Lam Oi Wan and Ip Iam Chong

The Sixth WTO Ministerial Meeting is over. What will people remember? We believe people don’t care what the hell is the Hong Kong Declaration. On the contrary, the most vivid memory, particularly for Hong Kong people, is the activists' flags, footstep, slogans, songs and body. We are amazed by the wide variety of protesting cultures from all over the world. Most important, the anti-WTO movements was located at the midst and against the propaganda of the Hong Kong government, WTO and the mainstream media. The demonstrations have opened up a new social imagination for the global anti-WTO movement.

The mainstream media, local and overseas, are highly dominated by the government’s and WTO's strategy to further stigmatize the protestors and dissidents as “anti-WTO mob”. In February 2005, we asked local media workers about their planning for WTO meeting. They told us that news regarding WTO were to be covered by reporters of “security beat”. We were surprised because security problem is only a small part of the whole event. The government led the media to see all anti-WTO campaigns as a security problem. The “potential threats”, rather than the controversies over international trade and the people's responses, became the sole issue valuable for media. Most local newspapers used “the invasion of the anti-WTO activists” as their headlines a few days before the MC6 meeting. A local television news channel broadcasted violent scenes of earlier demonstrations repeatedly to show off their reporters’ “professionalism” in the “battlefield”.

19th December, 2005 (From UK Indymedia)

In Reading (UK) last night, around 20-30 anti-capitalists, environmentalists, students and others marched from the Reading International Solidarity Centre, to make a free cafe and anti-World Trade Organisation demonstration outside Starbucks in the town centre. Protesters moved quickly into the Oracle Riverside - busy private land on both sides of the canal which is lined with posh restaurants, bars and the cinema between the huge Oracle shopping center and it's multi-story carpark.

A stall was quickly set up serving free hot soup and coffee, bread and crepes, as well as various leaflets such as Zapatista Solidarity stuff, Rising Tide leaflets, Columbia Solidarity materials, anti-WTO leaflets, Schnews and Anarchist Federation newsletters. The soup, served up by local anti-authoritarians RAGE, was made from locally grown, organic produce from the True Food Coop, while the Zapatista Solidarity Group gave out 'Cafe Rebelda' coffee, imported from Chiapas, Southeast Mexico as direct solidarity and publicity for the Zapatista's indigenous rebellion there - and a big thanks to whoever brought the crepes down from RISC!!!!

Written and Compiled by Amardeep Kaur Gill, from Target: WTO

Click and Scroll Down the Report for Solidarity Statements, Appeals, Photos, Video Clips and more Resource/Information following the events of Dec 17th.

HONG KONG, (Dec 19, 2005) – As the WTO 6th Ministerial Conference in Hong Kong reached the 5th day of talks on Saturday December 17 of potential agreements and deals in global trade and agricultural opening, protesters from all around the world put up one of the strongest struggle against WTO polices. In an attempt to derail the WTO meeting from its killer polices that create poor conditions for farmers, women, and migrants in many non-western countries, unarmed activists overpowered the police reaching meters from the Wan Chai Convention and Exhibition Centre where the meeting was taking place. Following the brutal use of police violence and release of five tear gas canisters, about 1,000 protesters moved back to stage a peaceful sit-in a block away from the Convention Centre on Gloucester Road. About 900 were arrested as police surrounded the peaceful occupiers refusing anyone in or out and denying access to water, food, blankets and sanitary facilities for over 12 hours to 18 hours. Allied organizations and activists are currently working hard in solidarity to have all remaining protestors who are being detained released immediately and to have charges against 14 protesters dropped.

Activists from this delegation of US-based Chinese, Taiwanese, South and Southeast Asian descent have journeyed to Hong Kong, joining in global solidarity with workers and migrants to protest the World Trade Organization in Hong Kong.

WT-No! is a collaboration between San Francisco Bay Area-based organizations including Chinese Progressive Association (華人進步會), Chin Jurn Wor Ping (前進和平), National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights and the Korean Community Center of the East Bay; and nationally, with the Garment Workers Center in Los Angeles, Organizing Asian Communities (CAAAV) in New York, and Community Organizing Collective (CYOC) in Philadelphia.

Here are the writings of the activists who came to Hong Kong.

http://bayareawt-no.blogspot.com/

by aenaya

i realize the moments i felt most alone, i was not. while i felt alienated from the women sitting across from me, i was actually sharing an experience with them.

i experienced a moment when you lose absolute control of your life. the inability to eat when you want, drink what you want, or to even piss privately.

my anger was focused yet scattered. i felt emotionally disconnected from my cellmates. at times i think i was projecting my own fear, my lack of control and attempting to impose them onto my cellmates. i was jealous that one woman was able to sleep so well, so easily. i was tired of hearing from another woman. i was angry about the fact i had to stay in my cell while my fellow english speaking dongjis got to go in and out. at least they were being productive, keeping busy. i felt powerless, paralyzed. and in that scattered anger, i did not take advantage of my privileges. i could have advocated on behalf of the whole group, but instead advocated for one or two.

by Ramesh Jaura

HONG KONG, Dec 16 (IPS) - In a historic move, 110 developing country members of the 149-nation World Trade Organisation (WTO) have joined hands to make the Doha Development Round a reality - as a development round. The round was launched in the Qatari capital four years ago.

But the move that brings together heterogeneous groupings of developing countries with diverse interests such as the G20, G33, the least developed countries (LDCs) and the small economies does not wish to be seen as opening up a new front in the "North-South confrontation", says Brazilian foreign minister Celso Amorim.

Brazil and India have emerged as leaders of the Group of 20 (G20) comprising 21 member countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, China, Cuba, Egypt, Guatemala, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria, Pakistan, Paraguay, the Philippines, South Africa, Tanzania, Thailand, Uruguay, Venezuela and Zimbabwe. The G20 led the way to bring in the rest.

By Martin Khor, Third World Network (TWN), Hong Kong, 19 December 2005

The sixth Ministerial conference of the WTO ended on Sunday with the adoption of a Ministerial Declaration in a carefully choreographed closing session designed in a way to prevent delegations from speaking or taking an active role in decision-making.

Indeed, the choreography had gone on the whole week, and remarkable as it may seem, the closing session was the only official meeting of the whole Conference, except for the opening ceremony on 13 December.

The Director-General Pascal Lamy was later to brief journalists that over the week, 450 meetings were organized, six major gatherings and over 200 consultations by facilitators.

Some were heads of delegation meetings, others consultations and plenary sessions on the various issues, yet others were "Green Room" exclusive meetings to which a select few were invited.

December 20, 2005 (from Akbayan Citizen's Action Party, Philippines)

“The latest attempt to bargain away the rights of the peoples of the world.” This was how Rep. Mario “Mayong” Aguja, who represented the Akbayan Citizens’ Action Party and was a member of the Philippine delegation in the Hong Kong protests during the recently-concluded WTO Ministerial Meeting, described the last-minute deal brokered in the former Crown Colony.

“The so-called subsidy cuts are illusory in nature. This scheme involves a mere reclassification of the subsidies, not an abolition of them. The deal promises to scrap export subsidies, true, but what few people understand is that a vast majority of the subsidies are not classified as export subsidies, but rather, are made to fall under the Green Box, where they are under legal cover and can escape scrutiny,” further explains the Akbayan solon, who has a PhD in International Cooperation Studies and whose fields of discipline include International Economics and Development. “Tragically, in exchange for these hollow and meaningless promises, developing countries are now compelled to accept aggressive services market access, which would imperil fledgling domestic service enterprises.”

December 12 2003
P. Raja Siregar /KAU- Indonesia

Introduction

An estimated 1.1 billion people in the world do not have access to safe water; 2.4 billion in the world do not have access to adequate sanitation. The poor, especially in developing countries, have suffered most from water shortages.

In many developing countries, the majority of poor villages and urban slums are not yet served by the piped water system. Often, alternative water sources of the poor are polluted rivers, lakes and shallow hand-dug wells. Some are dependent on street vendors, which costs more than paying fees for piped water. Middle class consumers in many countries pay subsidized rates, becoming burdens to government and preventing the expansion of water infrastructure for the poor.