Campaign against WTO

To: All APC Member Organizations
From: Danilo Ramos, APC Secretary General
Subject: Campaign against WTO

We call on all member organizations of the Asian Peasant Coalition (APC) to plan and carry out information campaign and mass actions to protest the World Trade Organization (WTO) epecially the ‘WTO Informal Ministerial Meeting to be held in New Delhi , India on September 3-4. We request your organization to submit campaign plans to APC Secretariat on or before August 31.

India will host the “informal ministerial meeting” in an effort to break the impasse towards concluding the Doha Round of WTO expansion. Ministers from only a few dozen countries have been invited; and we understand that the meeting will be focused on, but not limited to, agricultural negotiations.

Since the venue of the mini-ministerial meeting is in India , the Alliance of People's Movement, Andhra Pradesh Vyavasaya Vruthidarula Union (APVVU), Tamil Nadu Women’s Forum (TWRF), and Indian Federation of Toiling Peasants (IFTOP), will play an important role to organize an APC-led mobilization or any actions to register our protest against the WTO. Please communicate with us your on-going preparations or ideas.

In the Philippines, the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP), Pamalakaya, Unyon ng mga Manggagawa sa Agrikultura (UMA) and AMIHAN together with PUMALAG (Peoples’ Network Against Liberalization of Agriculture) will organize on Sept. 2, a “Round Table Discussion on Updates on WTO and FTA” and on Sept. 4, a protest action in front of the Department of Agriculture national office. Also from Sept. 7 to Sept. 30, lobbying, lecture series in universities and peasant communities are initially planned. These occasions will served as a Philippine counterpoint event during the death anniversary of Korean farmer Lee Kyung Hae on Sept. 10 and the WTO Public Forum on Sept. 28-30 in Geneva

The WTO is one of the most heartless and inhumane organization at these modern times, as it aim to destroy poor Asian countries' capacity to produce their own food, depress farmers economic well-being, and allow giant agrochemical TNCs to exploit resources that should have been for the people.

The 7th WTO Ministerial Conference will be held from November 29 to December 2 in Geneva with the theme “The WTO, the Multilateral Trading System and the Current Global Economic Environment”. The so-called trade minister’s talk will only focus on how to more effectively exploit countries, oppress people and further wrecked peoples’ livelihood. We’ve been successful during the 6th WTO Ministerial conference in Hong Kong in 2005, when the talks collapse. We’ve done the same during the July 2008 mini-ministerial meeting in Geneva . We propose an Asia-wide action dubbed “24-hour countdown protest against WTO.”

Let us show our unity and resistance once again. The talks will once again fail. Finally, we encourage all APC members to adopt this campaign against WTO.

For more information, please coordinate with the APC secretariat thru this email: apc_secretariat@ yahoo.com and roda_g04@yahoo. com.