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World Trade Organisation talks begin amid huge protests

N. Ravi Kumar

Director General Pascal Lamy urges the trade negotiators to be open-minded

ENEMY OF THE POOR?: Demonstrators, protesting against global trade, march through the streets of Hong Kong on Tuesday.

Hong Kong: The sixth World Trade Organisation (WTO) ministerial conference opened here on Tuesday amid low expectations of it firming up the Doha development round negotiations, with protests by non-governmental organisations and a call from its Director General Pascal Lamy to the trade negotiators to be open-minded.

Marking the launch of formal discussions amongst the Trade Ministers of 150 countries, the inaugural session of the meeting was disrupted early on when some 50 volunteers of various non-governmental organisations entered the heavily guarded venue and raised slogans against the WTO.

Even as many among the audience described the entry and exit of the protesters as well-organised and planned, the protesters holding anti-WTO banners hogged the spotlight by timing their agitation along with Mr. Lamy's speech.

Peaceful demonstration

Coming into the conference hall in a rather regulated manner — through the entrance where photographers and media were stationed — the protesters, including several women, dispersed after about 15 minutes. This was a pretty peaceful protest compared to that organised here by those opposing the WTO in the last couple of days in other parts of Hong Kong.

"The banner was struck (concealed) in my tummy," said Anuradha Mittal, pointing to the banner proclaiming "no deal is better than a bad deal" that was used during the protest. An executive director of Oakland Institute, Ms. Mittal said several like-minded groups were part of the protest under the banner of "Our world is not for sale". She described the Doha development agenda that is sought to be shaped up in the negotiations "as nothing but lies ... basically it is about lies".

Mr. Lamy, who went ahead with his speech even during the protest, said: "There is a lot of room for improvement in public acceptance of the WTO, as there is in its marketing activities. The WTO — the crowds in and certainly outside this building will remind you with sound and sometimes fury — is not the most popular international organisation around, to say the least."

Noting that the protest was a voluntary action by some 50 persons, Satur C. Ocampo, president of Bayan Muna, a NGO in Philippines, said they went in on their own and came out on their own. The key reason for this, he said, was that all the agreements under the aegis of the WTO, since its establishment 10 years ago, have only favoured the developed countries and further impoverished the poor nations. "If WTO is about alleviating poverty ... it is the reverse trend that we are seeing," said Mr. Ocampo, a member of the House of Representatives of the Philippines.

Clash outside venue

Though one of the members of the group from Canada said that it was the first time that the protesters shouted slogans inside the conference venue, a trade representative of an Asian country and a regular at the WTO meeting, however, disputed it saying the protests at the Cancun ministerial meeting were more noisy.

AP reports:

Outside the venue, several dozen protesters — mainly South Korean farmers — struck security forces with bamboo sticks and tried to push through a police barricade.

Riot police with helmets and shields fended off the protesters with pepper spray a few blocks away from the WTO's meeting venue. The scuffle lasted about half an hour and died down as police reinforcements arrived.

No serious injuries were reported, but the pepper spray left several demonstrators staggering in pain and rubbing their eyes as other protesters poured bottled water on their faces.

The protesters, who also included Japanese, Indian, Filipino and Brazilian farmers, also burned a coffin that was used as a protest prop during a street march earlier in the afternoon that police said drew 4,500 people.

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