Bello & Cleary on Oxfam #1

["Ian Murray" <seamus2001@xxxxxxxxx>]

[2 parts...]


THE OXFAM DEBATE: FROM CONTROVERSY TO COMMON
STRATEGY
Walden Bello

In response to my critique of its market-access campaign, Oxfam
International recently issued a lengthy rejoinder (below) authored by
Angus Cleary, Oxfam Great Britain's campaigns director. I would like to
thank Angus for taking the time to reply to my concerns.

Let me say at the outset that notwithstanding my differences with Oxfam,
I
feel that it has done the movement against corporate-driven
globalization a great service by pushing the question of our strategy on
the trade front to center stage. This is an issue I will return to after
first
dealing with a few items in the Oxfam response to my statement.

OBFUSCATION RATHER THAN CLARIFICATION
Unfortunately, Oxfam's rejoinder promotes obfuscation rather than
clarification of the issues.

For instance, Oxfam now denies that it is launching a global campaign
for greater market access for developing country products in northern
markets, saying that market access is just "one theme among many" of
its trade campaign.  Yet, Severina Rivera, senior policy advisor on
trade to Oxfam America, recently resigned precisely because market
access was the main thrust of the Oxfam campaign.  To quote Ms.
Rivera, "I cannot support Oxfam's trade campaign priority that calls,
over the life of its 3-year campaign, for more market access and trade
for poor countries as the solution to poverty.  Nor can I support the
year-
one campaign objective: market access for textiles from least
developed countries as the solution to, or even a solution to poverty in
these countries."

Another disconcerting example of this obfuscation has to do with the use
of the word "globaphobes" to brand the anti-corporate globalization
movement.  The rejoinder says that the Oxfam Report was referring to
some minuscule, marginal groups in the North.  But what does the
Oxfam Report really say?  The summary reads:  "Current debate about
trade are dominated by ritualistic exchanges between two camps: the
'globaphiles' and the 'globaphobes.'"  This passage shows clearly that
Oxfam uses the word globaphobes to describe the whole camp of free
trade critics, not just a few marginal groups.  In the very next
paragraph,
Oxfam makes clear that what it means by globaphobes is the "anti-
globalization movement."  Oxfam cannot be unaware of the fact that
"globaphobes" is a highly politically charged word with pejorative
connotations that was coined by the Economist, Martin Wolf of the
Financial Times, and other free-traders to denigrate and caricature the
whole range of critics of the WTO and free trade, from labor unions to
peasant groups, from environmentalists to proponents of managed
trade.

Some have said that Oxfam's painting the trade debate as being
divided into two big camps, whose arguments it then proceeds to
caricature, is an opportunistic ploy that is designed to project Oxfam
as
taking the rational, sensible middle road between two irrational blocs.
Whether that was, in fact, the intention, that is in fact the effect.
And the
storm of protest this has evoked from so many activists that are
otherwise respectful of Oxfam's work should tell Oxfam that you can't
have it both ways: You can't say you're part of us then score with the
Establishment by caricaturing us in the crudest Economist fashion.

The rest of the Oxfam response pretty much proceeds in the same vein,
so that in the end we are left not with clarification, but with the
question:
Where does Oxfam really, really stand on the key substantive issues at
stake such as free trade, trade liberalization, export agriculture, and
the
World Trade Organization?

THE LARGER ISSUE: WHAT STRATEGY ON THE TRADE FRONT?
We are, however, not engaged in an academic debate on the pros and
cons of export agriculture or market access.  Indeed, as I said above,
if
there is one thing that we can thank Oxfam for, it is that by pushing
its
market access campaign, it has forced the movement against
corporate-driven globalization to confront the question of what should
be its strategy on the international trade front.  It is likely that at
the heart
of our debate with Oxfam are not only differences on substantive issues
like the costs and benefits of market access or the domestic impact of
export agriculture but also divergent postures on strategic issues like
what priorities the movement should have at this point and how it should
go about achieving them.

Strategy must respond to the needs of the moment in the struggle
against corporate-driven globalization.  This can only be derived by
identifying the strategic objective, accurately assessing the global
context or conjuncture, and elaborating an effective strategy and
tactical
repertoire that responds to the particularities of the conjuncture.

For the movement against corporate-driven globalization, it seems fairly
clear that the strategic goal must be halting or reversing WTO-
mandated liberalization in trade and trade-related areas.  The context
or "conjuncture" is characterized by a fragile victory on the part of
the
free-trade globalizers at the 4th Ministerial at Doha, where they
bludgeoned developing countries into agreeing to a limited round of
trade talks for more liberalization on agriculture, services and
industrial
tariffs.   The conjuncture is marked by the globalizers' effort to build
momentum so as to have the coming 5th Ministerial in Mexico launch
negotiations for liberalization in the so-called trade related areas of
investment, competition policy, government procurement, and trade
facilitation.  Their aim is to have the 5th Ministerial expand the
limited set
of negotiations they extracted at Doha into a comprehensive round of
negotiations that would rival the Uruguay Round.

This expansion of the free trade mandate and the expansion of the
power and jurisdiction of the WTO, which is now the most powerful
multilateral instrument of the global corporations, is a mortal threat
to
development, social justice and equity, and the environment.  And it is
the goal that we must thwart at all costs, for we might as well kiss
goodbye to sustainable development, social justice, equity, and the
environment if the big trading powers and their corporate elites have
their way and launch another global round for liberalization during the
WTO's 5th Ministerial Assembly in Mexico in 2003.

CAMPAIGN OBJECTIVE: DERAIL THE DRIVE FOR FREE TRADE AT
THE 5TH MINISTERIAL
Given the strategic goal of stopping and reversing trade liberalization,
the campaign objective on which the movement against corporate-
driven globalization must focus its efforts and energies is simple and
stark: derailing the drive for free trade at the 5th Ministerial, which
will
serve as the key global mechanism for advancing free trade.

The free trade partisan C. Fred Bergsten, head of the Institute of
International Economics (IIE), has compared free trade and the WTO to
a bicycle: they collapse if they do not move forward.  Which is why
Seattle was such a mortal threat to the WTO and why the globalizers
were so determined to extract a mandate for liberalization at Doha.  Had
they failed at Doha, the likely prospect was not simply a stalemate but
a
retreat from free trade.  For the movement against corporate-driven
globalization, derailing the 5th Ministerial or preventing agreement on
the launching of a new comprehensive round would mean not only
fighting the WTO and free trade to a standstill.  It would mean creating
momentum for a rollback of free trade and a reduction of the power of
the WTO.  This is well understood by, among others, the Economist,
which warned its corporate readers "globalization is reversible."

If derailing the drive for free trade at the 5th Ministerial is indeed
the
goal, then the main tactical focus of the strategy becomes clear:
Consensus decision-making is the Achilles heel of the WTO, and it is
the emergence of consensus that we must prevent at all costs from
emerging.

In the 16 short months before the 5th Ministerial, the anti-corporate
globalization movement must focus its energy on ensuring that countries
do not come into agreement in any of the areas now being negotiated
or about to be negotiated, that is, agriculture, services, and
industrial
tariffs; and at the ministerial itself, preventing any consensus from
emerging on negotiating the new issues of government procurement,
competition policy, investment, and trade facilitation.  The aim must
be,
as in Seattle, to have the delegates go to the ministerial with a
"heavily
bracketed" declaration--that is, one where there is no consensus on the
key issues--and at the ministerial itself, to prevent consensus via last
minute horse-trading.  As in Seattle, the end goal must be to have the
ministerial end in disagreement and lack of consensus.

COMPONENTS OF THE STRATEGY
If the goal is unhinging the game plan for greater free trade at the 5th
Ministerial, then the anti-corporate globalization movement has its work
cut out for it.  We must unfold a multi-pronged strategy whose
components must include:

-  unraveling the alliance between US Trade Representative Robert
Zoellick and EU Trade Commissioner Pascal Lamy by exacerbating
the US-EU conflict on Europe's agricultural subsidies, the Bush
administration's failure to obtain unrestricted fast-track authority to
negotiate from the US Senate, Washington's imposition of protective
tariffs on steel and its resurgent trade unilateralism, and the US'
export
of hormone-treated beef and genetically modified organisms (GMOs);

-   instead of promoting the illusion of gaining market access for their
products, consolidating the resistance of developing country
governments to greater liberalization by underlining the reality that
the
US and the EU will never abandon the massive subsidization of their
rich farming interests, the effective protection of their textile and
garment
sectors, and their monopolistic control of technology via the TRIPs
agreement;

-   intensifying our efforts to assist developing country delegations in
Geneva to master the WTO process and formulate effective strategies
to block the emergence of consensus on the areas prioritized by the
trading powers and reassert the priority of implementation issues;

-   working with national movements, such as peasant movements for
food sovereignty in the South and citizens' movements in the North, to
build massive pressure on their governments not to agree to further
liberalization in agriculture, services, and other areas being
negotiated;

-   skillfully coordinating global protests, mass street action at the
site of
the ministerial, and lobby work in Geneva to create a global critical
mass with momentum in the lead-up to the ministerial.

The task is immense and we have so little time.  But we have no choice.
The trading powers and the WTO learned from Seattle, and they
brought the bicycle of the WTO back on its wheels in Doha.  Likewise,
we must learn from Doha so that we can wrestle the bicycle back to the
ground in Mexico. And among the key lessons we need to absorb is
that our coalition must have a coordinated strategy that brings our work
on many different fronts, levels, and dimensions to bear on one goal:
unhinging the drive for free trade at the 5th Ministerial.

STRATEGIC FLAWS OF OXFAM'S MARKET ACCESS CAMPAIGN
Given these considerations, the Oxfam market access campaign
reminds us of General Omar Bradley's classic description of the Korean
conflict, which was that "it was the wrong war at the wrong place at the
wrong time."  In terms of strategy, the Oxfam market-access campaign
suffers on a number of counts:

One, it is unfolding in a strategic vacuum-that is, it lacks any
connection
or relevance to a broader strategy aimed at stopping and reversing
trade liberalization by unhinging the free-trade drive at the 5th
Ministerial. The Oxfam market-access campaign has all the hallmarks
of a campaign that is driven not by a strategy derived from the global
conjuncture on the trade front but by an internal organizational
imperative to have a "winnable" short-term campaign.

Two, it simply distracts the movement from its real priority at this
point,
which should be derailing the free trade drive at the 5th Ministerial.
Oxfam should realize that there is a great difference between doing an
expose and mounting a campaign, that is between exposing the double
standards and hypocrisy of the big trading powers when it comes to
market access and actually launching a campaign for greater market
access.  Campaigns must focus on promoting the strategic priorities of
a global movement that is finite in its resources and energies instead
of
waylaying the movement into side streets where the results can even be
counterproductive.

Three, the market access campaign is, in fact, counterproductive.
Oxfam knows that elimination of textile and garment quotas in
developed country markets is already mandated under the Uruguay
Round, and that the big trading powers are simply dragging out their
elimination of textile and garment quotas until the last years of the
10-
year phase-out period (to be replaced, as many suspect, with more
aggressive anti-dumping action against developing country imports).
WTO director general Mike Moore knows that this foot-dragging is a
sore point with developing countries--one which is undermining the
credibility of the WTO in their eyes---and this is the reason he can
readily support Oxfam's campaign, which has a one-year focus on
ending the quotas.

Indeed, part of the strategy that Moore and the WTO secretariat are
unfolding to defuse developing country opposition to a comprehensive
trade round seems to be to support market access campaigns
launched by Oxfam and organizations such as the Cairns Group in order
to pressure the big trading powers to accelerate the dismantling of
quotas-and their replacement with other forms of protection like anti-
dumping--so that they can increase their leverage on the developing
countries to agree to more liberalization in areas deemed more critical
to the WTO and the big trading powers, such as industrial tariffs,
services, and the trade-related areas of investment, competition policy,
government procurement, and trade facilitation.  In other words, the
WTO secretariat hopes to convince the big trading powers that by
accelerating market access in areas they already agreed to years
back, they will be able to extract concessions in the current and coming
negotiations in those areas of greater strategic interest to their
corporations, like investment and government procurement.

This kind of strategic maneuvering on the part of the WTO is, in fact,
something that Oxfam leaders like senior analyst Kevin Watkins are
very much aware of.  In a recent article on the EU's negotiating stance
on services in the Guardian ("Money Talks," April 24, 2002), Kevin
asserted that "When it comes to the negotiating table, the EU will
demand market openings in services as a condition for opening its own
markets in garments and textiles...we buy your bananas and shirts if you
give our banks and insurance companies unrestricted access to your
markets." Kevin's words make it even more puzzling why Oxfam would
launch a campaign that could be easily co-opted into the WTO
secretariat's game plan to achieve the comprehensive trade round that
is its strategic goal.

In conclusion, it was necessary and useful for Oxfam and its friends to
have had this exchange.  In Focus' view, however, it is time for the
movement to move forward and forge a comprehensive strategy to foil
the effort of the WTO Secretariat and the big trading powers to launch a
new comprehensive round of trade negotiations at the 5th Ministerial of
the WTO.  Oxfam's participation in this coalition effort is something
that is
greatly desired.  However, Oxfam can only be an effective partner if it
first clarifies to itself and the movement where it really, really
stands on
the issues of globalization, trade liberalization, and the World Trade
Organization.

We hope that many more organizations can participate in this effort to
define a much- needed strategy on the trade front.  What we have laid
out above is meant to spark and to contribute to this process, not serve
as an end.  It is important that discussion of the issues and directions
is
not limited to policy analysts but involves input from the grassroots,
especially from social movements.  The "Our World is Not for Sale"
global coalition is one of the most promising venues for the process of
building consensus among our ranks.

The era of top-down, go-it-alone campaigns is over.

* Walden Bello is Executive Director, Focus on the Global South