Ten years of WTO is enough! Defense Sovereignty and Expelling WTO

Dili Declaration
We are member of La Via Campesina South East Asia and East Asia, since May 16th -19th 2005 has completed our regional meeting in Dili, Timor Leste. This meeting is part of our struggle and our preparation for mobilization to stop the ministerial meeting of WTO in Hong Kong December 2005.

We have visited to farmland to share experiences and extend our solidarity with the Timorese peasants. In Ermera district we supported the agrarian reform movement to defense and control our farmlands and also in Maubessi district we supported the Timorese peasant struggle in determining their own food and market based on the food sovereignty principles through alternative market that guarantee sovereignty of the peasant and indigenous people. Today May 20th, the Timorese people are commemorating their restoration day and we express our solidarity with them. The independence should defense the sovereignty of the people to control the agrarian resources and reject neo-liberal regime. Timor Leste is not the member of WTO and does not commit in any Free Trade Agreement (FTA). We support this position and maintain in order to achieve Timorese genuine independency to make the nation respected in the world.

Ten years of WTO is enough! It is creating poverty, hunger, natural resources exploitation and the environment destruction worldwide. The food sufficient nations have to import food, privatizing water resources, public services, and destroy local seeds as well as traditional knowledge. WTO is causing many nations lost their sovereignty, and controlled by few trans-national corporations (TNCs). In the wake of difficulties on WTO, FTA has emerged new way of neo-liberal implementation. The impact of FTA is disastrous causing massive poverty and hardship of the peasant community.   

We are facing severe negative impact of both WTO and FTA. For instance, Thailand known as the biggest rice exporting country but Thai peasant has been suffering in huge amount of debt and losing the land as well as the local seeds. South Korean and Japanese peasants are struggling to stop the liberalization of rice market in the countries. Even Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippine as the agriculture countries are now becoming the biggest food importers.

We have to stop WTO and neo-liberal policy because of the disastrous impacts to the peasants. We state in this declaration as follows:  

1.    Stop WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong in December 2005, 10 years of WTO is enough!
2.    Reject and stop FTA as new imperialism in the world.
3.    Call and encourage peasants, rural workers, indigenous peoples, and other social movement to mobilize, campaign, and support the struggle to derail WTO meeting.
4.    Implement the genuine agrarian reform, food sovereignty, and peasant rights to achieve the people sovereignty.
Toward WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong December 2005, we will:

1.    Organize the mobilization during the General Council meeting of WTO in Geneva.
2.    Organize mobilization in September 10th 2005 to commemorate the international day of struggle against WTO, and the second year of the late Lee Kyung Hae’s sacrifice in Cancun 2003.
3.    Intensify our struggle and speak with forceful voice in the days, weeks, and months leading to Hong Kong WTO meeting
4.    Mobilize thousand of peasants to stop WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.
5.    Organize solidarity action in respective country and pressure our government to derail WTO ministerial meeting in Hong Kong.

Dili, Timor Leste, 20 May 2005
Signed by members of La Via Campesina:
1.    Hametin Agrikultura Sustentavel Timor Lorosa’e (HASATIL, Timor Leste)
2.    Federasi Serikat Petani Indonesia (FSPI, Indonesia)
3.    Assembly of the Poor (AOP, Thailand)
4.    Korean Peasants League (KPL, South Korea)
5.    Korean Women Peasant Association (KWPA, South Korea)
6.    Kilusang Magbubukid ng Philipinas (KMP, Philippine)
7.    Paragos Philipinas (formerly known as DKMP, Philippine)
8.    Borneo Indigenous and Peasant Movement, (PANGGAU, Sarawak, Malaysia)
9.    Vietnam Farmers’ Union (VNFU, Vietnam)
10.    Japan Family Farmers Movement (NOUMINREN, Japan)
11.    Northern Peasant Federation (Thailand), observer

Please circulate widely and send your action to us. For further information please contact International Operative Secretariat (IOS) La Via Campesina: viacampesina@viacampesina.org, so we can publish them on the website www.viacampesina.org