No to WTO and Free Trade Agreements

End the WTO and the Stop the new wave of Free Trade Agreements

Details: Published on Sunday, 24 March 2013 16:06

Call to action of the Indonesian People's Movement Against Neocolonialism-Imperialism toward Bali WTO Ministerial meeting on 3-6 of December 2013

Deal a decisive blow to Neoliberalism. The time is now for Economic Justice!

The capitalist system is in a deep crisis. Since the 2008 financial crisis where the system nearly imploded, it has yet to fully recover. And instead, the crisis has spread and has deepened the food, economic, energy and climate crises. The deep systemic crisis is crystal clear evidence that the neoliberal regime must come to an end. However, instead of listening to the 99 percent, the governments, led by the G-20, have imposed austerity measures, cutting social services, making the people pay for the bailout of banks and corporations and doing nothing to curb the speculators who played a major role in the crises.

To make it worse, these same governments have been reviving international institutions that have long been delegitimized, such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and now the World Trade Organization (WTO). Together with these institutions, there is a new push for further free trade liberalization, pushing a new wave of free trade agreements (FTAs) such as the Transpacific Partnership Agreement, the US-EU FTA, the EU FTAs with countries of Asia, Africa and Latin America, the Bilateral Investment Treaties and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) and a new model of capitalist exploitation of nature called the “green economy.”

Indonesia : The WTO Aggravates Dependency on Food Import, Encourages Corruption

Details: Published on Wednesday, 27 February 2013 21:10

(Jakarta, February 15, 2013). The Indonesian People's Movement against Neocolonialism-Imperialsm (Gerak Lawan) demands that President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and the House of Representatives to put Indonesia out from the World Trade Organization (WTO) membership. The WTO has weakened the national competitiveness and moreover encouraged corruption in the country.

Taiwan, Farmers call on public to join protest in Taipei

Details: Published on Saturday, 02 February 2013 06:15

(Taipei, 31st of January 2013). Farming activists yesterday protested against the government’s plan to allow more imports of agricultural products from abroad — especially from China — and called on the public to join a rally in front of the Presidential Office on Sunday.

Via Campesina to the ministerial meeting: "It is time to end the WTO"!

Details: Published on Friday, 16 December 2011 17:35

Press Release

(Jakarta, December 16, 2011) The WTO ministerial meeting on December 15-17, 2011, is taking place at a time of a crisis of growth for neoliberal regimes worldwide. This crisis started in 2007 with the food crisis, which is still not resolved. Since the WTO was created 16 years ago, millions of people’s lives have been ruined. At the time of its inception, Europe and the US were in the forefront of the creation of this trade organization.

Opening the market by cutting tariffs and cutting subsidies that favored the people was at the core of the neoliberal policies pushed by the WTO. Their policies were peddled under the belief that all would benefit and the environment would be protected, as mentioned in the WTO's mission statement. But the stark reality of the past 16 years have showed us otherwise.

Since the beginning of the Doha Round of negotiation in 2003 (also called the "Development Round"), La Via Campesina suspected that it would fail. There can be no development for the people under neoliberal policies.

Now people are marching and protesting in Spain, Italy and around the world, including the "Occupy Wall Street" movement in the United States. The 2008 Wall Street financial meltdown, caused by years of deregulation and a lack of government oversight, cost Americans $14 trillion and eight million jobs. Today some 25 million people are unemployed or underemployed in the United States. Neoliberal policies such as those advocated by the WTO were born in Europe and the US, but they are now turning on their own people, creating a social and economical crisis of historic proportions.

People say no to World Economic Forum, bury the WTO

Details: Published on Monday, 13 June 2011 15:53

The Indonesian Peasant Union SPI launched a series of actions to oppose the World Economic Forum (WEF) East Asia from June 12 to 13, 2011.

The forum, held in the capital, is for transnational corporations to bolster investments and pour capitals into countries in the region. This has sparked protests from people’s organizations in Indonesia, because corporate economy is clearly against the mandate of the constitution.

And as always, free trade also includes in the agenda of the Forum. Pascal Lamy, the World Trade Organization (WTO) Director-General, is attending the event, supposedly to speak about bringing the dead Doha Round back from its grave. There are also talks involving 14 transnational companies “to help Indonesia to raise competitiveness in food and agriculture”.

Joint Statement of Korean lawmakers, labor unions, farmers and civil society groups on the proposed Korea - U.S. FTA

Details: Published on Monday, 31 January 2011 12:27

January 27, 2011

We, the Korean National Assembly members' Caucus Against the Korea-US FTA and the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-US FTA, a coalition of over 300 labor unions and civil society groups, have organized a delegation to Washington, D.C. this week, January 24-28, 2011. We have come here to tell American policymakers and civil society that many Korean people oppose the proposed Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement (KorUS FTA). During our visit, we were shocked to hear that many U.S. politicians believe that the KorUS FTA is a gift to the Korean people and will be beneficial to the relationship between both countries. In reality, many Korean people consider that the KorUS FTA will be detrimental to the lives of the Korean people, is biased in favor of the narrow interests of multinational corporations and contains numerous damaging provisions that would destroy our jobs in both countries and undermine our rights as citizens, the environment and health, and the practice and principles of democratic governance.

What happened in Geneva?

Details: Published on Thursday, 14 January 2010 05:56

Pursuant to its statutes, the World Trade Organisation must hold an assembly with all its members every two years. Practice is quite far from statutes. Indeed, due to the difficulties encountered by negotiations to successfully accomplish the Doha Round, there has not been a meeting of all the WTO members since the last WTO conference took place in December 2005. In order to convene a plenary meeting without running the risk of a new negotiations setback, the Director-General of the WTO had called up the representatives of the 153 countries members of the WTO and the 56 countries having the status of observers not for a negotiation session but a discussion meeting and assessment of multilateral negotiations.

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