Resist Intensifying Imperialist Plunder in Philippine Agriculture! Junk WTO!

Paper on the 2nd Rural People’s Conference and Action Against
the World Trade Organization and Imperialist Globalization
Prepared by the Kilusang Magbubukid ng Pilipinas (KMP)
December 15, 2011

The World Trade Organization’s Eighth Ministerial Conference on December 15-17, 2011 in Geneva, Switzerland is another desperate attempt by monopoly capitalist countries to intensify the exploitation and oppression of the broad masses of people in the face of the worsening crisis of the global capitalist and financial system.

Last December 1, WTO General Council Chair, Ambassador Yonov Frederick Agah, forwarded the document “Elements for Political Guidance” to the Chair of the Eighth Ministerial Conference, Trade and Investment Minister Olusegun Olutoyin Aganga of Nigeria, for inclusion as the consensus part of his statement.

The document merely reaffirmed the WTO’s, the imperialist countries and their puppet states’ insistence to cling to the same rotten and bankrupt “development” paradigm of so-called “free market” globalization. This so-called “development” model has only led to a more serious global economic and financial crisis.

Interestingly, the document admits the weaknesses of the WTO and the members are one in saying that “Ministers deeply regret that, despite full engagement and intensified efforts to conclude the Doha Development Agenda single undertaking since the last Ministerial Conference, the negotiations are at an impasse.” If there is any consensus reached, it is that members only agreed to disagree.

After a decade and five (5) ministerial conferences, the WTO failed to conclude the Doha Round, much more to come up with any solution to the global economic and financial crisis. This failure is a result of and underscores the intensifying contradictions between the monopoly capitalist countries themselves, between the monopoly capitalist countries and countries asserting national independence and sovereignty, between the monopoly capitalist powers and the oppressed peoples and nations, and between the monopoly bourgeoisie and the toiling masses of people.

The WTO is further weakened by the economic and financial crisis suffered by the imperialist countries headed by the United States that dominate and steer the WTO. Imperialist countries are scrambling for the redivision of the world for cheap sources of labor, raw materials, for markets, fields of investments and spheres of influence. Russia’s accession to the WTO cannot be touted as sign of strength. Instead, Russia’s membership will only further narrow the already contracted global market.