A theatre of the absurd at Seattle

Delegates to the Third WTO Ministerial Conference had not only to endure the chaotic organisational arrangements that characterised the Seattle meet, but also to contend with the manipulative manoeuvrings by the North at the Conference. In the following article, Chakravarthi Raghavan provides a vivid account of the frenzied, but in the end futile, efforts by the North to push through a deal.

IT was like a case of a carefully choreographed and scripted stage play with s

ome famous names as actors but in which other actors refused to play their assigned part, wrote their own script and 'blew up the theatre'. It may probably take weeks, if not months, for tempers and feelings aroused inside the WTO to cool down and for diplomatic behaviour, niceties and courtesies to come back into play, as trade ambassadors in Geneva try to pick up the pieces of the system shattered at Seattle.

But even this is by no means certain.

In the week of 22 November, when trade negotiators at Geneva were trying to find a way of admitting failure and putting all the documents and square-bracketed texts into the hands of ministers, a few thoughtful Third World ambassadors speculated whether the outcome was the result of a planned US strategy to prevent anything emerging in Geneva and get everything under its control (as chair of the conference) in Seattle to produce an outcome it sought.

Or, they wondered, was it a case of sheer incompetence and amateurish diplomacy by the US trade mission in Geneva as evidenced by the last 18 months or more, in the selection/election of the DG and in the preparatory process?

But few of them who gathered at Seattle had bargained for the kind of conference, process and pressures they were subjected to by the world's most powerful, richest and clearly the meanest, host.

Ministers and high trade officials of key countries began arriving in Seattle from 26 November to be available over the weekend for some quiet contacts and consultations on how to move the Ministerial agenda forward.

But the host, USTR Charlene Barshefsky, was not on hand and came in only Sunday evening (28 November).

Delegates of member governments, observers, international organisations, the media and NGOs - who had been told to send in their registration by about the third week of November complete with pictures, in order to pick up badges on 27 November - found their badges misfiled and, in many cases, missing. They had to stand in line filling forms anew, and have their pictures taken and credentials questioned. WTO officials were red-faced, while everyone agreed that the much-vaunted US technological efficiency and capacity were just not in evidence.

They encountered similar problems in the conference centre, where even the normal facilities for any international gathering were lacking.

Preceding the official NGO events, there was a weekend of teach-ins and workshops by several of the leading anti-globalisation organisations, where some presentations were very reasonable and well-argued, and others displayed wild-eyed romanticisation.

'Shop-worn pet views'

The first official WTO event took place on the 29th: an NGO symposium with some carefully (from the US point of view) chosen lead speakers repeating their by now shop-worn pet views - UK Development Minister Clare Short, free trader Jagdish Bhagwati, Barshefsky, the head of the US National Wildlife Federation, which strongly advocates US unilateralism on the plea of environmental protection (who chaired a panel and kept to the chair's role), WWF International and a few others. None of the Southern and Northern NGOs which have serious questions about the WTO system - but which by and large have been playing by the rules and remits of NGOs in lobbying their governments to change course - were lead speakers but they could speak from the floor (if they gave their names in advance for the chairs to call).

But before the session could start, a broken latch over a door led to a bomb scare. The entire building had to be evacuated and search dogs brought in before the conference area was declared safe. This set the symposium back by several hours. And when the floor responses and questions came in, a number of very serious NGOs challenged and questioned several of the lead speakers, including Barshefsky, about the claims of globalisation and trade liberalisation, and confronted them with empirical evidence to the contrary.

The next day, the planned demonstrations to coincide with the ceremonial opening day of the 3rd Ministerial were upstaged by others who surrounded the Paramount Theatre, venue of the opening ceremony. Many streets were also blocked by protestors or security personnel. Ministers and dignitaries - UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan among them - thus were prevented from going to the opening.

For the record, the Seattle hosts had authorised a planned march and demonstration led by the AFL-CIO and some unions, including steelworkers unions (who had been demanding protection, quotas and anti-dumping investigations to keep out steel from the poorer countries), textiles and clothing unions using the plea of 'child labour' to shut out imports from the developing world.

There were other peaceful protestors on the streets, such as those wanting to save turtles and tropical forests or protesting against patenting of life forms and genetic engineering. Also present (but little reported in the media) were demonstrators supporting the poor and the Third World, including the Jubilee 2000 campaign calling for debt cancellation.

The police, whose presence was very visible, threw barricades on the road to separate protestors from the delegates and others going to the conference. TV reports on the scene showed a few delegates being pushed by some demonstrators.

Suddenly, there appeared a group, some 100-strong perhaps, in masks and black clothes, who went around breaking shop windows and looting, engaging in some mayhem.

The police did not apprehend even one of them and the perpetrators remain mysterious and named as 'anarchists'.

To this writer, they seemed more like the agents provocateurs who joined in and created the unruly demonstrations at the 1968 Democratic Party Convention that led to the election of Republican President Nixon.

For two days, the organised protestors took over control of the streets, the police used tear gas and pepper spray, curfew was declared to regain control over the streets, and the National Guard was called in, but to the end participants at the conference were subject to siege conditions.

These events were used by US negotiators and Bill Clinton himself, in a lunch address, to persuade and arm-twist delegations to gain two commitments - one to bring in the labour-standards issue into the WTO, and another to use the environment issue to open the dispute panel proceedings to the environment NGOs, which believe they can present amicus curiae briefs to the panels.

Going through the motions

While the conference itself went through the motions of 'transparency' in discussing the issues to figure in the declaration, there were no real negotiations or discussions in any of the four working groups. And the secretariat and the working group chairmen often failed to objectively report on such discussions has took place and sum up the differing viewpoints. When such reports were challenged, they gave absurd explanations which could not withstand any scrutiny, thus showing contempt for the membership.

For example, when one of the working group chairs was faulted in the Committee of the Whole for ignoring the viewpoint of the member countries of the ACP (African, Caribbean and Pacific) grouping (EC-Lome pact countries), it was first claimed that the ACP had presented in the afternoon while the summing-up report had been based on the morning meeting. When this was challenged by noting that Jamaica and others who had spoken had done so in the morning, no real explanation was forthcoming.

There were some efforts in some restricted 'informal green rooms' - as one participant termed the small meetings chaired by a minister or sometimes by a WTO official - to push those resisting to accept some subjects for new negotiations in new areas.

Meanwhile, the US was conducting bilateral negotiations with the EC to settle on a mandate for agricultural negotiations, which, by about late 2 December, seemed on hand, provided the US would deliver on the EC demand for negotiations on investment and competition policy.

At the working group meetings on the Singapore agenda and other issues, a number of countries had spoken out against any negotiations or even any commitment to negotiate on any of the four Singapore agenda issues - and the number of these countries seemed to surprise the conference leadership. Some of them, like Egypt, made some 'soothing' statements, which they sought to explain to their colleagues in the Like-Minded Group of developing countries as being merely intended to show a 'positive' approach and 'flexibility'.

In the green room meetings, chaired by a New Zealand minister, which went on at the same time as other plenary working groups at ministerial level, there were further attempts to isolate and pressure a few of the countries that had made clear they would not move beyond the current mandate of the study process.

None of these meetings had a set group of countries, excepting that those who seemed likely to support the EC or US views seemed to be able to come in and show that a large number were in favour and only a recalcitrant minority were opposed.

For the 2 December night meeting on Singapore issues, the New Zealand chair first gave the floor to those who would support. It was by then clear to the EC that no negotiations would be started or mandated in Seattle, but it was looking for a commitment to converting the study process into negotiations at the 4th Ministerial.

The meeting on 2 December night on the 'Singapore issues' (investment, government procurement, trade facilitation and competition policy) reportedly began with the New Zealand chair presenting the following as options: negotiations, focused study with a commitment to negotiations, and study without any commitment, with the latter being presented as not a viable option. Those given the floor to speak, even though others had put up their hands first to take the floor, were those supporting the first and second propositions.

When the representative from India, who had put up his hand first, protested, he was told that the chair was first giving precedence to ministers. According to one participant, the normally very polite Indian ambassador to the WTO, S Narayanan, then asked the chair whether it expected the Indian minister to be able to split himself and be present in two places at the same time. [Later, outside the room, the WTO officials and the New Zealand delegates, according to some observers, were seen talking to Narayanan, reportedly apologising for the chair's behaviour and emphasising that they had no hand in the way the chair had behaved.]

Zimbabwe (which had come to the green room with South Africa) said there was a need for flexibility and those rejecting negotiations (such as India) must give alternatives - a view that India summarily dismissed.

The Indian representative then took the floor to reject the proposals for negotiations to be mandated or for the study to be continued on the basis that negotiations would begin at the 4th Ministerial. Neither was politically acceptable or feasible to India.

Malaysia and Pakistan, which were represented at second or third level, also spoke up rejecting both negotiations and a study with commitments to negotiate at the end. The Malaysian representative accused the chair of being unfair and partisan.

Hong Kong China bluntly told the informal green room and the Cairns Group members that it was not ready to pay a price to the EC or others to enable the latter to make concessions in agriculture to the Cairns Group or the US.

The meeting ended at about 4.30am with those who had presented other formulations asked to put them on paper.

Final frenzy

Meanwhile, it appeared that the US and the EC had reached an accord of sorts on agriculture, with the US going some way towards satisfying the EC on the issue of a comprehensive round by being agreeable to launching it at the 4th Ministerial. The US then felt emboldened to pressure others to fall in line, and several informal green room meetings were called at very short notice, as the EC spokesman put it in one press briefing, at less than 10 minutes' notice in a city where movement from next-door hotels to the conference centre required going through several police security barriers and walking.

(And inside the conference itself, after midnight even water, tea or coffee was not available.)

There was the sudden effort to constitute an informal working group chaired by Costa Rica to discuss labour standards. When delegates challenged its legality, the meeting was adjourned, but the effort was not abandoned. The EC held a separate meeting with some of the key developing countries to sell its idea of a joint ILO (International Labour Organisation)-WTO forum outside the WTO framework. There was also an alternative idea of a forum to discuss globalisation, trade etc and bringing in the ILO, UNEP (United Nations Environment Programme) and others on board.

But with Clinton having revealed his hand in a newspaper interview that at some stage down the road the US wanted the WTO to apply trade sanctions to enforce labour standards, most of the developing world closed ranks to reject any such discussions through the WTO.

Recounting the frenzied course of events on the final day (3 December), one delegate explained how, when he had hardly reached his hotel at about 5 a.m. (after day- and night-long meetings during the night of 2-3 December) hoping to get an hour's catnap before showering and going back to the conference centre, he was told to rush back for 'green room' meetings to be chaired by Barshefsky.

There were 'green room' meetings on agriculture, market access and others in the room chaired by Barshefsky, as well as other second-track parallel meetings - with an ever-increasing hardening of positions and stands. A number of small countries which felt excluded, and which had issued joint letters to the chair and the WTO head threatening to withhold consensus on any outcome, stormed their way into the green room demanding an explanation and serving notice they would reject any conclusion at the meeting.

In this situation, when it became clear to Barshefsky that neither of the Clinton agendas - on labour and environment - could be advanced, she called the White House and sought its consent to suspend the conference. When consent was given, she conferred with Moore and one or two others, and called a meeting of the COW (in once again near-chaotic arrangements inside) announcing her intention to suspend the conference.

As mentioned earlier, several of the ambassadors confessed they were not even been able to hear properly what she was saying; it was their impression that no proposition had been put forward and declared carried by consensus. Some immediately left the conference centre without even being aware that there was to be a plenary. Those attending only heard a closing speech by Barshefsky that received some scattered cheers, and another by Moore received in silence, before the conference was suspended.

The above article first appeared in the South-North Development Monitor (SUNS- issue no. 4567).