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An organizing meeting took place this afternoon in downtown Cancun for the Our World is Not For Sale coalition of groups. It was inspiring.
| A few of the people at the Our World is Not For Sale meeting today in Cancun. They were asked their reasons for coming to the meeting. |
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| Anuradha Mittal, Food First, USA. "To ensure that the voice of people is heard, in this forum that normally excludes farmers, indigenous people and the landless." |
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| Karl Flecker, Polaris Institute, Canada "To join with thousands of other people and thousands of communities to say no to corporate rule and the WTO." |
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| Meenakshi Raman, Third World Network/Friends of the Earth, Malaysia "To lobby as much as possible to make sure no further damage takes place." |
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| Walden Bello, Focus on the Global South, Phillipines "This is the most important meeting of all for civil society to coordinate, and achieve some sort of consensus on coordination." |
In a downtown Cancun hotel this afternoon, about a hundred representatives from organizations all around the world had the first organizing meeting to decide how to work together over the next week.
The OWINFS network is made up of activists and groups from around the world working to make the global trading system more accountable, sustainable and socially just.
This WTO meeting in Cancun is a momentous one for civil society groups, as the last WTO meeting in Doha, Qatar, could not be attended by many NGOs because of the repressiveness of the host country. This meeting is different, with better attendance by a wide range civil society groups and a realization that creating alliances between groups is necessary if we are to affect the outcome of the meeting.
One of the founding principles of the meeting was that different groups can agree to disagree on the specifics of what they want from the WTO - what we cannot afford to do is continue working in isolation. This meeting was called to strengthen links between organizations, and it is off to a good start.
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| The European Union delegation was presented with something to prevent the pain and embarassment of making bad deals while in Cancun.More |
Welcome to the WTO meeting in Cancun! Well, actually, we can't allow you to go anywhere beyond the floor containing the cafeteria, free propaganda, and Telmex / Telcel vendors. Everything else is blocked in this way:
Note the advertisements for Telmex and Xerox on the sign itself! Amazing. Yes, the WTO is all about big business, and they're none too apologetic about that.
There are four floors to the Cancun Convention Center, where the WTO meeting will commence in just 1.5 days. We who have been so lucky as to gain accreditation as non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to attend the meeting, are allowed into the ground floor. Of course, no actual meeting will occur there. We may as well be out in the street -- at least the food would be better and cheaper. :-)
People from NGOs are separated from others attending the WTO. We must all wear bright orange badges, and we are only allowed in through certain bridges and doors into the Convention Center. Looking at the arrangements, it appears to me as if other entrances allow the ministers to entirely avoid the ground floor to which we are restricted.
It never ceases to amaze me the lengths to which the WTO has gone to avoid any contact whatsoever with the people whom they control. What planet are these folks on, anyway?
That's okay, the people are warmer and friendlier downtown, and the food and music are much better! We're enjoying our time here, even though the heavy police presence may not fully approve.
Smile! It's fun!
After a busy weekend of open boats - welcoming people aboard - we left the port of Veracruz this morning and are out on the ocean. It is a fantastic feeling to be away from land and immersed in blue skies and sea.
It was flat calm when we left and some dolphins gave us a good send off; frolicking in the water. With our new crew members informed of all the safety issues on board we can relax a little and get in to the rhythm of life at sea.
Everything needs to be 'made fast' so that it does not move around the ship and become hazardous to those on board. The Arctic Sunrise is an icebreaker: she has a sharp shape at the bow and a thin keel to slip over the ice with. This means she can roll from side to side at the slightest breath of wind and the sight of hurricane Isobel on the weather fax is a bit scary. We are actually sailing towards the hurricane as we make way to Cancun. The forecast is for winds of 145 knots within 150 nautical miles of the eye of the storm. We won't be anywhere near that close to her but it seems a bit bonkers to sail towards it. You would not know this from the ship as we gently glide through the calm waters. The radio room, from where I am writing this, is all humming gently and there are some pretty sea birds flying past the porthole. The best part is that we are now out of mobile telephone range so there is some peace and quiet before the satellite phone starts.
We are a bit isolated from the events in Cancun when we are at sea. We don't have television on board and the newspaper is no longer delivered by carrier pigeon so we rely on updates from our fellow activists and the BBC world service. It seems that there is a military feel to Cancun with fences and exclusion zones. Unbelievable that protest could cause such an aggressive reaction from the security services in the WTO. We are talking about human beings, individuals, upset about the arrogance of the WTO - not an army wanting to kill people. Is this really necessary? What a waste of money to spend all this on 'security' when there is so much poverty in the world and here in Mexico too.
We are campaigning for global food security, not anarchy, but the WTO will try to continue to ignore us and hold its secret meetings and we will continue to protest peacefully. Meanwhile people the world over could be using the money spent at these meetings to feed real, safe, food to their children.
Wake up To Our future, WTO, before it is too late.
Emily is a radio operator on the Greenpeace ship Arctic Sunrise
As a kick-off to this week’s demonstration activities, approximately 40 activists took to the beach, prepared to expose both their bums and beliefs concerning the WTO. More >>
I actually made it into the Convention Center yesterday afternoon, the first time anyone from our group has seen the "inside" of the WTO meeting here in Cancun. We were re-directed three times by the police, and finally found the right door.
There has been a lot of noise coming from the Convention Center for the past few days, and we've all been wondering what is going on in there. Another Greenpeace media-type and myself thought we would try our luck in gaining entry to the Convention Center, and after walking around the building a few times and being told we were in the wrong place, finally: SUCCESS!
How can you describe the Convention Center? Shiny. White. Imposing. There is still a lot of construction going on, and we were able to see where all of the journalists would be sitting and working and reporting to all corners of the world all of the unfair trade decisions being made during the WTO meeting.
Since we don't work for major oil companies, we are only allowed on the first floor, and there were metal barricades blocking us from all of the areas where the deals will be made. It's a real shame.
There was virtually no one inside: maybe all of the delegates were on the beach sipping margaritas, or maybe they were being led in circles around the Convention Center. We spoke with a few people who were there, and we got invited to our first press conference that was going on at a hotel across the street. Unfortunately, we had to decline. After collecting WTO documents and fact sheets that are heaped on tables waiting to be read and dissected, we walked around for a little while, and, not surprisingly, the place is covered with WTO logos. I'm not sure why the WTO is doing self-promotion on the inside, it seems to me that some external PR work would be much more sensible, and greatly needed... after some serious reforms, of course.
I'm here with Greenpeace from our office in the USA, and it's quite frustrating to know that my government is here to advance its own agenda and to repress the rights of other countries and communities to demand fair trade policies. It's important to let people know that many people in the USA stand united against the WTO, against unfair globalization, and in favor of sustainability and putting people's rights over corporate profit. It's also important to let people know that should they come to Cancun, be sure to bring sunblock. The sun here is almost as oppressive as the WTO trade rules.
Steve Smith is a Media Officer with Greenpeace USA. He likes sunsets, long walks on the beach, and is a Scorpio.
Noticed something weird today.
It seems beer companies here have no qualms about having their products associated with the massive police presence. In fact, it seems some aspects of this mini-police state are being brought to us by those beer companies.
On the bus today, I rode past a few police stationed by the side of the road, sweating it out in their thick grey uniforms and looking impassive. All under a bright beer promotion tent.
Then, at the end of the same trip, a truck full of police drove up with what looked like a beer cooler installed between them in the bed of the truck. Check the photo.
Now that's product placement.
Wendel Trio, our campaigner from Belgium, came with a unique product to soothe the upset caused by bad trade deals.
The Belgian Greenpeace office came up with a product that was presented to the EU and Belgian government delegations as they checked in for their flight to the WTO meeting here.
It's called Cancunnine, and it's meant to help the delegates avoid making bad deals while at the meeting.
On the package it says:
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| A box of Cancunnine at the Greenpeace office in Cancun. |
"Cancunnine helps you in an ecologically sound way to prevent bad deals which harm the environment, threaten sustainable development, neglect workers' rights and work against the poor. It should prevent the delegates of broadening the mandate of the WTO at the meeting in Cancun."
On the other side of the box:
"Cancunnine prevents government delegates cutting bad deals for the environment in Cancun.
Use: take one tablet a day and every time you feel the onset of a bad deal. Please take with a glass of non-privatised water. Patent free - keep away from pharmaceuticals.
Store outside of green rooms."
Inside the box was a shortened version of our guide to avoiding bad deals.(PDF, 25K)
The countryside cannot take it anymore! We start each meeting with a phrase in Spanish that someone learned the previous day, to keep us motivated.
The motivational phrase is introduced and then we all repeat it, sports-team style. This ritual was the brainchild of Gerard Greenfield, GE campaigner for Greenpeace International, who must have spent some time as a kindergarten teacher or football coach.
Today's phrase was introduced by Gerard. He learned it at a meeting of a coalition of campesinos, who have adopted it as their slogan. It is a reference to the liberalising of agricultural policies led by the WTO, a reference to the spread of contamination by genetically engineered species, as happened recently with maize in Mexico.
Yesterdays phrase was "El amo biodiesel", introduced by Ruth Ramos, our super-efficient logistics person here in Cancun. Ruth has the benefit of Spanish as her native tongue. She had spent part of the day with the Rolling Sunlight, Greenpeace's solar truck. It runs on biodiesel. The smell still makes her a little sick.