Naomi Klein on Doha

["Ken Hanly" <khanly@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Doha, the economic frontline

The developing world's needs are being sacrificed to the war effort

Naomi Klein
Thursday November 8, 2001
The Guardian

What do you call someone who believes so firmly in the promise of salvation
through a set of rigid rules that they are willing to risk their own life to
spread those rules?
A religious fanatic? A holy warrior? How about a US trade negotiator?

Tomorrow, the World Trade Organisation begins its meeting in Doha, Qatar.
According to US security briefings, there is reason to believe that
al-Qaida, which has plenty of fans in the Gulf state, has managed to get
some of its operatives into the country, including an explosives specialist.
Some terrorists may even have managed to infiltrate the Qatari military.

Given these threats, you might think that the US and WTO would have
cancelled their meeting. But not these true believers. Instead, US delegates
have been kitted out with gas masks, two-way radios and drugs to combat
bioterrorism (Canadian delegates have been issued the drugs as well). As
negotiators wrangle over agricultural subsidies, softwoods and
pharmaceutical patents, helicopters will be waiting to whisk US delegates on
to aircraft carriers parked in the Persian gulf, ready for a Batman-style
getaway.

It's safe to say that Doha is not your average trade negotiation; it's
something new. Call it kamikaze capitalism.

Last week, US trade representative Robert Zoellick praised his delegation
for being willing to "sacrifice" in the face of such "undoubted risks". Why
are they doing it? Probably for the same reason people have always put their
lives on the line: they believe in a set of rules that promises
transcendence. In this case, the god is economic growth, and it promises to
save us from global recession. New markets to access, new sectors to
privatise, new regulations to slash - these will get those arrows in the
corner of our television screens pointing heavenwards once again.

Of course growth cannot be created at a meeting, but Doha can accomplish
something else, something more religious than economic. It can send "a sign"
to the market, a sign that growth is on the way, that expansion is just
around the corner. And an ambitious new round of WTO negotiations is the
sign for which they are praying. For rich countries like ours, the desire
for this sign is desperate. It is more pressing than any possible problems
with current WTO rules, problems mostly raised by poor countries, fed up
with a system that has pushed them to drop their trade barriers while rich
countries kept theirs up.

So it's no surprise that poor countries are this round's strongest
opponents. Before they agree to drastically expand the reach of the WTO,
many are asking rich coun tries to make good on their promises from the last
round.

There are major disputes - about agricultural subsidies and dumping, about
tariffs and the patenting of life forms. The most contentious issue is drug
patents. India, Brazil, Thailand and a coalition of African countries want
clear language stating that patents can be overridden to protect public
health. The US and Canada are not just resisting - they are resisting even
as their own delegates head for Qatar popping discount cipros, muscled out
of Bayer using exactly the kind of pressure tactics they are calling unfair
trade practices.

These concerns are not reflected in the draft ministerial declaration. Which
is why Nigeria just blasted the WTO for being "one-sided" and "disregarding
the concerns of the developing and least developed countries". India's WTO
ambassador said that the draft "gives the uncomfortable impression that
there is no serious attempt to bring issues of importance to developing
countries into the mainstream".

These protests have made little impression in Geneva. Growth is the only god
at these negotiations and any measures that could slow profits even
slightly - of drug companies, of water companies, of oil companies - are
being treated by believers as if they are on the side of the infidels and
evil-doers.

What we are witnessing is trade being "bundled" (Microsoft-style) inside the
with-us-or-against logic of the war on terrorism. Last week Zoellick
explained that "by promoting the WTO's agenda, these 142 nations can counter
the revulsive destructionism of terrorism". Open markets, he said, are "an
antidote" to the terrorists' "violent rejectionism". (Fittingly, these are
non-arguments glued together with made-up words.)

Zoellick further called on WTO member states to set aside their petty
concerns about mass poverty and Aids and join the economic front of
America's war. "We hope the representatives who meet in Doha will perceive
the larger stakes," he said. Trade negotiations are all about power and
opportunity and for kamikaze capitalists, terrorism is just another
opportunity for leverage. Perhaps their motto can be: "What doesn't kill us
will make us stronger. Much stronger."

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