A walk through Victoria Park, Hong Kong
(photo of Sinagbayan preformers from Independent Media Center, Philippines)
A Chinese dragon made of waste paper; a placard of suited men painting bar codes on giant vegetables; a sculpture of a grossly sleek and oversized cow hanging in one side of a scales outweighing all the people on the other; a performance in dance and song of the struggle of traditional people in the Phillipines against ‘free’ trade; a memorial service for a Korean activist who self-immolated at the WTO meeting in Cancun; sculpted figures of emaciated men, chained together at the ankles, some wearing brand new trainers on their feet; a tribunal indicting the WTO for crimes against rural people….colour, creativity and the voices and stories of ordinary people: the contrast with the formal setting of the meeting rooms of the World Trade Organisation is stark. But the themes addressed by the activists who meet each day in marquees and around outdoor podiums in Victoria Park in Hong Kong are the same as those being discussed in the enormous Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre on the waterfront overlooking the harbour: the erosion of national sovereignty under ‘free’ trade rules; threats to food security and food sovereignty caused by dumping of subsidised products in countries of the South; the unfair trade rules that prevent poor countries using the trade protection measures that all the industrialized countries have used to develop their nascent industries. And the anger and frustration of the countries of the South is heard loud in both spaces. Inside the Convention Centre, negotiations over issues concerning people’s lives can sometimes get stuck over the fine semantic differences between ‘shall’ and ‘should’. In Victoria Park, people tell their stories, and dare use words like solidarity, power, capital, imperialism and justice. Inside the negotiations where delegates are hammering out what they are calling a 'Development Package', the word ‘gender’ is never heard, outside, women’s organizations representing rural women, indigenous women, Dalit women, migrant women, are everywhere.
In the open air SINAGBAYAN (Art in the Service of the People) group from the Philippines perform a piece of political theatre called FETAD! (Call to War) based on the struggle of the Ifugaos indigenous people with the WTO in the form of Hay Mana Haat, the evil god of the underworld. As their leaflet explains, globalisation destroys their livelihoods and way of life through (1) liberalization of agricultural imports which destroys their agriculture based livelihood, (2) the entry of GMO seeds which increases the cost of their agricultural production; and (3) severe indebtedness leading to the loss of their land to the big landlords and the transnational corporations. The drama shows the Ifugaos people's struggles against the incursion of cheap foreign imports into their livelihoods, with the people becomeing entangled in trade agreements (see photo), but ends with the Ifugaos driving the WTO out and reclaiming their land.
While in a meeting with NGOs, Peter Mandelson, the EU trade commissioner talks about the democracy and fairness and development centredness of the WTO, in the marquee in Victoria Park the First International Rural People’s Tribunal has just begun. The indictment is read: the WTO is charged with widespread and systematic violations of human rights, mass deaths, plunder of resources and destruction of livelihoods, trampling on human and women’s rights; undermining social justice, massive dislocation and poverty, hunger and landlessness, infringement of national sovereignty, complete disregard for people’s right to life, liberty, dignity, freedom from want, undermining world peace.
Protestors highlight the issues of transnational corporations patenting life-forms (see report on WTO and Beijing+10 for more on this issue)
