By FRED FELDMAN
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| Recent anti-war demonstration in Montreal, Canada. |
In a show of solidarity against the imperialists that is unprecedented in recent years amongst the governments of oppressed nations of Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, dozens of representatives walked out of the World Trade Organization meeting in Cancun, Mexico last month.
They protested the refusal of US, Japan and the European Union to heed their demands for an end to grossly discriminatory trade policies supporting imperialist agribusiness against their countries. These policies are portrayed in the United States as "help" for "farmers", but they are actually aimed at propping up the operations of agribusiness millionaires and are having the effect of driving millions of peasants off the land and devastating agriculture in many countries.
Of course, if the US government and others were interested in assuring that the farmers could continue to farm and live decently, they could provide extensive social-security guarantees for their homes, farms, equipment, health care and so on. After all, the world today urgently needs the productive efforts of the farmers, regardless of the price of their products and regardless of their profitability at any given time. This would not at all contradict adopting non-discriminatory and affirmative action trade policies to strengthen the position of all the oppressed nations.
Among the most prominent spokespeople and organizers of the resistance to the imperialist demands and the walkout that dealt a crippling blow to the WTO, were Brazil, Venezuela and Cuba, with the government of Brazil being the most prominent. (Those who think that Washington and Wall Street are sincerely enthusiastic about Lula should consider the importance of this event. The Brazilian president has been the target of a whirlwind courtship by a serial spouse-killer.) Many other countries played an active and a very courageous part, however.
There will be the usual media moaning about the poor nations "cutting off the nose to spite their face" and there will also be punishment and retaliation by the powers that be, but the ripped-off peoples and nations have strengthened their position by this move, and undermined the confidence of their plunderers.
In the mid 1980’s Cuba called for a united front of Latin America to force the IMF and the imperialist banks and governments to cancel these countries un-payable debt. This well-argued call basically went nowhere, with devastating results for the peoples of Latin America and the sovereignty and the independence of Latin American governments. This walkout seems to signal that we are at the beginning – the very beginning of course. We are sure that there will be setbacks as well as advances – of a new period of possibilities for such united action.
I might add that this will be good news for the peoples of Iraq and Palestine, under the occupation of the imperialists or their paid gunman.
The fact that the "anti-globalization" movement in the imperialist countries has solidified with the peoples of Asia, Africa, Latin America and Oceania in these conflicts is a very significant advance in the class struggle, which is having and will have influence on the course of the labor movement.
All those who participated in the fight against imperialist trade tyranny in Cancun, Mexico – whether in the meetings or in the streets- deserve our thanks, our congratulations, and our solidarity. They have struck a blow for the working people and oppressed of the whole world.
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