Dear friends,
On November 9, we in the Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (BAYAN, New Patriotic Alliance), a nationwide, militant, multi-sectoral formation fighting for land reform, independence from foreign impositions, and human rights will be holding a protest action against the World Trade Organization (WTO) in front of the US Embassy in the Philippines.
In the spirit of international solidarity for the millions of peoples affected by the regime of imperialist globalization and as one of the members of the newly-formed INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF PEOPLES' STRUGGLES (ILPS), we urge you to join us with your own forms of protest activities on said date.
At the APEC summit which had had just been concluded last October 22, its leaders had emphasized pushing for a new round of negotiations at the WTO. If you will all recall, in November 1999, in Seattle, the monopoly capitalists in the US and European Union failed in their attempt to start a "Millenium Round" of talks due to the unprecedented and widespread opposition from the people and some governments around world. The militant and powerful protest actions in Seattle stunned the world and caused the collapse of the WTO Third Ministerial Conference.
Under the regime of imperialist globalization, the WTO has caused the dismantling of barriers to trade as protectionist measures by sovereign counties are now considered anathema. Instead, there is unhampered trade, the flooding of national markets of the Third World with surplus agricultural products, goods, and services from the advanced capitalist countries. In the Philippines, as elsewhere in semi-colonial and dependent countries, this has spelled devastation of local agriculture and industry and a slow, painful death for the poor, exploited and oppressed.
Our future is doomed if we allow the Fourth Ministerial Round in the WTO to carry out its terroristic agenda: the destruction of the sovereignty of nations and the peoples of the world, the wanton plunder of resources and complete domination of markets to extract the utmost profit.
The struggle against imperialist and corporate "globalization" approached another crucial battle, for in this round the US, using the WTO, will campaign aggressively for the LIBERALIZATION OF INVESTMENTS. In concrete, this means US, EU and Japanese monopoly capitalists first, even in our own respective backyards or in WTO language, national treatment for foreign investors and firms!
What would happen even to governments' regulation of the entry and operations of these aforesaid investors? These would all be curtailed.
Demonstrations will nigh be impossible in Qatar. Meantime we need to demonstrate our people's rejection of a new round of talks. Let us then hold protest actions all over the world to give notice to the powers-that-be in the WTO that we shall fight their renewed attempts to suck the lifeblood of our economies and consign our peoples to a life of hunger, want and desperation.
For justice and peace,
MS. RITA BAUA
International Affairs Officer
BAYAN
BAGONG ALYANSANG MAKABAYAN
(BAYAN, New Patriotic Alliance)
Tel. Nos. [632] 4359151, [632] 9225211
Fax No. [632] 9225211
Email bayan@pilnet.com
Website www.geocities.com/bayanorg/
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