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> Subscription rates on request. ****************************** "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. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
LL:ART: EDITORIAL: "DEMOCRACY" IN SEATTLE
Communist Party of Australia Tue, 07 Dec 1999 23:00:24 +1100