THE RECORD
December 01, 1999

Fiat Lux

by Ed Deak

By the time these lines get into print the much touted Millennium Round conference of the World Trade Organization will be well on it's way in Seattle. There are 134 member nations in the WTO, including Canada, and about 30 observer nations clamoring to get in, including China. About 5,000 delegates and top ministers are expected to attend who will be met by anywhere to 50,000 to 100,000 demonstrators against the WTO from all over the world.

There have been many larger demonstrations against unpopular government actions in the past, in some cases reaching over a million people. However, the Seattle affair will be by far the biggest outpouring of hate from the most diversified assembly of humanity from every continent. An estimated 1,200 NGOs, Non Governmental Organizations, representing millions of people, are expected to be there, all with the single purpose on their minds: To stop the WTO before it pushes the human race into an irreversible trap of brutal, dictatorial neo-colonialism, governed by a few multinational corporations. The dream of communist politburos since Stalin, accomplished by capitalists who also call themselves democrats.

While WTO and government officials are desperately trying to sell the idea that the purpose of the organization is the wealth creating liberalization of trade for the benefit of all, the facts of growing global destitution are the living proof of their stupidity and lies.

The supporters of the WTO claim that the agreements they sign are the results of co-operation between the governments of sovereign nations to level the playing fields for mutually beneficial trade. There are less than 30 nations on Earth that could be called any forms of democracies with the greatest stretch of imagination. This means that at least two thirds of the countries in the WTO are slave driver dictatorships. The sole beneficiaries of any agreements are the governing ruling classes, while the peoples are forced into destitution and are starving to death by the millions.

The investments into these hellholes is mostly coming from Europe, Japan and to a large extent from the USA. These are the countries that forced the world to believe that the artificial money pushed out by their banks is God and everybody must pay homage to it, or else.

American investors prefer dictatorships as they don't have to worry about unions, labour unrests, minimum wages, health and environmental protection. They are free to exploit resources and peoples as long as they pay their bribes to the rulers.

In 1989, at the end of the Cold war, the USA had 53.4 percent of it's imports from democratic countries, not counting oil. Today it is 34.9 percent. China was 18th for American investment in 1989, now it is 4th. The recently signed trade agreement between the USA and China is hailed by both governments as a major achievement. It will open China up to more investment and further the takeover of their economy by US controlled multinationals. The agreement has no clauses for any sort of environmental, or human life protection. It only protects the profits demanded by the foreign investors and the Chinese government. Like all free trade agreements, it's purpose is limitless exploitation.

According to independent Chinese sources over 100 million Chinese peasants have already been forced off the land and into the so called Special Economic Zones, set up by the government to please the foreign investors with cheap labour. Their estimated survival wage would be around 90 cents per hour, but some of these corporations pay only 13 cents and there are no laws to force them to pay more. As in the 10km wide Maquiladora Zone between the USA and Mexico, the people in these labour camp cities are jammed into tiny cubicles without any sanitation or other facilities, starving in squalor and filth. A very good example of their desperation is the rusty hulks carrying hundreds of boat people to our shores who sold themselves into slave labour just to escape the misery of their homeland.

The globalization hysteria claims that it will create worldwide wealth and prosperity that will automatically bring on human rights and democracy in the presently oppressed, dictatorial countries. Mr. Chrétien is one of the biggest pushers of this nonsense.

Well, I have studied history for almost 60 years, yet I have never heard of a society where special rights given to a certain sector had resulted in freedom for all. Quite to the contrary. Wherever aristocracies received extra powers they always used them to oppress their subjects and strip them of all their rights and possessions.

It is happening to us right now under NAFTA and the WTO. At least, here in Canada we still have certain rights and properties to lose, but in Third World countries, where people can barely survive the influx of unfettered capital investment can only bring total slavery. Let us remember that the main purpose of monetary competition is the growth of profits and stock values. This can only be achieved by taking the food from the mouths of others, because profits can not be created, only taken from resources or other people's pockets.

After 35 years as an independent businessman I have a pretty good idea where profits come from, especially on the scale reported by our banks and major corporations.

Copyright (c) 1999, West's International