WOMEN'S STATEMENT AGAINST AOA/WTO

            Trade Organization (WTO) will definitely be dominated by the US, Japan, Germany and the rest of the Group of 7. Majority of their people and the rest of the world will once more be shoved into economic and political maelstrom.

            We, the impoverished producers of Asia, await with much apprehension the outcome of the 3rd WTO Ministerial Meeting, one of which main agenda is a review of the Agreement on Agriculture (AOA). And not without enough basis. Most of our governments are gearing to further open up our markets for agricultural products and our lands and other resources to corporate plunder. The same formula that is whittling away whatever control we still have on our products and resources.

            No doubt the dominant players in the game, the US, Japan and EU will again battle to squeeze out more concessions despite the astonishing arrayof concessions already gained in the previous rounds.

            No doubt governments of developing countries, will beg for more favors, promise more bargains and make more compromises to keep them on board ship.

            In the end, among the major losers in this trading game are the poor producers: the peasants, farmers, agricultural workers, the women and thechildren without whose labor there could be no products to be traded, without whose labor there could be no trade in agriculture to speak of.

            In the end, the gainers are the national ruling elite, made up of the big landowners and big business, and the transnational corporations (TNCs)whose monopoly control of the land, trade and production technology already assures them of the lion's share of the region's productive output. Once more, monopoly capital gets the loot.

            We, who toil daily under the scorching sun to produce 91% of the world's rice, barely have enough rice to eat. We, who work in the plantations of bananas, pineapples, rubber and palm oil, barely have enough cash to send our children to school and buy medicine when we get sick. Official data tell it all. Asia is home to rich natural resources and strong human power. It is home to an unparalleled ecological heritage, yet it remains the home of 70% of the world's poor.

            We therefore re-state in the strongest terms: We have never benefited from our governments' commitments to the AOA and the rest of the WTO agreements.

            The market access provision of the AOA, which provides for tariff reduction, is eschewed to the advantage of industrialized countries which start off with high tariff rate bases and therefore end up still being able to protect their local markets. The developing countries are left with their local markets wide open for imports thus displacing their local products.

            But developing countries have to sell and trade, say our governments which are still keeping blind to the fact that all of globalization's promises have failed. "Equal playing field" under imperialist globalization is a lot of nonsense. There can be no free trade nor fair trade in a world system dominated by monopoly capital.

            Our governments continue to offer us as sacrificial lambs to the so-called 'global competitiveness'. Intensification of exploitation of our labor and the natural resources are resorted to in order to produce products at the cheapest price possible. Men, women and children are made to work almost as slaves on mere pittance. Family labor is mobilized in exchange for compensation fit for paupers.

            Another anomaly is the domestic support provision of the AOA which mandates a reduction of production subsidies for the farmers. Various estimates point, that even with a 20% subsidy reduction, governments of developed countries can still can afford to provide billions of subsidies to their farmers in various forms without them being declared WTO illegal.

            One the other hand, we from the developing countries have to fend for ourselves. Our cash-strapped and debt-burdened governments are only too happy to take away our already low subsidies. With little or no support from government, and with high production inputs, our local products cannot compete with the cheap, highly subsidized imported products that flood markets.

            The WTO has spelled disaster on us and our natural resources. Large tracts of lands devoted for the production of staple food are converted for the cultivation of products for trade. Worse, our lands and forests are taken away from us to pave the way for conversion to golf courses and other tourism resorts, grandiose mal-development projects like dams, mining and logging concessions and so-called industrial centers. We are left landless and ruined.

            Of great concern is our food security, our capacity to produce our own food and its accessibility to every one. We can never subscribe to the idea peddled by most of our governments that food security is simply the availability of food and that we are better off importing cheap food from other countries.

            These products have been flooding the local market, competing with locally produced ones which have become relatively more expensive because of higher production cost due to withdrawal of subsidies and lower tariff for the imported ones. Imported products continue to threaten, if not already putting an end to, the viability of local products. Worse, with the trade of even our staple food like rice and corn, in the hands of cartels, price manipulation resulting into steep increases in the prices of these commodities, have been resorted to. Heavier pressure is created on our already very tight food budget.

            Our health suffers from all the chemicals introduced in agricultural production and the pollutants from mining and industrial operations that poison our lands, air, seas, rivers and other bodies of water.

            For us, WTO means greater exploitation of our labor and resources, further ruin of our sources of livelihood and steady deterioration of our already meager income. These further translate to hunger, malnutrition and worsening of our life situations.

            For us women, the squeeze is even tighter. As our meager family income is further reduced, our husbands are forced to depart our villages in search of jobs. Many do not return, leaving us women on our own to keep the rest of the family alive. Our working hours are doubled or tripled to augment our income and find food for the children.

            Hundreds of thousands of us are likewise forced to leave for the urban areas and even other countries in the hope of finding jobs. Many end up being victimized by labor and sex traffickers. And some of us have prostituted ourselves as unwilling commodities in the sex trade.

            To make matters worse, the collusion among the imperialist powers, the local ruling elite and the state, that they dominate, goes beyond the economic sphere. To stifle peoples' opposition and to protect monopoly capital business interests, the state unleashes its military and paramilitary forces against the women, men and communities resisting globalization. Militarist aggression is the imperialists' and the state's answer to legitimate peoples' demands.

            We, therefore, affirm our commitment to resist and fight imperialist globalization and its newest conduit - the WTO. Let their trading begin. But let us fight to have our lives and our future spared.

Take Agriculture out of WTO!

Junk WTO!

Strengthen international solidarity   and advance the peoples' struggle against imperialism!

[Initiated by AMIHAN, GABRIELA, KMP and BAYAN]

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