[Indymedia-jakarta] [Fwd: [ForumSosialIndonesia] Fw: [eppmwengo] Call for an International Day of Protest Against GATS and Privatization of Services on December 14]

[Haris]

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Subject: [ForumSosialIndonesia] Fw: [eppmwengo] Call for an International
Day of Protest Against GATS and Privatization of Services on December 14
From:    "amalia" <amalia at globaljust.org>
Date:    Mon, July 25, 2005 11:29 pm
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         radja at walhi.or.id
         "Tunggal Pawestri" <selarik at yahoo.com>
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Subject: [eppmwengo] Call for an International Day of Protest Against GATS
and Privatization of Services on December 14



Call for an International Day of Protest Against

GATS and Privatization of Services on December 14

Week of the WTO Ministerial Meeting in Hong Kong




Services Out of the WTO, WTO out of Services!


In the run up to the December 2005 Ministerial Conference of the World
Trade Organization (WTO) in Hong Kong, trade negotiators under intense
pressure by their respective governments to achieve a "successful" outcome
on the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) as one of the key
components of the new Doha Development Round of negotiations. As WTO
leaders would have it, services liberalization agreements must further
broaden coverage, ensure wider flexibility of national polices and make
deeper inroads in terms of market openings.



The July 2004 Framework pushed by the WTO General Council clearly
establishes the acceleration of services liberalization as the way to
assure global corporations of greater access to markets for human and
goods services. It is widely known fact that the services sector is the
fastest growing sector in world trade and has become the new frontier for
foreign direct investments. In this light, it is terribly disturbing how
services negotiations have been fashioned in non-transparent and
undemocratic ways with WTO leaders deliberately restricting public
scrutiny of trade liberalization measures and processes.



With the same handful of wealthy North governments making the decisions in
the GATS-WTO, it is not surprising to see convergence with the aggressive
drive of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to pry open
more markets and promote conditions for the creation of markets where
previously there were none.

The IMF-World Bank, through so-called structural adjustment programs, has
long thrust loan conditionalities of liberalization, deregulation and
privatization upon South countries, with disastrous and fatal outcomes for
entire populations and economies of the "developing" world. Governments
have been pressured to deregulate and privatize public services, like
water, power and health, depriving millions of the basic requirements for
a decent life. In Asia, poor farmers, workers, women and children severely
suffer the negative consequences of transferring public services to
private markets.

Yet, another layer of impositions and controls based on the same
oppressive neo-liberal thrusts are being imposed and institutionalized
through the GATS-WTO agreements. We know full well that this further
opening up service-related trade and investment will mean greater misery
for peoples of the South.

As services negotiations progress, it is but imperative to raise our
voices and create a wave of strong international opposition against the
WTO and the GATS. In the upcoming 6th Ministerial Conference in HK, we
call on social movements, people's organizations and non-government
organizations to mobilize against GATS and mark December 14 as the
International Day of Protest Against GATS and Privatization of Services





Jubilee South - Asia/Pacific Movement on Debt and Development
(JS-APMDD)





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+In Solidarity
Haris
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