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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
by the Africa Policy Information Center (APIC) from 1995 to 2001 and by Africa Action
from 2001 to 2003. APIC was merged into Africa Action in 2001. Please note that many outdated links in this archived
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Africa: Trade in Services Sign-on Letter
Africa: Trade in Services Sign-on Letter
Date distributed (ymd): 010313
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Continent-Wide
Issue Areas: +political/rights+ +economy/development+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains a sign-on letter being distributed worldwide
with a request for sign-ons from organizations (not individuals)
before March 18. The letter opposes new World Trade Organization
(WTO) negotiations on the General Agreement on Trade and Services
(GATS), which would intensify already powerful pressures on
governments to privatize essential government services such as
water, health, and a wide range of other services.
In one of the most controversial cases, water services in
Johannesburg, South Africa have been sold to French multinational
Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux. The South African Municipal Workers Union
and other groups are organizing protests, including a march on
March 21 (see links below).
To sign on to the statement,
- Send an e-mail to polarisinstitute@on.aibn.com
- In the subject line type in "GATS Attack signatory"
- In the body of the e-mail list the organization & country
(contact information such as address, phone & fax is also
appreciated) that you are signing on. Those who wish should mention
how many people the organization represents.
+++++++++++++++++end profile++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Merger News Flash
APIC, The Africa Fund and the American Committee on Africa ARE NOW
ONE ORGANIZATION! And we have a new name: AFRICA ACTION. This was
the first decision at a meeting of our joint boards of directors on
March 8.
As Africa Action we have signed on to the civil society statement
below, and we urge those of you who represent organizations to
consider signing. It is the responsibility of governments to ensure
the rights to health and welfare of their citizens. These rights
must take priority over the ever-expanding demands of giant
corporations for increased profits at public expense. - Salih
Booker, Executive Director
Recent Related Links on Services Privatization and Africa
Privatizing Prisons from the USA to SA: Controlling Dangerous
Africans across the Atlantic by William G. Martin, co-chair,
Association of Concerned Africa Scholars
http://acas.prairienet.org/Wackenhutv5.htm
IMF forces African countries to privatise water
(Feb. 8, 2001)
http://www.afrol.com/News2001/afr003_water_private.htm
Protests over water privatisation in Johannesburg
(Feb. 14, 2001)
http://www.afrol.com/News2001/sa006_joburg_water.htm
South African Municipal Workers' Union (SAMWU)
http://www.cosatu.org.za/samwu
SAMWU Press Statement Wednesday 14th February 2001
'Joburg privatises water to world's worst multinational'
http://www.cosatu.org.za/samwu/14feb2001.htm
South African Department of Water Affairs and Forestry
http://www-dwaf.pwv.gov.za/
including links on cholera:
http://sandmc.pwv.gov.za/ndmc/cholera/
Public Services International
[international trade union federation with public sector workers
in more than 500 trade unions in over 140 countries, and a lead
signatory to the statement below]
http://www.world-psi.org/
The international sign-on statement "Stop the GATS Attack Now!"
has only been in circulation for the last few weeks, but already
over 200 groups from 41 countries have signed it. An event is
planned in Geneva for Monday the 19th where the statement and the
"Stop the GATS Attack!" campaign will be launched, so if your
organization has not signed the statement yet, please do so (we
will continue to gather sign-ons after the 19th as well, but it
obviously is good to have as many groups and countries
represented as possible when we launch the statement).
You can find a Spanish and French translation of this statement
(as well as the English version) at
http://www.tradewatch.org/gattwto/gatthome.html - check it often
for the most updated version.
Attention --- Civil Society Activists Around the World!
Although the Battle of Seattle was successful in preventing a new
comprehensive round of global trade talks from going ahead, this
did not mean there would not be trade negotiations at the WTO. On
the contrary, a whole new set of WTO talks on global trade in
'services' began in February, 2000, with formal negotiations due
to begin this spring after a crucial stocktaking session is
completed at the end of March. These so called GATS negotiations
[General Agreement on Trade in Services] could have a dramatic
and profound effect on a wide range of public services and
citizens' rights all over the world.
Below is a statement, Stop the GATS Attack Now!, which has been
prepared by an international network of civil society
organizations working on WTO issues. As with previous initiatives
like No New Round! and Shrink or Sink!, we hope this statement
will help to launch and link together a series of country-based
campaigns on the GATS negotiations all over the world.
We would greatly appreciate it if your organization would
consider signing-on to this statement as soon as possible. The
procedures for doing so are outlined below. It is our intention
to collect sign-ons from civil society organizations in as many
countries as possible before formally launching the statement in
mid-March prior to the GATS stocktaking meetings in Geneva later
that month. So, please let us know soon if your organization can
sign-on!
Instructions on how your organization can sign the letter:
(This is an organizational sign-on letter only. We will not be
adding individuals to it)
- Send an e-mail to polarisinstitute@on.aibn.com
- In the subject line type in "GATS Attack signatory"
- In the body of the e-mail list the organization & country
(contact information such as address, phone & fax is also
appreciated) that you are signing on. Those who wish should
mention how many people the organization represents.
Stop the GATS Attack Now!
As civil society groups fighting for democracy through fair trade
and investment rules, we reject the outright dismissal by the
World Trade Organization [WTO], some of its member governments
and allied corporations of the vital concerns raised by civil
society before, during and after Seattle. The smoke and pepper
spray had barely lifted from the streets of Seattle when the WTO
launched new negotiations to expand global rules on cross border
trade in services in a manner that would create vast new rights
and access for multinational service providers and newly
constrain government action taken in the public interest world
wide. These talks would radically restructure the role of
government regarding public access to essential social services
world wide to the detriment of the public interest and democracy
itself.
Initiated in February 2000, these far-reaching negotiations are
aimed at expanding the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in
Services [GATS] regime so as to subordinate democratic governance
in countries throughout the world to global trade rules
established and enforced by the WTO as the supreme body of global
economic governance. What's more, these GATS 2000 negotiations
are taking place behind closed doors based on collusion with
global corporations and their extensive lobbying machinery.
The existing GATS regime of the WTO, initially established in
1994, is already comprehensive and far reaching. The current
rules seek to phase out gradually all governmental "barriers" to
international trade and commercial competition in the services
sector. The GATS covers every service imaginable - including
public services -in sectors that affect the environment, culture,
natural resources, drinking water, health care, education, social
security, transportation services, postal delivery and a variety
of municipal services. Its constraints apply to virtually all
government measures affecting trade-in-services, from labor laws
to consumer protection, including regulations, guidelines,
subsidies and grants, licensing standards and qualifications, and
limitations on access to markets, economic needs tests and local
content provisions.
Currently, the GATS rules apply to all modes of supplying or
delivering a service including foreign investment, cross-border
provisions of a service, electronic commerce and international
travel. Moreover, the GATS features a hybrid of both a "top-down"
agreement [where all sectors and measures are covered unless they
are explicitly excluded] and a "bottom-up" agreement [where only
sectors and measures which governments explicitly commit to are
covered]. What this means is that presently certain provisions
apply to all sectors while others apply only to those specific
sectors agreed to.
The new GATS negotiations taking place now in the World Trade
Organization are designed to further facilitate the corporate
takeover of public services by:
- Imposing new and severe constraints on the ability of
governments to maintain or create environmental, health, consumer
protection and other public interest standards through an
expansion of GATS Article VI on Domestic Regulation. Proposals
include a 'necessity test' whereby governments would bear the
burden of proof in demonstrating that any of their countries laws
and regulations are 'not more burdensome than necessary,' (in
other words, the least trade restrictive) regardless of
financial, social, technological or other considerations.
- Restricting the use of government funds for public works,
municipal services and social programs. By imposing the WTO's
National Treatment rules on both government procurement and
subsidies, the new negotiations seek to require governments to
make public funds allocated for public services directly
available to foreign-based, private service corporations.
- Forcing governments to grant unlimited Market Access to
foreign service providers, without regard to the environmental
and social impacts of the quantity or size of service activities.
- Accelerating the process of providing corporate service
providers with guaranteed access to domestic markets in all
sectors - including education, health and water - by permitting
them to establish their Commercial Presence in another country
through new WTO rules being designed to promote tax-free
electronic commerce worldwide. This would guarantee transnational
corporations speedy irreversible market access, especially in
Third World countries.
The chief beneficiaries of this new GATS regime are a breed of
corporate service providers determined to expand their global
commercial reach and to turn public services into private markets
all over the world. Not only are the services industries the
fastest growing sector of the new global economy, but also
health, education and water are shaping up to be the most
lucrative of all "services." Health care is considered to be a
3.5 trillion dollar market worldwide, while education is targeted
as a 2 trillion and water a 1 trillion dollar annual market. The
chief executive officer of U.S. based Columbia/HCA, the world's
largest for-profit hospital corporation, insists that health care
is a business no different than the airline or ballbearing
industry and vows to destroy every public hospital in North
America. Investment houses like Merrill Lynch predict that public
education will be globally privatized over the next decade,
declaring that untold profits can be made through the process.
Meanwhile, water giants like Vivendi and Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux
of France are working hand-in-glove with the World Bank to compel
many Third World governments to privatize their water services.
Through powerful lobby machines like the U.S. Coalition of
Service Industries and the European Services Forum, these and
other transnational corporations have effectively set the agenda
for the GATS 2000 negotiations.
If achieved, this corporate GATS 2000 agenda will amount to a
frontal attack on the fundamental social rights enshrined in the
United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and its
accompanying Covenants and Charters. Not only will foreign-based,
for-profit corporations be able to access public dollars to take
over hospitals and schools, but regulations on health and
education standards will be undermined by global trade rules
under the WTO. Chains of foreign-based, for-profit corporations
would be able to invade the childcare, social security and prison
systems in all WTO member countries. Our parks, wildlife and old
growth forests could all become contested areas as global
corporate 'service' providers compete with one another to exploit
their resources. Meanwhile, unlimited access to foreign-based
corporations would have to be given regarding municipal contracts
for construction, sewage, garbage disposal, sanitation, tourism,
and water services.
For many Third World countries, this invasion of peoples' basic
rights is not new. During the past two decades or more, the
structural adjustment programs of the International Monetary Fund
and the World Bank have been used to force many governments in
the South to dismantle their public services and allow
foreign-based healthcare, education and water corporations to
provide services on a for-profit basis. Under the proposed GATS
rules, developing countries will experience a further dismantling
of local service providers, restrictions on the build up of
domestic service providers, and the creation of new monopolies
dominated by corporate service providers based in the North. By
dramatically increasing market control by foreign service
corporations and by threatening the future of public services,
the GATS 2000 agenda would trigger a global assault on the
commons and democracy both in the North and the South. Moreover,
the binding enforcement mechanisms of the WTO will ensure that
this agenda is not only implemented, but rendered irreversible.
The time has come to 'Stop the GATS Attack!'
We, therefore, call upon our governments to immediately invoke a
moratorium on the GATS 2000 negotiations and devote the remaining
two years of the scheduled talks to carrying out the following
tasks:
[a] conduct a full and complete assessment of the impacts of the
current GATS regime and the implications of the proposed GATS
2000 rules on domestic social, environmental and economic laws,
policies and programs with citizens' groups in all member
countries
[b] reaffirm the role and responsibility of governments to
provide public services ensuring the basic rights and needs of
their citizens in the new global economy based on the Universal
Declaration of Human Rights and related U.N. Covenants and
Charters;
[c] declaw the existing GATS regime by removing components like
Article VI and the Working Party on Domestic Regulation that give
foreign governments and transnational corporations the power to
ratchet down public interest laws, policies, and programs such as
quality standards for health care and safety standards for
transportation;
[d] guarantee the right of governments to require ironclad
safeguards for public services [e.g. healthcare, education,
social security, culture, environment, transportation, housing,
energy, and water] that may be threatened by global trade and
investment rules;
[e] provide concrete incentives and resources, especially for
governments in the South, to fulfill their universal obligations
(see 'b' above) by further developing and strengthening the
provision of public services based on peoples' needs rather than
on ability to pay
[f] develop mechanisms for effective participation by citizen
organizations in both the formulation of their government
positions and in the negotiation of any global trade and
investment rules in the future regarding cross border services;
[g] secure the rights and responsibilities of governments to
enact and carry out laws and regulations protecting the
environment and natural resources, health and safety, poverty
reduction, and social well-being. rules on domestic social,
environmental and economic laws, policies and programs with
citizens' groups in all member countries;
Finally, we call on our governments to end all IMF, World Bank
and Multilateral Development Bank pressure on developing
countries to privatize public services, especially in the area of
education, health and water.
[a list of organizations currently signed-on to the "Stop the
GATS Attack" Statement (214 organizations from 41 countries as of
March 9nd, 2001), can be found at
http://www.tradewatch.org/GATS/GATSsignon.htm]
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC provides
accessible information and analysis in order to promote U.S.
and international policies toward Africa that advance economic,
political and social justice and the full spectrum of human
rights.
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