Jakarta, July, 21, 2008—Responding to the WTO mini-ministerial meeting, we are from Gerak Lawan, a broad coalition of Indonesian people’s movement, felt it is pertinent to alert the Government of Indonesia (GOI) and the people to the major issues at stake if you agree to the proposals for agriculture, non-agricultural market access (NAMA) and services that are on the table for the Doha Round in Geneva on July, 21-26.

The current food, energy and financial crises were caused by a terrible mode of production and consumption which promoted by developed countries—and also by international regime like the WTO, IMF, World Bank, and through free trade agreements (FTA), both bilateral and regional.

The fact is WTO will only exacerbate the current global crises. The resume of WTO negotiation will not solve the basic problems in Indonesia, or poverty and inequality of development process. Concluding the Doha Round will not solve the problem of agricultural market. Even worse, it will destruct other sector such as manufacture sector. Furthermore, WTO negotiation will undermine people’s access towards service—especially public service.

We acknowledge the proposal by Indonesia and other developing countries (G-33) in the WTO negotiation with Special Product and Special Safeguard Mechanism (SP/SSM) as efforts to support food security, livelihood security and rural development. We encourage them to stand on their position and request them more to saying that food is not solely commodities that could not be traded. We reject the compromise of the G-33 on the verge of trade-off in the WTO negotiation, as the supporting food security towards food sovereignty, livelihood security and rural development in each country are state obligation. The G-33 countries have to protect the people’s interest first before profit.

The current Doha package is a bad deal. It serves the private interests of the biggest corporations around the world, most of them headquartered in the developed world. WTO negotiations have been failed in 2006, and in many occasion since 13 years ago. Therefore, it is not the solution for today’s food, climate, financial and energy crises. It is time for a new approach to the multilateral trading system that focuses on policies that promote people-centered ecologically sustainable development. Lastly, it is time for GOI to stand for Indonesian people, to protect and develop the people: peasants, small-and medium producers, fisher folks, workers, migrant workers, urban poor, youth, women, and environmentalist. It is the true solution for the crises.

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