Mr. Chairman and friends,

I am asked to talk about transparency, and I am allowed only 10 minutes.  Let me first thank the organisers of this high level meeting for giving me this opportunity.

1. I come from the International South Group Network, Zimbabwe, which has other offices in Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Nicaragua. I have come to this podium with a few verbal stones to throw. Let me begin be casting the first stone at my own glass house. Let me say that as far as the WTO is concerned, we NGOs from developing countries have generally failed in our responsibility in protecting the values and interests of our communities. For example, we have allowed our weak governments to sign the Uruguay Round Agreements thus compromising the liberty and lives of our people. I will return to this theme later, if time allows.

2.1 My second stone I throw at the Governments of third world countries.  In signing the Uruguay Round Agreements they sold away the family cow for a bag of beans. If they are complaining now about inequities of the URAs, they have mainly themselves to blame.  Some of them who signed away the birthrights of our people were plain ignorant. They did not even know or understand what they signed.  Some of them were lazy; they did not even bother to read what they were signing.  Some of them were corrupt; they may have signed the agreements for personal gain. 

2.2  We, members of civil society put them on notice here: do not sign anything that comes out of Seattle without reading and understanding what you are signing. Above all, make sure that the lives, food security, health and basic human rights of your people are protected. For example, trade representatives of a particular country have been going around African countries trying to persuade their governments to sign the so-called Agreement on Transparency in Public Procurement.  This is an underhand way of doing things.  It smacks of secrecy, manipulation and lack of transparency. So please read what you are going to sign at Seattle. Do not sign unless you are sure that you are protecting the rights and interests of our people.  Be transparent to your people.  Be democratic.

3.1 My third stone is meant for the economically powerful members of the WTO.  However, let me first say that I am not in favour of abolishing the WTO.  Nor for that matter am I in favour of abolishing the World Bank or the IMF. As long as power resides in the hands of a hundred or so Transnational corporations and the big powers that support them, the Bretton Woods institutions and the WTO are un-reformable. To turn them around, we have to turn around the power configurations of contemporary international relations. 

3.2  The problem lies not with the WTO but with it being manipulated by the big powers to serve their exclusive interests. President Clinton was reported in USA Today of November 26 to have said that  "You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if you want to keep 22% of that world's income for 4% of the world's people, you've got to sell something to the other 96%".  It is, he said, a question of simple mathematics.  The over-consumptionist demands of Western populations and the profit imperative of their corporations drive them to over-exploit the rest of the world. They need and use the WTO to make this possible.

3.3  This can only be done by manipulating the WTO and its rule making. This makes the WTO one of the most non-transparent and undemocratic organs of global governance.  It is also hypocritical: it says one thing and does another.  It says its decisions are taken by consensus, but actually it takes them in secrecy.  Its ideologists say it is based on the principles of free trade, actually it actively creates monopolies.  The TRIPS agreement is a classical example of putting extraordinary power in the hands of a few multinational pharmaceutical monopolies based in the developed countries at the expense of millions of small producers and ordinary people in the developing countries.  The WTO is not an organ of free trade, it is an organ of rulemaking and rule enforcement in order to centralise and protect the power of corporate capital. 

3.4  The WTO ideologists say that its dispute settlement system is rule-based; actually it is the rule of the jungle. Only those with big horns or big claws matter. When the big powers finally come to a settlement on the basis of their relative strength, then this is done at the cost of the small countries of the South. In the case of the banana dispute, for example, the settlement between the US and the EU was done at the cost of the small producers of bananas in the Caribbean and Africa, and in favour of the big multinationals based in the US.

3.5 The WTO, as I said, is non-transparent in its operations.  In the preparations for the Seattle meeting, the so-called "green room" secret talks, have been the main fora of negotiations.   From these talks most countries of the South are excluded.  This practice has existed during the entire life of the WTO, and criticised by governments of developing countries.  In response the former DG of WTO had promised not to allow such practice to continue.  Sadly, the present DG has gone back to the bad old ways. 

3.6 NGOs feel that their participation in the WTO processes is important.  But surely, even more fundamental to the WTO and to the fairness of the system is the participation of a majority of member states who are effectively excluded from these processes of decision making.

3.7 Those who say that this kind of "green room" negotiations in secrecy is necessary for the "efficiency" of the system are short-sighted and misguided. This kind of manipulation behind the scenes may allow market access to the wealthy and the powerful among the North into the markets of the South to enable the over-consumption life-styles of the North. But this is a short-term victory. The so-called "efficiency" is gained at the cost of putting in jeopardy the very credibility and legitimacy of the WTO system.  NGO-activists do not have to destroy the WTO; it is destroying itself through shortsightedness and greed of some of its leading members, and through losing its legitimacy in the eyes of the majority of the world's population.

4. For lack of time I will not dwell on the issue of law making within the WTO system.  What passes in the name of multilateralism in the WTO is, in fact, collective individualism - powerful individual states coming together to impose the law of the jungle on the majority of weaker states. For genuine multilateralism, laws have to be based on certain generally recognised principles or commonly accepted values, such as respect for life and dignity of human beings. The pharmaceutical companies would rather let people die for lack of medicines than lose their profits.  The WTO is used by the powerful for their profits rather than to save lives. The WTO devoid of human values.

5. Transparency is a casualty of democratic and ethical deficit in the WTO. The WTO becomes an instrument of imposing an immoral order by the powerful over the weak.

6.1 In summing up let me again warn government delegates from the developing countries: do not sign away the birthrights of our people over pieces of paper.  Read the text of what you may be asked to sign; don't sign if you do not understand; and don't come under pressure or bribe of the big powers. If you trade away the family cow for a bag of beans in the market place of the WTO, then when you go home, you will have to reckon with us, the civil society.  This time we shall not let you pass.

6.2  To those members of civil society from the developed countries who are here, let me say that we in the South  need your help to monitor your governments who are imposing on our weak governments agreements that are iniquitous, illegitimate and forced by means of bribes, threats, and decisions reached in "green room" secretive talks.  This is done so that 20% of the world's population can satisfy their greed whilst the bulk of humanity cannot satisfy even their basic needs.

6.3  Let me finally say that it is no point talking about killing the WTO.  It is killing itself. It is on a suicidal mission of its own.  Habitual obedience to a legal order comes from the equity of the system.  The WTO is based on lack of transparency, and the force of sanctions, and not on a just system based on ethical principles and a commonly recognised legitimacy of an implementing power. A system whose rules are made on the law of the jungle is inhuman and cannot sustain itself for long.  I believe that there will be increasing Rebellion by the majority of the world's people against the WTO and what it represents. Rebellion against an unjust system is regarded as legitimate even within Western jurisprudence.