Rich nations `Trip' the poor to hijack talks

Rich nations `Trip' the poor to hijack talks
Chidu Rajghatta

SEATTLE, DECEMBER 3: Too much work, too little time, too few people, and too scarce modern intellectual resources. That's the story of many developing and poor nations at the WTO meet in Seattle lost in the turbulent sea of trade talks. The result: Wealthy, advanced nations with expertise, proficiency, knowledge and money are speedily manipulating the agenda and setting the terms in the most important trade negotiations in the history of mankind.

Scores of countries, particularly from Africa, are being trampled over as the WTO, powered by the US, EU and Japan (which engage in 70 per cent of the world's trade) is setting a pace and agenda on issues too hot and too hard to handle. Several Third World countries have just one or two token delegates completely at sea in a cornucopia of trade issues. Others lack the intellectual infrastructure and support system in the form of experts and trade lawyers to tackle what everyone admits is a bewildering range of issues.

Privately, many delegates concede that theyare clueless in Seattle. Where they have a little handle on issues, they are being shut out. Says Guyana's Foreign Minister Clement Rohee, "We are totally marginalised from the process." As for India, it claims to be better prepared than ever before for the meet having put in months of consultation with trade and industry. But even the Indians, with skilled negotiators, insightful administrators, and powerful emissaries like the Prime Minister's Secretary N K Singh and Ambassador to the US Naresh Chandra, are finding the workload staggering. (The need for a "powerful" emissary is important because the US has insisted that it wants delegates who have the authority to change positions if needed).

Although this is the largest Indian delegation ever for such a meet with 35 members including three `clued in' MPs -- Kamal Nath, Biplab Das Gupta and Yerran Naidu -- another 35 delegates would have been better deployed than the dozen journalists whom the government has flown in at taxpayer money.

Even better,New Delhi could have done with more trade lawyers and experts like Columbia's Jagdish Bhagwati who has been providing some inputs into the Indian position. Of course, many Developed countries are here with even smaller delegations -- Australia has 12 -- but they have the kind of infrastructure support and intellectual tradition back home (which can be referenced or called upon instantly in this era of instant communication) that poorer nations lack. Says Dasgupta, whose Marxist background underscores the Indian stand on many issues, "Only a few countries have the capacity. Some of the issues are so complicated that it needs the most detailed study. This (meet) is being done in too much of a hurry and the home country has the advantage."

While India is at least managing to hold its head above the water, many nations are completely submerged by the sheer volume of work, the depth of the discussions, and the speed of negotiations. Some of the subjects are tricky and complex. For instance, Ghana, a proudcountry with a fine intellectual tradition (UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is a Ghanaian), has to wrestle with the debate over what many feel is a theft of its cocoa inheritance. Mars UK has two patents on the flavour gene from West African cocoa that could be used to produce cocoa artificially in the laboratory -- an eventuality that could severely damage its economy.

Calgene, a subsidiary of Monsanto, has patents covering plants like nutmeg, camphor and cuphea (found in many developing countries) because they improve their stake in the cosmetic industry.

Arguing such cases requires inputs from research scientists, patent and copyright experts, trade lawyers and exponents of international law. Even India, with its substantial intellectual resources, has only limited firepower. Less developed countries are a no show. Although many of them are being helped by organisations like the Third World Network, it doesn't look too good for them. With more than half the world a virtual pushover, there are only afew countries like India and Brazil to put up the fight on behalf of the poorer nations.

Even here, the wealthy nations have managed to create a schism by wooing what are called the LDCs (Less Developed Countries) like Bangladesh with promises of writing off debt. Middling countries like India and Egypt, once the pillars of Third World and Non-Aligned Movement who hung together are going their own way, guided by self interest (Egypt gets $ 2 billion in annual US aid).

Thanks to such fractures wealthy nations have managed to railroad the agenda to include new issues to make the talks ever more complicated even before many nations have absorbed the current issues.