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Seattle Set New Agenda On Trade
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Seattle Set New Agenda On Trade
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by Stuart Laidlaw
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The debate over world trade, big business and the plight of the poor changed forever a year ago this week in Seattle.
In what would come to be known as the Battle of Seattle, 50,000 protesters shut down the World Trade Organization, keeping delegates from their meetings, grabbing headlines around the world and, for the first time in years, making the downside of capitalism a legitimate topic of discussion in the mainstream media.
Journalists, who these days tend to identify more with the priorities of the business sector than the downtrodden in society, were openly questioning the assumptions that free trade benefits all, that what's good for business is good for everyone and that government should just get out of the way and let business people go about their work.
They muted much of their talk in phrases like, ``you might not agree with their tactics, but the protesters make some good points,'' but it was clear a shift had taken place.
It was a shift not even the top defenders of free trade could ignore.
As protesters poured into Seattle the weekend before the big confrontation, WTO head Michael Moore talked about how interested he was in the concerns of the so-called ``civil society,'' the name given to the environmental, labour and anti-poverty groups whose worries about free trade and big business were finally getting an airing.
The trade ministers from the 134 countries at the meeting soon followed suit, with Canada's minister, Pierre Pettigrew, calling on business people to talk more about the benefits of free trade before the demonstrators got the upper hand and defined the debate.
It was all too little, too late.
By the time the meetings began on Nov. 30, all the newspaper, television and magazine reporters descending on Seattle had already written stories about jobs lost to free trade, children living in poverty in the Third World as corporations made huge profits, and environmental laws struck down by the WTO as trade barriers.
The damage had been done and the protests hadn't even started yet. Claims by the WTO and trade ministers that they had the interests of the environment and the poor at heart were met with skepticism.
For me, nothing summed up their underestimating the shift in public sentiment better than the announcement of closed-door meetings on how to be more open.They didn't even seem to see the contradiction.
A year later, the events of Seattle continue to define the debate.
Virtually every discussion on the topic includes references to the protests, the failed attempt by trade ministers to reach a deal and the implications of that failure.
Such issues provide the starting point to begin discussion and the parameters within which the debate takes place.
I've seen it in seminars, conferences, keynote addresses and one- on-one interviews over the past year. It seems no debate is complete any longer without the participants laying out their theories of what happened in Seattle - the role of protesters in holding things up, the role of Third World countries refusing to let the larger countries cut a deal in private and whether the Europeans and the Americans could have ever papered over their huge differences in just one week.
It's become the preferred way for people to size each other up. It's more polite than coming right out and asking about someone's politics, and gets the same results.
The more conservative put less emphasis on the protesters, saying the talks failed because the developing countries, which make up most of the WTO membership, killed the deal because of calls for stricter environmental and labour laws.
A few have even ventured that there was no way Europe and the U.S. could were simply too far apart on every major issue to reach a deal. Strange thing though, I had trouble finding anybody to say that before the Seattle talks. They were either holding something back then, or are trying to revise history now.
The less conservative say the protesters shut the WTO down, keeping delegates meeting and inspiring developing countries to stand up to their richer counterparts. For the record, I believe the protesters played a major role in Seattle's failure.
Certainly, the ministers went there with an enormous task before them, trying in one week to carve out a deal to launch a new round of talks after their diplomats had failed to do so in months of negotiations. By the time the Seattle talks began, a planned 12-page deal had ballooned to more than 100 pages as every point of contention and each alternative wording was added. Despite the enormous challenge, it was inconceivable that the ministers would leave Seattle without a deal, however watered down.
But the protest made a difficult job impossible. Meetings were cancelled. Those that were held were short-staffed as protesters and changing venues kept delegates from their appointments.
The WTO soon slipped into crisis mode, holding meetings between an ever-decreasing number of countries to simplify the discussion and speed progress toward a deal. While developed country ministers worked frantically, Third World delegates milled about the hallways.
Even social events were cancelled as ministers concentrated on closed-door sessions to make up for lost time. Such events, however, are crucial. They provide a chance to discuss matters informally without fear of putting something on the table that might be regretted later, and give small countries a chance to grab a few moments with key negotiators. Cancelling them slowed progress and further alienated the Third World delegates.
As protesters kept the WTO from sticking to any sort of schedule, small differences became insurmountable barriers. The protesters did not shut down the WTO, but kept enough of it from running smoothly to have the same effect.
And throughout that tumultuous week, they defined the debate that has been taking place ever since, while the free traders struggle to get the talks back on track.
Stuart Laidlaw is a Star reporter who covered last year's ``Battle of Seattle.''
Copyright 1996-2000. Toronto Star Newspapers Limited
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