way.

One of these contradictions was revealed when US President
Clinton, in an act of breath-taking hypocrisy, signed a
declaration against the use of child labour in the knowledge that
it is the US TNCs who have moved their operations to a number of
third world countries to take advantage of cheap labour,
including child labour.

Nike is one example of a US transnational that uses cheap labour
in a number of countries for its high-priced footwear.

This contradiction revealed itself further when US negotiators,
supported by the Australian representatives at the conference,
sought to introduce a so-called "social clause" by which to
regulate labour conditions.

On the surface this appears to be a highly desirable objective
but its real intent is to provide western governments with
another means to increase their domination. WTO rules allow for
sanctions to be imposed against those countries which do not
carry out WTO edicts.

The way to truly address labour conditions and rights is to
improve the economic situation facing nearly all developing
nations. They were made poor when they were colonial countries
and they have been kept poor ever since through the economic
domination of the Western imperialist powers.

Consistently, the decisions taken by the World Trade Organisation
(WTO) and, before that, under the General Agreement on Trade and
Tariffs (GATT) have made it extremely difficult for developing
countries to improve their economies.

"People's Democracy" (28/11/99) the newspaper of the Communist
Party of India (Marxist) writes:

"Starting from a position of subordination, developing countries
appeared to have offered more in the nature of concessions with
regard to market access than the developed countries.

"The developing countries began to give virtually immediately
after the Uruguay round negotiations were complete [in April
1994],... but they are yet to begin to receive much by way of
benefits [from the developed countries] in areas which matter to
them from an export point of view."

Rejecting the call for a new round of trade negotiations
"People's Democracy" says that "It has been only five years since
the Uruguay round treaty and the WTO has been in place. "During
those years there is little indication that the wholly unequal
world trading order has changed significantly."

In addition to the strong opposition of developing countries,
differences between the US, the European Union and Japan,
contributed to the fact that the Seattle conference did not
capitulate to American dictation.

The failure of the Seattle conference together with the defeat
for the Multilateral Agreement on Investment (MAI) last year are
significant setbacks for the TNCs and their compliant
governments. They are important victories for the people of the
world.






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