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Subject: NEWS -Free Burma Members Join the Demonstration in Seattle

Free Burma Members Join the Demonstration in Seattle
Rangoon Post - 29 November, 1999

  About 10 Free Burma members from various groups and locations around
the United States are part of the thousands of demonstrators in Seattle
fighting the WTO one-sided practices that support business interests and
not human rights interests. 

   Someone once said, "It is o.k. to make santions against a country
when a company is economically vulnerable or intellectual property is
being stolen.  But sanctions are blocked and illegal when dictators are
involved that hurt, attack and imprison their own people violating their
human rights."
----------------------------
WTO to Meet As Protesters Rally Forces Trade Talks to Open Without an
Agenda

                  By John Burgess
                  Washington Post Staff Writer
                  Monday, November 29, 1999; Page A01 

                  SEATTLE, Nov. 28?Three-thousand trade
                  officials from more than 100 countries gather
                  here this week to try to accelerate a
                  half-century-old trend of tying the world ever
                  closer economically. They are expected to meet
                  against a noisy backdrop of street protests by
                  people who believe that the current global
                  trading system destroys jobs and harms the
                  environment.

                  The delegates to the four-day World Trade
                  Organization meeting, which starts Tuesday, are
                  hoping to begin a new round of negotiations
                  aimed at lowering barriers to the exchange of
                  goods and services between nations. Success
                  is by no means certain. Exploratory talks toward
                  an agenda for the meeting ended in failure last
                  week as officials tried to nudge other countries
                  to open their markets further, but defended their
                  own territories.

                  If the meeting does reach an agreement this
                  week, it would lead to the opening of the ninth
                  extended round of trade liberalization talks since
                  the end of World War II. Previous rounds have
                  opened up national borders to the point that the
                  world's countries sold each other more than
                  $5.5 trillion in goods and services in 1998, up
                  80 percent for the decade.

                  As the 20th century nears its close, political
                  leaders of every stripe and nationality have
                  praised trade as benefiting everyone because it
                  helps raise standards of living and employment. 

                  Trade can "create for billions of people the
                  conditions that allow them to work and live, and
                  raise their families in dignity," President Clinton
                  said recently. He plans to sound that theme
                  again during an address Wednesday to the
                  WTO.

                  Yet a mood of anxiety hangs over the
                  conference. Trade barriers have historically
                  helped define nationhood by protecting local
                  companies, jobs, even ways of life. When
                  barriers come down, a bit of what binds people
                  together as a country can be lost.

                  For overt expression of these feelings,
                  delegates from the 135-country organization
                  would need only look to the streets of Seattle,
                  where thousands of people were expected to
                  turn out with protest banners. Protesters held a
                  parade Sunday in one Seattle neighborhood and
                  a large rally was planned for Tuesday. At least
                  four people already have been arrested for
                  protest activities. 

                  AFL-CIO President John Sweeney plans to lead
                  a march condemning the Geneva-based
                  agency, which enforces global trade
                  agreements, as a tool of corporations and
                  exporter of jobs; environmental militants who
                  think its decisions create dirty air and water
                  have vowed to "shut down" the meeting with civil
                  disobedience.

                  Among those expected to participate in the
                  protests was James P. Hoffa, Teamsters union
                  president. Hoffa, in an interview on "Fox Sunday
                  News," said the union should be part of any
                  trade talks. "We're going to put a human face on
                  the problems with the WTO," he said. "We're
                  going there--organized labor, the AFL-CIO,
                  religious leaders, environmentalists--to really
                  talk about what's wrong with the WTO: the fact
                  that they put corporate greed, corporate profits
                  above human rights."

                  The issue of human rights also struck a chord
                  with Reform Party presidential candidate Patrick
                  J. Buchanan, who yesterday on NBC's "Meet
                  the Press" criticized the United States for
                  recently agreeing to support China's efforts to
                  join the WTO. "The deal that was cut in Beijing
                  was a complete capitulation by the United
                  States," he said. "In return, we got nothing in the
                  way of human rights improvement, nothing in the
                  way that would build-down the missiles aimed at
                  Taiwan, nothing in the way of reduced
                  belligerence to this country."

                  Commerce Secretary William Daley, also on
                  "Meet the Press," defended U.S. efforts to bring
                  China into the WTO. "It is in our best interests if
                  we see a different China into the next century,"
                  he said. "A main way we can do that is to do
                  more trade with China."

                  These issues are part of the paradox of a single
                  world economy. Such an economy can generate
                  enormous wealth, as countries specialize in
                  products and sell to the planet at large. It can
                  also blur distinctive food, dress and lifestyles of
                  countries, push financial panics across borders
                  at fiber-optic speed, and move decisions once
                  made at home to faceless executives thousands
                  of miles away.

                  With all that very much in mind, the WTO
                  delegates were expected to press further
                  toward economic oneness. Among the subjects
                  posed for discussion: downsizing Europe's
                  programs that subsidize farm exports; further
                  opening trade in services; refining rules against
                  the illegal practice of "dumping," or selling
                  foreign goods at illegally low prices; keeping the
                  Internet tariff-free, and allowing public scrutiny
                  of WTO dispute proceedings, which now go on
                  in closed session.

                  If an agreement is reached, each country would,
                  in effect, have to trust its neighbors a bit more.
                  At the same time, the deal would be crafted in
                  such a way that each country would believe that
                  it had defended its sovereign uniqueness.

                  That won't be easy. Militaristic terminology can
                  slip in as trade discussions proceed. European
                  Union trade commissioner Pascal Lamy, for
                  example, is known to talk of his side's
                  "offensive" moves, or demands for market
                  opening, and "defensive" moves, or protection
                  of Europe's own.

                  Could France be France without picturesque
                  villages of farmers and grazing cows? No,
                  suggested the French agriculture and fisheries
                  minister, Jean-Andre Glavany, who spoke up for
                  subsidy programs that help keep the villages in
                  existence. "I reject the picture of France with
                  150,000 farmers" rather than the 700,000 it has
                  today, he told a Washington audience this
                  month. "I oppose the idea of vast empty tracts
                  of land."

                  For similar reasons of preserving something
                  about the home country, Canada reins in
                  American magazines, China limits the showing
                  of American movies and Japan restricts the
                  eating of American rice.

                  "There is a widespread view abroad that
                  globalization is being forced on the world by
                  American corporations, that globalization is
                  Americanization," said Clyde Prestowitz,
                  president of a Washington think tank called the
                  Economic Strategy Institute. "So there's a
                  banding together to protect the national
                  essence."

                  If there's a common theme to this ire, it's loss of
                  control. People all over East Asia were furious
                  in 1997 that their economies crashed because
                  far-away investors got worried and pulled their
                  money en masse from Asian financial markets.
                  Years of gains in living standards were wiped
                  out almost overnight by strangers.

                  The International Monetary Fund, the
                  Washington-based international agency that
                  made bail-out loans to many of the ailing
                  countries, added to feelings of loss of
                  sovereignty by putting conditions on its money:
                  cuts in government spending, drastic steps to
                  bring down inflation, ends to subsidies.

                  At times globalization has helped determine who
                  those countries' leaders are. The Asian financial
                  crisis rocked the Indonesian economy
                  sufficiently to trigger demonstrations that
                  brought down the 32-year rule of President
                  Suharto.

                  These feelings aren't limited to developing
                  countries. In the 1980s, Japan's battering of
                  bedrock U.S. industries such as cars and
                  semiconductors, followed by billion-dollar
                  purchases of U.S. buildings, securities and
                  companies, led to feelings that control was
                  passing beyond American borders. What would
                  happen, not a few talk-show pundits asked, if
                  Japanese investors pulled out of New York
                  markets? Today concern over Japan has waned
                  as its economy has slipped into recession.

                  For now the focus of skeptics, here and abroad,
                  is the WTO.

                  Ralph Nader, the abiding consumer activist, gets
                  visibly angry when he talks about the agency,
                  which he calls a "super-national autocratic
                  system . . . that runs courts that would be illegal
                  in this country." By treating trade as a virtue in
                  itself, WTO dispute decisions often stamp on
                  labor rights and environmental protection, he
                  argues. The United States and other countries
                  have been forced to soften their laws in these
                  fields to stay on the good side of the
                  organization, he contends.

                  U.S. Trade Representative Charlene Barshefsky
                  dismisses talk of diminished sovereignty. The
                  United States is free to ignore any WTO ruling
                  with which it disagrees, though it would face
                  sanctions.

                  Barshefsky's office estimates that 10 percent of
                  America's jobs--12 million--depend on the
                  nation's exports. Thus corporate America is
                  much a part of the debate. The U.S. Chamber of
                  Commerce and other business groups are
                  sending their own delegations to Seattle. The
                  Business Roundtable, a collection of large
                  companies, is releasing a series of reports
                  showing how important trade is in dollars and
                  jobs in 71 congressional districts, and
                  identifying small businesses, including
                  skateboard makers and artists, as beneficiaries
                  of global trade.

                  Similar fights play out in virtually every country.
                  But in the end, most countries have opened
                  their borders.

                  Sometimes it's because they're bullied by their
                  trading partners or the international community.
                  The United States has ridden herd on Japan for
                  decades to open its markets--its farmers once
                  campaigned for protection waving posters
                  showing a giant wall surrounding a peaceful and
                  productive Japan. Now rice imports, banned for
                  years, are legal, if still controlled. 

                  At other times countries employ what Razeen
                  Sally, a lecturer at the London School of
                  Economics, called "the Nike strategy--just do it."
                  They make a calculated decision that they would
                  benefit from opening, even if there's pain up
                  front as local industries and farms get knocked
                  around. China's leaders seem to have accepted
                  this risk as they move to join the WTO.

                  There is a long history of this faith in open trade,
                  proponents say. The 13 American colonies, all
                  proud of their distinct identities, created a
                  historic experiment in democracy; they also
                  created one of the world's first free trade zones.

                  In the late 20th century, the movement has
                  gained force. Perhaps furthest down the road is
                  the European Union, which allows citizens to
                  work in whichever country and has introduced a
                  common currency in 11 countries. People gripe
                  and complain about EU regulations, but in the
                  end they learn to live with them.

                  The North American Free Trade Agreement
                  lowered barriers between the United States,
                  Canada and Mexico, despite concerns about
                  the same labor and environmental issues raised
                  in Seattle. Talks are underway for essentially
                  uniting the Americas from top to bottom in a
                  single free trade zone about five years from
                  now.

                  Perhaps it's because nations realize they can
                  prosper even if they give up some control. East
                  Asia's dramatic gains in living standards in the
                  last generation, though dented by the financial
                  crisis, stem largely from trading with other
                  nations.

                  The talks in Seattle are expected to be a new
                  test of this search for balance.

                  135 Nations Work Toward One Goal -- Better
                  Trade

                  Q. What is the World Trade Organization?

                  A. The WTO is an international agency that joins
                  135 countries for the stated goal of assuring the
                  freest possible flow of trade. With headquarters
                  on well-manicured grounds overlooking Lake
                  Geneva in Switzerland, it's been called the
                  ultimate capitalist club.

                  To get in, countries agree to follow broad
                  principles of openness in their economies and to
                  move away from things such as government
                  subsidies of their export industries. No country
                  has to be a member, but generally, nations fight
                  to get in, as the world economy is ever more
                  important to prosperity. 

                  Where does the WTO's authority come from?

                  From the 51-year-old General Agreement on
                  Tariffs and Trade, a document that 23 countries
                  worked out in 1947 to liberalize trade after
                  World War II. Many more countries signed on to
                  it in later years. Administered with much talk, but
                  little authority, by a bureaucracy in Geneva for
                  decades, it was amended in 1994 to create the
                  WTO. 

                  How does the agency resolve trade disputes?

                  When a country has a trade gripe against a
                  WTO member -- for example, a domestic law
                  that is blocking the sale of a nation's goods -- it
                  files a complaint in Geneva. The two countries
                  sit down to talk, but if that doesn't work the
                  agency convenes a "panel," essentially a
                  tribunal of trade experts, that hears arguments,
                  examines evidence, and considers domestic
                  laws and some of the trade agreements that
                  number 30,000 pages. It then issues a decision,
                  as a court does. 

                  Are the decisions binding?

                  That's a politically sensitive question. Any
                  country can legally refuse to abide by a WTO
                  ruling against it, but that's not the end of it. The
                  country must negotiate compensation with the
                  aggrieved country or absorb trade sanctions
                  that it can levy with the WTO's approval. 

                  This ability to say "no" allows member
                  governments to say their sovereignty is in no
                  way diminished. But the organization's critics
                  say that in the real world, countries tend to bend
                  to WTO rulings because they don't want to take
                  the financial pain. 

                  What are these sessions called "rounds"?

                  About every decade, major nations meet to
                  agree on ways to further liberalize trade.
                  Typically this takes several years of
                  negotiations, a "round" of them, in which
                  countries generally try to win new access to
                  foreign markets while protecting their own
                  industries. There have been eight rounds since
                  the 1940s. Seattle is meant to be the starting
                  point for a ninth that would last at least three
                  years, provided an agenda can be agreed upon.

                  I've heard of the Tokyo Round and the Uruguay
                  Round. What's this one going to be called?

                  That's a sore point for the United States, which
                  wants it to be called the Seattle Round. But
                  some people, the Europeans, for instance, are
                  going with the name Millennium Round. In the
                  world of international trade, no decision is easy.

                  Trade Over Time

                  Milestones in the International Trading System

                  1944: An international conference of 44
                  countries at Bretton Woods, N.H., agrees on a
                  fixed-rate exchange system and lays the
                  groundwork for the International Monetary Fund,
                  World Bank and the General Agreement on
                  Tariffs and Trade.

                  1947: The General Agreement on Tariffs and
                  Trade is born. Initially signed by 23 countries,
                  GATT's goal is to liberalize trade -- eliminating
                  tariffs, subsidies, import quotas and other forms
                  of protection.

                  1973-79: GATT's Tokyo Round of negotiations
                  involved about 100 countries and continued
                  efforts to reduce tariffs. Results included an
                  average one-third cut in customs duties in the
                  world's major industrial markets.

                  1974: The arrangement regarding international
                  trade in textiles, also known as the Multifibre
                  Arrangement, began in January. It sought to
                  expand and liberalize trade in textiles while
                  protecting some industries so as to avoid
                  disruptive effects in individual markets and
                  production lines.

                  1986-93: The Uruguay Round, possibly the most
                  ambitious set of multilateral trade-liberalization
                  provisions ever adopted by such diverse
                  nations, produced agreement among 125
                  countries to help boost global trade. The talks
                  included service industries as well as
                  agriculture, textiles, research subsidies and
                  intellectual property.

                  1995: Establishment of the World Trade
                  Organization to replace GATT as a more
                  powerful multilateral group with responsibility for
                  implementing new trade agreements and
                  enforcing existing pacts.

                  1997: WTO agreements by 40 countries on
                  cutting customs duties on information
                  technology products and by 69 governments on
                  liberalizing telecommunications services.
                  Seventy nations also agreed to open their
                  financial services sectors, coverning more than
                  95 percent of trade in banking, insurance,
                  securities and financial data.

                  1999: China, United States reach agreement to
                  allow China's membership in the WTO.

                  SOURCES: World Trade Organization,
                  Economic Strategy Institute, Facts on File 

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