Oppose the Police Propaganda to Prepare Ground for Further Attacks!

Workers' Daily Internet Edition: Article Index :

May Day Actions:
Oppose the Police Propaganda to Prepare Ground for Further Attacks!

Opposition to Montreal Meeting of G8 Labour Ministers:
Activists Face Police Rampage

World Trade Organisation:
EU Draft Demands Destruction of the Nation-State

Global Trade System -- Rigged Rules, Double Standards

World Bank/IMF Report

World Bank Chief, IMF and NGOs Wrangle over Access

The Metropolitan Police, in collaboration with the media, began their propaganda last week designed to try and justify further attacks against May Day protesters. They are alleging that "anarchist groups" are "seeking revenge" on the police for last May Day's events, although the police themselves are at present the subject of legal action for violation of human rights last year. Then protesters were corralled by police, and thousands of people found themselves trapped and abused by the police in Oxford Circus for eight hours.

Two years ago, protesters were corralled by police in Trafalgar Square, and the trade union May Day demonstration was prevented from uniting with the anti-globalisation protesters for the planned rally in Trafalgar Square.

In fact, in recent days, police have carried out raids, shut down websites and seized computers and documents.

The "Wombles" group, however, have said the focus of their demonstration would be Horseferry Road Magistrates’ Court, where the trial begins of seven of its supporters. They are charged with public order offences last October in Oxford Street when they were on their way to a Hallowe’en party. The trial is expected to continue on May 1.

The police propaganda and actions are part of the programme of the ruling circles to criminalise and try to suppress dissent. Focus is being put on the alleged "violence" of those who are protesting, especially the youth, against the government's and the capitalists' agenda of neo-liberal globalisation. In the past year, the government has also passed the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act, which further seeks to criminalise such protest by branding it with the label of "terrorism". The Act gives the authorities, particularly the police, further power to act with impunity.

The workers must refuse to allow a wedge to be driven in this way between protest which is "legitimate" and that which is allegedly "illegitimate". Opposing legislation which is itself in contempt of the rule of law is part and parcel of the responsibility of workers and all democratic people in this respect. They must demand that the government be held accountable for its contempt of the rule of law and the vesting of arbitrary powers in the state forces, just as it should be held accountable for its backing of the state terrorism of Israeli Zionism in the name of "opposing violence" and finding a "political solution". Workers and progressive people must unite in action to fight for a society which truly favours the interests of the people and guarantees their rights.

As part of the preparations for the G8 meeting in Kananaskis, G8 labour ministers met in Montreal, Canada, from April 26-27. Anti-globalisation protesters opposed a dinner hosted by Montreal Mayor Gerard Tremblay on Thursday. On Friday, there was a march to protest against the meeting and the refusal of the G8 to take responsibility for the disastrous consequences of its profit-driven agenda.

At a press conference on Thursday, one of the organisers Karina Chagnon had clearly stated the legitimate views behind the protesters' opposition. "The G8 is the fuzzy mitten that drives the hidden hand of the market and the iron fist of the military. The G8 is like slavery. There is no way of reforming it. We must fight to abolish it," she said.

The Montreal police launched wanton assaults against the protesting youth on Friday. Restaurant workers, young and old and entire families were yelling at the police and linking arms to protect one another against surprise attacks. As well as restaurant workers, restaurant owners were also helping people with the effects of the pepper spray gratuitously thrown at the peaceful rally to disperse it, creating panic.

The police kept corralling groups of people, creating corridors between one group and another and assaulting them. The media played its usual role by attempting to justify the police violence.

The police admitted they had a premeditated plan to attack the demonstration. Commander of the Montreal police André Durocher declared that the police invoked "their power of preventive dispersal". As if the Rule of Law were upheld, he said that "a protest has to fit three criteria" before the police can invoke this power. "There has to be a history of violent protests by that group, we have to have intelligence that they are planning violent actions and we must have visual proof that people are carrying weapons," Durocher said. However, the so-called "history of violent protest by that group" was nothing but a fabrication of that "intelligence".

This is the second time in just over a month that the Montreal police have engaged in a massive live exercise which involves mass arrests. On March 15, they arrested 371 people protesting against police brutality on the International Day Against Police Brutality. Those arrested were youth whose only crime is to desire a bright future without homelessness and poverty and in which society guarantees the rights of all.

The European Union is preparing to demand full-scale privatisation of the world's public enterprises at the new round of WTO global trade talks in Doha, Qatar. Pressure from Europe will include the enticement of access to its members' agricultural markets, the dismantling of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). The Guardian revealed the secret 1,000-page draft document last week. The EU Commission prepared it for approval by member states next month.

The EU will insist that the world's public assets be put up for sale including water, energy, sewerage, telecoms, post and financial services. In addition to wholesale privatisation, the EU demands a long list of restrictions that it would like its trading partners to drop, such as lifting a Mexican ban on foreigners owning land within 50 km of the border and rules in Korea restricting the sale of alcohol to licensed providers. These secret documents leaked to The Guardian show the draft negotiating strategy has provoked alarm among progressive activists in Europe "who fear the ultimate goal is to push poor countries into privatising public services like health and education". "We are shocked by how the EU is preparing to trample over its claims to be in favour of sustainable development in the naked pursuit of the interests of European multinational service corporations," Dave Timms from the World Development Movement told The Guardian. "These documents confirm our worst fears about these negotiations. The EU is targeting sectors where there is no evidence that liberalisation benefits developing countries."

"The EU wants its monopolies to be able to compete with local firms, which will require its trading partners to scrap rules banning foreign competition and ownership in areas of their economies that are vital to the wellbeing of their people and their existence as independent nation-states. Europe's top trade official, Pascal Lamy, hopes to make major gains at the WTO negotiations in Doha in the increasingly lucrative global trade in services, particularly in the financial sector," The Guardian says. "The EU financial services sector, particularly in London, is eager to expand throughout Latin America and Asia," it adds. The Guardian writes that "the City of London, home to the most sophisticated financial industry in Europe is likely to be a big winner; Mr. Lamy's initiative has enthusiastic backing in Westminster."

According to the Commission spokesperson for trade, Anthony Gooch, the allegations are incorrect. He said that the documents referred to as secret had been widely available for some time. The Commission presented these documents to the member states in order to get their feedback before presenting their request at the WTO.

Be that as it may, the EU draft proposals are a negation of national sovereignty and seek to dismantle any semblance of an independent nation-state.

Oxfam on April 11 accused the rich world of robbing the poor world of $100 billion a year by abusing the rules governing world trade and denying millions of poor people their best escape route from poverty.

"For every dollar we give in aid two are stolen through unfair trade, costing the poor world $100 billion a year. Globalisation is leaving millions in despair, creating a world more unequal than ever before, when it could do the exact opposite. The wealth divide is at an all time high and the anger and social tensions that accompanies such morally unacceptable inequalities threaten us all," warned Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director of Oxfam International, during the launch of Make Trade Fair, a global campaign in 18 countries to change the rules of trade.

The campaign was launched as the 144 countries of the World Trade Organisation start to work on a new agenda of trade negotiations that will determine how world trade will be regulated in the future. WTO negotiations risk widening the global divide unless the rich world changes its approach to the concerns of developing countries.

In a new report Rigged Rules and Double Standards Oxfam shows that 128 million people could be lifted out of poverty if Africa, Latin America, East Asia and South Asia each increased their share of world exports by just one percent.

However, rich world hypocrisy and double standards stop this from happening because the rich world is rigging global trade rules by:

• Subsidising rich farmers $1bn a day. Over-production of agricultural surpluses is dumped onto world markets, suppressing world prices and destroying local markets in poor countries.
• Influencing the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank polices to prise open poor countries' markets with little regard to the social consequences. These are policies the rich world has itself rejected.
• Stopping or penalising poor countries from exporting their goods into rich world markets. Goods from poor countries are taxed at four times the rate of goods from rich countries.
• Being indifferent to erratic, falling commodity prices that condemn many poor economies to failure, while generating huge profits for big corporations.
• Allowing big corporations to ride rough shod over internationally recognised workers rights.

The report also highlights that while some countries appear to be successfully boosting their economies through increased exports this has had little impact on levels of poverty. Oxfam is calling on poor country governments to adopt policies so that the economic benefits of trade help to alleviate poverty and do not increase inequality.

Wealth divide widens
The wealth divide is at an all time high. In the last decade the world's poorest five per cent lost almost a quarter of their real income while the top five per cent gained 12 per cent. Trade, though not exclusively, has been an important factor in this widening gap. For every $100 generated by world exports $97 goes to the high and middle income countries and only $3 go to low income countries.

Double standards
Nowhere in international relations is the rich world's double standards and hypocrisy so blatant as in its attitude to trade. It demands the poor world slash support for its farmers yet subsidises its own farmers to the tune of $1bn a day. This leads to over production that is then dumped onto the world market, suppressing prices which poor farmers cannot compete against. Topping the rogues' league of double standards is the European Union. It's dumping of surplus powdered milk on to the Jamaican economy has all but ruined the local dairy industry. The US has done the same with dumping its subsidised rice on Haiti forcing thousands of poor rice farmers off the land. In Haiti's rice growing area child malnutrition is now among the most severe in the country.

IMF and World Bank
Through its influence at the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank the rich world demands the poor world open up its markets with no regard to the social consequences yet keeps its own markets tightly shut. It has created a race where the weakest have to jump the highest hurdles. The rich world taxes imports from poor countries four times the rates it charges imports from industrialised countries.

Aid debt and trade
For every dollar of aid to the poor world two dollars are swindled out of the poor world through unfair trade. Africa is of particular concern. A one per cent increase in world exports for Africa is worth a staggering fives times the amount it receives in aid and debt relief combined. Yet Africa is increasingly sidelined from any benefits from trade.

Import tax hikes and the commodity crisis
Many poor countries are locked into only producing the raw food and materials we consume. The moment they begin to process these goods, therefore getting a higher price, they face high import taxes hikes, called tariff peaks, at rich world ports. Fully-processed manufactured food products are subject in the EU and Japan to import taxes twice as high as products in the first stage of processing. In Canada, taxes on processed food are as much as 13 times higher than those on unprocessed products. Thirty per cent of all tariff peaks applied by the EU protect the food industry. These range from 12 to 100 per cent and affect sugar-based products, cereals, and canned fruit. In the US, where the food industry accounts for one-sixth of all tariff peaks, including orange juice (30 per cent) and peanut butter (132 per cent). Forty per cent of all Japanese peak tariffs protect the food industry, affecting a wide range of products from cocoa powder and chocolate to canned meat and fruit juices.

Many poor economies are heavily dependent upon the export of a single commodity. Falling and erratic commodity prices are at crisis point. In 2000/01 poor countries sold nearly 20 per cent more coffee than in 1997/98, yet they were paid 45 per cent less. Had they sold it at the 1997/98 price, they would have been around $8 billion better off. This means less money for farmers but also cut backs in social spending on health and education. And this crisis is not restricted to coffee. Between 1996 and 2000 Ghana increased cocoa production by almost a third but was paid a third less.

Corporations and workers' rights
When poor countries attempt to industrialise they also face many obstacles. Large trans-national corporations (TNCs) are powerful players in the globalised economy. Two-thirds of all trade takes place within TNCs. They are a major influence on labour standards in poor countries. Either directly through the people they employ or more significantly through their sub-contractors.

The IMF and the World Bank trumpet successful export led economic growth of star pupils such as Mexico, Bangladesh and Honduras. However their export success does not trickle down to the rest of the economy. Their economic growth has been dominated by special export processing zones (EPZs). These are low wage ghettos for simple assembly of imported parts. The wealth it generates is spirited out of the country or left in the hands of a tiny minority.

Changing rules of the World Trade Organisation
Many of the rules of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), for example those on intellectual property, protect the interests of rich countries and powerful TNCs, while imposing huge costs on developing countries. This bias raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy of the WTO. By including new issues like investment, government procurement or competition rules, the new Doha trade round risks widening the global divide.

Women on the front line
Women workers are becoming increasingly crucial in these EPZs as cheap labour. They are the super-exploited in the new globalised economies. Women now make up about one-third of manufacturing workers in developing countries but they earn about three-quarters of their male colleagues. They may earn more money than before but they have fewer rights, less time to care for the family and more burdens. In China they are forced to work 12-hour days in appalling conditions. In the sweatshops of Bangladesh they are denied the right to join a union. In the flower exporting market gardens of Colombia compulsory pregnancy testing is common before women are granted employment contracts. Summary dismissal has become standard practice for avoiding employer based maternity pay.

Oxfam is calling for a radical reform of the international trading system so that trade can become the engine for poverty reduction.

• Ending the use of conditions attached to IMF-World Bank programmes which force poor countries to open their markets regardless of the impact on poor people.
• Improving market access for poor countries and ending the cycle of subsidised agricultural over-production and export dumping by rich countries, without demanding further concessions of developing countries.
• Creating a new international commodities institution to raise prices to levels consistent with a reasonable standard of living for producers, and changing corporate practices so that companies pay fair prices.
• Establishing new intellectual-property rules to ensure that poor countries are able to afford new technologies and basic medicines, and that farmers are able to save, exchange, and sell seeds.
• Prohibiting rules that force governments to liberalise or privatise basic services that are vital for poverty reduction.
• Enhancing the quality of private-sector investment and employment standards.
• Democratising the WTO to give poor countries a stronger voice.
• Changing national policies on health, education, and governance so that people can develop their capabilities, realise their potential, and participate in markets on more equitable terms.

According to the World Bank, the recent Israeli military operations have wiped out more than 50 per cent of the Palestinian Authority's income, caused as much as $600 million of physical damage and will cost the World Bank and international donors at least $1.7 billion in emergency aid this year. "The biggest crisis, apart from the lamentable loss of life, is the financial damage done by the Israeli closure of its borders and the destruction of society," James Wolfensohn, president of the World Bank, said on April 23 in an interview with the International Herald Tribune. Wolfensohn cited some of the numbers that will be updated and then presented officially to an international donors meeting in Oslo. He estimated the physical damage of Israeli incursions at $400 million to $600 million. Calling the physical damage "terrible", he added, "The closure of borders, means that whereas you used to have 180,000 Palestinian jobs in Israel – from hotels to agriculture to construction – the Israelis have gone out and tried to replace the Palestinians with Eastern European and Asian workers."

"Nearly all of these jobs have now been wiped out," he said. The conflict has cost the Palestinian economy 53 per cent of the gross domestic product of $4.5 billion, Wolfensohn estimated. "More than half the Palestinian GDP is gone," he said. The World Bank anticipates that $1.7 billion in international donor aid will need to be extended to the Palestinians this year but Wolfensohn cautioned that the figure was still being updated and could increase. "There is still a $750 million shortfall in committed funds. We need the international community to find another $750 million if we are to meet total emergency needs of $1.7 billion," Wolfensohn said. In addition, he said that as of the end of December, Israel had collected $507 million in taxes from Palestinians – money that he said had not been paid back to the Palestinian Authority. The normal arrangement has been that Israel collects taxes from Palestinian workers in Israel, or from customs in Israeli ports on behalf of the Palestinian Authority, and then pays this money to the Palestinian Authority. But, Wolfensohn said, a failure by the Israelis to turn over these funds has compounded the economic devastation in the Palestinian territories.

In a separate interview, Horst Koehler, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, said the damage to the Palestinian economy was considerable. "We know, for instance, that the fiscal planning of the Palestine Authority has collapsed," Koehler said, "and I'm sure when we take a closer look there will be more recognition of damage, and it will be a challenge to the international community."

The World Bank's president denied on April 20 that his institution was failing to adequately consult civil society groups and blamed governments for any shortfall in the Bank's efforts to meet grassroots demand for participation in decision-making.

"We have come a hell of a long way that the poverty reduction strategy programmes include civil society more than they ever dreamed of," James Wolfensohn said. He was responding to accusations from non-governmental organisations (NGOs), that the Bank remained unresponsive to their concerns regarding a raft of issues from the Bank's impact on world poverty to the agency's respect for national sovereignty, transparency and public accountability.

"Transparency has been enormously increased. Accountability has been enormously increased. Country ownership has been enormously increased," Wolfensohn added.

His comments came a day after activists from the Structural Adjustment Participatory Review International Network (SAPRIN), which was set up to work with the Bank in assessing the effects of structural adjustment programmes (SAPs), said the Bank was retreating from its initial enthusiasm to engage with civil society groups.

"In the end, I'll tell you precisely, what the politicians say to us and the leaders of governments say," Wolfensohn told reporters. "They say 'we were elected to do this. We are the people that you should deal with. It is not the people who are not elected and who are not accountable (civil society groups) that you have to take into account'."

He added: "More and more leaders in democratic countries are saying to us 'look, we like this idea of consultation. But on the questions of macro policies and budgets, who are they (activists)? Let them do it within the context of the domestic political system."

''I have been on the firing end of this,'' Wolfensohn said. ''There is a very strong reaction coming from elected governments' officials.''

Turning to the activists, he added: "I wish that they, or some of them, would change their tune and tell us we haven't done enough on the next level of things we are doing rather than going back to ideas addressed five years ago and to which we have been particularly responsive."

Doug Hellinger, executive director of the Washington-based Development GAP and co-ordinator of SAPRIN's secretariat, countered: "Access without consequence is meaningless."

"If Northern governments are the ones restricting him, then this may not be true. Many Northern governments, particularly in Europe, have been supportive of the idea of engagement,'' said Hellinger. ''If they were Southern governments, then let's sit down and find a way to solve it."

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) also has been under attack for its alleged lack of transparency and accountability.

On April 17, IMF Managing Director Horst Koehler said, "We recognise in the IMF that we made mistakes. We are in the process of learning. We are absolutely prepared and I think it's absolutely in our advantage to listen to the demonstrators and to NGOs, to be involved in this dialogue. But be prepared, to have a dialogue with us you have to be more peaceful. It will have more effect."

On April 18, SAPRIN released a report cataloguing the frustrations of trying to engage the Bank. "The Bank's continual calls to street protesters to seek change from the Bank through dialogue were denounced as disingenuous, and increased public pressure was encouraged to make the institution more open, democratic and responsive to the people of the Global South," the report said.

Wolfensohn wanted to learn about the relationship between structural adjustment and poverty and inequality so that the Bank could do business differently, Hellinger recounted.

"Yet, he and his top management did not even show up to discuss the findings, as agreed, and then dropped out of the process. We hadn't heard a word from them in over eight months until this week," he said.

Following European media coverage of SAPRIN's report this week, Hellinger said, "it is them (Bank officials) who are now running after us to see if we can meet."

Bank officials were unavailable for immediate reaction to Hellinger's comments. At a news conference, Wolfensohn confirmed he would meet SAPRIN representatives but said he was unaware of any specific timetable for talks.