The Story of Stuff - Annie Leonard [99]
Although the inappropriately named “Battle of Seattle” was the biggest WTO protest in the United States to date, such protests are much more common in other countries. In 2001 in India, for example, more than a million farmers protested against the WTO’s plan to force India to give equal preference to food grown by megacorporations in other countries and that grown by small-scale Indian farmers.118 The local farmers feared that the flood of imported food would lead to lower food prices, since corporations can leverage economies of scale. They argued that this would decimate the livelihood of millions of Indians—many of whom were already living on the brink of starvation—and lock the country into a relationship of dependence, when they were perfectly capable of growing food for themselves. Buying foodstuff from overseas would also drain resources to the megacorporations’ home countries, whereas buying from local farmers would keep more money in their community, contributing to a stronger, more resilient local economy.
Unfortunately the Indian farmers were not successful in protecting themselves from the flood of imports priced below market. Many of their worst fears were realized. But they keep fighting because their lives depend on it. In 2005, the Indian Coordination Committee of Farmers Movements, a coalition of farmers from around the country, wrote a letter to the prime minister summarizing their demands in the face of the emergency: “The dumping of these agricultural commodities led to depression in the domestic farmgate prices, which led to a deep agrarian crisis and caused increased cases of farmers’ suicides... We believe that the very structure of WTO rules therefore distorts trade against small farmers, against food sovereignty and against trade justice. That is why we gave a call for the removal of agriculture from WTO... Agriculture in India is not an industry. It is the main source of livelihood for 70% of the population of the country. We therefore demand from the Indian government to quit from WTO. We also demand that agriculture should be out of WTO.”119 As I finalize this book in late 2009, farmers throughout India are continuing to fight with increasing desperation to protect their livelihoods and save their economy from being the latest casualty of the WTO.
Huge protests have also occurred against the WTO in Latin America, Europe, and elsewhere in Asia. In 2003, more than 150,000 human rights, agriculture, environmental, and labor advocates descended on Cancún, Mexico, where the WTO was holding a major international meeting.120 The activists came from literally all over the world to insert their voices into the conversation. Many were desperate. The head of South Korea’s Federation of Farmers and Fishermen, Lee Kyung Hae, was so determined to bring attention to the WTO’s devastating impact on Korean farmers that he fatally stabbed himself in protest. A fellow South Korean farmers’ advocate, Song Nan Sou explained, “His death is not a personal accident but reflects the desperate fighting of 3.5 million Korean farmers.”121
In the United States, in a land of endless choice and immediate gratification, most of us can’t imagine what living on the edge really means. For us, a bad day is having the FedEx delivery delayed or the Internet connection disrupted. But in the rest of the world, millions of miners, farmers, and factory workers literally live on the very edge of survival. These are the people whom trade policies should be designed to benefit the most, yet they are the ones paying the heaviest price for WTO policies. And their voices go unheard by the WTO, which is infamous for being unwelcoming of public participation. It is no wonder these people are increasingly desperate.
In June 2009, the Trade Reform, Accountability, Development and Employment (TRADE) Act was reintroduced into the U.S. Congress with widespread support from both House Democrats and a diverse