Monday, September 15,
2003
'Museveni Letter' Threatens
Third
World Unity at Mexico's WTO Talks
By TICHA KHANA
SPECIAL
CORRESPONDENT
A LETTER with the potential to
divide developing countries, purportedly written by President Yoweri Museveni
of Uganda, to fellow African heads of state prior to the Fifth World Trade
Organisation Ministerial Conference in Mexico was last Friday dismissed as
"mischief making" by two East African Legislative Assembly members as signs
grew that the meeting would end with no consensus on the contentious issue of
agriculture.
The September 6 letter, a copy of
which was obtained by The EastAfrican, urged fellow African presidents
to disassociate themselves from the position of other developing countries. It
called on them to advise their delegations to the four-day multilateral trade
talks to articulate the position that the real problems facing African
countries – particularly the dumping of goods – arose not so much from the US
and the EU but from Asian and Latin American countries.
"The focus has been primarily on
US anti-dumping laws. However, African countries are not dumping products on
the US market, and the US is not dumping products in Africa. Africa's biggest
challenge is from Asian products that are being dumped on to fledgling African
markets and killing domestic industry,'' said the letter.
The letter added that African
countries form the largest bloc in the WTO and should carefully choose whom
they partner with, suggesting that Asian and Latin American countries align
themselves with African countries in major trade pacts just to safeguard their
commercial interests.
"Reflexive solidarity with other
developing countries is not only unnecessary, but may even be detrimental to
our own interests," said the unsigned letter, which was reported to have
originated from an e-mail address and circulated widely among the Ugandan and
East African Community delegates attending the talks at Mexico's resort town
of Cancun. The talks ended on Sunday.
Contacted for comment, EALA member
Sheila Kawamara Mishambi said she did not believe the letter had been authored
by President Museveni and was possibly meant to make life difficult for
Ugandan negotiators at the talks. "It is intended to create cracks within the
African bloc and prevent it from linking with other countries in the South,"
said Ms Mishambi, adding that the language of the letter was American and
clearly advancing a US position. Uganda’s official position has been that of
the African Union.
The letter surfaced as the US
exhibited growing frustration with the strong position taken by developing
countries at Cancun and sent out a strong indication that, as expected by many
analysts, agriculture would be the biggest test of the Cancun Ministerial
Conference and that there probably would be no agreement on the issue.
Earlier, the African Union had stated that the outcome of the conference would
be judged against the extent to which their demands on agriculture – the
mainstay of African economies – would be met. The African Parliamentary Group
had expressed its concern that developing countries, particularly Africa,
"were being forced into negotiating the text on agriculture when they were not
fully prepared and the modalities were not clear."
Jane Ocaya, ActionAid Uganda's
trade policy specialist, said: "The EU is now more isolated than ever in its
call for negotiations on new issues. It must now listen to the voice of
developing countries and abandon new issues at
Cancun."
It was in this charged atmosphere
of increased determination by developing countries to stand their ground on
agriculture and other issues and the greater awareness of the tactics employed
in past ministerials by the WTO to divide developing countries that the
"Museveni letter" appeared, fuelling suspicion that it had been planted on the
delegates.
Ms Mishambi said that, by stating
that Asian countries were the real culprits when it comes to dumping, the
letter was trying to divert attention to "toys and light bulbs" from Taiwan,
when in fact the real damage is done by the dumping of food and food aid to
depress Africa's core industries, which are agro-based.Ę
"Aid should not be used to subvert
trade and we have to adopt means to protect our own economies from dumping,
especially that of food aid from America," she said. She cited a case where
earlier this year, the US offered Zambia free maize when it got wind of a
Ugandan deal to sell the commodity to the drought-stricken
country.
"What saved the day was that
Zambia did not want GM maize," said Ms Mishambi. In another case of
out-and-out undercutting, the US stole a deal to supply soya beans to South
Africa from under Uganda's nose at $250 a tonne, against the East African
country's quotation of $350.
Another EALA legislator, Irene
Ovonji-Odida, said the intimidation, blackmail and manipulation used by the
rich countries to manipulate the WTO process not only prevented developing
country negotiators from doing what they were supposed to do but also
delegitimised and undermined the organisation.
Analysts say that more than any
other Ministerial, tactics like the dangling of aid and bilateral deals and
bullying used by rich nations to get their own way in the multilateral trade
system have been exposed at Cancun – not least by books such as Behind the
Scenes at the WTO by Fatoumata Jawara and Aileen Kwa.
Asked about the "Museveni letter,"
Ms Jawara, who was in Cancun for the second launch of the book by Oxfam,
immediately quipped: "So which American wrote that letter?" A Kenyan
negotiator familiar with some of the underhand tactics used at WTO talks also
said it was plausible that the letter had been planted, citing a similar plot
at Doha when a well-timed rumour went round that India had made certain
concessions on cotton. This prompted Kenya's then trade minister, Nicholas
Biwott to hastily gather his team and urge them – to the fury of India – to do
like wise.
Kenya’s Trade Minister Mukhisa
Kituyi said he had no knowledge of the letter. "I have not seen it and if I
had I would have ignored it. The attitude of singling out some countries as
enemies is not conducive to multilateral trade talks."
But another Ugandan observer, who
declined to be named, said he would not be surprised if President Museveni had
indeed authored the letter, or at least knew about it, as he had in the past
shown willingness to do business with the West where others would
not.
He pointed to a section of the
letter that says that the proposed elimination of global textile and apparel
quotas by the end of 2004 "is not in the interests of sub-Saharan Africa, as
most of these countries already enjoy quota-free access to major Western
markets through trade preference schemes such as Agoa," as being in keeping
with Museveni’s views.
Apart from the letter, there were
high-level leaks as we went to press that the Ugandan trade delegation had
been having closed-door bilateral meetings with US Trade Representative Robert
Zoeliick, where "gentle pressure" was being brought to bear on them to
reconsider some of their positions in exchange for certain
inducements.
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